Why John Mearsheimer Is Dangerously Wrong About Putin
Chances are you’ve seen Professor John Mearsheimer’s name thrown around if you have regularly read about Putin’s war in Ukraine. People love to cite him when bashing the West and defending or excusing Putin’s actions. Mearsheimer, of course, wouldn’t frame it as Putin’s war.
He blames NATO expansionism.
He claims Putin doesn’t have imperialist goals and that there’s no evidence he wants to conquer all of Ukraine.
There’s a consistent problem here: John Mearsheimer never blames Putin for anything.
Instead, he calls him a first-class strategist. Meanwhile, the West is to blame for practically everything, including the failed Minsk Agreements and peace talks in the early days of the Ukraine war.
Mearsheimer broadcasted these opinions recently on the Lex Fridman podcast. I like Lex, but at times he does a poor job of asking the right questions, and unfortunately, that was the case with Mearsheimer. His perspectives went so unchallenged that I decided to make this video responding to each of his main points.
Let’s review two of his biggest claims here: (i) Putin was not interested in conquering all of Ukraine; and (ii) NATO expansionism was the cause of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. As I stated in this video and my newsletter, I don’t think Mearsheimer is acting in bad faith, but I do think he’s terribly wrong.
The world cannot afford to be wrong about Putin.
“There’s no evidence Putin was interested in conquering all of Ukraine and reuniting the old Soviet Union”
John Mearsheimer was not challenged one iota after making this absolute (and absurd) statement. It’s very misleading, even if by “conquering” he means “occupying” Ukraine.
It could give the impression that Putin never sought to even control or influence Ukraine, which is certainly not the case (he’s attacked it since 2014 because it won’t bend to his will).
Putin has continued to attack Kyiv. His bombs and missiles have struck across all parts of Ukraine, from the Donbas to Lviv. Mearsheimer neglected to mention any of that evidence.
Putin also wrote articles and gave numerous speeches about his specific intent. He’s not hiding anything. Yet academics like John Mearsheimer are intent on giving him the benefit of the doubt, arguing he’s not an imperialist. He’s simply trying to counter Western aggression.
It’s always the West’s fault.
Look, I’m not an absolute defender of the West, particularly my home country, the United States. We have an abysmal history of adhering to the rules-based international order we expect of everyone else.
But when someone always sides with one party over another, especially when that party invades another sovereign state and commits war crimes, they should start to lose some credibility. This doesn’t stop many people from consuming everything Mearsheimer has to say – the comments section on the recent Lex podcast, for example, are largely favorable (millions of views!).
The analytical gymnastics and cherry-picking he has to do though to conclude there’s no evidence Putin wanted to at least control and influence all of Ukraine is frankly impossible to perform in good faith. This is why I’m interpreting his use of the word “conquer” to mean “occupy” in this context.
While there’s no evidence Putin wants to formally annex the entire country of Ukraine and occupy it, there’s plenty of evidence he wants to control it.
In his speeches just before the 2022 invasion, he said it’s “finally time to unite” and that “Ukrainians are just like us.” They’re just “Russians with accents.”
Putin also wrote articles months prior to the February 2022 invasion talking about the “shared unity” between Russians and Ukrainians. How they’re one people.
There’s further evidence of Putin’s desire to control all of Ukraine from his views of the Zelensky government. He saw it as weak. He thought Ukraine would fall easily. That the Ukrainian people wanted to be liberated from neo-Nazis. That regime change wouldn’t be difficult.
Recall that many Western pundits agreed with Putin. They were giving Ukraine as a whole – the entire country – a matter of days or weeks before they’d finally have to capitulate and surrender to the Russian invaders.
So despite Mearsheimer saying there’s no evidence here that Putin wanted to conquer all of Ukraine, there’s actually a plethora of evidence if you interpret conquer to mean control. He tried to march on Kyiv at the start of the 2022 war, after all.
The control of Kyiv aligns with Putin’s broader goal of returning Russia to the glory of the Soviet Union. Not literally, of course. He does not want the return of communism, but of authoritarian nationalism; an all-powerful state that dominates its region and sphere of influence. Which includes not only Ukraine but all other former Soviet Republics.
Don’t take my word for it. Take Putin’s words from a 2005 speech:
“First and foremost it is worth acknowledging that the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century. As for the Russian people, it became a genuine tragedy. Tens of millions of our fellow citizens and countrymen found themselves beyond the fringes of Russian territory.”
