The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities

The Henry L. Stimson Lectures Series

by John J. Mearsheimer

A major theoretical statement by a distinguished political scholar explains why a policy of liberal hegemony is doomed to fail

It is widely believed in the West that the United States should spread liberal democracy across the world, foster an open international economy, and build international institutions. The policy of remaking the world in America’s image is supposed to protect human rights, promote peace, and make the world safe for democracy. But this is not what has happened. Instead, the United States has become a highly militarized state fighting wars that undermine peace, harm human rights, and threaten liberal values at home.

In this major statement, the renowned international-relations scholar John Mearsheimer argues that liberal hegemony—the foreign policy pursued by the United States since the Cold War ended—is doomed to fail. It makes far more sense, he maintains, for Washington to adopt a more restrained foreign policy based on a sound understanding of how nationalism and realism constrain great powers abroad. The Great Delusion is a lucid and compelling work of the first importance for scholars, policymakers, and everyone interested in the future of American foreign policy.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, International Relations, History, Political Science, Philosophy, Economics

328 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2018

About the author

John Joseph Mearsheimer (1947) is an American political scientist and international relations scholar, who belongs to the realist school of thought. He is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. He has been described as the most influential realist of his generation.
Mearsheimer is best known for developing the theory of offensive realism, which describes the interaction between great powers as being primarily driven by the rational desire to achieve regional hegemony in an anarchic international system. In accordance with his theory, Mearsheimer believes that China's growing power will likely bring it into conflict with the United States.
Mearsheimer's works are widely read and debated by 21st-century students of international relations. A 2017 survey of US international relations faculty ranks him third among "scholars whose work has had the greatest influence on the field of IR in the past 20 years.

Reviews

[David M]

17 years after 9/11 and al Qaeda has not been defeated. Bush sold the "war on terror" not just as a campaign to protect American lives but also as an idealistic crusade to spread democracy and freedom throughout the world. Obama toned down the embarrassing rhetoric of his predecessor, but for the most part did not alter the course of American foreign policy in the Middle East.

Obama made drone assassination a totally normal, accepted instrument of policy; authorized a record number of arms sales to Saudi Arabia and gave record aid packages to Israel, also giving them both diplomatic cover for their hideous assaults on Yemen and Gaza respectively. He also destroyed Libya, committed more troops to an unwinnable, never-ending war in Afghanistan, and helped arm Salafi militias in Syria. To be fair, one might* also point to the Iran deal as a genuine step towards. Even so, Obama's legacy still seems to be one of sowing more death and destruction.

I don't think the problem was that Obama was an especially bad man (mostly just a typical lightweight celebrity and narcissist); he seems to even have been somewhat aware that Saudi Arabia and Israel are terrorist states, that the war in Afghanistan is pointless, and that the US should have stayed out of the Syrian civil war. Apparently he just lacked the wherewithal and leadership to really challenge the foreign policy establishment. The problem goes much deeper than a single person, even if that person happens to be president. Clearly what's needed is systematic critique and the creation of a new intelligentsia to replace the foreign policy "experts" who have caused so much harm.

In light of all this, John Mearsheimer's new book is a welcome intervention. Mearsheimer is probably best known for being the co-author of that bold, taboo-shattering book the Israel Lobby. While he and Stephen Walt did important work exposing the stranglehold the lobby has on any rational discussion of Palestine in America, they also perhaps overplayed their hand in suggesting the lobby was the main source of all the evils of American policy in the region. For instance, by arguing the Iraq war was fought for Israel. This flaw may have been indicative of a general tendency Mearsheimer has to take rhetoric or apologetics for ideas and think ideas are the driving force of history.

His latest book contains an enormous amount on the ideology of liberalism, but neoliberalism never even comes up. When he mentions Marx it's only to point out that the 19th century thinker underestimated the power of nationalism. Fair enough. On the other hand, Mearhseimer could have learned from the old boy the importance of material conditions when analyzing ideology.

Very much to his credit, Mearhseimer is able to lucidly acknowledge the scandal of US policy in the Middle East. However, he seriously goes astray in arguing all these disasters stem from a naive desire to spread democracy around the world. There might be a few cases where this framework sort of fits (Libya 2011?), but clearly there are at least as many blatant exceptions. In 2006, the people of Gaza committed the sin of voting the wrong way in an open election, and to this day Israel and the US are punishing them for it. How can that plausibly be interpreted as even misguided democracy promotion? Saudi Arabia is probably the least democratic, most reactionary regime on the face of the earth and has remained one of the key US allies in the region (even as it has continued to fund al Qaeda affiliates). It's true there were elections in Iraq after the 2003 invasion, but the one right the Bush administration really protected was the right of private property.

Rather than a case of good intentions gone awry, it seems to me much more likely those good intentions were never much more than ideological window-dressing. Bush's messianic "war on terror" failed because it never really happened. Propaganda aside, there never really was a serious effort to promote democracy, nor even to counter fanatical Wahhabism (as that would have required seriously altering our relationship with Saudi Arabia and the other wealthy Gulf monarchies). What have all these wars been about, in that case? In lieu of a more detailed explanation, for the moment I think I'm going to have to go with money and power.

*Perry Anderson has pointed out that the main purpose of the Iran deal was to ensure Israel retained its monopoly on nuclear weapons in the region. There's also a surprisingly good case to be made for why Iran should have nukes

[Murtaza · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very methodical deconstruction of the liberal foreign policy paradigm that we have grown accustomed to over the past century, arguing instead for embracing a cold realism in international affairs. Mearsheimer argues that such a system will be more honest and also more peaceful on balance. I'm not sure if I accept his arguments entirely but I have to respect the thoroughness of his argument, which is actually quite revolutionary beyond just foreign policy.

The book starts with an attack on liberalism itself as being based on a flawed and contentious understanding of human nature. According to Mearsheimer, liberals wrongly assert that individualism and individual rights are universally valued by all peoples, above, for example, communal wellbeing. As such they downplay the value of other far more durable group-based ideologies like nationalism. The fact is that there is no consensus on what constitutes "the good" and people around the world have all sorts of different ideas that are based on their own circumstances and histories. Liberals indeed tend to have a specific vision for what the good life is while claiming to be neutral on such questions, and are then zealously driven to impose that vision on the rest of the world. Mearsheimer says that he supports liberalism at home but is simply against imposing it abroad or using it as a prism through which to see the rest of the world. I'm not sure if I agree that liberal values are so absolutely contentious as he makes them out to be, as at least some of them have shown themselves to be highly popular across societies.

It takes him quite a long time to actually get to the crux of his argument, which is about foreign policy. In the liberal world order, states are like the individuals who inhabit a liberal society. Technically speaking a liberal society has a minimalist anthropology, meaning that it is more like a noble police officer that lets people live as they choose so long as they don't harm each other and obey the law. In a liberal society that police officer is embodied in the state, who you dial 9-11 for when you need help. But in international affairs, there is no 9-11. There is no police officer and no ultimate enforcer of any law. States live in a fundamentally Hobbesian, realpolitik environment, lofty liberal rhetoric aside. Above all they prioritize their survival and the weakening or destruction of rivals, living much like gangs do in lawless regions. This is the reality that we can actually observe, regardless of any honeyed words about international law.

Even ostensibly liberal states like the United States act as realists in foreign affairs, despite their rhetoric. When such states have competitors, they have no choice but to think in pure balance-of-power terms to ensure their long-term survival. When a liberal state is the sole superpower things are even worse. A lone liberal superpower will naturally feel compelled to embark on crusades because liberalism is at core a proselytizing faith. Its record shows it to be quite a violent and intolerant one at that, despite the fact that it technically doesn't even consider war to be a legitimate part of foreign relations. Liberal states are unable to deal on equal terms with illiberal ones because they view them as fundamentally illegitimate. Instead they seek to undermine and destroy them because they cannot conceive that others may have different concepts of the good, Mearsheimer argues. The wars of liberal states also tend to be full-blown moral crusades that wind up being even more brutal than the interests-based conflicts of realists, because they generate a moral compulsion to wipe out entirely an evil illiberal Other, rather than simply defeat a rival.

Would a "realist" world that discards liberal values in foreign policy entirely be better? Mearsheimer believes so. In his view states should do what is in their interests and be honest about it. They should respect each others sovereignty and not go on adventures to gift liberalism to other peoples or, God forbid, fight wars to transform their countries into liberal democracies. Instead they should seek to preserve their interests while managing their place in the global balance of power, which will hopefully lead to a more coldly honest but ultimately less violent world. It will also preserve liberalism at home by leading to less wars, and correspondingly less erosion of domestic civil liberties that such wars tend to generate over time.

The destruction wrought by the current liberal establishment is obvious. There really is an addiction to war on the part of the United States, which should generate some reflection on the violent nature of actually existing liberalism. Having said that, I could imagine a realism that is even worse, where states consider all sorts of expansive and horrible privileges to be "vital interests" worth eradicating lesser powers over. In a way they do that today anyways but are dishonest about it, Mearsheimer argues, but at least today there is the possibility of shaming them based on their own stated values.

Just on a structural level, this is an admirable book. Its not thrillingly written by any means, but it makes a very methodical case that is worth considering even if you reject its arguments. I don't think many people, including me, are ready for the total revolution in values that he is actually proposing here. But it is important to engage with his ideas and the merits of a possible realist international system, given that that is where the world seems to be headed. Trumpian America, China and Russia are not liberal states. They don't care about press freedoms of other countries, let alone their own countries. They are not interested in supporting foreign dissidents or spreading universal values. Given these stark realities, we can only hope that somehow whatever is coming next manages to be less brutal than the liberal-order has turned out to be, despite its own positive self-image.

[Max Berendsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review to follow

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mearsheimer offers a valuable but flawed critique of the Liberal Internationalist Theory of international relations.

I appreciate what Mearsheimer is doing. He is asking why, after the end of the Cold War, America has been involved in so many wars? His answer is that liberalism or Liberal Internationalism (this is quite different from what is meant by ‘liberal’ in discussions of American politics) inevitably leads to many wars. He rejects Liberal Internationalism, and instead advocates for the Realist Theory, claiming that a clear-eyed view of the world will lead to fewer wars.

His argument is not all that complicated. He claims that liberalism, the belief that every individual has certain inalienable rights, fails because it is always trumped by Nationalism and Realism. Nationalism trumps liberalism because people are social animals and they tend to be more engaged with group identities, like a national identity, and less willing to think of themselves as autonomous individual. He claims that Realism trumps Liberalism because baked into Liberalism is the idea of the night-watchman state. If you do not have this night-watchman keeping people or countries from killing each other or stealing from each other, then Liberalism is not viable. There is no 911 for you to call when another country invades you.

He goes into more detail in the book, but that is the essence of his argument. He claims that this belief in Liberal Internationalism has caused America to be more bellicose since the end of the Cold War because America’s diplomatic complex believes in Liberal Internationalism and therefore believes the US should intervene in other countries affairs to offer their citizens the opportunity to live in Liberal states. The value of this book is that it should cause Americans to rethink their commitment to Liberal Internationalism, particularly in the belief that we can change the governments of other countries.

But...Mearsheimer’s argument has several holes in it, holes big enough to drive a semi through.

First, he often offers only woolly definitions of key concepts that his argument rests on. He has several pages devoted to defining the concept of ‘nation,’ but I still came away wondering what exactly qualified as a nation for him. Essentially, he suggests that a nation is a group that has a shared culture and believes itself to be a community. But that definition is so capacious as to be meaningless. With that definition, couldn’t Catholics qualify as a nation? Are Apaches a nation or are they a part of the American nation? At one point, he talks about Canada and India being a nation “with two or more nations.” What is a multi-nation nation? I think he ducks answering these tough questions, not because he does not know the answer, but rather because he does not want to complicate his simplistic argument.

