John Mearsheimer - Offensive Realism

John Mearsheimer
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The official podcast of Prof. John Mearsheimer

  1. 1d ago ·  Video

    Does Israel Win If the Gulf Burns? | Ask the Professor

    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.

  2. 3d ago ·  Video

    Israel’s Lobby vs US Democracy | A Special Roundtable

    BUY THE BOOKS: Israel's Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power by Eli Clifton and Ian Lustick: https://amzn.to/4gMNJey The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by John Mearsheimer & Steve Walt: https://amzn.to/3SL2M0o ———————————————————— DESCRIPTION Why 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. ———————————————————— CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction:  00:09 Offensive Realism & the Quincy Institute 02:20 Rashid Khalidi opens the roundtable 04:03 Is the military-industrial complex part of the lobby? 06:46 When defense & oil interests clash with the lobby 09:53 Strategic interests vs. the lobby: Kissinger, Eisenhower, the JCPOA 11:43 Ian Lustick: process tracing & the Chomsky argument 14:41 Startup Nation Central & the NDAA push to fuse U.S.–Israeli defense 18:43 The Palestinians: always left by the wayside 21:38 Why presidents' Palestine initiatives keep failing 23:38 The post-Cold War puzzle: weaker case, deeper relationship 25:14 Public opinion has shifted, but policy hasn't 26:39 The lobby lost the discourse, not the policy 29:20 Citizens United & $200M in pro-Israel super PAC money 32:39 "Smash-mouth politics" 33:06 The domestic fallout: universities, speech & state power 36:01 Rising antisemitism & the "collective Jew" argument 38:00 American Jews are not a monolith 41:12 Why the lobby can no longer defend Israel's policies 44:42 Israel as a "crazy state" & the civilizational-war narrative 48:06 New historians, scholars & the internet 49:48 Smears losing force & the alliance with culture warriors 53:13 The facts on the ground: Gaza & social media 55:42 The NRA parallel: why policy lags opinion 58:09 Washington's Farewell Address & the danger of faction 1:00:35 The bandwidth cost of the special relationship 1:03:18 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 war 1:18:50 Generational change 1:22:03 A grim note: "cooked" antisemitism statistics 1:26:14 The danger of a backlash & the dual-loyalty trope 1:28:51 Mearsheimer: antisemitism on campus before 2024 1:30:46 Closing remarks ———————————————————— MUSIC "The Ice Giants" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Music modified (edited/remixed) from the original.

  3. 6d ago ·  Video

    Are Aircraft Carriers Obsolete? | Ask The Professor

    Become a member to submit questions for future videos. Click Join: https://www.youtube.com/@johnmearsheimer/join YouTube 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

  4. Oct 21 ·  Video

    Trump's Three-War Trap | Episode 13

    Become a member to submit questions for future videos.  Click Join: https://www.youtube.com/@johnmearsheimer/join ———————————————————— PODCASTS Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0Ahf67i2DOoXDmi2HA6Vcj Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id6810828298 ———————————————————— DESCRIPTION President 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. ———————————————————— CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro 0:29 Trump and his wars 1:57 Year one: Ukraine, the 12-day war and Venezuela 4:50 Why Ukraine is now Trump's war 6:30 Wars two and three: Iran and the Saudi–Houthi war 8:48 Why these wars are disasters 13:19 The great-power backdrop 15:29 The Iran war: where we are now 21:31 Iran: the danger of escalation 27:10 Iran: the economic damage 29:09 Iran: no way to win 31:21 Iran: a frozen conflict and the nuclear question 35:07 Iran: Russia and China 36:39 The Saudi–Houthi war: how it started 40:08 Saudi–Houthi: horizontal and vertical escalation 42:48 Saudi–Houthi: the economic stakes 45:09 Saudi–Houthi: the Saudis can't win 46:24 Saudi–Houthi: a frozen conflict 49:45 Will Saudi Arabia go nuclear? 51:22 The Ukraine war: where we are now 54:17 Ukraine: escalation in the air war 59:02 The Karaganov argument 1:04:48 Ukraine: the international economy 1:06:45 Ukraine: no winning strategy 1:07:52 Ukraine: the frozen conflict 1:10:54 Great-power politics across all three wars 1:16:23 Summing up: three losing wars 1:19:25 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 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Music modified (edited/remixed) from the original.

