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John Mearsheimer

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214
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2023-11-18
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2023-11-18
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  1. “Well, I think for many centuries now, the big divide within the world of international relations theory is between realism and liberalism. These are time-honored bodies of theory. And before I tell you what I think the differences are between those two bodies of theory, it is important to emphasize that there are differences among realists and differences among liberals. And so when you talk about me as an offensive realist, you should understand that there are also defensive realists out there. And there are a panoply of liberal theories as well. But basically, realists believe that power matters, that states compete for power, and that war”

    2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “I would want to dominate Asia the way the United States dominates the Western Hemisphere. They'd be fools not to. If I were Imperial Germany, I'd want to dominate all of Europe the way the United States dominates the Western Hemisphere. Why? Because if you dominate all of Europe, assuming your Imperial Germany or Napoleonic France, then no other state in the area or in the region can threaten you because you're simply so powerful. And again, what I'm saying here is that the structure of the international system really matters. It's the fact that you're in this anarchic system where survival is your principal goal and where I can't know your intentions. You're another state. I can't know that at some point you might not come after me. You might. And if you're really powerful and I'm not, I'm in deep trouble.”

    2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “To turn that country into the dominant power in the western hemisphere. And then once that was achieved in nineteen hundred, we've gone to great lengths to make sure that there's no pure competitor in the system. We just want to make sure that we're number one. And my argument is that this is not peculiar to the United States. If I'm China, for example, today”

    2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Yeah, I'm arguing it is obvious. If you're a state in the international system, do you want to be weak? If you live next door to Nazi Germany or Imperial Germany or Napoleonic France or even the United States, the United States is a ruthless great power. You surely recognize that. And if you're dealing with the United States of America and you're Vladimir Putin, you want to make sure you're as powerful as possible so that the United States doesn't put its gun sights on you and come after you. Same thing is true with China. You want to be powerful in the international system. States understand that. And they go to great lengths to become powerful. Just take the United States of America. When it started in 1783, it was comprised of thirteen measly colonies strung out along the Atlantic seaboard. Over time, you know, the various leaders of the United States went to Great Lane.”

    2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “I did not know that's right, and it's good that you caught that because if you have a large population and you're a wealthy country, what you do is you build a large military. And it's ultimately the size of your military that matters because militaries fight wars. And if states are concerned about survival, which I argue is the principal goal of every state in the international system for what I think are obvious reasons, then they're going to care about having a powerful military that can protect them if another state comes after them.”

    2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Military mites would ultimately matters. As I said to you before, the two building blocks of power, our population size and wealth”

    2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “To worry about the balance of power because if they get into trouble, there is a higher authority that they can turn to. There is an effect a Leviathan.”

    2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Wilt power in an individual has a lot to do with individual psychology. The story that I tell about the pursuit of power is a structural argument. It's an argument that says, When you are in a particular structure, when you're in a system that has a specific architecture, which is anarchy, the states have no choice but to compete for power. So structure is really driving the story here. Will to power has a lot more to do with an individual in the Nietzschean story where that concept comes from so it's very important to understand that I'm not arguing that states are inherently aggressive, right? My point is that as long as states are in anarchy, right, they have no choice but to behave in an aggressive fashion. But if you went to a hierarchic system, there's no reason for those states”

    2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Week in international politics is what the Chinese call the century of national humiliation from the late 1840s to the late 1940s, the Chinese were remarkably weak. And the great powers in the system preyed upon them. And that sends a very important message to not only the Chinese, but to other states in the system. Don't be weak. Be as powerful as you can.”

    2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “What he calls the Leviathan, and that of course is the title of his famous book. So the idea is to escape anarchy, you create a state. And that means you go from anarchy to hierarchy. The problem in international politics is that there is no world state. There is no hierarchy. And if you have no hierarchy and you're in anarchic system, you have no choice but to try to maximize your relative power, to make sure you are, as we used to say when I was a kid on New York City playgrounds, the biggest and baddest dude on the block. Not because you necessarily want to beat up on other kids or on other states, but because again, that's the best way to survive. And as I like to point out to people, the best example of what happens when you're”

    2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Anarchy simply means that you don't have hierarchy. There's no higher authority that sits above states. States are like pool balls on a table, right? And in an anarchic world, there's no higher authority that you can turn to if you get into trouble. And of course, the political philosopher who laid this all out was Thomas Hobbes. And Hobbes talked about life in the state of nature. And in the state of nature, you have individuals. And those individuals compete with each other for power. And the reason that they do is because in the state of nature by definition, you have no higher authority. And Hobbes' view is that the way to get out of this terrible situation where individuals are competing with each other and even killing each other is to create a state.”

    2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Yeah, well, anarchy basically means the opposite of hierarchy. Sometimes people think when you're talking about anarchy, you're talking about murder and mayem. But that's not what anarchy means in the realist context.”

    2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “It enhances or maximizes their prospects for survival. Second point I would make is that in the realist story or in my story power is largely a function of material factors. The two key building blocks of power are population size and wealth. You want to have a lot of people and you want to be really wealthy. Of course, this is why the United States is so powerful. It has lots of people and it has lots of wealth. China was not considered a great power until recently because it didn't have a lot of wealth. It certainly had population size, but it didn't have wealth. And without both a large population and much wealth, you're usually not considered a great power. So I think power matters. But when we talk about power, it's important to understand that it's population size and wealth that are underpinning it.”

    2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Make two sets of points there. First of all, I believe that power is the currency of international relations, and by that I mean that states are deeply interested in the balance of power, in their interested in maximizing how much power they control. And the question is why states care so much about power. In the international system, there's no higher authority. So if you get into trouble and you dial 911, there's nobody at the other end. In a system like that, you have no choice but to figure out for yourself how best to protect yourself. And the best way to protect yourself is to be powerful, to have as much power as you can possibly gain over all the other states in the system. Therefore, states care about power because”

    2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source