At one point (p. 105), he claims that “Civic nationalism is not a useful concept,” but on that same page he also states that the Declaration of Independence was America’s birth certificate. This is historically inaccurate and contradictory all at once. In 1776, Americans did not think of themselves as part of a single people, rather they thought of themselves as citizens of their respective colonies (hence, they eventually called them states, rather than provinces), so it would be wrong to suggest that 1776 was the birth of Americans thinking of themselves as a single nation. It was only through the process of being a part of a single polity that slowly transformed these citizens of these individual states into citizens who identified more with the wider identity of Americans. In other words, it was civic nationalism, the participation in a polity sharing common ideals, that created Americans. His woolly definition of the ‘nation’ allows him to miss these types of mistakes in his argument.

This wooliness causes lots of problems in his argument. For example, he claims that most people around the world do not buy into liberalism. He says that Russia has a “strong preference for order over rights and democracy,” and that “Russia has become steadily more authoritarian” (p. 114). But he is never clear on who he means when he is referring to “Russia:” is it the elites or the general populace or what? If it is the elites, that makes sense, because elites (inside and outside Russia) always want more power. But if that is his claim, it really proves nothing; it is like saying people want more money. Of course, elites want more power and, of course, elites are skeptical of checks on their power. In fact, the way Mearsheimer makes his claim, it seems he is applying that it is the general populace that wants this authoritarianism. He points to a 2014 poll that said that 71% of all Russians are ready to sacrifice civic freedoms to maintain order...okay, but that poll, he notes was conducted by the All-Russia Public Opinion Center. What he does not note is that the ARPOC is a state-owned polling group that has been criticized for concocting polls as a way to demonstrate Russian public support behind state policies. It is hard to claim that this poll reflects the general populace’s attitude. But because Mearsheimer never tells us what he means when he says “Russia,” his woolly definitions allow his argumentation to duck the question.

The second hole is his claim that it was a Liberal Internationalist ideology that led to the wars America has engaged in over the last three decades. His point is that, if American foreign policy leaders had adopted a clear-eyed, that is, Realist perspective like the one he is advocating, Washington would not have gotten into all these wars. On page 164, he lists five states America has tried to “topple”: Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Libya and Syria.

Of course, the US did not “topple” the governments in Egypt, Libya or Syria. Let’s take Egypt as the best example of how flawed Mearsheimer’s analysis is. The US has been sending billions of dollars to Egypt’s army since well before the Cold War ended. Mearsheimer says nothing about that. Instead, he focuses his ire on President Obama’s decision to allow the people of Egypt, who started their own revolution, to topple their octogenarian dictator. Mearsheimer claims that this nod from Obama, which stopped the army from killing protesters and which the Egyptian army carefully considered (as they are dependent on US aid), qualifies as a “toppling” lead by a American Liberal Internationalism.

Note what Mearsheimer is doing here. He is making the bizarre claim that the US giving money to the Egyptian army is not a Liberal Internationalist interference in Egypt, but having any say over whether that money is used over killing an Egyptian-lead revolution is. His solution for the US not interfering in Egyptian policy: continue giving money to the army as it violently suppresses an Egyptian-led revolution.

Mearsheimer’s book makes some valid points. Maybe the US should stop invading other countries, thinking they can pop some caps in a few dictators and magically turn their countries into democracies. But, when you get into the weeds of Mearsheimer’s argument, a lot of his points rest on a flawed foundation.

For Iraq and Afghanistan, it is not too much of a stretch to say that Liberal Internationalism animated US designs to send in troops and try to change the governments of these states. But even if his claim is not as egregious as in the Egyptian case, it is still flawed. Did the US invade Iraq entirely because it wanted to bring democracy. Certainly, that is what President Bush said, but I vaguely recall someone mentioning something about oil in the lead up to the invasion... One would have to be credulous to believe that Realist politics and thoughts of oil did not play a role in the US invasion of Iraq. That does not sound like a Realist to me.

Finally, the third problem with Mearsheimer’s book is that he is so smug. Everything he says seems to be imbued with this feeling that “I’m right and everybody else just needs to recognize that and get with it.” And this tone is more than annoying, it hits at the first two flaws. He has trouble acknowledging that his intellectual antagonists, the Liberal Internationalists, have valid points. If he were to acknowledge those points, think a little bit harder about his opponents criticisms, he might be able to deliver a better, more nuanced rethinking of international affairs.

Instead, he just gives a smug, at times, insightful, at times, deeply flawed, critique of American foreign policy.

Finally, I think there is an empirical test we can perform to test his hypothesis. He claims that the best way to make America safer would be to have an American foreign policy focused not on achieving the ideals of Liberal Internationalists, but rather one run by hard-nosed Realists looking to maximize American power. That Realist policy sounds a bit like the principles undergirding President Trump’s. Let’s do a Pepsi Challenge: After four years of an administration that rejects Liberal Interventionism for something like the Realism he advocates, is America safer and stronger in its foreign policy position? Though this is not an entirely fair question for the book (I am not sure Mearsheimer would conclude that Trump is entirely a Realist actor), I still think the answer to this question (hell no) suggests that my critique of Mearsheimer’s argument has a lot of value.

[Tyler Tidwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

IR Liberalism is the theory that democracy, inalienable natural rights, and diplomatic, economic, and security interdependence are the achievable variables in creating a peaceful and prosperous world order. As the title of this book implies, Mearsheimer believes this is simply a delusion. Building his argument on two fundamental assumptions about human nature, he attempts to show flaws in the logic of IR Liberalism which, ostensibly, have made it the impetus behind tens of millions of civilian deaths in numerous interventionist conflicts since the end of WWII. Mearsheimer claims that IR Realism – while typically perceived as narrow and nationalistic – actually provides less incentive for nation-states to go to war than its liberal counterpart, and it is therefore a more peaceful theory. Here is an outline of his ideas:

REASON AND RIGHTS

Mearsheimer’s first assumption about human nature is that reason alone is inadequate to get people to agree on first principles; namely, how we should live and what constitutes the “good life.” Environment, sentiments, and intuition are typically much more formidable in shaping our worldview than pure, cold logic. This is somewhat analogous to the debate between Hume and Kant in philosophy, in which Hume’s skepticism towards the role and resources of human reason continues to be a thorn in the paw of Analytic Philosophers to this day. Plenty of highly-intelligent, highly-educated, and highly-reasonable people come to radically different conclusions when faced with difficult issues.

One of these issues is the interrelationship of the community and the individual. Which one is more important and why? In most Western cultures, we have a strong tradition of inalienable natural rights, which has in turn created an ethic-of-autonomy within our societies: communities serve as the foundations from which individuals may flourish in a generally unconstrained manner. This concept of inalienable natural rights is so ingrained in our Western minds that we treat it in an unreflective, uncritical manner; it seems axiomatic. Is it though?

To use an anecdote I read elsewhere, Jonathan Locke went for a stroll one day in the woods of 17th century England and upon his return announced that he had discovered “natural rights,” and everyone has been playing along ever since. Even the name is ironic- if there is one thing not to be found in nature, it is rights. The lion seems oddly insensitive to the right-to-life of antelopes, and nature is much more apt to exterminate a species than preserve it. Of course, none of this is to imply that natural rights are somehow nonsensical or bad; indeed they have proven to be a very, very good thing. But are they the best thing? Most non-Western societies (which, it should be noted, constitute a majority of the world’s population) operate according to an ethic-of-community in which natural rights are secondary and therefore not inalienable. In such societies, individuals serve as the foundations from which communities can flourish.

As we’ll see below, Mearsheimer believes this lack of universal consensus on the preeminence of natural rights throws a deadly wrench into the machine of IR Liberalism.

SIMPLY SOCIAL

Mearsheimer’s second assumption is that humans are inherently more social than individualistic. There are many reason for this, but perhaps the most basic one is that being a member of a group is a great way to stay alive. Again, this idea is lost on most wealthy Westerners who live in prosperous environments that afford illusions of self-sufficiency. Many of us could work from home, have everything we need delivered, and attempt to forego any reliance on social groups. It’s hard to fully stress what an aberration this level of security is relative to the vast majority of human history and current world circumstances. Beyond raw survival however, people also find identity, meaning, purpose and a whole host of other essential psychological needs through their association with various social circles. The truly autonomous individual seems an illusion.

If we extrapolate man’s social nature to the macro level, the implications to Mearsheimer are clear: nationalists sentiments will always trump whatever empathy or trust we have for peoples of other nation-states. Simply put, most Americans are always going to care more about other Americans than about people in foreign countries with whom no strong social bond is felt. While this may sound prosaically obvious almost to the point of stupidity, Mearsheimer contends that, at its core, IR Liberalism thinks this dynamic can be changed – that the level of trust and empathy we feel for our immediate neighbors can be extended to foreigners. However, after all the rhetoric about being a conscientious “global citizen” is said and done, are most Westerners actually willing to go fight and die to protect the natural rights of someone they’ve never met?

THE LIMITS OF LIBERALISM

When we view these assumptions about human nature in light of two further observations of international dynamics, we begin to see the limits of IR Liberalism. The first observation is that most countries are nowhere close to being truly democratic, and the international realm is essentially anarchic. There is no one entity that has authority over all the others – much less the capability and willingness to exercise said authority. Nation-states are ultimately on a self-help system, like kids in the schoolyard left to their own devices while the teacher is on lunch break. There is no one to appeal to in order to rectify an injustice. International bodies have proven wildly ineffectual at stopping genocides, resolving territorial disputes, and preventing the blatant stealing of one country’s resources by another.

The second observation is that foreign leaders can never really know each other’s true intentions. World history is nothing if not an endless series of pacts, betrayals, the hedging of bets, the flipping of sides, and the saying of one thing while intending another. This happens even among nation-states of ostensibly similar ideological inclinations (witness the tumultuous happenings of the European Union).

Let us accept Mearsheimer’s four points for the sake of argument: reason cannot settle disputes about the relative import of natural rights; man cares deeply about his closest social bonds; the international realm is anarchic and actual democracies are rare; and we can never know the true intentions of others. Then let us return to the proclamations of IR Liberalism: democracy, inalienable natural rights, and diplomatic, economic, and security interdependence are the achievable variables in creating a peaceful and prosperous world order. To say there is extreme dissonance between these two lists seems an understatement. They appear more or less mutually exclusive; if one is true, the other must somehow be false. If Mearsheimer’s premises are accurate, IR Liberalism is an unachievable fool’s errand* which should be abandoned in favor of IR Realism, a theory which more closely aligns to the true state of human nature and international affairs.

*It’s important to note that Mearsheimer has no major issues with liberalism in the domestic context, where there is a central authority to arbitrate disputes and where social bonds are highly operative.

DYING (AND KILLING) FOR PEACE

IR Liberalism laid roots in the Wilsonian thinking of the 1920s and has purportedly been the modus operandi of every administration since Eisenhower (Trump is proving a bit of an exception). Naturally, there are plenty of case studies to examine – Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, et al. Let’s reiterate the driving logic though: IR Liberalism believes in the universality of inalienable natural rights and the special role of democracies in protecting and promoting these rights. This provides a powerful incentive to intervene (often militarily) in the inner workings of another nation-state, whose sovereignty is violated under the auspices of protecting the natural rights of its citizens. There is an invariably moral flavor here that makes claims of exclusivity and superiority: the good life is defined by natural rights and an ethic-of-autonomy for us, so it must be for others as well. While domestic liberalism promotes tolerance at home (where natural rights are unquestioned), IR Liberalism promotes intolerance abroad where natural rights must be imposed by force.

