Checking in with John Mearsheimer on the Russia-Ukraine War

Things are not looking great for Ukraine

Über-Realist John Mearsheimer has been outspoken in providing his analysis of the Russia-Ukraine War. Mearsheimer provides endless examples of why I describe myself as having a love-hate relationship with the “realist” international-relations outlook. They look at the right things, including the very practical geopolitical considerations that are very much on the minds of foreign-policy decision-makers. But since the reality in foreign affairs is often bleak, their view also often comes off sounding bleak.

As he says in the February interview quoted below, “We live in a world where there are limits to what you can do.” In the US, the American foreign policy establishment has too often ignored real limits, particularly with Cold War militarist thinking after the Second World War and the post-1989 Cold War triumphalism and unilateralism.

The realist view does sometimes shade into something like determinism. The realists focus on balance-of-power considerations as being the practical determinates of foreign policy, so they tend to be highly critical of liberal-internationalist frameworks that emphasize factors like democracy-promotion or international law.

But even in their more determinist-sounding formulations, realists also recognize that facts matter, something that ideologues of all types too often ignore. And the realists do recognize that understanding the geopolitical situations that frame nations’ behavior does not dictate precise responses by decision-makers. Real people operating with incomplete information have to make concrete decisions.

So realists like Mearsheimer, in the case of Western policy toward Russia, criticize leaders for making decisions based on faulty assumptions about how Russian leaders were likely to evaluate and respond to what they would clearly regard as security problems for their country. Which is not the same as arguing that the actual responses Russian decision-makers took were somehow inevitable or even the most optimal from the viewpoint of Russia’s own geopolitical interests, realistically understood.

Trump and Ukraine

This is a 20-minute presentation featuring Mearsheimer and Freddy Gray of The Spectator¹ on the question of what a Trump II Administration would mean for the Russia-Ukraine War. And, unfortunately, the idea that the war will still be going on in January 2025 does not seem far-fetched at this point.

In the New Cold War tone of American and European commentary. Trump tends to be portrayed as pro-Russian. And the assumption is often that he would be glad to hang Ukraine out to dry. But here is where Mearsheimer’s sometimes jaded-sounding perspective can be valuable. As he points out, Trump was the President that began providing significant military aid to Ukraine, not Obama immediately after 2014. He argues in this interview that Trump is unlikely to abandon Ukraine in the war.

While Mearsheimer doesn’t put it like this, Trump doesn’t have much of an actual foreign-policy outlook beyond a vague American First attitude that sounds “isolationist.” But like Old Right isolationism of the post-World War II era it is actually more narrow-nationalist militarism than anything else. His complete failure in nonproliferation negotiations with North Korea and Iran are good illustrations of his generally bumbling approach to actual foreign policy.

Trump is a loose cannon and a crook. If Russia can somehow offer him the right personal bribe, he could be persuaded to abandon Ukraine. But Mearsheimer observes here that Trump would be unlikely to do so. although he doesn’t go into the bribery angle.

Trump also pays attention to what arms lobbyists want. And for shareholders of arms manufacturers, protracted war in Ukraine - and decades of a New Cold War even more so - sound like, “Ka-ching! Ka-ching!” At least until the nuclear missiles start flying.

Mearsheimer argues that China’s mediation efforts are not likely to have short-term benefits because neither side is willing to deal. That is his main analysis of the state of the war. Both Ukraine and Russia see strong reasons to continue the war, and very human wartime passions are very much engaged. At this point, there is not a strong enough political incentive on either side to get serious about an immediate peace agreement.

Mearsheimer assumes that Russia wants to do as much damage as it can to Ukraine, occupying and even annexing a large portion of eastern Ukraine (which it has partially done already) and leaving a rump version of Ukraine that would be unable to join NATO and possibly wind up as basically a failed state.

Gray wrote about the topic recently:

Polls suggest that support for Ukraine is starting to ebb among all sections of the electorate, though Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to voice concern. A recent study found that 50 per cent of Republicans think the current level of US military expenditure on Ukraine is ‘too much’, compared with just 13 per cent of Democrats. Only 25 per cent of Republicans think the US should ‘stay the course’ for ‘as long as it takes’, whereas 51 per cent of Democrats say the same.

Everybody knows who is most likely to win the Republican nomination and what he thinks. Donald Trump says that Putin would never have invaded Ukraine had he still been Commander-in-Chief. He adds that, if re-elected, he will make the Europeans pay more towards the war and settle the conflict within 24 hours. ‘I’ll meet with Putin,’ he said at his now infamous CNN ‘town hall’ appearance two weeks ago. ‘I’ll meet with Zelensky. They both have weaknesses and they both have strengths.’

Trump’s egomaniacal faith in his deal-making abilities amuses everyone. But Nato hawks are alarmed that, if victorious, he may prove himself right. To appease Russia, they believe, Trump would inevitably reward Putin’s aggression.² [my emphasis]

And he notes, “as the war approaches its second summer and America barrels towards 2024, the Ukraine conundrum will inevitably become a key talking point” in the 2024 election campaigns.

Freddy Gray also interviewed Mearsheimer in February in a podcast on the topic, “What is America doing in Ukraine?”³ Mearsheimer then was already judging that Russia seemed to be in a militarily ascendent position. As he has also explained elsewhere, he sees the current situation as a war of attrition in which Russia’s larger population and their superior supply of artillery (particularly important in wars of attrition) puts Russia in an advantageous position.

Mearsheimer argues that Putin’s goal in the Minsk negotiations⁴ was to reach a deal that would shut down the civil-war situation in the (then) two Russian-controlled provinces in the Donbas.

