John Mearsheimer on Realism and the Rise of China 

The American media and education system have done a wonderful job in keeping Americans dumbed down in terms of understanding international politics.

As Chinese, we wouldn't like hearing the rhetoric of Mearsheimer, but his candor is very much appreciated. We welcome peaceful/rational competition from the US. It's only when the US takes on a moralist tone, masquerading itself as a saintly guardian of human rights, democracy, etc., that we start to feel disgusted to the guts.

Don't assume China always needs US. Remember, China was used to be rich and regional power until 18th century. The cultural revolution taught China a hard lesson and I believe China is getting to her old glory.

Another question of interest to me is "Can the US decline peacefully?" , for we are declining.

Professor Mearsheimer is a westerner, and I assume he was trained only in the western cultural way. He looks at the world from the western cultural way and I doubt if he understands the Chinese way of looking at international relations. At least two of his five assumptions are questionable from a Chinese point of view. The first one is that the world is anarchic, at least in the old days China did not look at it that way. Relationship between nations were compared to family relations such as uncle-nephew, or brotherly, etc.. Secondly, survival is the principle goal of the state. Well it is a principal goal, but not the principle goal, certainly not the first principle goal. The first principle goal was the mandate from heaven, which was to rule the country so the citizens can live better! If professor Mearsheimer is correct he also reveals a paranoiac trait of the western nations. They have an insecurity complex, are always suspicious of other nations so they inevitably want to be stronger than the next country, that mean they always strive to be the world hegemon!

Beautiful theory professor Mearsheimer. But as the saying goes, when the assumptions are wrong, everything is wrong. No matter how logically beautiful it appears. Here is my counter view. 1. China is not a state per se. China is a civilization. You can conquer a state but you can not conquer a civilization. This was already evidently proved by China's Han dynasty and Qing dynasty. In both cases, China was conquered and ruled by the outside invaders, but in the end, China did not become like their invaders, but the invaders got dissolved in the Chinese civilization. In the end, the invader's cultures disappeared, but Chinese cultures remained and prospered. 2. To assume China will be like the US to pursue a regional hegemon is wrong. China never wanted and will not want to be a hegemon. China is big by birth and so as its economy grows it will be a big economy and that will influence countries around it. But the influence will be such that those countries will be attracted to China, and not forced by China. A live example, a few years ago when China approached Asean seeking to eliminate trade barriers between them, the ASEAN initially did not trust China and refused to come along. Seeing that, China did not use its size to twist the arms of the ASEAN countries, instead, China said OK let's start by we open up first to your export to China, you decide when you want to remove your trade barriers to Chinese imports. Of course, the ASEAN countries have no problem accepting that. After a while, the ASEAN countries become very comfortable with opening up trade with China, and now the relationship has expanded to more countries including Japan and Korea. It has now become The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership or RCEP for short. 3, In the last 2000 years, China was the largest economy for about 1800 years, not by invading, or colonialism or trying to be a hegemon, but by making itself so great and it became a natural attraction of other parts of the world, hence we had the old silk road. Now China is rebuilding the silk road, called the Belt and Road Initiative. It is not invading any country but helping many countries to build their infrastructures so that their economy can be better integrated with the rest of the world. What they are doing matches what they are saying, to build the common human destiny. I think if Professor Mearsheimer can jump out of the box of zero-sum mentality and look at the history in a longer time frame, he will understand China more correctly.

John Mearsheimer's thoughtful, relevant discussions help me understand better our world. I thank him and The U-Mich for hosting him. He is a great academic speaker.

This type approach is used to rationalize current us/west aggression based on projection of future Chinese aggression, which in turn is based on past us/west aggression. In summary, past and current aggression committed by us/west, are justified by future Chinese aggression. This is called realist approach, which is still more honest than defending freedom rhetoric.

Thank you YT algorithm for suggesting this, thank you Prof Mearsheimer and thank you debaters for hosting it!

China is basically what every country wants to be: Prosperous and peaceful.

There is a big assumption in this theory that is China will imitate the US. This assumption disregards both history and domestic politics. Historically, China has never been a colonial expansionist country like European powers in the 16th century onward. Regarding domestic politics, for thousands of years the main concern of the Chinese emperors was to keep China united, stable and prosperous, given that it has such a huge population and territory. The CCP will not be an exception to this rule because China still has enormous social and economic challenges.