Mearsheimer’s main charge is that this line of thinking has kept the U.S. continuously involved in conflicts of intervention for the last seventy years. While many of the non-democratic regimes we have opposed (or deposed) were led by some genuinely bad guys, the question becomes: what is an acceptable cost to institute these changes? The problem, as John Tirman has pointed out in a recent book, is that we typically only care about and measure American blood and American treasure when evaluating the cost of a foreign intervention. Yet these factors constitute only a minuscule fraction of the total burden of any conflict – a burden which is primarily levied on foreign peoples. U.S. wars of intervention may have cost trillions of American dollars and hundreds of thousand American lives since WWII, but they have completely evaporated several foreign economies and have led to tens of millions of foreign deaths.

This is an unsettling, paradoxical observation which Mearsheimer decries as the ultimate hypocrisy of IR Liberalism: history seems to show that the attempted imposition of democracy in a foreign state will invariably come at the cost of countless innocent civilian lives. The most fundamental and inalienable of all the natural rights is the right-to-life, yet this is exactly the one we incidentally violate on a massive scale when we initiate a war of intervention…in order to create a democracy…in order to protect natural rights. Something does seem to be amiss with the logic here. Additionally, our obsession with our own natural rights has shaped an American way of war focused on using firepower, technology, and standoff distance to protect our troops – a strategy that has led to the greatest of Western military euphemisms: “collateral damage.” Here’s another unsettling question: how many Iraqis died a violent death in the final ten years before the overthrow of Saddam versus the first ten years afterwards?

Mearsheimer concludes his discussion by reiterating that most of the world is not a democracy and does not value natural rights in the same way Westerners do. If we would treat state sovereignty with the same reverence we treat natural rights, the world may not be as democratic as it is now, but it certainly would have seen far less death and destruction in the last several decades.

CRITIQUES

-Mearsheimer could be accused of a somewhat slanted interpretation of events, as the demarcation between Realist and Liberal actions probably isn’t as well-defined as he suggests. We seem to be interested in protecting the natural rights of others only when there is also something else to be gained. The Western world has stood idly by and watched genocides in which natural rights were (mostly) all that was at stake. Yet we have intervened in far less severe situations when some other tangible interest seemed to be in jeopardy – whether a regional balance-of-power or the protection of vital energy resources. Liberal rhetoric is often employed to gain domestic support for actions that, in hindsight, look very Realist from an international perspective. Pure IR Liberalism probably hasn’t been as operative as Mearsheimer would have us believe. When American blood was shed in Mogadishu, we realized just how flimsy Liberal motivations are without some sort of Realist underpinning.

-I think Mearsheimer’s assumption about the social nature of man is questionable. I tread lightly here, since Aristotle’s maxim that “man is by nature a social animal” seems to be more or less vindicated by human history, and Mearsheimer is hardly remarkable in following this line of thinking. However, I’d like to offer an alternate hypothesis.

Man is both a physical organism seeking survival and a psychological entity seeking meaning, purpose, and identity. These two fundamental requirements are radically different, but both are radically important; we do whatever it takes to satisfy them. Historically, social groups have an excellent track record of fulfilling both of these needs, but this doesn’t logically entail that man is therefore inherently social. Such a claim improperly conflates an action with its underlying motivation. A man may inherently look like a meat-eater, but in actuality he is just inherently hungry; the meat would be seen as superfluous if he had some other viable way to satisfy his hunger. Likewise, it’s totally conceivable that certain environments could provide alternate modes of securing both physical safety and psychological satisfaction without appeal to social groups.

For example, in prosperous Western societies where physical survival is no longer a daily concern and ideological tolerance is high, we find that divorce rates are on the rise, birth rates and church attendance are declining, and the extended family (even more so the tribe) is something only to be found in classic literature. If man is inherently social, why do social bonds seem to be dissolving in some communities? Perhaps man’s historic sociability has simply been in the service of his physical survival and psychological satisfaction. As he finds alternate means to secure these, he might dispense with tribe, totem, and toddler altogether. Only time will tell.

What would this mean for IR Liberalism? It’s hard to know. However, it does seem to imply that the impediment of nationalists sentiments could erode over time, making the vision of an interconnected world order seem increasingly plausible to more and more people.

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK, so I listened on Audible. And I have no idea why it took five hours to get to the main point of the book, which was fascinating and pretty convincing: America should not pursue liberal world hegemony, but instead adopt a more restrained, realist foreign policy that is based on balance of power logic.

But again, the first five hours were an almost hilariously theoretical discussion about human nature and people not being able to agree on "what constitutes the good life." I swear, if I ever hear anyone talk about "what constitutes the good life" again, I will probably kill them.

But anyway, good book! It motivated me to read more about what a realist approach would mean, in practical terms, for US foreign policy.

[… · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is important to understand the delusory proclamations of the individual American citizen - whether its the infinite love and charity of democratic Jesus or the degenerate netherworld of gender ideology where chromosomes appear to have no bearing on biological truth - work in tandem with the overarching objectives of the imperial project. All things in the American empire are essentially animated by limitlessness and that makes it the most successful suicide cult the world has ever seen.

It is at this juncture that to be considered serious one must commit to unseriousness. And this is hilariously damning if we are to still maintain belief in the notion that the west is the supreme civilizational model. An inversion of values just ain’t sustainable. And this is largely attributable to the womb-like conditions of Western life as well as its all-pervasive christianization.

The West’s financial powers appear to be the harbinger that supposedly proves the supremacy of its values. But an economic cooperative doesn’t possess an authentic telos. Instead ours is undergirded and propelled by naive sentimentalities about liberal democracy that are executed with a kind of ruthless logic that prioritizes the prerogatives of the market, which are ultimately the geopolitical objectives of state and military power.

America, due to the widely-held belief that its “exceptionalism” marks an exemption from the cyclical forces of history which have swallowed up decadent and overextended empires with indifference, seems to imagine that “reality” is an antiquated and therefore dispensable set of limits.

Naturally, this delusory worldview is devastating in more ways than one, mostly because its premises and its logical conclusions are incompatible with nearly every metric of empirical reality but which also seems to be indifferent to the historical patterns that provide an abundance of clues about exactly where we’re headed.

But to the incompetent government apparatchiks currently operating the machine, there is no historical continuum, just a new world of techno-modernity that can allow us to simply ignore the bounds that history has put in place for our benefit.

Delusion is the sociopolitical praxis of the west. It is spearheaded by the ever-ascendent neoliberal trinity of economic machinations, rhetorical maneuvers, and a full-frontal decadence of American power and excess.

John Mearsheimer provides a voice of reason and sanity. Unfortunately for us, the upper echelon of politics selects for midwit sycophants with a certain pedigree that makes them duly prepared to squat down and take their own little Ivy League dump on the world. Lucky for us, it counterbalances this by also selecting for integrity which is why some of top military generals do post-retirement contracting for Saudi Arabia (the last I heard they were still responsible for funding the 9/11 attacks).

This particular work seems more like a brass tacks version of his other notable book, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. And this is really my only complaint about the it. If you're coming to the table with deep misgivings about American foreign policy that you've likely already investigated, then this book won't provide much depth beyond the common criticisms that any foreign policy realist would have.

JM rejects the relentless and ongoing trajectory of American foreign policy and provides evidence that all of the forces working against it aren’t going away anytime soon and are, in fact, formidable foes that even the most technologically advanced military complex are incapable of overcoming.

This is proven by the facts that the last quarter of a century has been defined by a catalogue of colossal foreign policy fuckups.

Democrats still seemed to be hanging onto some semblance of their characteristic anti-war stance pre-2008 when you know who was elected, but it seems that that presidency didn’t live up to its salvific promise, and the demoralization that followed swept away the last remaining and redeemable modicum of legible political resistance within the establishment.

Democratic voters decided to change course and instead entirely enmesh themselves within the establishment apparatus and all that entailed - the military industrial complex and the bellicose foreign policy to go with it, big Pharma, corporations, insurance companies, wall street etc. It only manages to cling to power with the bottom of the barrel scrum cobbled together by its savior complex overlords for its political upkeep, which is all it needs to continue to wheel and deal the mandates of its death cult.

And deal them it will. The political class has a breathtaking mastery of rhetorical machinations as well as an abundance of exploitable raw human capital to work with. The propaganda machine is always operating at full tilt and the malleability of American sensibility is always up for grabs.

The only apparent hope appears to come from the right, which has spawned a signifiant number of alt-right and reactionary oriented ideologies that, however imperfect, appear to possess some vitalistic anti-war/isolationist element as well as an observance of the “no enemies to the right” - meaning even a many-headed hydra of right wing preoccupations could produce a sizable enough bulwark to take down the absolutely moronic horde of intervention fetishists that always seem to replenish themselves in the halls of power.

Hope and Change.

[Manar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mearsheimer offers a substantial theoretical critique of political liberalism, arguing that its failures are due to incompatibility with nationalism and realism. He argues that a balance-of-powers logic should be adopted moving forward since the liberal hegemony approach has proven to be counter-productive. While I enjoyed reading his criticism of US foreign policy, he comes across as delusional as the liberals he critiques. He does not even entertain the possibility of other motivators besides spreading democracy for the sake of liberal peace. Does he really buy into the argument that invading Iraq was to liberate its people?

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took a few grad seminars w. Dr. Mearsheimer, and I'm always struck by the clarity of his thought. This book is no exception. In many ways it is the summary of a life's work, a sweeping and exceptionally clear argument that begins with first principles not just about the nature of international politics but human nature itself. Nonetheless, there are big parts of the book I disagree with, even if I generally agree with the thesis.

Ok, here's the argument: JM argues that realism and nationalism can, and to some extent should, trump liberalism in international politics. Nationalism is closely connected to our deeply social, even tribal natures. It speaks to us in more compelling ways than liberalism doesn't, which Mearsheimer treats as a fairly modern idea with limited purchase in the world (especially outside of the educated and Western parts). Realism flows naturally from nationalism: obviously you will do (or expect your leaders to do) what benefits your country and keeps it secure. Plus, in classic realist fashion, the anarchic structure of international politics compels states to act for security first, and there's no real way around this.

The real problem for Mearsheimer is when a highly liberal country (America) no longer has a superpower balancer (Soviets) and is therefore free (or at least believes it is free) to spread its doctrines and beliefs around the world. Mearsheimer lumps neoconservatives and most conservatives into this more deeply rooted liberalism here, and he shows how a foreign policy based on universalistic claims about human rights, capitalism, and democracy, the desire to spread these things, and the delegitimization of the legitimate security concerns of other states has led to a host of disasters: the Iraq War, the GWOT, Libya, Syria, bad relations with Russia, widespread anti-Americanism, and an exhausted and disillusioned populace at home.

I agree with the broad structure of JM's argument, and I greatly enjoyed his discussion of liberalism, realism, nationalism, and their relationships to international politics. However, I disagree with him in 3 big ways.