Mearsheimer tends to frame his arguments about US policy toward Ukraine in a provocative way, which may sometimes give his critics too easy of a time in encouraging others to ignore the specifics of his arguments. An important article he did for Foreign Affairs in 2014 - whose analysis has held up well in the nine years since - was titled, “Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West's Fault: The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin.”⁵ The argument he made there, which was for the most part cheerfully ignored by Democrats and Republicans, was:

NATO has expanded in the past because liberals assumed the alliance would never have to honor its new security guarantees, but Russia's recent power play [the annexation of Crimea and the occupation of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in 2014] shows that granting Ukraine NATO membership could put Russia and the West on a collision course. [my emphasis]

In the February 2023 interview with Freddy Gray, he argues that for Russia the current war is “a war of self-defense.”

Mearsheimer is more than capable of defending his own positions. But I understand him to be speaking there of how the war looks from the Russian policy perspective, and and how Vladimir Putin, in particular, sees it. He is not making an argument that Russia is waging a “defensive war” in the international-law definition.⁶ “There is no question that he [Putin] invaded Ukraine on February 24 [2022]. And he is responsible for how the war is waged. There’s no question about that,” says Mearsheimer.

His characterization of Joe Biden here is also noteworthy: “Biden is, with the exception of Afghanistan … a remarkably hawkish individual.” He describes Biden’s foreign policy outlook as “neoconservative.”

Mearsheimer gave a longer recent presentation to the Committee for the Republic⁷ on the Russia-Ukraine War⁸:

Among other things, he discusses the dim military prospects that Ukraine is currently facing in what has become a war of attrition.

Two recent stories from The Guardian deal with concerns that Mearsheimer discusses.

One emphasizes US concern about use of its weapons by Ukraine in attacks insider Russia:

The United States has announced a new $300m arms package for Ukraine, including air defense systems and tens of millions of rounds of ammunition – but warned Kyiv that US weaponry should not be used to attack within Russia.

“We have been very clear with the Ukrainians privately – we’ve certainly been clear publicly – that we do not support attacks inside Russia. We do not enable and we do not encourage attacks inside Russia,” said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.⁹ [my emphasis]

At the European summit this week in Moldova, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “urged the international community to put concrete ‘security guarantees’ in place in Ukraine and its neighbour Moldova to give the countries enduring protection against Russia.” ¹⁰ His call was apparently endorsed by French President Emmanuel Macron, who “called on the international community to offer Ukraine “tangible and credible” Israeli-style security guarantees. (!?!)

As the Guardian explains, “Security guarantees are seen as a long-term alliance with US and European defence capabilities without full membership of Nato, which is not possible while war is ongoing as it would pull the organisation into the conflict on the ground.”(my emphasis)

The United States is trying to minimize the possibilities of the war escalating into a direct confrontation between US and Russian armed forces. And that position is very much in the US national interest.

At the same time, Ukraine’s only real hope to achieve its full territorial objectives in the current war including retaking Crimea would require the active intervention of NATO forces in the war. That would be very much in their interest.

That is a real divergence of perceived national interests, not some difference in temperament or determination. And certainly not a matter of testosterone deficiency among Western leaders, as New Cold Warriors and unreconstructed neocons would have us believe.

1. Would Trump really pull out of Ukraine? With John Mearsheimer | SpectatorTV. The Spectator YouTube channel 05/30/2023. (Accessed: 2023-30-05).

2. Gray, Freddy & Mearsheimer, John (2023): What is America doing in Ukraine? The Spectator Americano podcast 02/02/2023. <https://www.spectator.co.uk/podcast/what-is-america-doing-in-ukraine/> (Accessed: 2023-30-05).

3. Gray, Freddy (2023): Can Trump’s opponents prove him wrong on Ukraine? The Spectator 05/27/2023. <https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/can-trumps-opponents-prove-him-wrong-on-ukraine/> (Accessed: 2023-31-05).

4. Factbox: What are the Minsk agreements on the Ukraine conflict? Reuters 02/21/2022. <https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/what-are-minsk-agreements-ukraine-conflict-2022-02-21/> (Accesssed: 2023-01-06).

5. Mearsheimer, John (2023): Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West's Fault The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin. Foreign Affairs 93:5, 77-89.

6. See: Azubuike, Eustace Chikere (2011): Probing the Scope of Self Defense in International Law. Annual Survey of International & Comparative Law 17:1, 129-183. <https://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1150&context=annlsurvey> (Accessed: 2023-31-05).

7. Carden, James (2019): There’s a Lonely Voice in Washington, and It’s Talking Some Sense. The Nation 02/12/2019. <https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/committee-republic-norman-birnbaum/> (Accessed: 2023-01-06).

8. John Mearsheimer Ukraine Salon. Committee for the Republic YouTube channel 05/24/2023. (Accessed: 2023-01-06).

9. Agence France-Presse (2023): US announces $300m arms package for Ukraine – with a caveat. The Guardian 05/31/2023. <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/31/russia-ukraine-war-us-arms-package> (Accessed: 2023-01-06).

10. O'Carroll, Lisa (2023): Zelenskiy pleads for ‘security guarantees’ for Ukraine and Moldova. The Guardian 06/01/2023. <https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/jun/01/russia-ukraine-war-live-three-killed-in-kyiv-as-russia-launches-fresh-overnight-strikes?page=with:block-647868538f08d8830e5b01b8#block-647868538f08d8830e5b01b8> (Accessed: 2023-01-06).