John Mearsheimer - Offensive Realism

YouTube Channel member @GSM1 asks: When politicians use terms like communist and socialist, or countries call themselves people’s republics, what do these words actually mean to their audiences today? Have these labels, much like the term anti-Semitism, evolved so far from their original meanings that they’ve become largely meaningless political rhetoric?I don’t think these labels are meaningless. I think they serve two purposes. First, leaders use them to motivate their public. The United States is separated from its adversaries by two oceans, so elites have to work to get Americans to back costly wars. That is why Saddam Hussein became Hitler, why Iran’s leaders are compared to the Nazis, and why every standoff becomes Munich in 1938. Second, sometimes the labels reflect real ideological differences that fuel conflict, as on the Eastern Front in World War II and in the Cold War.When ideology and geopolitics point in the same direction, they reinforce each other. When they conflict, the realist logic wins. The United States and Britain allied with the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany, and Washington cleaned up Stalin’s image to do it.

YouTube Channel member  @Seniorquasimodo asks: if Iran builds a nuclear deterrent, will Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the UAE follow, creating a stable balance of nuclear powers in the region? Would Israel and the United States allow it, and what is the future of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East?In this Ask the Professor, I make three points. First, the 2025 12-day war and the ongoing war that began on February 28 have given Iran powerful incentives to go nuclear, and Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq and Turkey would likely follow. Second, the Saudis have incentives to acquire a deterrent even if Iran doesn’t, because the United States can no longer protect them. Third, a region where every state has a survivable deterrent would be stable, but the proliferation process itself is extremely dangerous, since Israel and the United States have enormous incentives to strike before the capability is complete, and small arsenals may be vulnerable.

DESCRIPTIONThe Trump administration is desperately searching for a way to end the Iran war on favorable terms. President Trump has indicated that he would take steps after the mid-term elections to bring the war to a victorious conclusion. That is not going to happen, however. The United States has no way of winning its war against Iran. ————————————————————CHAPTERS0:00 Intro0:27 Trump's Post-Midterm Iran Plan1:59 What's Happened Since February 28th2:37 The Four U.S. and Israeli War Goals4:47 What the War Has Cost So Far6:09 Iran's Demands9:53 Iran's Slow Walk on the Nuclear Issue12:56 The Strategies the U.S. Has Tried19:09 Trump's Four Options20:58 Option 1: A Three-Day Bombing Campaign25:25 Option 2: The Blockade and Bessent Strategy27:51 Option 3: Diplomacy29:56 Desperation in Washington and Israel31:27 Option 4: A Nuke on Pickaxe Mountain34:09 How a Nuclear Strike Would Work36:55 Would It End the War?38:20 The Wider Costs of Going Nuclear40:43 Where That Leaves Us————————————————————MUSIC"The Ice Giants" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Music modified (edited/remixed) from the original.

YouTube channel member @KamranRazvan asks: What does the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty actually offer a non-nuclear state if international law has no real enforcement?My answer starts with a distinction between great powers and minor powers. Great powers create international institutions, write the rules to serve their own interests, and break those rules when they conflict with their national interest. No higher authority can punish them. The UN Security Council veto is the clearest example. Minor powers don’t write the rules, and they almost always have to obey them, because the great powers that built the institutions have the economic and military might to enforce them.The NPT, created in 1968 by the United States and the Soviet Union, shows the pattern. Washington, Moscow, and today Beijing all have an interest in keeping non-nuclear states from getting the bomb. They enforce the treaty, not the institution itself. North Korea is the glaring exception.

In this episode I answer a question from channel member  @hassanakram8328 , who asks whether it was worth it for Britain to fight World War I and World War II, and whether Britain should be helping Ukraine against Russia today.  My answer is that Britain had no choice. Both wars were extremely costly, but staying out would have cost more. In 1914 and 1939, Britain had to choose between two bad options, and fighting was the less bad one. I explain why Britain, an island, repeatedly abandoned its policy of “splendid isolation” whenever a potential hegemon threatened to dominate Europe, from Napoleonic France to Imperial Germany to Nazi Germany. I also explain why the same logic led the United States into both world wars.  I close with Ukraine. Russia is not Napoleonic France, Imperial Germany, or Nazi Germany, so the logic that brought Britain into the world wars doesn’t apply.