1. Mearsheimer assigns far too much significance to ideologies, which he treats as determining foreign policy decisions, and not enough attention to context and contingency. As a historian, I have to say this, but it is true. This is where I particularly need to defend the Obama admin. In cases like Libya and Syria, there truly were no good options. The Obama admin didn't seriously believe they were going to fundamentally alter the political systems/ideologies of these societies. They were trying to avert disaster: ongoing Civil Wars and the possibility of near-genocidal slaughter. Critics can and should question these decisions, but for JM they emerge quite deterministically from Obama's liberal ideals rather than the broader desire to minimize harm. This was a problem in several parts of the book.

2. Now I need to critique the theory a bit. Mearsheimer has a near endless patience with Russia. Somehow, none of the current situation with America is Russia's fault. Here's his story: Russia has always feared great power encroachment on its western borders, and in the 2000s and 2010s the US, as a liberal, regime-changing state, spooked Putin by supporting Georgian separatism, expanding NATO, offering rhetorical support to Russian protestors, and lastly, intervening diplomatically to support Ukrainian independence. Putin is simply striking back out of realist, geopolitical calculation to balance against this over-use of US power.

The broader point here points to realism's greatest flaw: the internal composition of states, or their regimes, matter in terms of how they behave in int'l politics. Why does Russia see the US as a threat? Does it really fear a German style invasion? No. Its oligarchic, arch-conservative, dictatorial regime fears in large part what the Soviets feared: the example of free, prosperous, Western-looking societies on their border that are living refutations of the Russian ideology and political system. This is where I fundamentally agree with Tim Snyder's take on Russia: Putin's global attempt to sow tribalism, reinforce blood-and-soil nationalism, and undermine democracy is ultimately an attempt to save his own ass. His regime is in jeopardy the more there are successful liberal democracies in the world and the more they more toward his border. He would be safer if those democracies become more like Russia; corrupt, both cynical and arch-conservative, selfish, unequal, and deeply divided by moral and cultural conflict. The geopolitical concerns still matter, but this is the root of Russia's current assault on the free world. There's really nothing the United States can do to change this viewpoint other than capitulate to Russia. Putin will always see anything the US does as trying to undermine him, and even if the US is truly doing nothing he will just make up whatever lies he wants. The US might as well stand up for the sovereignty and nascent democracies of Eastern Europe because our differences are irreconcilable at their core. And yes, I know that this is almost exactly what George Kennan wrote in the Long Telegram. Consider this the "Long Goodreads Review."

3. Lastly, while I think JM has a strong critique of one type of liberalism, he does straw man and oversimplify liberal internationalism to some extent. HIs liberalism is rather all or nothing: it is the uncompromising democratic imperialism of the neocons, one that is doomed to drive the US into conflict in unimportant areas. But Mearsheimer seems to overlook the usefulness of some degree of institutionalization, norm-building/enforcing, and interdependence. The liberalism of the postwar international system that the US built through institutions like NATO, the UN, other regional security arrangements, human rights treaties, acting as the balancer of last resort in key regions, Bretton Woods, etc, etc (as explained brilliantly by G. John Ikenberry and others) is far more moderate, cooperative, and effective. It often got out of hand (Vietnam), it faced tons of domestic criticism from both sides, but overall it created a far more stable world and enabled the freedom and economic growth that undermined tyranny in places like the Eastern Bloc. If I were Mearsheimer, I would be arguing for the abandonment of the crusading form of liberalism he discusses here and a return to this more chastened liberal internationalism.

The real test, however, if whether nations can avoid seeing themselves as the arbiters of morality and the saviors of the world, especially when they have deeply liberal cores. That is JM's ultimate rejoinder to my criticisms here, and it's an important one. Still, I think his argument has some big problems. I nonetheless learned a ton from this book. There are some moments in it where the descriptions of big ideas (both his and other people's) are so crisp and clear that you just think: Damn, I hope someday my intellectual life comes together as nicely as this. Once again, even though I didn't agree with him all the way, JM challenged me to think more precisely and marshal better counterpoints. Recommended for people with a bit of an IR background who like very ideas-driven analysis of foreign policy.

[Kaleb]

Mearsheimer is critical of liberal hegemony, the strategy where America tries to spread liberal democracy, often by force. He argues this policy has led to endless wars, is ignorant of the power of nationalism, and that world/American interests are better served by embracing realism and balance of power politics.

The first half of the book is Mearsheimer analyzing and criticizing the philosophy behind liberalism. This part of the book was a little iffy, I think Mearsheimer can be a little dismissive of some aspects of liberalism. For example, he says liberalism is contradictory, because liberals both believe in the universal value of inalienable human rights but also believe there can be no universal agreement on the good life. I feel like the response to that is that liberal has rights that generally appeal to almost all people(freedom of religion, freedom of speech), while being neutral on what people do with those rights.

He makes strong arguments about the failure of liberal hegemony, and why America should be more restrained in its foreign policy. Writing-wise, it's readable, but I think he can be repetitive of the same basic concepts, without devoting much time to exploring good counterarguments. Overall, I enjoyed this, good introduction to IR and the differences between liberalism and realism. Fond memories of AGS and my intro to IR days.

Quotes

“In short, in a world where reason takes you only so far, the balance of power usually decides who gets to write and enforce the rules.”

“In practice, however, maximizing power will always take precedence over respecting those rights. Great powers typically respect rights only when it is in their strategic interest to do so, or when doing so is of little strategic consequence. ”

“During that period it has been at war for two out of every three years. It is no exaggeration to say that the United States is addicted to war.”

[Ali Hassan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book actually talks about three great isms of liberalism, realism, and nationalism. It makes these isms easy to understand and provides all the substantial material necessary for concluding the present and future dynamics of these three ideologies or isms.

[Markus · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book by John Mearsheimer, a history professor in the US, famous for developing the realist school of thought, which describes how great powers in the world are mainly driven by a rational desire for regional influence and survival. I read this because Ive watched his lecture and his interviews and he seems to have an accurate understanding of the reasons behind the Ukraine war.

Basically the liberal delusion is the notion that it might not be a good idea to forcibly supplant a more primitive, autocratic regime with our Western democratic system. The thinking behind the delusion is that United States, as the most powerful nation in the world, only wants good in the world, doesn’t want to be a threat to anyone and just wants to spread happiness in the form of democracy. Consequently, any nation that reacts aggressively to this behavior, is crazy, irrational, warmongering and so on. There is some good reasoning behind this, namely that Western democracy is indeed better to live in than in more primitive and autocratic regimes but that doesn’t mean forcing it on nations and people is a good idea.

A more simplistic thinking would be that democracy is good and spreading it is the right thing to do. People like freedom and they deserve to be freed of autocratic regimes. Yet it’s not that simple. There is, for example, the idea of the good life. For us in the Western World it might be freedom and democracy and so on but it can mean something far different in other parts of the world. What is the best form of society? I definitely think that the more individual freedom, the better a society in general but people don’t agree with that and it is okay. The point is that even among our own relatively homogenous wester society, there is a lot of disagreement on what the good life is. It is only reasonable to say that this disagreement grows a lot wider when dealing with markedly different societies. Hence it might seem to us that we deliver happiness and freedom in the form of democracy but that doesn’t mean it will look like that to the recipient.

The problem arises when western (US) politicians see themselves as do-gooders and emancipators of the non-western world. This will lead to conflicts since our politicians refuse to understand the other side’s perspective and this will lead to war. The current mindset of these politicians and the mainstream media is that if any targeted regime doesn’t agree with its “emancipation”, it is basically justified to destroy that regime. This would at least be the official reasoning but behind-the-scenes it might be completely different. Example would be the 2011 Libyan war where Qatar tried to overthrow the Libyan government by sponsoring radical Islamist rebels. Qatar’s aim was to gain influence over the region and when the coup failed, Qatar sought for help from the Western military machine and as a result NATO bombed Libya into a rubble. The official reasoning behind this clusterfuck in the western media was that it was a humanitarian mission and we were liberating Libyan people from an evil autocrat while we were actually trading favors with Qatar and destroyed the most stable society in North Africa. After the war Libya became a hub for radical Islamists, terrorism and eventually an impetus for the 2015 European migrant crisis.

Some more important points would be the success rate of western intervention in other regimes, where the available studies show that it is rather an exception that any kind of intervention would result in democratic implementation. According to one study, the US intervened in 35 countries between WWII and 2004 and only in one of these cases a stable democracy emerged within 10 years. That’s a success rate of less than 3%. Furthermore intervention usually results in a decline in democracy. The conclusion from this is that implementation of a democracy in a country is only feasible when certain internal preconditions are present before the intervention. These condition are however rare in countries where the cost of intervention is low, and the US as a rule intervenes in countries where this cost is low.

Another idea against this kind of liberal expansionism is that it reduces liberal values in the home country. Intervening in other countries around the world will require a large military force and lots of manipulation from the politician to get to population to at least somewhat agree with the military actions. An example would be Obama using the US military in 2011 without Congress approval to bomb Libya because it was supposedly an urgent humanitarian mission. Examples like these and amassing a large military force to intervene in other countries will hollow our liberal values at home. These hollowed values would be individual freedom because we are encroaching on other people’s freedom without provocation; transparent institutions since we are creating less transparent institutions in order to get the populace to agree with the wars; and free market economy since wars are funded through forced taxation and not voluntary participation.

Furthermore the influence of nationalism will usually prevail over the all the other ideologies including liberal democracy which adds another layer of difficulty to successfully overthrowing regimes in order to implement democracies. An example would be communist countries fighting wars between each other in the 20th century and the Soviet Union eventually falling apart after nationalist revolutions in its member countries despite these countries being communistic.

[Matthew Englett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read a few of this author’s books. He is just such a great thinker, writer and lecturer. I do agree with his portrayal of geo politics. He is certainly correct on that note as it currently stands. However, he seems a bit too tied to his political philosophy and feels we are stuck in an iron cage. I’m a bit more of a pragmatist when it comes to these things. I just want the best result for the US and the rest of the world. I want to do what works to get us there. The US liberal democracy and others in the West have provided empirical evidence that our system does produce the best outcome for individuals and the country as a whole. Let’s just be completely open and honest about this. Our system has won out. Where neo-cons and other proponents of liberal hegemony got it wrong is that an interventionist foreign policy is the best way to encourage the spread of liberal democracy. This policy, as currently being implemented, has failed! This book provides all the evidence you need to make that determination.

In my view, the best way to promote liberalism throughout the rest of the world is as follows. First, it can by no means be by force. Other countries must come join us by choice. In time, the rest of the world will adopt liberalism. There will always be varying degrees of it based on a countries taste. That is completely their prerogative too. Second, strengthen the rules based order we have led and start taking it seriously. We need to have a rules based order that says let’s trade, get rich and prosper together. We will respect whoever represents a particular country regardless of their politics. We do not do regime change. If a country joins our rules based order and follows these rules, the US would give it an article 5 guarantee. If we actually behaved in this fashion most countries would be members and follow the rules. If a country violates the rules (like China has) then we kick it out of the group and not turn a blind eye to it when everyone is getting rich from it. Third, keep economic and military dominance across the globe so we can effectively deal with any countries that tries to threaten us or another group member.

If we were to adopt these basic principles the rest of the world would eventually become some form of a liberal democracy and at some point we could all put down the weapons. Violence just won’t be an option. I’m not implying this is going to happen in my lifetime. We just have to do our job of getting closer to it in our lifetimes. Change like this isn’t really change in the political sense as much it is about evolving. Ever since the enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, life has been rapidly getting better. Our recent ancestors would be astonished at our lives today. It’s up to everyone alive in the US today to make sure that trend continues and we aren’t the generation to screw it up.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mearsheimer makes a compelling case that US foreign policy should be driven by realism, as opposed to liberal policies that have inspired interventions abroad throughout the Cold War and since its end. Mearsheimer shows that intervention abroad rarely works out as intended, and is usually very costly, and that the US would be better off only intervening abroad when core interests are at stake and instead focus on domestic issues. Notably, Mearsheimer does argue that the US does have an interest in stability in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, leaving only the countries Africa, Central Asia, and the weaker countries in the Middle East out of the US's areas of interest.

