Scholar John Mearsheimer on Ukraine
"The Case for a Ukrainian Nuclear Deterrent"
Main article: Nuclear weapons and Ukraine
When the Soviet Union ended, the newly-independent Ukraine was left with a large arsenal of Soviet nuclear weapons. In his 1993 article, "The Case for a Ukrainian Nuclear Deterrent", Mearsheimer argued that Ukraine should not give up its nuclear weapons, because he believed that without a nuclear deterrent it would be subjected to Russian aggression.[61][1][62] He proposed that the United States change its policy and enable Ukraine to become an independent nuclear power, saying "Ukrainian nuclear weapons are the only reliable deterrent to Russian aggression".[1] Mearsheimer wrote that "Russia has dominated an unwilling and angry Ukraine for more than two centuries, and has attempted to crush Ukraine's sense of self-identity",[1] and that some Russian officials "reject the idea of an independent Ukraine".[1] He said that a Russian war against Ukraine might lead Russia to "reconquer other parts of the former Soviet Union".[1] Mearsheimer opined that, if Russia attacked Ukraine, "great powers would move quickly and sharply to contain further Russian expansion".[1]
"Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West's Fault"
See also: Controversy regarding NATO's eastward expansion
Mearsheimer blamed NATO's eastern enlargement for provoking the Russo-Ukrainian War.
The Russo-Ukrainian War started in 2014. Amid the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity, Russia occupied and annexed Crimea from Ukraine, and supported pro-Russian separatists who launched a war in eastern Ukraine. In his August 2014 article, "Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West's Fault", Mearsheimer said the United States and its European allies were mainly to blame for the conflict, stating that the root of the conflict was NATO and EU expansion to include Ukraine which Russian leaders have adamantly opposed.[63][64][65]
Mearsheimer called Putin "a first-class strategist who should be feared and respected" on foreign policy.[63] He argued that Putin is driven by "legitimate security concerns" and does not want to occupy Ukraine.[63] Mearsheimer argued that Russia's annexation of Crimea was driven by fears of losing its Sevastopol Naval Base.[63] He highlighted Russian opposition to Ukrainian NATO membership over the years, and the Western analysts who warned against it.[63] He argued that the United States would react the same way to a rival military alliance on its border: "Imagine the American outrage if China built an impressive military alliance and tried to include Canada and Mexico".[63] Mearsheimer says Russia's concerns about Ukraine eventually joining NATO are similar to US concerns about Soviet nuclear weapons being deployed in Cuba during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis: "Did Cuba have the right to form a military alliance with the Soviet Union during the Cold War? The United States certainly did not think so, and the Russians think the same way about Ukraine joining the West".[63]
Mearsheimer wrote that the US and its allies have pushed for the eastward enlargement of NATO and the EU despite Russian opposition, pointing to the 2008 Bucharest summit and the 2009 Eastern Partnership initiative.[63] He concluded that the EU and NATO "should abandon their plan to westernize Ukraine and instead aim to make it a neutral buffer state between NATO and Russia".[63] Regarding "the claim that Ukraine has the right to determine whom it wants to ally with", Mearsheimer says "This is a dangerous way for Ukraine to think about its foreign policy choices. The sad truth is that might often makes right when great-power politics are at play".[63]
Michael McFaul and Stephen Sestanovich published their response to Mearsheimer in the November/December 2014 issue of Foreign Affairs.[64] They argued that Russian foreign policy was not a reaction to the US, but was driven by internal Russian politics.[64] They rejected his description of the Ukrainian revolution as a "coup", countering that "after police killed scores of demonstrators in downtown Kiev, the whole country turned against him [Yanukovych], effectively ending his political career. Parliament removed him by a unanimous vote".[64]
In the book, War in Ukraine: Conflict, Strategy, and the Return of a Fractured World, McFaul and Robert Person criticize Mearsheimer's arguments. They write that if Putin believed NATO was a military threat, he would not have deepened co-operation in the early 2000s and again in 2010, when NATO enlargement was ongoing. They point to Putin's statements in the early 2000s, when he said Ukraine in NATO would not concern Russia. They also wrote that Ukraine's parliament only revoked its neutral status in late 2014, "after Russia had invaded Crimea and the Donbas". In their view, Putin's actions are more driven by Russian neo-imperialism.[65]
Political scientist Filip Kostelka said Mearsheimer "ignores the fact that Ukrainians – like other Eastern Europeans – have been actively seeking NATO membership to protect themselves from the Russian threat. They did not need to be pushed".[66] National security expert Joe Cirincione also said that Mearsheimer ignored this, writing "America did not pull them into an anti-Russian pact".[67] Following calls to provide weapons to Ukraine to deter Putin,[68] Mearsheimer spoke against the idea.