My take from this is fingers crossed China becomes a global hegemon and the US gives up and concentrates on its regional security. I'd rather do business with China Belt and Road style than the US at the end of the barrel of a gun. Let's just hope China's power doesn't go to their heads to the same degree as it has with the US...

Thanks! Enjoyed first half of the self debate part but the theories have really big holes. Here are some of them First of all, "liberal democracy" really carries no weight in international relationship. Though it appears in propaganda most often, you only need to look at US's past and current friends like Saudi Arabia (bone saw / Yemen) to konw that is true. Secondly, nuclear weapons are't that revolutionary and it won't really stop wars. Guess most are quite aware of that by now but I just like to mention the US effort in 2 directions. One adjustable yield warheads. Second missile defence. If you can nullify either enemy's defence or offence capability it does not matter it's nuclear or not. Let alone the potential hypersonic missiles. Thirdly, Taiwan is not really a national pride issue for China. Even numerous US/western think tank said openly the stretegic location makes a choke point of China so that's the real reason US still keeps it as a leverage today. Taiwan's future is not decided by people on tha island but rather by the Sino-US relationship. Though I like the open minded debates. I must say the contents are really bad. It's nothing but good old plotting. If you are interested in refining such skills I recommend you read "Romance Of the Tree Kingdoms", a classic novel based on ancient Chinese plotting 2000+ years ago and you'll probably find that more refreshing than the US projection. After all these, I must say that mordern nation state is the wrost invention of mankind, ever. It has caused huge amound of division and violence. People started dying and killing each other for flags and collective pride or hatred. Unimaginable amount of resources and efforts are wasted in either killing or avoid being killed, to quench the lust of greedy merchants and politicians. Huge losses of progress and wisdom to our civilization (if it can be called). If we can't get beyond this, we'll be forever living in the past. Extinction might be a mercy to the whole species. With global warming and the looming WWIII we have already run out of time. If we can't improve ourselves, we'll end one way or another.

Great synopsis by El maestro John Mearsheimer. Thank you for enlightening us.👏👏👏👏👏

I do agree that China would want to become as powerful as possible, but not for expansion purposes, but to prevent what happened in 1840 to happen again. Accordingly, 1. China is building islands along its southern coasts to act as unsinkable warships. 2. China is building state of the art fighter planes capable of flying across the Pacific Ocean. 3. China is building a powerful and technologically advance naval force. 4. China is building a mighty, efficient and indomitable People's Liberation Army. 5. China will keep on improving its military prowess because we don't want what happen since the Opium War in 1840 to plague us again.

This man is very intelligent, one great teacher, eloquent and just one very nice man

this is a very valuable lecture. Within an hour and a half, the core of the world's geopolitics has been laid out.

I think that the Chinese people are very happy that you are not in charge. Applying a Western point of view (desire for hegemony) on the Chinese shows how little you know of this continental culture.

India will not be part of any effort to contain China..however business competition will remain.despite Covid and LAC clash Sino India business is still 100 by dollars.Strong India and one India good for China ..Strong China and one China good for India.End of theory.

Taiwan still has 40% of citizen who don't object to unification in some loose firm with China motherland. But their voices are suppressed becoz current government use all kinds of rules and laws to suspend their channels or scare them with penaltis or prison sentences.

The biggest assumption by Mr. Mearsheimer is this suppose US allies. When push comes to shove will these allies come to US side if a hot war starts. Remember most of these are allies by heavy arm twisting backed by the biggest military. The ball has already started rolling, people around the world is starting to get sick of our shit. When there is an alternative country that can stand up to us many may abandon the old alliance, because they are tired of the gun being held to their heads.

Also notice how the speaker is overtly biased in favour of the US empire. That bias must be taken into account.

Just to annoy you, don't you Americans say "Trust in God"? Chinese has a higher power, all through its 2,500 years of proven history, even today--- Tian --and we behave according to the rules of -- Tian(Sky) di(earth) liangxin(conscience). And we believe firmly that the world is round -- what goes up must come down.

The question should be "Will the US allow China to rise peacefully"?