Mearsheimer's argument is flawed for several reasons. First, Mearsheimer does not address the possibility that the failures of liberalism may not be due to the theory itself, but due to bad implementation of the theory. He also ignores the fact that although the US has been often driven by liberal ideas when intervening abroad, there is a very strong case to be made that the US only used the rhetoric of liberalism to justify fundamentally realist policies. For example, the rhetoric of liberal intervention has not prevented the US from allying itself with dictators throughout and after the Cold War, and the US has frequently not intervened abroad when doing so would have saved countless lives. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 may have been supported by liberal rhetoric, but failed not primarily due to weaknesses of liberal interventionism, but due to the war planning that did not plan for stability operations, the unaccounted for animosity between Sunni and Shia factions, and multiple unforced errors that undermined US operations. One could argue that intervention in Libya and Syria after the Arab Spring were driven by liberal interventionism, but they were also driven by a sense of realism that led the US to limit its involvement in both conflicts, leading to instability in both countries that remains to this day.

Another flaw of Mearsheimer is that it is unlikey that US policymakers would effectively implement a realist foreign policy, just as they have failed in the past when implementing liberal policies.

Lastly, Mearsheimer fails to consider that we should not judge foreign policy by whether or not it fails some of the time, but by whether or not the probability for conflict is increased or decreased. It is no small accomplishment that the international community has avoided a nuclear war and that there has been peace in Western Europe for over 70 years. This is partly due to the cold, realist logic of nuclear warfare, but also certainly due to the economic interdependence and opportunities for cooperation in international forums that are part of the liberal international order.

Overall, Mearsheimer is right that liberal foreign policies often fail, but he does not show that realist foreign policies would be implemented more skillfully. However, he is correct that the US should not be driven solely by liberal interventionism, and instead ask whether or not fundamental national interests are at stake when considering which foreign policy to pursue. This consideration would have helped the US avoid the costly 2003 war in Iraq and may have led to better outcomes when thinking about other areas the US has intervened.

[Thor Hansson · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this work Mearsheimer, a staunch offensive realist, attempts to deal a heavy blow to liberal foreign policy (both in the theoretical debate and against its practical application).

Liberal foreign policy, according to Mearsheimer, is akin with missionary activity. A sentiment I very much agree with. It's very interesting how we in modern secular western society look down on the efforts of the past to christianize other parts of the world as 'colonial', 'imperialist', and 'supremacist'. But when we today make efforts to liberalize other parts of the world, those accusations, for some odd (or not so odd) reason, fail to surface.

U.S. foreign policy is a particularly good example of this. But my own native Sweden, for example, also made itself guilty of this when it adopted a feminist foreign policy in which it aimed to promote women's rights and spread feminist ideology (among other things) across the developing world.

Liberal foreign policy, according to Mearsheimer, is not only doomed to fail but rather already has. It, according to him, becomes addicted to war and regime change in its pursuit of creating a global liberal hegemony and is bound to wreck havoc and destruction in the process. Furthermore, it will have negative effects on liberal policies at home as well. And I think this ties in with the domestic pushback many liberal nations have been experiencing lately on the home front as well. Missionary activity of this kind does not appear to have been received well internationally nor domestically.

My main critique of Mearsheimers book is that it mainly focuses on the United States. Obvously the U.S. is the only liberal superpower in the world today, but still. Is it really a guarantee that another liberal power would suffer the same fate, and be responsible for the same development, as the U.S.? Maybe, maybe not.

[Nick · Rating 2 out of 5]

First of all just for the record: I am not a liberal, neither when it comes to domestic politics (which is further complicated by the fact that liberal has a different meaning in the European context compared to the inane interpretation in American politics) nor foreign relations.

Mearsheimer's basic argument is interesting. Namely that a liberal foreign policy is more likely than a realist one to lead to war due to its ideological underpinnings. The, among liberals, commonly held view that if only all countries in the world were liberal democracies there would be no more war serves as an impetus for intervention and regime change.

Furthermore, the basic three liberal theories of peace - democratic peace theory, economic interdependence theory, and liberal institutionalism - are inherently flawed and no match for realism with its emphasis on survival.

But then in order to support his hypothesis Mearsheimer starts building strawmen. One example will suffice, but be assured that it is only one of them. Take Mearsheimer's argument about George W. Bush and the Iraq War (my emphasis):

Probably no recent president embraced the mission of spreading liberalism more enthusiastically than George W. Bush, who said in a speech in March 2003, two weeks before the invasion of Iraq: “The current Iraqi regime has shown the power of tyranny to spread discord and violence in the Middle East. A liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform that vital region, by bringing hope and progress into the lives of millions. America’s interests in security, and America’s belief in liberty, both lead in the same direction: to a free and peaceful Iraq.”

According to Mearsheimer, the Iraq War (or just about any American war for that matter) was fought with the naive goal of spreading democracy:

The Bush Doctrine, developed during 2002 and used to justify the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, is probably the best example of this kind of liberal interventionism. [...] What drove the United States to invade Iraq was the perceived need to deal with the proliferation and terrorism. And the best way to do that, the Bush team thought, was to turn all the countries in the greater Middle East into liberal democracies. This would make the region a giant zone of peace and take both problems off the table. (p. 155-156)

Anyone who still believes that the Iraq War was about spreading democracy and not about oil and American supremacy in the Middle East region, please raise your hand.

Mearsheimer's argument is ludicrous not only in regards to Iraq, but to the supposed (official) goal of the Bush doctrine, which is "to turn all the countries in the greater Middle East into liberal democracies". If that's the case you immediately run into little problems, namely that the same authoritarian countries in the Middle East region - especially Jordan, Egypt, Israel and Saudi Arabia (and not to forget Syria, which at this time was a vital partner in the American so-called War on Terror and to whom the US outsourced the torture of their concentration camp inmates) - are the strongest allies of the US, and have been for decades. One wonders how Mearsheimer would explain that

Following Mearsheimer's argument, humanitarian interventions would be prime examples of liberal foreign policy with its emphasis on the "responsibility to protect" and "rights as trumps" to borrow from Ronald Dworkin in Theories of Rights.

According to Sean D. Murphy in Humanitarian Intervention: The United Nations in an Evolving World Order the most prominent examples of "humanitarian intervention" in the period between the end of the Kellogg-Briand pact in 1928 and the establishment of the UN Charter in 1945 were Japan's attack on Manchuria in 1931, Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, and Hitler's occupation of parts of Czechoslovakia in 1939. All were couched in humanitarian rhetoric (p. 57-62).

Anyone who believes that the goal of these fascist dictatorships was protecting individual freedoms and spreading democracy, please raise your hand.

Somewhat ironically Mearsheimer states the following:

One might argue that policymakers can make their intentions clear through their words, but talk is cheap. Leaders sometimes misrepresent their views or simply lie. (p. 132)

One can only wonder why the United States - "the quintessential liberal democratic state" (p. 215) governed by a "liberal hegemony" elite dedicated to liberal foreign policy with its emphasis on regime change in the name of democracy - has backed brutal dictatorships all over the globe, during the Cold War as well as after, if Mearsheimer's arguments are true.

I refuse to believe that a seasoned realist veteran like Mearsheimer actually believes his own arguments. I think it's as simple as this: States are more likely to use liberal rhetoric instead of realist ones when building a case for casus belli. Florid speeches about democracy and human rights are an easier sell than realist talking points. Mearsheimer confuses PR with actual motivations.

As for the book in general, it is very repetitive. The same arguments are repeated in absurdum. Perhaps I'm an unfair judge since I have a master's degree in political science, but even if you are new to the field of international relations you are most likely to have your eyes glaze over after a while.

I paused reading this book for a couple of months when I was about halfway through, simply because it was quite dull. When I was a student at university, we joked that American authors must be paid by the page due to often quite long winded arguments (not that they are any match for French scholars!) and graphics on every other page. I suspect that this book would have worked better as an article or a chapter in an anthology.

[Nazmi Yaakub · Rating 5 out of 5]

Buku yang dibeli ketika mantan Presiden Amerika Syarikat (AS), Donald Trump dicabar Joe Biden dalam Pilihan Raya Presiden negara ‘Pak Cik Sam’ tetapi mula betul-betul membaca selepas Biden mengangkat sumpah kepresidenan berlatarbelakangkan serbuan ke atas bangunan Capitol kira-kira dua minggu sebelumnya.

Dengan Biden atau ahli politik tradisi kembali menakhodai Rumah Putih dan bukan ‘tokoh luar’ yang tidak boleh sepenuhnya dikawal berdasarkan ‘tradisi’ dasar politik luar AS, maka buku ini wajar dibaca sama ada rakan wartawan, ahli politik mahupun aktivis di negara ini. Apatah lagi antara arahan eksekutif yang ditandatangani Biden adalah juga berkait dengan dasar liberal progresif yang menjadi amalan negara liberal yang menduduki status kuasa besar dunia.

Buku ini menjelaskan mengapa dasar dan tindakan AS untuk mengembang dan mengukuhkan hegemoni liberal hanya membawa negara itu kepada keburukan, malah bertentangan dengan hasrat atau kepercayaan yang berakar kepada liberalisme itu sendiri. Pengarang yang berpegang kepada aliran realist meyakini ia lebih tepat untuk dipegang dan dilaksanakan AS berbanding meneruskan hegemoni liberal dalam dasar luarnya.

[Jack Taccons · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mearsheimer conduce una coerente e convincente analisi sul fallimento dell'egemonia liberale, progetto intrapreso dalle amministrazioni Usa per diffondere la democrazia liberale che in realtà porta diversi guai in politica estera e interna. Davvero un'ottima lettura.

[Daniel Rellaford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book. Mearsheimer provides a really compelling argument for why most of the wars of the last 20 years are the US’s fault. He calls it like it really is. Very well reasoned and an interesting read.

[Mark James · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am trying to understand the Ukraine War.

The West’s emphasis on the psychology of Russian leader Vladimir Putin – who gave the order to invade Ukraine – certainly resonates, but it is also not entirely satisfying. I am not convinced, for example, that if somebody else besides Vladimir Putin was president of Russia that the invasion would not have happened. Indeed, the invasion might have happened even sooner if somebody else had been at the helm in the Kremlin.

John Mearsheimer is perhaps America’s, if not the world’s, premier living spokesperson for the ‘Offensive Realism’ paradigm of international relations and global geopolitics. Mearsheimer’s take on the Ukraine War offers a compelling argument that Putin and the Russian political establishment are operating from a realist balance-of-power playbook that is steeped in European history. In contrast, he argues that the West is operating from a playbook that has diverged from history – and reality.

The Great Delusion, published in 2018, argues that the United States and the West are pursuing a foreign policy program that promotes liberal democracy, the rule of law, and social engineering, but which is disengaged from historical reality.

One must understand that the Soviet Union, the bulk of which comprised Russia, suffered more than 26 million dead in World War Two, what Russians call the Great War. Some Russian scholars estimate over 40 million deaths directly and indirectly related to the Nazi invasion of the USSR and Russia beginning in June 1941, or nearly a quarter of the country’s population at the time.
And then there were the invasions by Napoleon’s France almost a century and a half before in 1812. Both Napoleon’s and Hitler’s invasions of Russia came from the west. Some six hundred years earlier, a Mongol invasion came from the east and subjugated the Rus (pre-cursors to modern Russia) for over 250 years.