I’m not sure how you read this and conclude: there’s no evidence Putin wants a return of the Soviet Union in some form. How else will Putin return his fellow citizens and brothers in “shared unity” to territory at least controlled by Russia?
Somehow Mearsheimer views it as a non-issue.
“NATO expansionism was the cause of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.”
The problem with this argument is that NATO expansionism has been a variable concern over the years, not a constant concern. In fact, Russians have spoken indifferently and at times, even favorably, about NATO expansion. Don’t take my word for it, let’s review some quotes.
On whether Russia should join NATO:
“Why not? Why not … I do not rule out such a possibility….. Russia is a part of European culture, and I do not consider my own country in isolation from Europe .. Therefore, it is with difficulty that I imagine NATO as an enemy.”
– Vladimir Putin in 2000, after the first round of NATO expansion
On whether Ukraine should join NATO:
“Ukraine will not shy away from the processes of expanding interaction with NATO and the Western allies as a whole. Ukraine has its own relations with NATO .. At the end of the day, the decision is to be taken by NATO and Ukraine. It is a matter for those two partners.”
– Vladimir Putin in 2002, after the second round of NATO expansion was announced
A third quote on Russia’s views of NATO in 2010:
“[The] period of distance in our relations and claims against each other is over now.”
– Dmitry Medvedev, at the 2010 NATO summit in Portugal, which was importantly after the 2008 NATO Bucharest Summit
As I highlighted in an article almost two years ago, NATO is a defensive alliance, something Mearsheimer never emphasizes. It has never attacked anyone offensively and there’s no evidence it ever will.
Also recall that after the fall of the Soviet Union, many Eastern European countries demanded to join NATO, while NATO countries were initially not interested in the idea.
Lithuania, for example, applied directly for membership itself, with no evidence of coercion by Western powers. This type of direct application had never been made. It was a policy goal for other Baltic states too, despite Mearsheimer’s framing that it was pushed by the West.
Eastern expansionism of NATO was far from “imposed” or even “pushed” by the U.S. or NATO. It was strongly desired by many Eastern Europeans, and in fact, they often had to take measures to push and encourage the U.S. and NATO for membership, not the other way around.
But these points don’t fit with Mearsheimer’s theory about NATO expansionism being the primary motivator for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
There are two other reasons why his NATO expansionism argument falls flat:
- Russia did not attack immediately following successive rounds of NATO expansion and Ukraine has never even had a membership action plan or any serious progress towards membership. Was North Macedonia’s entrance to NATO in 2020 the one that tipped the scales for Putin? There were long periods – many years in fact – where this issue was hardly even in the background. As I mentioned previously, it has been a variable issue, not a constant one, making it less likely it’s the true reason for causing the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
- Putin should have reasonably anticipated that by invading Ukraine – a non-NATO member – it would spook other similarly situated non-NATO states like Finland and Sweden. Which guess what: it did! Now Finland, which like Ukraine has a large border with Russia, is a fully ratified NATO member as of April 2023, with Sweden not far behind. So if anything, NATO has become even more unified and emboldened since Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, not less. Which, if NATO expansionism was truly the motivator for the invasion as Mearsheimer would have us believe, you would think Putin would be trying to do everything in his power to stop it, not provoke further expansion.
Putin loves to blame NATO because it puts the onus on the West for his war. It gives him cover. And he’s more than happy to have the Kremlin cite Mearsheimer in social media posts to communicate that cover.
John Mearsheimer is wrong about Putin and dangerously so
Yes, that was the Kremlin’s Twitter/X account highlighting Mearsheimer’s work, which excused and even justified their aggressive tactics. This is why rhetoric from people like Mearsheimer is dangerous. Not only because it excuses or justifies violence, but because many impressionable Western minds consume it.
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want to cancel John Mearsheimer like some. He should have every right to state his opinion, which I want to believe is being made in good faith.
But I fear that not enough people are equipped to question the legitimacy and credibility of his views. Especially when many on the American far right latch onto and amplify them to their followers.
The bottom line is that Putin has told us clearly what he wants to do and why he wants to do it. He has shown us – almost two years into this terrible war – the lengths he’s willing to go to achieve his vision: a return of Soviet Russia, refashioned in his image for the 21st century.
Which is why we need to do everything in our power to help Ukraine. Yes, the situation may look bleaker now than it did a year ago, but abandoning them now will be one of our greatest regrets of this current century. We can’t let it happen.
It starts with countering voices like John Mearsheimer’s with cold, hard rhetoric.
0 Comments