The problem is that Mearshimer assumes that the Chinese thinks like a European/American. He should try to answer this question: in 1405, decades before the voyages of Columbus, Ming Dynasty China sent a huge fleet of 300 ships and 30,000 sailors and marines that sailed through southeast Asia, India, Arabia down to East Africa. They encountered plenty of petty and weak states. They established trade and diplomatic links, but they did not conquer or colonise a SINGLE petty kingdom. Now you compare this with the experience of the Europeans that followed a few years later with colonisation of the world. Why were the experiences of the two civilizations so different? Is it then fair to assume that the Chinese would act like a Western great power?

His work is not foundational. His political worldview is consistently an apology for 'might makes right', nothing too original. His argument on intentions, for example, goes back to Hume and is not controversial, a straw man argument. Intentions are not observable. Then, the assumption that states are rational actors, on the other hand, is also wrong. States are no more rational than the human individual human beings that run them. Also, the proponent of the view that Putin's criminal invasion is Ukraine's and the West's fault, for example. And that sanctions won't work, etc. Hans Morgenthau is a far better and more interesting scholar, thinker and writer of this kind of realism, for my money. A 'realism' argument, by the way, that goes back to the ancient Athenians, see Melos. The argument that big states look to influence events beyond their borders (not always, see history of China) is a trivial observation. Just horrid dumbing down of serious reflection on the nature of power and politics. By the way, long life to Ukrainian independence 🇺🇦!!

So the logical deduction of his theory of great power politics is rooted in the Anglo Saxon history and especially the U.S history, which is just a short time span in human civilisation as a whole; then he extrapolate such theory to a country with huge cultural and philosophical differences from the Anglo Saxon one, and project future possible scenarios with such extrapolation...doesn’t seem to be a scientific methodology at all, but stimulating enough to cause possible human suffering across the world, so where is the academic ethics in this?

Asia is not North America. There is a huge difference in history, geography, and culture. China can never dominate here like the US has done in NA.

On the Taiwan issue, Professor Mearsheimer said he believed that China would not mind suffering an economic setback for taking Taiwan back. Here again, the assumption is that China will suffer an economic setback if they insist on taking Taiwan. But who says China will necessarily have an economic setback? How do we know unification with Taiwan will not strengthen China's economy? Let's look at it from a different angle. The US dollar is the world reserve because of what? it is because it is the currency of the United States. The keyword here is United. If it is not the United States but becoming separated States as some separatists in the country hoped, will the US dollar still have the world confidence in it? I guarantee you it will not. The whole world will see the US as an unstable collection of States and will dump the US dollars like no tomorrow (so please do not have a civil war and split the United States). For the same logic, if China united with Taiwan, peacefully or forcefully, the Taiwan issue as we know it will stop existing. History will turn a new page and the world will see China as a more stable country than before, more investment will flow to China and the Chinese yuan will strengthen.

The biggest flaw in prof. Mearsheimer’s argument is the assumption that China will treat its SE Asian neighbors just like the USA treated Latin America. This is highly unlikely. The British learned from the mistakes of the empires that had preceded theirs. The US has learned from the mistakes of the British Empire. For example, the US gives more independence to its “colonies” in Latin America than the British allowed in India. The Chinese have learned from the mistakes made by both the USA and the USSR.

Keep in mind he is a realist. Is the Western politics these days liberal or realistic? The assumption that the state will act rationally or prudently largely depends on the realistic analysis . If the driving force, namely people, are more and more ideologically motivated and pursue more instant pleasure, the result would be very different.

Great talk on US geopolitics.

What an incredible and brilliant rational mind!

Watching this now! How relevant its is!!

Man, I never listen to those, but that was an amazing intro. It really shows how much she respects Mr. Mearsheimer

Great discussion and lecture! Thanks for posting it!