Russian invasion of Ukraine
A map of the Russian invasion at its height in March 2022
On February 15, 2022, Mearsheimer argued that Putin had "no intention of invading Ukraine".[69] When Russia invaded Ukraine a week later, Mearsheimer re-affirmed his belief that the West were largely to blame. In March 2022, he was interviewed by Isaac Chotiner of The New Yorker. Mearsheimer again blamed the invasion on "NATO expansion, EU expansion", and attempts to "turn Ukraine into a pro-American liberal democracy", arguing that "from a Russian perspective, this is an existential threat". He said Putin was not interested in conquering Ukraine and that Ukraine should "break off its close relations with the West ... and try to accommodate the Russians."[70]
Soon after the invasion began, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs endorsed Mearsheimer's view on why they invaded. Historian Anne Applebaum criticized Mearsheimer, saying "now wondering if the Russians didn't actually get their narrative from Mearsheimer et al. Moscow needed to say West was responsible for Russian invasions (Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, Ukraine), and not their own greed and imperialism. American academics provided the narrative." Adam Tooze wrote that Applebaum offered no evidence for her allegation.[71]
In June 2022, Mearsheimer delivered a speech on "The Causes and Consequences of the Ukraine War".[72] He said there is no evidence that Putin wants to conquer Ukraine, and no evidence that Russia wants to install a puppet government. Mearsheimer argued that if Putin did want to conquer Ukraine, he would have used a larger army. Mearsheimer believes Putin has been telling the truth about his motives, saying Putin "does not have a history of lying to other leaders" or to foreign audiences.[73]
Joe Cirincione called Mearsheimer "dangerously wrong". He wrote that Putin recently likened himself to Tsar Peter the Great, who, Putin said, had justly returned land to Russia; and that Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia's goal was to "free Ukraine’s people from the 'unacceptable regime' in Kyiv".[67] For Cirincione, the "greatest flaw" in Mearsheimer's argument is that "he must minimize Russian atrocities" and "excuse Russian behavior as an understandable reaction to the threats it perceives" in order to make his case.[67] Political scientist Filip Kostelka said "By publicly defending his scientifically unsound thesis, Mearsheimer legitimizes Russia's propaganda and violates the fundamental values of social responsibility that all academics should respect".[66] He wrote that Mearsheimer cherry-picked official statements by Russia's leadership and takes them at face value.[66] Kostelka accused Mearsheimer of double standards, saying he does not give the same importance to "Russia’s imperial ambitions" or denial of Ukraine's right to exist.[66] Kostelka also said that Mearsheimer "remained oblivious to Russia’s numerous lies on public record, including Putin's original denial of any involvement in Crimea in 2014, which was followed by open boasting about the annexation a few months later".[66] He wrote that Russia only failed to take over the country because of a "disastrous miscalculation by the Kremlin".[66]
Mearsheimer was interviewed by Chotiner again in November 2022, after Russia annexed four provinces of Ukraine. He said that Putin only wanted to control those four provinces and "to make sure that the Ukrainian rump state that is left is neutral and is not associated with NATO in any formal or informal way". In his view, Russia's attack on Kyiv was meant to force the Ukrainian government to give up its plans of joining NATO. Mearsheimer was challenged by Chotiner, who said his arguments were contradicted by Putin's statements and actions. Mearsheimer replied that there was currently no evidence that Putin had any imperial ambitions but that there was "a huge amount of evidence that it was NATO expansion and the more general policy of making Ukraine a western bulwark on Russia’s border that motivated [Putin] to attack on February 24th".[74]
Mearsheimer doubts that a "meaningful" peace agreement could be reached because of "maximalist objectives". He believes that the best outcome would be a volatile frozen conflict, while the worst outcome would be nuclear war, which he considered unlikely.[75] According to Michael Lawriwsky, former chair of the Ukrainian Studies Foundation at Monash University and former editor for the Australian Ukrainian Review, Mearsheimer accepts "Putin's rhetoric, which downplays the complexities of Ukraine’s stance on NATO" and "align[s] closely with Putin's misleading narrative that portrays NATO expansion as a direct threat to Russia".[76]
Mearsheimer was interviewed by Chotiner a third time in March 2025, after the 2025 Trump–Zelenskyy Oval Office meeting. He praised U.S. President Donald Trump's handling of the issue and said that Ukraine must agree to Russia's terms: remaining a neutral country with no NATO membership, ceding territory in eastern Ukraine, and demilitarizing. Chotiner questioned whether Mearsheimer underestimated Putin, saying that Mearsheimer had previously predicted Putin would not invade Ukraine in 2014. Mearsheimer responded that the situation had changed after 2014. He stated that Putin was forced to invade Ukraine because of NATO expansion and U.S. President Joe Biden's foreign policy, and that Putin did not seek to occupy and conquer Ukraine. In response, Chotiner mentioned far-right Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin's statements that Russia's "civilization" will not "be complete until we have united all Eastern Slavs and all Eurasian brothers into a common big space"; Dugin previously interviewed Mearsheimer. Mearsheimer stated that, while he and Dugin agreed that NATO was at fault for the conflict, the two disagreed on several other political issues. He said that Dugin's influence on Putin was overstated.[77]
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John Mearsheimer | |
|---|---|
Mearsheimer in 2007 | |
| Born | John Joseph Mearsheimer December 14, 1947 New York City, U.S. |
| Education | |
| Education | |
| Philosophical work | |
| School | Neorealism |
| Institutions | University of Chicago |
| Main interests | International relations theory, international security, deterrence theory[1][2] |
| Notable works |
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| Notable ideas | Offensive realism |
| Website | mearsheimer |
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