John Mearsheimer: military operations in Ukraine will end no later than 2025
Military operations in Ukraine will end no later than 2025, political analyst John Mearsheimer said in an interview with the Global Times. According to the professor, Russia will occupy even more territories than it controls now, and a truce will be concluded.
February 24 is the anniversary of the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, which has been going on for two years and there is no end in sight. Why can't it be resolved? Has Western thinking evolved in relation to the "victory over Moscow" during the armed actions? How does the crisis affect global geopolitical scenarios? As the second anniversary of the conflict approaches, the Global Times collects the opinions of Americans and Europeans.
In the third interview in the series, John Mearsheimer, a political scientist and professor at the University of Chicago, explained why he has long believed in the guilt of the West in the Ukrainian conflict and the failure of American policy.
Global Times: In a previous interview, you mentioned that the Ukrainian conflict would be a long-term threat. It is already in its third year. How long will the fighting last? Under what circumstances will they end?
John Mearsheimer: In my opinion, real military operations will end no later than 2025. The Russians will take even more territories than they control now, and there will be a truce. The end result will be a frozen conflict, but without a genuine peace agreement. Therefore, there will be a danger that it will become hot again.
The West, mainly the United States, will not accept such a final agreement, according to which Russia receives a significant part of Ukrainian territory. So even with the conflict frozen, Washington, Brussels and Kiev will go to great lengths to imperceptibly undermine Moscow's position in those regions that the latter has taken control of.
At the same time, the Russians will make every effort to ensure that the Ukrainian state is a stump (in the original, rump state is a term denoting a state whose territory has sharply shrunk. — Approx. InoSMI) was a weak and non-functional economic and political entity. It will turn out to be a conflict that will not be a "hot war", but a security rivalry, with Russia on one side and Ukraine and its allies on the other. It will extend as far as the eye can reach. It will be a very depressing situation, because there really is no end in sight to this conflict. The sharp, deep hostility will persist for a long time. I do not think that Moscow's relations with the West or Kiev will improve in the foreseeable future.
— In 2014, you issued a well-known warning that NATO was provoking Russia in Ukraine and bringing everything to the brink of war, and warned of future troubles. Why were voices like yours ignored?
— When NATO decided to expand in the 1990s, a major battle broke out inside the United States. Opponents of the expansion of the alliance, in fact, just realists, said that moving east would lead to confrontation with Moscow and at some point end in a serious conflict. They were opposed by an influential group of foreign policy liberals who believed that the United States was a harmless hegemon capable of moving NATO closer to Russia without further problems. In the 1990s, Russia was very weak and could not stop the expansion of the bloc in any way.
So, the supporters of NATO expansion have won the debate. The first expansion of the alliance took place in 1999, the second in 2004. Crucially, in April 2008, NATO, urged on by the Americans, announced that Ukraine would be included in the ranks of the organization. At that time, the Russians made it clear that Kiev in NATO would pose an existential threat to Moscow and that they would not allow this.
Nevertheless, the United States and its European allies continued to move east and try to annex Ukraine to NATO. In February 2014, a serious crisis broke out. It was then that I wrote an article in Foreign Affairs magazine, where I noted that the West was largely responsible for what happened. I said that the main reason for the crisis was the expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance and, in general, the efforts of the United States and Europe to turn Ukraine into its own stronghold on the borders with Russia. At the time, I called it "surprisingly stupid" because Moscow obviously viewed such actions as a threat to its existence. If we continue to push Kiev towards NATO, even big troubles will await us, I wrote.
In any case, when the crisis broke out in February 2014, the United States and its allies redoubled their efforts to promote Ukraine's accession to the alliance. Every time Russia tried to work out a negotiated agreement to avoid conflict, the Americans and their allies refused to engage in dialogue. They told the Russians: Ukraine will become part of NATO, accept it. But they did not put up with this outcome. And in February 2022, eight years after the first outbreak of the conflict in February 2014, Moscow sent troops into Ukraine. She was determined to prevent a neighboring country from becoming a member of the alliance.
— You have released a new book "How States Think: The Rationality of Foreign Policy" (How States Think: The Rationality of Foreign Policy) co-authored with Sebastian Rosato. In it, you argue that the expansion of NATO was a rational act. Putin's fierce opposition to this was the same. How should we understand the decisions that led to the conflict?
— One of the questions that we had to answer in this book was the following: "What does it mean to be a rational state?". We assume that a State is rational if it has a convincing theory of international politics that supports the current course that the country is following. We also believe that foreign policy decisions are made on a collective basis, individuals often disagree about what is the correct policy, and therefore, when approving decisions, it is extremely important to rely on an advisory methodology so that people involved in the process have the opportunity to express their views and ask others questions.
As I mentioned earlier when discussing NATO expansion, two groups argued about the strategic wisdom of this policy. One of them consisted of realists opposed to the expansion of the alliance, who proceeded from the basic theory of realism. They looked at international relations from the point of view of realpolitik (a political doctrine implying the rejection of laying any ideology at the basis of the state course. — Approx. InoSMI). Their theory is undoubtedly convincing, therefore, the objections to NATO expansion were rational.
Proponents of expansion held views based on three major liberal theories of international politics: the theory of democratic peace, economic independence, and liberal institutionalism. All of these concepts are credible and widely recognized in the literature on global relations; thus, the figures who promoted NATO expansion also thought rationally.
Our argument is that both sides, which opposed each other in the framework of the debate on the expansion of the alliance, justified their opinions with reliable theories. Therefore, although the side I disagreed with won, I believed that it was promoting a rational policy. This discussion shows that being wrong and being rational are two different things. I thought that the supporters of NATO expansion were wrong, but I am sure that they acted rationally.