Chinese, after commuism failed in 70s, greatly admired or even adored U. S. and western European systems, believing they were fair and would let the excellence shine, unlike the extreme socialistic old China when they let the poorest or weakest people at the bottom to become bosses and managers, or let them have priority to go to top universities-all these policies were to reverse social tiers and end exploitation that old China believed bogged down those people and limited them. But these "unnatural" experiments failed;. their economy ran to ground. So since 80s all over China including officials all wanted to reform and open up to free enterprises and competition. That's when they were willing to be a follower of the West, thinking they were the best and fair judges; as long as they worked hard to produce affordable products that people around the world could buy, or as long as. scientist or engineers build good technological products that the world like, or athelets prove their excellence that would certainly lead to gold medals. But they were surprised twice. First time in 2008 when in U. S. the over-reaching Wall Street melt down, financial insolvency everywhere nationwide. China never experienced this stage of capitalism before, so many manufacturers simply froze production and waited. Their economic index temporarily dipped. Chinese government got scared and instead of waiting to see what next as Chinese finance at that time were actually quite sound, different from U. S., there central bank imitated U. S. and lent out way too much cheap credits to whoever needed, which created lot of waste and huge bubbles! (Now as bubbles bust now, they suffer again. ) Second time when China doubted Americans' all perfectness was when Trump came along starting denouncing them with all kinds of labels and allegations, which they knew either overblown or simply rumors and lies. Later Trump slapped huge tarriffs or bans on their products, and even accused Chinese scholars and scientists working for U. S. universities and companies as spying or stealing, (many turned out to be false). All these made China feel that American government broke their ideal and principles of fairness and pursuit of excellence they used to adore U. S.. for. Then Trump broke his last promise that he wouldn't meddle with Taiwan issue and their major election by secretly arming Taiwan. China at this point became in doubt of American integrity. Biden came along without reversing the trend. They are disillusioned with U. S..

Economic interdependence will NOT be a factor in preventing a Sino/American war simply because China wouldn't care: 1. China has lived without the US for 2,500 years, living without the US for another 2,500 years will be easy. 2. China has planned for living without the US with the building of the Belt & Road projects. These B&R projects go into parts of the world that the US has basically ignored. And these B&R projects areas combined is BIGGER than the US!

I am danish. I have no problems with the U.S. american people. But I have problems, with their leaders. And also with the leaders in my own country. I love my country and my people. But i´m embarassed that Denmark followed USA into the war in Iraq.

I have been watching for a number of years Mr. Mearsheimers lectures. I have encountered many biases in his work but the principle one is where he continues to argue that the united states is a logical and beneficial actor to the world. I have noticed his opinions have changed in recent years where he now states that u.s. military interventions are bad for the united states economically. I find it quite interesting how many americans never speak of the ethics of their governments actions but in terms of the benefits economically of their governments actions. Which of course is something I find rather immoral. I do realize that part of Mr. Mearsheimers bias are related to his 10 year military career. He fails to realize that the United States has continued to act in an immoral fashion when dealing with other countries and he justifies his countries actions by thinking that other countries would act similarly. Having been american at one time I was under the delusion that we were better than that sadly many years ago I realized we were not.

wonderful lecture about great power politics. thx

Impressive lecture!

Restraint 1:09:37 ....unipolar momemnt and liberal hegemony ....USA gets bogged down......restraint with China is totally different concept ; 1: 11:48 waning powers such as RU....."declining great power..."

Prof Mearsheimer, “principle” on your PowerPoint should read “principal”. Thank you for your wonderful body of work.

45:28 Economic consequences deter war ....europe 1914 economics co existed with security dilemmas ......2020 decoupling between use and China