  5. Oct 19 ·  Video

    Did Russia Manipulate Mearsheimer? | Ask The Professor

    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.

  6. Oct 16 ·  Video

    Why Can’t America Contain China? | Ask The Professor

    YouTube channel member ⁠ @GuanWang-n2g ⁠ asks: why did Washington never devote the resources needed to carry out the pivot to Asia that the Obama administration announced in 2011? My answer is that pivoting to Asia means containing China, and in 2011 we were still pursuing engagement, helping China get rich. The pivot only really began in 2017, when China had become a great power and Trump adopted containment. Since then, the wars in Ukraine and Iran have pulled forces out of East Asia. The pivot to Asia has turned into a pivot away from Asia, which is a huge mistake.

  7. Oct 14 ·  Video

    We Can't Help Saudi Arabia | Ask the Professor

    YouTube channel member ⁠@sambaker7691 ⁠ asks: how do you explain the shortcomings in U.S. efforts to give Saudi Arabia the air defenses it needs against Houthi missile and drone attacks, despite the close strategic partnership between the two countries? My answer is that this isn’t about the relationship. The Saudis are rich, and we’ve sold them almost all the weaponry they want. The problem is that today, offense beats defense. Even with heavy American help, Israel couldn’t stop Iranian missiles and drones in the 12-Day War or in the 40-day bombing campaign that started the current war. Ukraine has run out of Patriots. Offensive missiles are cheaper than interceptors and can overwhelm them. The United States can’t protect Saudi Arabia, and it won’t be able to defend any bases it might rebuild in the Persian Gulf either.

  8. Oct 13 ·  Video

    Why Hamas Really Attacked Israel on Oct. 7 | Episode 12

    October 7, 2026, marked the third anniversary of Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel. Considerable attention was devoted to commemorating that event in Israel and throughout the West. The focus was mainly on three questions: 1) What happened that day? 2) Why was Israel caught by surprise? 3) What have been the consequences of that momentous day?    Much less attention was paid to a fundamental question: Why did Hamas launch the attack in the first place? Indeed, this relative neglect of the attack’s root causes has characterized much of the public discussion of October 7 from the beginning.   Israel and its supporters, however, have a straightforward explanation. According to Prime Minister Netanyahu, Hamas and its allies are “the new Nazis,” and October 7 was an unprovoked attack that Israeli leaders and much of the Israeli public have repeatedly compared to the Holocaust. In other words, the attack is understood primarily as an expression of genocidal antisemitism.   In this episode, I examine that explanation and argue that it is fundamentally mistaken. The historical record and a careful examination of Hamas’s motives point toward a very different story, which I believe is why Israel and its supporters have paid little attention to discussing the political and strategic calculations that led Hamas to attack Israel on October 7, 2023. ———————————————————— CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro 0:26 The question nobody asks: why did Hamas attack? 2:01 The Israeli story: Hamas as "the new Nazis" 5:08 The old story: "a land without people" 8:28 The new historians rewrite the record 9:53 The real Zionist goal: a Greater Israel 11:00 The numbers: a land full of Palestinians 13:57 "They're going to have to steal the land" 15:34 Palestinian resistance, from 1936 to Gaza 17:56 Jabotinsky and Ben-Gurion: "We have stolen their country" 20:45 A Palestinian population that never went away 24:21 Option 1: the Iron Wall 26:00 Option 2: ethnic cleansing 28:54 Option 3: Bantustans and ghettos 30:38 The myth of the two-state solution 32:45 Gaza: occupation, settlers and Sharon's pullout 36:30 The blockade: Gaza on a diet 38:34 Assassinating Gaza's leaders 40:22 "Mowing the lawn": Cast Lead and Protective Edge 44:25 October 7th: the inmates break out 46:22 Hamas wants its land back 49:46 Read the history 51:11 Was the attack legal under international law? ———————————————————— MUSIC "The Ice Giants" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Music modified (edited/remixed) from the original.

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