Thread by @McFaul

Lots of people in my feed recently keep referencing Professor Mearsheimer as the great explainer of the current Russia-Ukraine conflict. I have some thoughts. THREAD 1/

I respect John as one of the clearest, most logical realist theorists out here. Unlike some, he also admits/understands that realism is both an explanatory theory and a normative perspective, or what Id call an ideology. (Liberalism also is a theory & an ideology.) 2/

Whenever I teach IR courses, I assign big chunks of Mearsheimer all the time (Walt too). 3/

On Ukraine, I think Mearsheimer is wrong. It is not the US fault that Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014 and might do so again now. We debated these issues in @ForeignAffairs w/ @SSestanovich years ago: Faulty Powers foreignaffairs.com/articles/easte… via @ForeignAffairs 4/

But I also think we should assess whose theories have predicted more. (It's easy to "predict" the past, especially when you cherry-pick the history to fit your theory!) 5/

30 years ago, in @Journal_IS "Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War," Mearsheimer deployed realism to predict war in Europe.
jstor.org/stable/pdf/253… 6/

Because his theory ignores regime types, individuals, ideas, or multilateralism institutions, it was a parsimonious argument based just on a BOP assessment, esp about why the "return" to multipolarity would produce conflict again in Europe. 7/

At the same time, 30 years ago, @JimGoldgeier published a rebuttal of Mearsheimer, in @IntOrgJournal called "A tale of two worlds: core and periphery in the post-cold war era."
cambridge.org/core/journals/… 8/

We explained/predicted why there would be peace in Europe -- what we called the "liberal core" -- because of regime type, norms, international institutions, etc. We made the exact opposite prediction of Mearsheimer. 9/

Read both pieces, and judge for yourself whose argument, theory, analytical framework, etc. got more right & more wrong, 30 years later. (We got some things wrong, btw, but not about Europe.) 10/

Did war break out in Europe because of multipolarity? No. Did peace endure because most of Europe is ruled by democratic regimes? Yes. 11/

Is the Russia-Ukraine conflict today just about BOP politics? No. Is this conflict one between a democratic West (including Ukraine) and an autocratic Russia? Yes. 12/

So I'm happy to keep debating those of you invoking Mearsheimer regarding normative claims. But please don't yell "realism explains how the REAL world works," without looking closely at who explained/ predicted European security more accurately over the last 30 years. 13/ END.

And for more on what NATO did not compel Putin to invade Ukraine, read "What Putin Fears Most" journalofdemocracy.org/what-putin-fea… via @JoDemocracy