YouTube channel member  @BrianPerry-f7b asks: Does Israel benefit if the Gulf states are devastated? Iran has threatened to hit Gulf civilian infrastructure if its own sites are struck, and it has the capability: oil and gas facilities, desalination plants, and the seven undersea internet cables running beneath the Persian Gulf.To answer it, I lay out Israel’s five strategic goals and show where Iran blocks two of them: weak neighbors and no nuclear proliferation. Israel would love to see Iran badly hurt, but a war that wrecks the whole Gulf is a different matter. Israel has valuable relationships with the UAE and Saudi Arabia, a global economic collapse would hit it too, and Iran has made clear Israel is high on its target list.

BUY THE BOOKS:Israel's Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power by Eli Clifton and Ian Lustick: https://amzn.to/4gMNJeyThe Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by John Mearsheimer & Steve Walt: https://amzn.to/3SL2M0o————————————————————DESCRIPTIONWhy has American opinion on Israel shifted so sharply while U.S. policy has barely moved? The authors of the two major books on the Israel lobby take it on.In this special collaboration between the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and my YouTube channel, I join Stephen Walt (Harvard Kennedy School), Eli Clifton (Quincy Institute co-founder), and Ian Lustick (University of Pennsylvania) for a roundtable discussion on our book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (2007) and their new book Israel's Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power. Rashid Khalidi, professor emeritus of history at Columbia University, moderates. We cover the military-industrial complex and oil lobbies, why the Palestinian issue is where the lobby dominates, the gap between public opinion and policy, campaign money after Citizens United, the antisemitism charge and the use of state power against campuses, why Israel's defenders struggle to argue the facts, and when policy might change.————————————————————CHAPTERS00:00 Introduction: 00:09 Offensive Realism & the Quincy Institute02:20 Rashid Khalidi opens the roundtable04:03 Is the military-industrial complex part of the lobby?06:46 When defense & oil interests clash with the lobby09:53 Strategic interests vs. the lobby: Kissinger, Eisenhower, the JCPOA11:43 Ian Lustick: process tracing & the Chomsky argument14:41 Startup Nation Central & the NDAA push to fuse U.S.–Israeli defense18:43 The Palestinians: always left by the wayside21:38 Why presidents' Palestine initiatives keep failing23:38 The post-Cold War puzzle: weaker case, deeper relationship25:14 Public opinion has shifted, but policy hasn't26:39 The lobby lost the discourse, not the policy29:20 Citizens United & $200M in pro-Israel super PAC money32:39 "Smash-mouth politics"33:06 The domestic fallout: universities, speech & state power36:01 Rising antisemitism & the "collective Jew" argument38:00 American Jews are not a monolith41:12 Why the lobby can no longer defend Israel's policies44:42 Israel as a "crazy state" & the civilizational-war narrative48:06 New historians, scholars & the internet49:48 Smears losing force & the alliance with culture warriors53:13 The facts on the ground: Gaza & social media55:42 The NRA parallel: why policy lags opinion58:09 Washington's Farewell Address & the danger of faction1:00:35 The bandwidth cost of the special relationship1:03:18 Israel's new military doctrine & "Sparta among nations"1:09:04 When will public opinion finally change policy?1:12:09 Predictions: the Democrats, 2028 & the Iran war1:18:50 Generational change1:22:03 A grim note: "cooked" antisemitism statistics1:26:14 The danger of a backlash & the dual-loyalty trope1:28:51 Mearsheimer: antisemitism on campus before 20241:30:46 Closing remarks————————————————————MUSIC"The Ice Giants" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Music modified (edited/remixed) from the original.