Because of the geography of Europe – there are no real physical landscape barriers between the Atlantic Ocean in the west and the Pacific Ocean in the east – Russia has been subject to sweeping invasions from Western Europe on the one hand, and from the steppes of Siberia in the east on the other.

The political elites of Russia live in fear: fear of utter destruction. Modern Russia is a vast area of land – the world’s largest – and is a tapestry of ethnicities and nationalities. The movement of peoples across the expanse of Eurasia through millennia have created this mosaic of cultures across a geographic expanse.

America and much of Europe – while ethnically diverse – are not largely defined by geographical divisions that could spinoff into a multiplicity of ethnic and linguistic-based territories to form nations of various sizes. Moscow barely keeps the lid on ancient ethnic tensions, and it has largely done so through autocratic rule. That is, strongman rule by Russia’s Tsars and the USSR’s Politburo – and post-Soviet leaders like Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin – have managed to keep the country together and harness its vast resources to build and maintain a militarily (and, for a time, an economically) powerful empire. Any form of external pressure – the threat of war, for example – could lead to the unraveling of Russia and the emergence of myriad ancient ethnic states.

Paranoid thinking? Not really. When the USSR broke apart, Chechnya declared its independence from Russia, sparking the First Chechen War in 1994. Russia cracked down on Chechnya in fear that multiple other regions would declare their independence and leave Russia as a weakened, rump state a fraction of its size.

Russia lost that first war. Russia’s very existence in its current form was questionable.
Meanwhile, the United States and the West gloated in victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War and immediately worked to expand the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) – a defense alliance against the no-longer existing Soviet Union – eastward to include much if not all of the newly democratic Eastern European countries and peel them away from Moscow’s orbit.

Mearsheimer doesn’t note it, but NATO’s and the EU’s expansion eastward were realist moves. The Clinton administration and EU officials sought to prevent the emergence of ancient passions and grievances in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall as what happened in the former Yugoslavia. The Soviet sphere of influence had collapsed, leaving a security vacuum. The US, EU, and NATO filled that vacuum by expanding NATO and the EU eastward.

But not without quid pro quo. In order to extend security guarantees in the form of NATO and promise economic integration via entrance into the European Union, the countries of Eastern Europe had to implement reforms by guaranteeing minority rights, establish democratic norms, and follow the rule of law.

This is where Mearsheimer’s overall critique of US foreign policy comes in. Mearsheimer argues that, since end of the Cold War, the US has embarked on a foreign policy crusade to remake the world in its own image: that is, to spread democracy and the rule of law. American policymakers argue that a world of democracies, the rule of law, and integrated economies reduces the criteria that often lead to war and increases global security. A foreign policy that is, Mearsheimer forcefully contends, based on fantasy. This activist foreign policy pits the US against autocratic regimes around the world and leads to more instability as the US seeks to isolate and cutoff such governments from global trade. Furthermore, it has led the United States into unnecessary (and failed) wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and (failed) armed interventions in Syria and Libya. Mearsheimer argues that pursuing political liberalism abroad has the unintended affect of promoting ill-liberalism at home in the form of a powerful national security state and military-industrial complex. Wars abroad have also undermined America’s mission: documented torture at Abu Gharib prison in Iraq, black prison and interrogation sites throughout Afghanistan and the Middle East, and a policy of rendition – snatching suspects off the streets of allied nations and flying them to other countries whose interrogation practices fall outside the rule of law. The use of the American navy facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was designed to operate outside of domestic American law and has left hundreds of prisoners in limbo. All of this, in turn, has led to more government secrecy and prosecutions of whistleblowers.

America’s and the West’s policy of spreading democracy completely ignores the role of powerful forces like nationalism and fear. US policymakers argue that these are outdated world views that have no place in the Twenty-first Century. Never mind that Russia is fearful of geography. Germany – the enemy in the Great War that killed 40 million Russians and Soviets eighty years ago – is, today, a fully pacified and functioning liberal democracy, integrated and at peace with its neighbors. There is no threat against Russia from the West.

But Russia does fear the West. And others.

Russia is a declining power. Its economy collapsed after the fall of the Soviet Union, and its transition to capitalism was chaotic and disastrous for many. Russia faced separatism in Chechnya and elsewhere. China is rising on its southeastern flank and is a nuclear-armed superpower. Islamism is rampant on its southern flank in Afghanistan and Iran. NATO and the European Union are encroaching on Russia from the west. Further, Russia’s population is aging and in decline, and six million Russians found themselves in a foreign country when the USSR dissolved.

Rather than acknowledging Russian security fears and negotiating a comprehensive diplomatic security arrangement, the US and the West press on. For example, Mearsheimer argues that Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus could be a neutral buffer zone between NATO/EU and Russia and aligned to neither side. This would assuage Russian fears of nuclear-armed NATO/EU encroachment on its borders.

The US and the West argue that these countries have a right to self-determination and the right to choose their allegiances. NATO and the EU will welcome them into their fold if they choose to align with the West. That includes Georgia, by the way, way down in the Caucasus on Russia’s southern border.

Mearsheimer argues that, in an ideal world, yes, that should be the case. But Russia is a nuclear armed power and neither Washington nor Brussels determine Russia’s security concerns. Besides, the Financial Crisis of 2008-10 showed just how fragile the EU can be. The whole thing threatened to come apart. Nationalism came right back to the fore in Germany, France, Italy, Hungary, and the UK (Brexit). Russian fears may seem unreasonable to the West now, but who’s to say what the world will look like in fifty years, or even ten years?

Nationalism, after all, played a key role in the breakup of the USSR itself, including in Russia and Ukraine.

Russia and Ukraine have historically deep cultural ties. Russia has been warning the West since 1991 that Ukraine was off-limits. Russia warned that it would act militarily, if necessary, to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO and otherwise integrating with the West.
A war in Ukraine would further weaken a declining Russia. So why would Russia take such drastic action knowing that it could even hasten its decline?

Because of fear. War is unpredictable, and it can change the dynamic.

I should note that this book was published in 2018, four years before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The war drags on.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Great Delusion investigates the interplay between liberal democratic, realist, and nationalist forces in the international arena, convincingly articulating a case for offensive realism as an alternative foreign policy approach for uni-polar liberal hegemons such as the post-Cold War United States. Before this exploration, Mearsheimer spends a significant amount of time enumerating and defining the essential international relations and political philosophy concepts at play, which includes important metaphysical digressions to Hobbesian, Lockeian, or Kantian worldviews. Although this may seem gratuitous to many readers, I do appreciate his clarity. I suspect the opening chapters and the rather colloquial prose throughout the book lend it a broader appeal—a vital consideration since the American media and populace will need to get on board with academics to disturb the obstinate foreign policy elites.

Mearsheimer follows the foundational chapters with a wide-ranging explanation of the limits of political liberalism. While he believes liberal democracy is a worthy pursuit domestically, he points out the contradictions and flaws in a system with such grand assumptions. These "cracks in the liberal edifice" usually reappear as calamitous failures when liberal democracy is purveyed on the international scale, which, as an anarchic playing field, lacks the requisite hierarchical organization (e.g. within nation-states) to ward off survival-driven realists and self-determined nationalists. In short, Mearsheimer contends that liberalism greatly underestimates these other forces. Time after time, liberal efforts abroad prove to be horribly naive, assuming that paternalistic good intentions and state-building activities will be greeted with appreciation as more states see the economic incentives, democratic virtues, and international integration that comes with caving to the liberal hegemon.

To bolster these claims, Mearsheimer takes a tour of the various U.S. failures since it became the preeminent global power after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, and Syria are rather briskly explained, but I don't fault the author for some of the succinct declarations because most readers will already be somewhat familiar with these case studies. (As a brief aside, I'd like to applaud Mearsheimer's exhaustive endnotes—newcomers and experts alike will have plenty of reading to do!) Though George W. Bush may be the biggest culprit for liberalism's disasters, no recent president can avoid blame (highlighted by Mearsheimer's more detailed case study of Ukraine and the decades-long creeping threat of NATO and the EU on Russia's perimeter), and future presidents will likely cave to a liberal foreign policy as long as the U.S. remains the sole power and tolerant of its repeated failures.

Mearsheimer's prescription for continued U.S. security and preeminence amounts to a lighter footprint abroad through a realist foreign policy that at once acknowledges the limits of state-building, economic influence, and cultural understanding; the resilient power of realism and nationalism, even among weak states; and the ghastly track record of liberal endeavors thus far. I, for one, am thoroughly convinced. This is an excellent book for realists looking to contextualize their arguments, liberals and idealists looking for compelling alternatives, and any curious reader wondering what may have caused things to go so horribly wrong.

[Peter Hansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Overall, fantastic story Mearsheimer tells about the failure of the liberal foreign policy blob. He uses his theory—offensive realism—to explain why US foreign policy has, since the end of the Cold War, failed so spectacularly. Summary below:

Ch. 1: The Impossible Dream
-Liberal Hegemony is the unipole seeks to export liberal democracy, open markets, and intl institutions. It ignores balance of power politics because it has no peer competitor.
-Liberalism’s belief in universal rights often leads to calls for regime change in countries violating human rights. The core of the policy is interventionist because the crusading liberal state wants to safeguard the human rights of others.
-In the intl system liberalism runs against realism and nationalism.
-There are three liberal alternatives to realism:
1. democratic peace theory
2. economic interdependence theory
3. liberal institutionalism
-Liberalism is a great domestic philosophy but a terrible guide to foreign policy. Liberal at home, realist abroad.

Ch 2: Human Nature and Politics
-Humans are social animals, individualism comes later. We possess reason but it’s a limited faculty. We’re mostly instinct and group think.
-Humans disagree about first principles and reason cannot help us adjudicate who is right.
-Humans are intrinsically social and the social group is a survival vehicle.
-culture is the glue that binds social groups together.
-political institutions are created by social groups to deal with external groups and mediate disputes among group members.
-In group relations are hierarchical but relations between groups is anarchic. Each group fears the intentions of other groups so getting powerful is the best way to survive at the group level.

Ch. 3: Political Liberalism
-liberalism’s 3 core tenants:
1.) universal, inalienable rights (to life, speech etc)
2.) Toleration - we cannot all agree on first principles or versions of the good life so we must tolerate alternative views.
3.) the state must have a monopoly on violence to deal with intolerant groups that attempt to use violence to enforce their first principles.
-liberalism tries to hollow out politics via the public/private distinction which removes from political life questions of first principles that cannot be settled.
-liberalism preaches tolerance internally but is usually very intolerant to any alternative form of political organization internationally.
-modus vivendi liberalism = negative rights + night watchman state.
-Progresive liberalism = neg rights + positive rights and social engineering to ensure positive rights
-prog liberalism won over modus vivendi because state needed to engage in social engineering to develop loyal citizens and to build effective army.
-utilitarnism and liberal idealism are not real liberalism


Ch 4: Cracks in the Liberal Edifice
-Two big problems with liberalism:
1.) focus on the individual brings it into conflict with nationalism
2.) liberal story about inalienable rights make no sense and is greatly overvalued by liberalism.
-Nationalism is illiberal, it is particularist and not universal. It also fills two powerful psychological needs - it facilitates group survival and the need to belong.
-Liberalism requires a non liberal substructure of a nationalist community onto which it supervenes. The non liberal element is primary. Liberal rights can only be established and are meaningful if a group exists and the group is fundamentally illiberal and particularist.
-Nationalism is more powerful than liberalism, it is the primary identity.
-Liberalism oversells its rights story. Many cases of people valuing security and stability over rights. Ex. Rwanda, Russia (90s as bad time).

