Thread by @MMazarr

The shaming of Mearsheimer as a Russian stooge is wrong + dangerous. But this interview does illustrate another point: His theory, and especially its application to specific cases, is totally incoherent when it gets beyond the most generic truisms THREAD
newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/w…

2/ For one thing, the dialogue w/@IChotiner shows how Mearsh's perspective simply can't incorporate normative issues. Chotiner keeps trying to distinguish great power machinations from legitimate Ukrainian aspirations; Mearsheimer can only see it via great power interests lens

3/ More broadly, a consistent problem w/offensive realism is its refusal to accept the role of norms and institutions, despite ample evidence of their real-world effect. Mearsh. can't explain the global normative reaction to this invasion
belfercenter.org/publication/in…

4/ The chat also shows realism's political hollowness. Mearsh. talks as if US govts are geostrategic calculation machines (the rationalist black-boxing of realism) which could write off Ukraine, ignoring the moral weight of a coerced people + political price for appeasement

5/ He's trying to describe, in other words, a world that runs largely/solely according to fixed rules of great power goals and preferences, when in fact so many other factors--normative, political, economic--shape outcomes. Any foreign policy that ignores those factors = hopeless

6/ Mearsh's comments also show how bad his realism is at capturing agency. Its actors are trapped in a system that dictates actions. He says: "What happened is that this major crisis broke out, and we had to assign blame, and of course we were never going to blame ourselves"

7/ No: The crisis did not "break out." Putin (fearful of NATO enlargement, Mearsh's valid point) *chose* to invade + subjugate an innocent people. We didn't "have to assign" blame--Putin *is* to blame. Avoiding moralistic excess doesn't have to mean refusing to make any judgment

8/ "In an ideal world, it would be wonderful if the Ukrainians were free to choose their own political system + to choose their own foreign policy. But in the real world, that is not feasible." So: Throw out the basic values of the whole post-war UN system for theoretical purity

9/ That crude remark reflects how badly realism misses the power value of norms. Aligning the dominant % of world power behind such a principle = US competitive advantage. It's Grand Strategy 101--he just can't see that grand strategy doesn't equate to Great Power Politics 101

10/ Another problem: His realism asserts that history moves according to timeless, common rules ... then keeps admitting contingency. He says: "There’s a big difference between how the US behaved during the unipolar moment and how it’s behaved in the course of its history"

11/ But if great powers behave differently at different times, what happened to the theory? Same w/Russia: Didn't invade Ukraine in 2000, 2010, 2015 ... did now. If it demands hegemony, why the difference? Behavior is the product of a huge number of context-specific factors

12/ Also: So many examples in the interview of being catastrophically disconnected from events. Mearsh. says: "Nobody seriously thought that Russia was a threat before February 22, 2014." Uh, what now? Among 100s of others:
slate.com/news-and-polit…

13/ He repeatedly asserts that Putin is not trying to conquer Kyiv (then has to correct himself) or trying to absorb Ukraine, dismissing all the recent reports of nationalist officials, essays, web sites etc readying the Russian people for *exactly* that objective

14/ He wraps himself around a tree admitting some East European nations are safer b/o NATO enlargement, yet claiming it had no value. I agree it went too far but it's a close call: It *eases* our fears today to have Poland, Baltics in NATO b/c we know Russia can't go there

15/ When asked for policies, Mearsh. says: "We should be pivoting out of Europe to deal with China in a laser-like fashion, number one." Again the allergy to political considerations: This is 100% absolutely not in the cards for the foreseeable future

16/ Mearsheimer's basic point--that great powers have interests and will freak out if you push your alliance into their face--remains entirely valid. Saying NATO enlargement helped nurture the Russian grievances that led to this moment isn't unpatriotic. It's true

17/ (It's the parallel to post-9/11 statements that US intervention + quasi-imperialism in the Mideast helped produce Islamic radicalism directed at the West. Uncomfortable, not the whole story--but definitely part of it, and certainly not immoral or unpatriotic to point out)

18/ But his variety of offensive realism is an incredibly narrow, even hollow portrait of behavior which is wrong more often than right. This latest interview shows again just how poor a tool it is for people trying to understand the real world rather than the theoretical one