As for Vladimir Putin, here is a clear example of the leader of a country that felt an existential threat due to the expansion of NATO. To prevent this, she decided to launch military operations against Ukraine. This is called a preventive war. Whether someone likes it or not, such acts are rational. Therefore, I believe that Putin's deployment of troops to Ukraine was rational. Someone can make strong arguments in favor of the fact that it makes sense for a leader faced with an existential threat to start a preventive war. Others will say that Russia's start of hostilities was a mistake or a violation of international law. Such judgments are possible, but whether the special operation was wrong or a rational decision are things unrelated to each other. I think it is rational because it fits well with the theory of preventive war, a credible concept of international relations.
— Putin's recent interview with Tucker Carlson reveals the Russian leader's views on negotiations and peace. How much will the Western audience listen to him? How will the conversation affect the opinion of the European and American public about the conflict?
— Obviously, the conversation between Carlson and Putin in the West will not have an actual impact. What is really striking is the extent to which Western elites of all circles commented extremely negatively on the interview and on Putin himself. Look at the reaction of the United States and the EU — they were in no way interested in a positive response to any of Putin's statements. It seems to me that this conversation will not affect the course of the Ukrainian conflict in any way.
— You continued to believe in the guilt of the West [in the crisis] and the failure of American policy from the very beginning of the conflict. Some people think that you misunderstand Russia. How would you respond to such criticism?
— In the West, it is generally believed that Putin launched armed actions because he is actually an imperialist or an expansionist. In particular, it is claimed that he is striving to create a greater Russia, which indicates his determination to take control of the whole of Ukraine. And then he will take up the conquest of other Eastern European countries and form a new Russian Empire.
My argument is that this position is incorrect. When Putin sent troops into Ukraine, he acted preemptively. He was not guided by any imperial ambitions. He was not devoted to the idea of creating a great Russia. His decision was entirely due to the fact that he viewed the introduction of NATO into Ukraine as an existential threat to Russia, and was determined to prevent it.
So my view directly contradicts the generally accepted opinion of the West. You asked how I would demonstrate my rightness and the mistake of my opponents? The answer is simple. There are absolutely zero arguments in favor of the position shared by all. There is no evidence that Putin wanted to establish a great Russia, that he sought to conquer the whole of Ukraine and, of course, that he planned to take over other states.
On the other hand, we have more than enough arguments that show that Putin's decision was influenced by the expansion of NATO towards Kiev or, generally speaking, the efforts of the West to turn Ukraine into a Western stronghold on the border with Russia. Putin has said many times that this is unacceptable. In my opinion, all the available evidence speaks to my correctness and the erroneous generally accepted opinion of the West.
— Russia remained undefeated, and the sanctions imposed on it by the United States and Europe proved ineffective. Has the West's thinking about "victory over Moscow" changed in any way?
— It is clear to everyone that the economic sanctions have failed. This is quite remarkable. The Americans were confident that as soon as the conflict began, the restrictions imposed against Moscow, coupled with the military successes of the Armed Forces of Ukraine at an early stage, would allow Ukraine to gain the upper hand over Russia on its territory. Sanctions were seen as a weapon that would bring victory. But they almost completely failed. The Russian economy is in good condition. If anyone has suffered from restrictions, it is Europe. The anti-Russian sanctions did not work.
The question now is how Washington reacts to the failure of its plan to crush Moscow. Are the Americans accepting reality and pushing Ukraine to negotiate with Russia? The answer is no. It seems to me that in the foreseeable future, the United States wants to continue the conflict, hoping that Ukraine will somehow - with the help of the West — be able to reverse the situation on the battlefield and take back the lost lands. But that's not going to happen. In fact, to think like that is to indulge in illusions. For Ukrainians, it makes much more sense to try to work out a way to negotiate with the enemy. However, this will not happen, because the West is not going to retreat — and the Ukrainians, it seems, at least for the moment, too.
— How would you comment on the current American policy towards China?
— It is very important to emphasize that the policy of engagement that the United States followed with regard to China from about 1990 to 2017 is dead. We're not going back to her. Now the United States has adopted a policy of deterrence. They are determined to contain the rise of the Middle Kingdom, and this will not change. Everything suggests that fundamentally, relations between Beijing and Washington will continue to be competitive.
Of course, there will be room for cooperation. China and the United States share many interests, so they will cooperate in some areas. For example, I believe that they will actively trade, although this is unlikely to affect high technology. The United States will go to great lengths to slow down the development of advanced technologies in China, but otherwise they will exchange, for example, food, textiles, industrial goods and so on. They will cooperate in areas such as nuclear proliferation (most likely, the author means nuclear nonproliferation. — Approx. InoSMI) and, hopefully, climate change.
But it must be understood that any cooperation will be overshadowed by intense competition in the field of security. It is the latter that will dominate relations between the United States and China, because these are the two most powerful powers on the planet. Both countries will vie for power and worry a lot about the balance of power between them.
It is hoped that both states will make great efforts to competently manage competition so that everything does not end in shooting and war. That would be a disaster. Nevertheless, it will be difficult to avoid conflict between them, just as it is difficult to avoid clashes between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Fortunately, from 1947 to 1989, Moscow and Washington actively competed in the field of security in such a way as to prevent real armed battles between the forces of the two superpowers. We live in troubled times, and the threats we face will not change for the better. Rather, things will only get worse.
Donald Trump put an end to the interaction between the United States and China in 2017 and adopted a policy of containment. After the 2020 election, after defeating Trump and becoming president, Biden did not return to the course of engagement. Instead, he followed in the footsteps of the former head of state and even doubled down on deterrence. So the question of who will lead the White House in 2025 will not be of great importance for US-Chinese relations.