Ch 5: Liberalism Goes Abroad
-Prominence that liberalism accords to human rights mean that if the sole pole is liberal it’s going to be monitoring other nations’ human rights performance. The sole liberal pole believes the best way to ensure rights is to topple autocracies and put in place democracies that will protect human rights. This leads to lots of interventionist policy.
-Liberal hegemony is also a jobs program for elites in the foreign policy industry
-Liberalism requires a night watchmen state to function but the international system is anarchic, not hierarchical. That’s why realist logic prevails internationally.
-for liberals war is either a crime or a crusade.
-Progressive liberals believe in state capacity to engage in social engineering so in foreign policy they think they can turn other states into liberal democracies.
-Social engineering fails because it runs head first into nationalism and realism.

Ch 6: Liberalism as a Source of Trouble
-Liberal Hegemony, given its value of individual rights and crusading nature will likely see the sol pole in a state of perpetual wars.
-Diplomacy is a bargaining process to settle conflicting views without using wars. Liberalism sees the world in good and terms and often makes the bargaining process more difficult.
-Liberal Hegemony has led to the antagonizing of other great powers. China rightly sees the US as bent on regime change via peaceful evolution. China Russia resent this.
-Attempts to externally impose liberalism on weaker states has been an abject failure: Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Egypt, Iraq. Doing large scale social engineering in foreign countries does not work.
-ignoring realist logic, liberal hegemony sees its own policies as benign and even noble. It doesn’t understand it’s viewed as threatening by others like Russia and China. For example, eastward NATO expansion.
-Washington may not like Moscow’s position on NATO but needs to understand the logic of the security threat.
-Kennan opposed nato’s eastward expansion.
-Liberal Hegemony can lead to a constant state of war and increased secrecy and can undermine cvivil liberties and rule of law at home.

Ch. 7: Liberal Theories of Peace
-3 counter realist theories of peace
1 democratic peace theory
2 economic interdependence
3 international institutionalism
Each of these three theories claims its logic overrides the need to engage in security competition.
-Democratic peace theory: democracies don’t fight. But there have been four cases of democracies going to war. WWI, Boer War, Spanish American war, and Kargil war of 99’ India vs Pakistan
-The US also overthrew many democracies during the Cold War.
-A liberal democracy can always become illiberal or become another form of government, so other dems still need to hedge against that possibility.
-Economic Interdependence Theory: Economic costs of going to war will outweigh the political benefits. Assumes prosperity not survival is the number one goal of states.
-Economic interdependence can certainly drive up the cost of war but political and core security issues trump economic issues, see Ukraine and Taiwan.
-Also, civil wars should t happen if economic interdependence theory is true. lots of mutually beneficial economic intercourses within states that have civil wars and it doesn’t stop them.
-Liberal institutionalists: States join intl institutions and learn behavior that leads to mutually beneficial outcomes.
-Lib Institutions only work when states have a preexisting incentive to cooperate but ado fear other states cheating. This is mostly in economic and environmental realm.
-In security, it can work but only in situations like NATO when there’s a mutual adversary but there’s zero evidence it works between great power adversaries in a security competition.

Ch. 8: The Case for Restraint
-we should jettison policy of liberal hegemony and learn the value of restraint.
-Liberalism is a domestic political philosophy it is not a guide to foreign policy.
-Most liberals agree toleration is a virtue but are extremely intolerant of other forms of political organization.
-Most realists opposed invasion of Iraq, it was a thoroughly liberal war.
-Realists only countenance the use of force if vital or core US strategic interests are on the line. East Asia, Europe, Persian Gulf ok, other places, no.
-Realism is simple: keep the US the most powerful state in the system. Retain hegemony in the Western Hemisphere and stop peer competitors from emerging in Asia or Europe.
-Nationalism is the most powerful force, far more powerful than thin universalist ideologies like Marxism and Liberalism. Nationalism is why intervention in smaller powers almost always fails. Need proper respect for power of nationalism.
-Let enemies get bogged down in quagmires with smaller powers.
-R2P would be ok if worked as advertised but in reality it had brought nothing but wars and destruction.
-Don’t do social engineering, build a democracy that others want to emulate.

[Komal Mahmood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't be fooled by this book. It looks simple and short, but it isn't.
I came across this author when I was researching about the liberal international order and I read one of his papers on the emergence and the possible downfall of the currently sweeping trend of liberalism. I was impressed and a 20 paged paper wasn't enough for me. Fortunately I got an entire book on it and by the same author.

I learned a lot from it. It is thoroughly researched and elaborates several points for why the current system is likely to falter in the face of the various other paradigms which are better suited to explain the evolving international relations in an utterly complex political world.
Thomas Kuhn describes a criteria for the acceptance of a paradigm, it is the one which can best analyze contemporary events. Liberalism in the words of Francis Fukuyama in his article 'the end of history', had managed to defeat fascism in the first half of the twentieth century and communism in the second half, and during the time of Woodrow Wilson, when in that tumultuous inter-war situation he set out to enumerate his fourteen points and pin the blame on Germany, the liberal idea was an apt opponent to the capitalistic and fascist endeavours of Germany who had singlehandedly managed to ravage the order of the world.
Doubtless liberalism was a champion then, and Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye in the book Power and Independence claim that the entire United States foreign policy during the cold war was based around liberalism. It was the paradigm of the era. But could a single theory really help align the universal order with the complexity of human psychology and the near impossible nature of the latter to utterly let go of its quest for security and self preservation in order to maintain a civil society peacefully collaborating with every other without any fear of all its concept of nationhood being trampled underfoot.
Kenneth Waltz in 'Man, the State, and War' cites Reinhold Neibuhr, St Augustine, Spinoza, and Hans Morgenthau to demonstrate that man since he is born and raised in insecurity endeavours throughout his life to make himself completely secure. He is a pygmy who believes himself a giant.
St Augustine says that however wretched the existence of a man he will shrink with fear at the prospect of death. For the philosopher Spinoza, the end of every action of man is self preservation.
It is the primal human instinct which is hard to ignore. Security, Mearsheimer says, is the goal of man, who is a social animal. Hobbesian contractualism is denied by Mearsheimer and that the philosopher's hunter gatherer is not a loner either. Man seeks his security in society which then defines its subjects who seek collective security through expansion, conquests, subjugation, curtailment of the opponent's powers. Mearsheimer encourages the utilitarian thought and cites Jeremy Bentham as having ridiculed the concept of natural right. Collective security and not individual security is what is the ultimate goal. Liberalism oversells individualism and universalism. It aims to spread its ideology throughout the globe and often oversteps it's boundary in that attempt, violating sovereignty of other nations, particularly authoritarian nations who are certain to be offended by a liberal state's interference in its state of affairs, which is liberalism's aim.
But how potent is liberalism in the concepts it sells to the world? Mearsheimer writes about the liberal paradoxes which have no resolution. Limitless tolerance for one. Liberals believe in absolute tolerance but would they sit and wait when a liberal society is overthrown by another perhaps an authoritarian group to allow their live-and-let-live policy? Certainly not! John Locke was a staunch liberal but his writings are loaded with intolerance towards both the religionists and the atheists; the former he said pledged solely to God, the latter he believed had no faith in any higher authority whatsoever and are therefore not to be trusted. His title of 'the enemy of the human race', which Dan Edelstein in his book 'The Terror of Natural Right', cites as the pivotal clause of his works employed by the revolutionary Committee of Public Safety in France to pursue the execution of Louis XVI, as an epithet for every tyrant, and for the liberals every authoritarian dictator in whatever country is a tyrant. Locke says that it is the *duty* of the citizen to dispose of such an enemy who will inevitably cause the ruination of society.
Mearsheimer also states that liberals sell individualism meanwhile completely neglecting the fact that human beings are organized into societies who possess a distinct culture, have a sense of sovereignty and autonomy, and are likely to defend it tooth and nail. A liberal state may wish to enter another territory but the intruded society will rebel without a doubt. And with this I agree. United States the flag bearer of liberalism has been engaged in the most wars throughout the world. It had its great moment when in the post cold war era it sat at the head of world politics as the unipole with its 'ministerial oversight', engaging militarily pretty much everywhere and behaving like a warden at the centre of a panopticon.

Though Mearsheimer to some extent supports the clash of civilizations theory, he does not believe that culture alone can serve as an effective glue to ensure one's commitment to society. To him, fear and threat to one's security are key to keeping a society together and that is best done when a certain foreign agent is marked as the 'boogeyman' to watch out for.
When it comes to sovereignty, self determination, and security, none of the liberal theories like democratic peace, liberal institutionalism, and economic interdependence work. Even Samuel P Huntington does not believe they work for he says that they may instead be agents more divisive to friendly relations because states are likely to engage in interdependent endeavours as long as they feel these capitalistic pursuits would last long and to their greater benefit.

Economy is key in all this, Mearsheimer, when explaining the two branches of liberalism; progressive and modus vivendi (a la Adam Smith), says that the latter is related to economy because it discounts positive rights of the government in interfering in open market as anything but a promoter of jealous competition. Adam Smith's 'free hand' he says would guide the economy to a more prosperous end. Progressive liberals on the other hand, though agreeing with modus vivendi liberals on the content of individual rights, do not approve of their complete neglect of the government's ability to have a greater role in property redistribution, granting of equal opportunities, and playing an activist role in social engineering abroad. Progressive liberalism is therefore the one currently in vogue across the world. America is a Progressive liberal country with a highly activist policy which is likely to lose due to United States return to its pre-Roosevelt isolationism, especially if we analyze president Trump's speeches during his campaigns where he said that the liberal theory has done America more harm than good. Mearsheimer agrees with Trump on this, for with the resurrection of Russian power and the rise of China as the new economic empire, America will have no choice but to put realism back on the table. Mearsheimer and Trump definitely have a similar idea on how to 'make America great again'.

Overall this is a good book, the ideal I believe for learning in detail about the liberal political thought. However I believe Mearsheimer is given to redundancy. there was much repetition throughout the text which if further edited could have reduced this 200 page book down to a 100 to 150. Mearsheimer tends to clump too many philosophers into a single paragraph which makes it hard to keep up (although it could just be me being dumb :/).
But Mearsheimer writes in simple, easy to read language limiting the use of jargon where needed and when he employs it he ensures expounding on it. If you're looking for floral prose and top notch writing by contemporary political theorists, I'd suggest you pick Kissinger or Jonathan Israel or Kenneth Waltz. Mearsheimer is definitely not your thing.

[Matthias · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of this book is quite good. It's an accurate and solid critique of the liberal idealistic ideology in foreign policy, among the best takedowns I've read. Modern language and fresh references make it a standout, building on Morgenthau's work. But some contradictions are already present here and there.
Somewhere around Chapter 5, quality implodes. The author's stance on the Russian war in Ukraine exposes glaring biases and cherry-picked arguments, rendering it unreadable.
The final two chapters claw back some ground with sharp insights on war, but the contradictions only deepen.
Overall, a mixed bag. Thrilling, then rubbish. I would still recommend reading Chapters 1–4, they're worth your time. After that, toss the book aside. Thanks to those early chapters, I give it 3 stars instead of 2.

***

Irksome stuff as follows.