Professor’s Mearsheimer’s points are convincing except that he missed a few points about the nature of the Chinese people. Chinese people inherently love peace which has been reflected by the fact that China has not fired a bullet over the past 30 years against any other nation while it had risen together with the majority of countries in Asia. If you really understand the Chinese culture, you will realize that that majority of Chinese have been influenced by the lessons from the Confucius over the past two thousand years. But, let us not argue about the boring cultural things. Instead, let us talk about the few points Professor left out. Sports: Historically, the fights between gladiators in ancient Rome as an entertainment were brutal, cruel and inhumane. The aggressive western culture is fully revealed from the deadly sports. Yes, westerners would like to watch others fight to death. Today, American people love football game. It is much better than the fight-to-death entertainment between the gladiators. But, it is still very aggressive. This aggressiveness also revealed itself on the foreign policy especially when it is demanded by the military-industrial complex. No wonder America has been invading many nations as it sees fit without the approval of the United Nation. Naturally, America does not like the rules based upon the United Nation. On the other hand, Chinese people did not like barbarian sports from ancient time. Today, soccer, basketball, and ping-pong are the most popular sports in China. This indicates that most Chinese people are not aggressive in nature. And, this gentle nature combined with the painful memories it had from the aggressive nations from the west taught the Chinese government how to deal with many developing nations with respect. The goal is always win-win instead of the live-and-enslave western mentality. Chinese Navy will not provocatively roam into the east Pacific Ocean 100 miles within California. And, China has adopted the no-first-use of nuclear weapons policy. China will not be a threat to any nation in the world. Religion: In China, about 15% of the Chinese people are Buddhists while 10% are Taoist. These two religions do not belong to the category of Monotheism which worships a single god. The religious persecution that drove settlers from Europe to the American colonies showed that the Monotheists could be non-flexible. In fact, some countries used religion to solidify political power and punish opponents. In China’s history, there was no dominant religion and thus, religion had not been the primary reason used to initiate Holy War/Crusades against other nations. Chinese people do not have a strong ideology. They will not interfere with other nation’s internal affair. Most of the Chinese people just want to become a little richer and a little safer. Race: The majority of the people in China are Hans. The great warriors of Genghis Khan’s soldiers who invaded Europe were Mongolians. From time to time, they and the other ethnic minorities around China posed great threats to the Han Chinese kingdoms. In most cases, the Hans were just playing defense. Playing defense seems to be the norm of the Chinese policy until 2016 when Trump took over. Nowadays, Chinese people had enough of it. They are forced to respond except towards the USA sometimes because China is forever grateful to the USA for ending Japan’s inhumane aggression towards China in WWII (www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2013/08/24/books/book-reviews/chinas-contribution-to-japans-defeat/). Chinese people would be willing to put the tragedy behind as long as Japan truly repents what they have done. Neighborhood relationship: China has treated its neighbors well as reflected by the coherent rise of almost all Asian nations. There were some minor conflicts between China and India in 2019/2020. But, to the disappointment of some western nations, nothing serious really happened because of the agreement signed by the two nations that prohibited the use of modern weapons. That shows the gentle and restraint nature of both nations. And, Indians are way too smart to fight a proxy war against China for USA. They might be glad to see USA and China fight so that they can be #1 in the world. Taiwan - In case you don’t know, China and Taiwan developed very friendly relationship from 2008 to 2016 based upon the agreement of 1992 Consensus. In 2017, the pro-Taiwan-independent party, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), tore up the agreement after winning the election by spreading lies and hatred about China. It is very similar to what Ukraine did before the Russia invasion. The DPP party started cutting all official ties with China even as Taiwan enjoyed a huge trade surplus which was about $105 billion in 2021 with China. So, the USA just exploited the opportunity to promote the fear and hatred while getting Taiwan to use the surplus to buy huge amount of weapons from the US defense companies. Most experts believe that China will exercise great restraint to avoid a conflict with USA before 2030 unless Taiwan declares independence. Letting Taiwan slip away from China is like letting Texas to be independent from the USA. So, no one should ever doubt China’s resolution to use the necessary means just like the American did in the Civil War. Chinese PLA will fight all the way against any foreign powers to gain control of Taiwan without giving any regards to the possible casualty in military personnel just like what happened in the Korean war. Is USA ready to make such sacrifice for interfering with China’s internal affair? Please note that today’s PLA is not the Chinese volunteer fighters in the Korean war. There is no chance that USA can win the war against China over Taiwan. If USA is to attack China with nuclear weapons, both China and Russia will respond and the whole world would be doomed. I think the Chief of Staff will fight any crazy president to initiate such attack because he knows that fighting PLA over Taiwan is not USA’s core interest yet it might destroy 50% of his navy or even his nation. Conclusion: China has no intention to treat any nation as enemy and China is not a threat to any nation. Instead, China would be willing to corporate with any nation as long as that nation shows the basic respect and stays away from interfering with China’s internal affairs. If you are still not convinced about the gentle nature of Chinese people, think this way. It could have been great for the world and for the USA to have China at the other end of the bipolar world power as a balance. In fact, some nations in the world are only aligning with USA on the surface to avoid being bullied. Deep inside, they know that USA is the bully and just try to contain China to hang on to its unipolar power. The only exception may be Japan which acts as the watchdog for USA. But, even Japan might resist if America were to order them to attack China/Russia in a proxy war. In the meantime, don’t expect Taiwan (or Republic of China) to fight the proxy war for USA. They observed what the US was doing to Ukraine and they don’t want to become another Ukraine. In fact, many Taiwanese now believe that USA is not going to send soldiers to fight and die for them just like the Taiwanese don’t want to die for the American Unipolar power. Ultimately, USA has to face directly and alone against China/Russia or the USA has to accept the United Nation based rule system instead of the rule-based system devised by USA. This bi-polar world power system could benefit USA and the world tremendously. In fact, had it truly been honored after the year 2000, USA might have avoided many futile wars that were hurting other nations as well as itself. USA could have saved $10T (including the war in Ukraine, www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar) not to mention the lives that can be spared. If it were indeed so, God would have been truly pleased with USA. So, Professor Mearsheimer, please add the above to your analysis. China has no intention becoming a hegemon like the USA. USA has been trying to contain China before the year 2000. But, the wars in Middle East and the 2008 financial crisis prevented Bush/Clinton/Obama from doing so. It is too late for USA to contain China militarily now. No nations in the sound minds other than Japan and perhaps Australia would blindly align with USA on containing China militarily. Let China rise peacefully and I assure you that the two great nations and the world will enjoy many years of peace and prosperity.

