The latest in the sad story of Trump 2.0 diplomacy in the Russia-Ukraine War
I’m sure that since the current Russia-Ukraine War started in February 2022, I’m sure I’ve posted more videos featuring Über-Realist John Mearsheimer than any other person.
That’s partially because he’s been doing at least one podcast per week pretty much every week since then, and sometimes several in a week. Although I’ve never been able to fully buy into his particular “offensive realist” theory of foreign policy, his insistence on focusing on cynical but real national calculations large countries often provide the pragmatic, real-world analysis of international situations that US policymakers have far too often ignored.
He and his “defensive realist” colleague Stephen Walt intensely criticized the Iraq War waged by the Cheney-Bush government starting in 2003 on the basis of its grotesque lack of realistic understanding and calculations used in starting and conducting the war. Foreign policy can be realistic and immoral. The Iraq War policy was one of numerous US interventions that could be described and both unrealistic and impractical as well as immoral.
In the case of US support for Israel over the decades, both Mearsheimer and Walt argue that the often-unconditional support by the US of Israel’s policy violates the guidelines of the realistic approach they advocate, viewing US support of Israel as having been to the detriment of US national interests. Mearsheimer has also been explicit in stating his view that the US supporting Israel’s current genocide in Gaza as immoral.
Mearsheimer also pays close attention to the military situation and to diplomacy. In this recent interview, he expresses what seems to be real astonishment at the plain incompetence of the Trump 2.0 regime’s diplomacy on Ukraine and the Middle East. 1
Beginning at 23:00 in the video, Mearsheimer says, referring to Trump 2.0’s public and private diplomacy:
I mean, this is the gang that can't shoot straight. I mean, what else can you say?
Trump has basically failed to deal with the Ukraine problem and he's failed to improve relations with Russia as he promised he was going to do. It looked like he was off to an auspicious start at the beginning of his term, but everything has kind of gone to hell in a hand basket.
And we're in this real mess now. And what's staring him in the face - and you don't want to underestimate this - is defeat in Ukraine. Right? The Russians are slowly but steadily rolling back the Ukrainians, and the Ukrainians are in real trouble. All of these attacks that Trump is talking about where Ukraine is really getting pounded are having an effect.
And I believe at some point the Ukrainians are going to collapse and the Russians are going to win an ugly victory. And this is going to be done on Trump's watch. And he knows that. He's not so foolish as not as to fail to understand that what happened in Afghanistan with Joe Biden, where that defeat was dumped in his lap, is going to happen in all likelihood with regard to Ukraine.
He's going to be seen as the President who lost Ukraine and he has nobody to blame for himself but himself for the mess he's in.
He also thinks that the neocons are now dominant in the Trump 2.0 Administration. I’ve never had much hope that the America Firsters would strike a distinct course from the neocons, because America Firsters are essentially nationalistic militarists, which is what the neocons are, as well, though the latter go through the motions of putting a more respectable democratic façade on it. How much a genuine “restrainer” viewpoint has ever had much clout in Trump 2.0 is questionable.
It's usual for scholars like Mearsheimer and others who have a role as authorities on foreign policy to speak as though they are advising policymakers on the preferable course of action. He also makes a basic liberal-philosophical point about the need for rule of law. And specifically about how Trump doesn’t understand or practice it.
Former Israeli diplomat Daniel Levy has this current update on the brutality and “the criminal and genocidal intent” of the Netanyahu government in the ethnic cleansing Israel is current conducting in Gaza with the full support of Trump 2.0.2
Prof. John Mearsheimer : Ukraine/Gaza/Iran: Is Peace Possible? Judge Napolitano-Judging Freedom YouTube channel 07/10/2025. (Accessed: 2025-11-074).
Exposing Israel’s Gaza Plan. Al Jazeera English YouTube channel 07/11/2025. (Accessed: 2025-11-07).