Just over three years ago, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, John Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, and perhaps the most prominent “realist” foreign-policy scholar of his generation, made clear that he believed the blame for Russia’s attack lay most prominently with the United States. This was not exactly a surprise. Since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and supported a separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine, Mearsheimer has been arguing that the U.S. and much of Europe are the main cause of Russian aggression in the region, largely because NATO has continued to expand eastward across the Continent. (Since the end of the Cold War, sixteen countries have joined the alliance.) Mearsheimer and I talked twice in 2022 after Russia’s invasion; both times, he castigated Western policy and defended Vladimir Putin from charges of imperialism and lying about his war aims. (That year, Mearsheimer visited Viktor Orbán, the autocratic Hungarian leader who has been sympathetic to Putin’s narratives about the war.)
When Joe Biden was President, and support for Ukraine was very strong in the U.S., Mearsheimer seemed like the odd man out. Now Donald Trump is back in power, and he has wooed Russia, stopped arming Ukraine, and publicly scolded Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s President, during a meeting in the Oval Office. Trump’s admiration for Putin hardly seems to fit into any grand geostrategic theory; nevertheless, Trump has been talking about the conflict in language that mirrors that of Mearsheimer, who is a strong critic of liberal internationalism, and is someone who believes it is natural for regional hegemons to exert dominance in their spheres of influence.
Mearsheimer and I recently spoke again by phone. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed why he thinks Ukraine should not get any security guarantees as part of a peace deal, whether he was wrong about Russia’s intentions prior to 2022, and why he still thinks Putin is misunderstood.
How well do you think Trump has been dealing with the issue of Russia and Ukraine?
I basically agree with what he’s doing. I think it makes good strategic sense to shut the war down immediately. I also think it’s the morally correct thing to do. And, although Trump has not done it in the smoothest way possible, I think he is on the right path and hopefully will succeed.
What is the right path?
He has to cut a deal with the Russians, and that means accepting the key terms that the Russians have laid on the table. One is that Ukraine has to be a genuinely neutral country. It can’t be in NATO and can’t have Western security guarantees. Two, it’s going to have to give up a significant slice of territory in eastern Ukraine. And three, it’s going to have to demilitarize to the point that it is not an offensive military threat to Russia. Trump has to accept those conditions and work out a deal with the Russians. But then comes the hard part, which is getting the Europeans and especially the Ukrainians to agree.
What would this rump Ukraine look like?
It all depends on how much territory Ukraine loses between now and when the agreement is decided. The Russians have strategic incentives for taking more territory. So I think it’s imperative, from a Ukrainian point of view, to settle this one quickly, before the Russians capture much more territory and it’s impossible to dislodge them from that territory.
Let’s assume there’s a peace deal and that Ukraine will have to cede territory. What guarantees do you think can or should be offered to Ukrainians who have been under attack from Russia in some form for a decade?
They can’t have a security guarantee and they simply have to accept that fact.
Why?
A security guarantee is basically de-facto membership in NATO, and the Russians won’t accept that. Is this a tragic situation for Ukraine? The answer is yes. But what is the alternative?
If the Europeans, or even the Americans under a different Administration, perceived that it was in their self-interest to give Ukraine a security guarantee, why shouldn’t they do so?
They can offer it, but the Russians will turn it down. I believe this war was all about NATO expansion. Giving Ukraine a security guarantee is effectively NATO membership.
Let’s say the peace deal is made and there’s no security guarantee, and then Putin attacks Ukraine again. Then what?
I think it would be a tragedy. The question is how best to avoid this. But will Putin attack Ukraine in the future? I do not believe he will. I think the last thing Putin would want once he settles this war is to start another war.
In 2014, you said that Putin would not go after the rest of Ukraine. Do you think maybe you are underestimating him again?
No. In 2014, I said he would not go after the rest of Ukraine. But the situation changed after 2014, and, in particular, it changed after Joe Biden moved into the White House. Biden was a superhawk on Ukraine. He began to arm Ukraine at a greater rate than his predecessor did. And the end result, not surprisingly, was that thirteen months after he moved into the White House, he got a war.
So Putin was sort of forced into the invasion?
Yes, that’s my view. We forced Putin to launch a preventive war to stop Ukraine from becoming a member of NATO.
If Ukraine was a member of NATO, it wouldn’t necessarily be a threat to Russia. I mean, maybe in Putin’s mind it would be.
But that’s all that matters. What you and I think doesn’t matter. The Russians made it unequivocally clear from 2008 forward. And, remember, 2008 is when NATO announced that Ukraine would become a member of the alliance. Putin and his lieutenants made it unequivocally clear that that was an existential threat and they would not allow it to happen. Putin said that he would destroy Ukraine. This is in 2008.
Is there a difference between saying that Putin views something a certain way, regardless of whether he is right or wrong, and that Putin got forced into invading another country?
Well, he believes that Ukraine in NATO is an existential threat, and the equivalent of declaring war on Russia.
Ukraine was never a member of NATO. And it wasn’t a certainty that Ukraine would ever be a member of NATO, even during the Biden Administration. Let’s just be clear about that.
No, that’s not true at all. In fact, if you look at what happened after Biden became President, he made it clear that he was committed to bringing Ukraine into NATO. There was a strategic-planning document.
I realize that, but there have been talks about Ukraine and NATO for decades. There was no evidence it was actually going to happen. Diplomatic talk doesn’t always mean something.
I don’t believe that.
It was taking a long time. You just said this was brought up in 2008.
Yes, in 2008, they said they were going to bring Ukraine into NATO.
That’s my point. Fourteen years later, Ukraine was attacked. It was still not in NATO. Anyway, last year, you wrote, “There is simply no evidence from before 24 February 2022 that Putin wanted to conquer Ukraine and incorporate it into Russia. Proponents of the conventional wisdom cannot point to anything Putin wrote or said that indicates he was bent on conquering Ukraine.”
I said that then and I believe it now.
Back in 2014, you cast scorn on those who argued that Putin would “eventually go after the rest of Ukraine.” Didn’t these people turn out to be correct? Why not give them credit? That’s what I’m confused about.
There’s no question they were proven correct. But, as I pointed out to you before, there was no evidence that he was going to invade Ukraine in 2014. The situation changes. After 2014, the United States and its European allies arm and train the Ukrainians. Ukraine is a much more formidable fighting force by 2021 than it was in 2014. It’s more of a threat to Russia.
In a lot of your writings and interviews, you emphasize an article that Putin wrote on July 12, 2021. He writes, to Ukrainians, “You want to establish a state of your own: you are welcome!” Why the focus on this article and that line?