What he’s saying is, the US has done enough bad things to other countries that it’s afraid of karma coming to it one day.

Wow . . . So many good & relevant questions asked. I wonder what’s the composition of the audience.

Evrrything in Geopolitics changes weekly. Most comments on this thread are mostly irrelevant 8/21/22.

Taiwan, we have to prevent China from unite Taiwan. And Taiwan doesn't need to have an opinion on their own fate, they simply can NEVER want to unite with Mainland. LOL

01:20:40 M rejects that the nuclear revolution transformed security competition between states.....

despite all our history it seems we are stuck in zero sum stupidity.

"Most Americans find this very hard to believe!" . . . no we don't. Get off your high horse lol.

1.75 x speed is great.

most of USA military bases around the world are from the brits

Great talk Prof Mearsheimer.....If I may add another Counter-Argument #3 ? The basic assumption of your Theory is that China will continue to rise and challenge the hegemony of the US in the South China Sea. Unwittingly, you assumed the US will always be stronger than China militarily? Could this be an erroneous assumption 10 or 20 years down the road? Unless the US is very certain it is vastly superior than China militarily, this in itself could be a deterrence?

favoloso! dopo aver passato quasi 1 ora a spiegare che la politica di potenza consiste nell'essere un regional egemon ( l'unico nella storia gli USA) e impedire agli altri di diventarlo (3 guerre) l'intervistatrice chiede se gli USA siano un regional o global egemon. Mi chiedo dove sia stata durante la lezione

In a country where monopolies are illegal, i cannot fathom the idea as to why the US do not want a peer competitor.

GOOD AND NOT TRAGIC AT ALL. I WAS HOPING TO SEE 2 BILLION PEOPLE DISAPPEAR IN A YEAR. WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT.

Two actors that could be included on paralel to national states: internacional organizations (world religions, political-ideological organizations, etc) and extraordinary individuals. These two actors could very well be necessary as explanatory tools to irrational national-state behaviour. Besides that, the general ideias of Professor Mearsheimer are very much correct and well explained.

He is offensive structural realist. I have one question for him: what if Taiwan wants to join mainland China? Because of Nationalist/Economical reasons.

John Mearsheimer does not know the difference between the theory and the hypothesis. Most of his arguments are fun to listen to.

How is the modern regional hegemon in Europe?

01:22:28 :Structure of the international system impels state stop expand even tho they may have misgivings....regional hegemony is taken for granted in USA .....key goal from USA thru 1900......

Dear professor Mearshimer, I would say your theory about how things could stack up in Asia would be correct if you were the President of the USA :) In other words if USA is a sane, reasonable force. Current developments are contrary to that. So, many players feel the need to isolate themselves from the USA. This doesn’t look good for the US, but the elites refuse to understand the reality. Too bad!!! I only hope that the nuclear war can be avoided. I want my kids to have a life and their kids too.

Looking at history, when there is an emerging No. 2 to challenge No. 1, conflict does not necessarily occur - for example, US did not fight England after WWI, Russia did not get into hot war with US.

What makes prof. Mearsheimer so interesting that you could listen to him talk about his (repulsive) theory about international politics for hours and hours?