Factually incorrect classifications:
Mearsheimer is so eager to find examples supporting his claim that wars can occur between liberal democracies (glossing over the fact that they're far rarer, which is the actual point) that he comically ends up classifying:
- Germany in 1914 as a liberal democracy. Imperial Germany was a constitutional monarchy that is not classified as a liberal democracy by any standard data set on regime type.
- The South African Republic and the Orange Free State as democracies. Both republics restricted the franchise almost entirely to white, male, Dutch‑speaking settlers (15% of the population), and are classified as oligarchies.
- Spain in 1898 as a liberal democracy. Spain at that time was a constitutional monarchy plagued by electoral manipulation and military interference, and is universally classified as semi‑authoritarian.
- Pakistan in the 1999 Kargil conflict as a democracy. Pakistan was in a partly-free condition that would have led to General Musharraf's coup just three months later.

Additionally, he states the 1991 Gulf War was initiated by the US, which is again factually wrong, as it was initiated by Iraq, invading Kuwait.
He also forgets to mention the US involvement in Somalia (1992-93), Yemen and Pakistan when listing all US post‑1991 wars.

Self-contradictory bias in favor of the nation-state:
Mearsheimer offers a concise overview of political organization throughout human history, noting how today's state‑centric order is historically recent.
Then, bafflingly, he spends the remaining part of the book treating the nation‑state as inevitable and permanent.
In multiple parts of the book, Mearsheimer mocks Fukuyama, one of his favorite targets, and his naive theory that liberal democracy represents the end of history. Yet simultaneously, while acknowledging that five centuries ago the map was filled with duchies, empires, and city-states, he treats nationalism's subsequent triumph as the final stage of an inevitable historical process. He commits precisely the same error as Fukuyama, without even realizing it. The irony is truly amusing. Especially considering Canada, Belgium, India, South Africa, Mercosur, the EU and other multi‑nation polities already exist.

Self-contradictory bias against the nation-state:
On top of the previous contradiction, a second one quickly emerges. Even though Mearsheimer claims nationalism is the most powerful political ideology and the nation-state is inevitable and permanent, he de facto treats any nation that isn't a military superpower (not even an economic one, just military) as devoid of agency. If you're not a military superpower - suddenly his earlier argument disappears: you actually have no agency and your nationalism is merely propaganda that some military superpower used to brainwash you. Just accept your role as a pawn.

Omission of the two main historical events that contradict his model:
The 9/11 attack was not directed by a nation-state against another nation-state. Islamism is not a nationalist ideology. Yet it managed to inflict an effective wound on a military superpower - a wound so severe it triggered numerous aggressive retaliations that Mearsheimer later mentions and criticizes. He conveniently forgets to explain where it all started. The reason for this omission is clear: if one applies his Realist textbook, one gains no answer on how to respond to 9/11.
The second obvious event is the collapse of the Soviet Union. That empire did not fall due to direct conflict with another superpower. It crumbled under its own contradictions and failure to provide decent standards of living to its citizens, after 25 years of steady decline. This phenomenon receives no analysis in the book, as it cannot be explained using Mearsheimer's model.

Godawful one-sidedness regarding Russia vs. Ukraine:
Mearsheimer's account of Russia vs. Ukraine is a shamelessly one-sided false narrative. His argument would collapse under its own contradictions if the omitted facts were included.

1) He treats Western money that flowed to pro‑democracy or "color‑revolution" NGOs in Ukraine as a key provocation. He quotes Nuland's "more than $5 billion" figure and lists National Endowment for Democracy projects as part of "the final tool for peeling Ukraine away from Russia". He frames that effort, together with NATO and EU enlargement, as "mainly responsible for the crisis". He returns to this point over and over throughout the book.
At the same time, in the whole book THERE IS NO MENTION AT ALL of:
- Russian covert financing of Eurosceptic or far‑right parties (e.g., the 2014 Front National loan from a Moscow‑linked bank, Italian Lega funding allegations, Austrian FPÖ "Ibiza affair").
- Russian "active‑measure" media operations in NATO countries (RT/Sputnik, Internet Research Agency social‑media campaigns, hack‑and‑leak operations, etc).
- The 2016 US election interference or similar efforts in France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, etc.
Those activities are copiously documented in parliamentary reports, intelligence‑service white papers and peer‑reviewed studies, yet they never appear in the book. Mearsheimer attacks Western democracy‑promotion precisely for violating other states' sovereignty, but ignores the mirror‑image practice when Moscow does it to liberal democracies.

2) He calls the February 22 2014 change of power a "coup", says the new cabinet was "thoroughly pro‑Western", and writes that "the U.S. government backed the coup" while CIA‑type "Western provocateurs" helped overthrow Yanukovych​.
The Russian role in Yanukovych's rise is not discussed.
Nowhere in the entire book does the author mention:
- Moscow's financing of the Party of Regions or direct help from Russian strategists such as Vladislav Surkov and Gleb Pavlovsky in Yanukovych's 2004 and 2010 campaigns.
- Russia's mass‑media backing inside Ukraine or the energy‑pricing deals that strengthened his domestic base.
- Kremlin pressure on Kyiv during 2010‑13 (gas discounts tied to a lease extension for the Black‑Sea Fleet, soft‑power TV channels, etc).
He attributes Yanukovych's fall largely to external Western actions, while treating his rise as a purely internal Ukrainian choice. He does not acknowledge that Russia had long intervened in Ukrainian politics.
For a scholar who devotes countless words to criticizing foreign policy aimed at socially engineering other nations, he curiously recalls many Washington's tactics in detail but never once mentions Moscow's.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mearsheimer is an excellent writer who takes complex ideas about political theory and foreign relations and simplifies them down to a level anyone can understand while still retaining their depth. If you want to understand foreign policy from a realist perspective this is the book to read!

[Dustin · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you've read any of Mearsheimer's paean's to realism before, then this doesn't break much new ground. He considers realism the most powerful explanatory tool for international relations as well as the superior approach to foreign policy.

He presents realism, liberalism, and nationalism as three countervailing forces in international affairs, where he concludes realism triumphs over all. His arguments on nationalism seem like an afterthought to make the book feel more timely, and he mostly uses it as a cudgel to bash the prospects of international cooperation. He seems to glide past any tension between realism and nationalism.

The book spends a lot of time with throat clearing and defining of terms, where you expect him to eventually get to a very tight argument, but it just sort of fizzles out, leaving a disjointed, mostly a priori argument in favor of realism. When he does offer evidence for his points it's often anecdotal. In some instances he makes sweeping pronouncements about state behavior based off of recent U.S. foreign policy decisions.

But the book isn't without merit. The strongest argument he makes is about how liberal hegemony has meant more war and more restrictive rights at home, which are glaring contradictions in liberal beliefs. It's an important point to consider.

[James S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent defense of the realist position in international affairs, and a damning indictment of the liberal school of foreign affairs. Mearsheimer is convincing and blunt: liberal foreign policy almost inevitably backfires, as history clearly reveals. If you disagree with that claim, I recommend this book.

I gave it 4 stars rather than 5 because the first 2/5ths of the book consists of dry and academic preparation for his argument: defining his position and terms, essentially. After this part is over, the rest of the book is more engaging.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first mearsheimer book I read. Really interesting and something new to think abt

tbh this 1-hr long lecture (https://youtu.be/D_Mx_e8t7nU) was basically equal to my 2-week long reading of this Mearsheimer book

[Shakeel Mengal · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Great Delusion book written by John Joseph Mearsheimer is a renowned and thought-provoking book. The Great Delusion is the critique of Liberalism. Professor Mearsheimer explains three isms, Liberalism, Nationalism, and Realism, and argues that how nationalism always trumps liberalism.

John Mearsheimer offers definitions of key concepts such a nation, nationalism, society, group, identity, culture etc in the start of the book. He explains the liberalism, and two strands of political liberalism which includes, modus vivendi liberalism and progressive liberalism.

Mearsheimer believes that liberal democracy is the best political order but it is not perfect.
Mearsheimer explains that after the disintegration of the Soviet Union the United States emerged as a sole great power and it remarks the unipolar world. The US embraced a liberal hegemony policy which included three main liberal theories; democratic peace, liberal institutionalism, and economic interdependence theories. Professor Mearsheimer succinctly argues that based on these liberal theories the US adopted a liberal foreign policy which led to the rise of multipolar world. Because liberalism is the best at home but liberalism abroad undermines the liberalism at home. Mearsheimer argues that when (powerful) states pursue liberal hegemony abroad, they end up undermining their own liberal values at home, endless wars require a vast and secretive national security apparatus, which erodes transparency, civil liberties, and the rule of law. i.e., the US experienced since 9/11 warrants surveillance (FISA).

Mearsheimer argues that it was a Liberal Internationalist ideology which led to the wars America has engaged in over the last three decade. His argument is that, if the US foreign policy leaders had adopted a realist perspective, Washington would not have gotten into all these wars, he has listed five states whom the US had tried to topple which includes; Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Egypt.

John Mearsheimer criticizes the democratic peace theory by arguing that the proponents of this theory explain that democracies do not fight each other, John argues that historical evidence contradicts with this claim, cases such as WWI (the USA, UK, ITALY, and FRANCE all were democracies and were fighting with a democratic Germany), Kargil War, and etc.

John Mearsheimer criticizes the economic interdependence theory by arguing that the proponents of this theory explain that states highly dependent on each other economically will avoid war, even with major political disputes because they argue that war brings disastrous economic costs. John Mearsheimer argues that history shows that states fight wars even with deep economic ties when survival, security, and nationalism are at stake. Politics not economics ultimately drives war and peace.

John Mearsheimer criticizes the liberal institutionalism theory by arguing that proponents of this theory explain that institutions provide a platform for rule, norms, and negotiations to states for cooperation. The main aim of institutions is to facilitate cooperation among states. John Mearsheimer argues that institutions work better in economic terms (IMF, World Bank) than in security such as the UN is often ineffective. There is a problem of anarchy in international system to that institutions can not overcome due to absence of central authority, the historical evidences show that the US ignored the UN in war against Serbia (1999), and Iraq (2003). Great Powers often break the rules if their interests demanded it.

John Mearsheimer argues that nationalism is the most powerful ideology on the planet and it always trumps the liberalism when ever contradicts. Such as the US during Cold War lost in Vietnam, because Vietnamese were fueled by nationalism, they never accepted any crusader who can tell them what to do etc etc.

John Mearsheimer argues that the West is responsible for the Ukraine Crisis. The US taking liberal hegemony and moving eastward in Europe, the US tried to democratize the Eastern Europe through color revolutios, the basic goal is Eastern Europe to Russian border look like Western Europe. The NATO’s expansion and its announcement of making Ukraine a NATO member was based on liberal policies, the Russians cannot tolerate this, the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a response to the Western policies.

The USA’s engagement with China, the basic aim was to get China hooked on capitalism to make China really rich and get China into the institutions and the belief was that once the US did that China will become a liberal democracy. Once China became part of institutions and institutions are all about rules, so China will become a responsible stakeholder. This resulted into a rich China and which became a potential peer competitor to the US.

Finally, John Mearsheimer argues that what went wrong with the liberal hegemon foreign policy of the US? Is that nationalism trumps liberalism and realism trumps liberalism. And liberalism ran into two different buzz saws one was nationalism and other was realism.
i.e., What happened in Iraq or Afghanistan with the USA? Nationalism kicks in and the people resisted in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A thought-provoking book on critique of liberalism.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I agree with the arguments and all, but could we please have gotten there faster?