Preface

Professor John J. Mearsheimer: Theorist for Aggression. What do I mean by that?

I mean that Professor Mearsheimer, one of the world’s most prominent international relations scholars, has developed his own variant of the realist framework for analysing how states interact in the international system, one that can serve to justify wars of aggression.

Wars that are clearly illegal under international law, contravene the tenets of Just War Theory, and are devoid of a shred of legitimacy according to the norms of the often-disparaged rules-based international order. “Defensive” wars, justified by a putative threat that may be both distant and improbable. “Wars of opportunity”, where a state is motivated solely by an opportunistic desire to improve its relative power position.

Wars like Vladimir Putin’s invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022, in contravention of multiple undertakings by Russia to respect that nation’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Mearsheimer terms his theory, appropriately enough, “offensive realism.” According to this theory, great powers—irrespective of their systems of governance, their ideological affiliations, or the kind of people who rule them—are compelled to seek power to ensure their state’s security and survival.

Nothing unusual about that, you might say. All nations should be attentive to shifting international power dynamics that might affect them. But Mearsheimer takes this much further, arguing that they are compelled to maximize their power relative to actual or potential rivals. Indeed, they should aim to become hegemonic.

And failure to do so, puts a state’s very survival on the line. It is an existential issue. If something happens that causes an “adverse shift in the balance of power”, an affected state is entitled to wage a “preventive war” to prevent or counteract it.

By adopting this extremely permissive definition of a preventive war, Mearsheimer not only purports to explain, but to justify, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Putin, he contends, is a “first class strategist”, whose decisions to invade Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 were both rational and justified, despite them directly contravening international law and the moral precepts of Just War Theory.

Very few Western commentators go that far. Unlike most critics of Western policy, you rarely if ever hear Mearsheimer utter a word of criticism of Putin’s decision to invade, or of his brutal conduct of the war, with its indiscriminate targeting of civilian buildings and infrastructure, nor of the abuse of civilians in the occupied parts of Ukraine.

Mearsheimer does not stop with his strange definition of preventive wars. He also argues that states should be prepared to consider “wars of opportunity”, that he defines as ones where a state “sees an opening to gain more power and enhance its security.” In his most important book, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2014 update) he criticizes Germany for failing to attack France in 1905 since at that time (unlike 1914) it would have won the war and become hegemon of Europe. A missed opportunity!

In effect, Mearsheimer has erected a theoretical scaffolding that can justify all manner of aggressive wars, a world where “might is right”, and smaller, less powerful states must accept whatever is imposed on them by the great powers.

How can this be justified? Mearsheimer says that the morality of state conduct is subordinate to the strategic imperative to maximize power to ensure state survival. If strategy and morality conflict, strategy wins, and should win.

All Mearsheimer has by way of justification for this is that, as for people, survival is the supreme imperative for a state. However, states and people are not analogous. If the leaders and people of a state decide it does not serve their interests, it can be terminated without regret, as happened to the GDR (the old East Germany) in 1990. States, as such, do not have a will to live.

Moreover, all Mearsheimer seems to require by way of evidence that a state’s survival is on the line is for the leader of that state to say that it is. Putin says Russia’s survival is on the line is enough to make it an “existential issue” as far as Mearsheimer is concerned, justifying recourse to war. In his most recent book, How States Think (Nov 2023), Mearsheimer refers to CCP regime statements that loss of Taiwan is a “survival issue” for China. No wonder he thinks a US-China war is inevitable.

Mearsheimer’s theory, offensive realism, is a revanchist autocrat’s charter, at a time when the democratic world is being challenged by a coalition of states (Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and various lesser autocracies) run by personalist tyrants committing or contemplating military aggression.

Given which, it is not surprising that Mearsheimer is a welcome and honoured guest in Moscow, an expert commentator in the pro-Putin Valdai Discussion Club, as well as Beijing where, as Mearsheimer boasts of having “many friends.”