John Mearsheimer
R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago
Professor Mearsheimer is best known for developing the theory of offensive realism, a structural theory in international relations that depicts state behaviors in an anarchic international system to achieve regional hegemony driven by rational desire.
Featured Works
Conventional Deterrence, Cornell University Press, New York, 1983
Liddell Hart and the Weight of History, Cornell University Press, New York, 1988
The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, Norton, New York, 2001
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2007
Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics, Oxford University Press, 2011
Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2018
How States Think: The Rationality of Foreign Policy, New Haven, 2023
Experiences
In 1965, Mearsheimer enlisted in the US Army at the age of 17 and obtained an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point just one year after his enlistment.
In 1970, Mearsheimer was commissioned upon graduating from West Point and served five the next years as an officer in the United States Air Force.
Since 1982, Mearsheimer has been a faculty member in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago, becoming a full professor in 1987.
From 1998 to 1999, Mearsheimer was a Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City.
In 2001, Mearsheimer published The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, which later became one of his most prominent works.
In 2003, Mearsheimer was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 2014, Mearsheimer presented a full statement of his views on China’s rise in the updated edition of The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, asserting serious security competition would break out between China and the US while the US would put great efforts to contain China.
Since 2014, Mearsheimer has been critical of US Russia policy, viewing NATO’s eastward expansion as a dangerous provocation of Russia and a mistake that could push Russia closer to China.
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56:52
September 18, 2024
Thanks to Israel and Ukraine, the US is now dispatching its forces everywhere, leaving East Asia a vacuum in its military presence.