52:31 CW simulations results: hard to start a war !....risks were better understood versus East China Sea miscalculations seem much more plausible

sounds like we need to get rid of Nation States. One world, one people with regional differences, I would argue ;), is a more peaceful governance model.

Triangles Circles Squares Pentagons They hardly ever go to hexagons Too complex This is us

Ok I respect this Professor enormously however my humble opinion is that China will not imitate the US. As a civilization Chinas strength comes largely from it's homogeneity so it's not interested in expanding out of Asia. I believe China just wants the US out of there

assumption one is incorrect.

The one thing I'm uncomfortable with Dr Mearsheimer's presentations is his idea that the Vietnamese "defeated" China. Vietnam has be a serfdom of China for thousands of years. It had NEVER defeated China through more than 2,o00 years of recorded history. Ibn 1979, Vietnam has been annoying China with numerous "excursions" . China sent in an army to teach the Vietnamese how to behave properly towards a big, strong neighbour. It was an unexpectedly costly war. But Vietnam has been taught a lesson. Incidentally, Vietnam would have taken much harsher beating and longer suffering if China didn't help the Vietnamese to fight its invaders.

I wish I can ask him, if the US play a decent role, i.e., that it behaves just as its liberal theories promise and that does not set some terrible examples of breaking the international rules, and, will things get better and will we have international peace? And why do powerful states like the US tend not to abide to their moral rhetoric and staying a good role model?

Will USA peacefully fall?

this assumptions are all true in the team I work for, so it is likely we kill each other in the office.

Of the 5 assumptions, the fifth I disagree with. Just look at the history of the 20th century, three of the main protagonists in WWI did not survive and to great extent were aware of the risk in 1914.

Mearsheimer 🤩

The history of China may be interesting from a cultural perspective, but politically speaking it's irrelevant, since the Communists obliterated the historical Chinese State and it no longer has any relevance. Modern China needs the US desperately. China is utterly dependent on the rest of the world not just for its markets, which bring it as well, but for all of its energy and food supplies. Forget about a war with the United States, in which case trying it would just be strangled, but if the stability that American global hegemony provide disappeared, the Chinese would be in a very bad way. They need the sea lanes open, and no one but the United States is able to guarantee that internationally.

Why won't anyone listen to this guy???? He is almost always 100% right when you go back after a few years!

Jason Jorjani makes a great presentation on Persian as world hegemon in Iranian Leviathan.

It seems when John uses the word 'survival' he means dominance?

What a very sory telling with all its logics... Enlightening..

moonshiner

Would countries still fear other countries if economic abundance was achieved?

@KDP

Highly informative and extremely interesting... 👏

If the Chinese would sacrifice prosperity because of nationalism, John, then it's not survival but prestige and internal legitimacy that drives state behavior... 😉

merci mon soeur!

This is his best talk, and I've seen a lot of them.

Why does US need to defend Taiwan? Majority in Taiwan does not want war. Look at Ukraine. Obviously there are more options on the table for the benefit of Taiwanese people, their lives. Why not discuss that?

Realism in international relations brings important contributions to understanding international politics. But its focus on rationality brings one aspect. When it comes to the big decisions, like war and peace, values about what is right or wrong, emotions, feelings of kinship play a key role. That was maybe less so, at the times of absolutist kings, but even then religious convictions were important. But since the major democratic revolutions, increasingly values became a key element. Looking at pure interests only, Britain should have supported the Confederates in the Civil War, but specially after the Emancipation declaration couldn't. Britains entrance in WWI had to do with balance of power etc, but also with the perception that Germany and the Habsburg Empire did wrong. America's entrance in WWI of cause had interests in mind, but also feelings of kinship with the English and French (the latter politically). Going more recently, the US pulling out of Vietnam, had also to do with a growing feeling in the US that at the end, if Vietnamese want to become communist, they should. Or invading Iraq because Sadam was an unscrupulous dictator

Is the professor making an argument for a global benevolent government?

Thank you so much Val and University !

Security trumps prosperity. Russia:👀

I've only had the chance to listen to about 1/3 of this so idk if he does, but I'd love to hear his take on the Mexican/Chinese relationship in relation to lithium deposits found in 🇲🇽 that seemingly 🇨🇳 has its eye on

Mearsheimer is a national treasure

Rule of Jungle? need to be invented?😁

Interesting that he applies this thinking on China, but not on Russia. Why?

Good