Become a member to submit questions for future videos. Click Join: https://www.youtube.com/@johnmearsheimer/joinYouTube channel member ⁠@JerryMcLaughlin-r8w ⁠ asked whether drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles have made U.S. aircraft carriers obsolete, and whether the Navy saw it coming. Carriers have always been vulnerable near large landmasses, which is why we didn’t use them against Nazi Germany or plan to in a Cold War fight in Europe. The threat is now far greater, and the cost exchange favors cheap missiles and drones over a carrier and its battlegroup. In a fight with China over Taiwan or the South China Sea, I think carriers are basically useless. Against Iran they’d have to operate even farther out as Iranian weapons improve. The Navy knows all this, but carriers are bound up with its identity, so reducing our reliance on them will be hard. Looking at it purely strategically, I think we’d be better off spending much less on carriers and much more on submarines. ———————————————————— CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro 0:04 The Question: Are Aircraft Carriers Obsolete? 1:02 Carriers Have Always Been Vulnerable Near Land 2:21 Lessons from the Ukraine and Iran Wars 3:22 Carriers in a War with China 5:06 Carriers in the Middle East 6:47 Does the Navy Know? 7:22 Why the Navy Won't Let Go of Carriers 9:10 The Strategic Case for Fewer Carriers 

Become a member to submit questions for future videos. Click Join: https://www.youtube.com/@johnmearsheimer/join————————————————————PODCASTSSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0Ahf67i2DOoXDmi2HA6VcjApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id6810828298————————————————————DESCRIPTIONPresident Trump bears responsibility for three ongoing wars: 1) the Ukraine war, which he inherited from Joe Biden but now owns; 2) the Iran war, which he launched together with Israel on 28 February 2026; and 3) the war between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia, which he encouraged the Saudis to initiate on 13 July 2026. Each of these wars carries a significant risk of dangerous escalation, and together they threaten to inflict serious damage on the international economy. To make matters worse, Trump has no strategy for ending these wars on terms favorable to the United States, much less achieving lasting peace. Even after the fighting stops, all three wars may well turn into frozen conflicts.————————————————————CHAPTERS0:00 Intro0:29 Trump and his wars1:57 Year one: Ukraine, the 12-day war and Venezuela4:50 Why Ukraine is now Trump's war6:30 Wars two and three: Iran and the Saudi–Houthi war8:48 Why these wars are disasters13:19 The great-power backdrop15:29 The Iran war: where we are now21:31 Iran: the danger of escalation27:10 Iran: the economic damage29:09 Iran: no way to win31:21 Iran: a frozen conflict and the nuclear question35:07 Iran: Russia and China36:39 The Saudi–Houthi war: how it started40:08 Saudi–Houthi: horizontal and vertical escalation42:48 Saudi–Houthi: the economic stakes45:09 Saudi–Houthi: the Saudis can't win46:24 Saudi–Houthi: a frozen conflict49:45 Will Saudi Arabia go nuclear?51:22 The Ukraine war: where we are now54:17 Ukraine: escalation in the air war59:02 The Karaganov argument1:04:48 Ukraine: the international economy1:06:45 Ukraine: no winning strategy1:07:52 Ukraine: the frozen conflict1:10:54 Great-power politics across all three wars1:16:23 Summing up: three losing wars1:19:25 An LBJ/Nixon fate for Trump?1:20:29 Why Gaza isn't on the list————————————————————MUSIC"The Ice Giants" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Music modified (edited/remixed) from the original.

In this Ask the Professor, YouTube channel member @boresow asks how I separate real insight from propaganda after my visit to Russia, and whether I’m being used to amplify Moscow’s narrative.I make two points. First, a scholar should talk to people he disagrees with, whether that’s Viktor Orbán, Sergei Lavrov, or Vladimir Putin. Second, my view that NATO expansion caused the Ukraine war came from studying the evidence, not from talking to the Russians. It happens to match their view, but I didn’t adopt it to win their favor.