Why John

Mearsheimer Blames
the U.S. for the Cri-
sis in Ukraine
For years, the political scientist has claimed that
Putin’s aggression toward Ukraine is caused by
Western intervention. Have recent events changed
his mind?
By Isaac Chotiner
By Isaac Chotiner March 1, 2022
“He is not going to conquer all of Ukraine,” Mearsheimer says,
of Putin. “It would be a blunder of colossal proportions to try to
do that.”Photograph by Adam Berry / Getty

The political scientist John Mearsheimer has been one

of the most famous critics of American foreign policy
since the end of the Cold War. Perhaps best known for
the book he wrote with Stephen Walt, “The Israel
Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” Mearsheimer is a pro-
ponent of great-power politics—a school of realist in-
ternational relations that assumes that, in a self-inter-
ested attempt to preserve national security, states will
preëmptively act in anticipation of adversaries. For
years, Mearsheimer has argued that the U.S., in push-
ing to expand nato eastward and establishing friendly
relations with Ukraine, has increased the likelihood of
war between nuclear-armed powers and laid the
groundwork for Vladimir Putin’s aggressive position
toward Ukraine. Indeed, in 2014, after Russia annexed
Crimea, Mearsheimer wrote that “the United States and
its European allies share most of the responsibility for
this crisis.”

The current invasion of Ukraine has renewed several

long-standing debates about the relationship between
the U.S. and Russia. Although many critics of Putin
have argued that he would pursue an aggressive foreign
policy in former Soviet Republics regardless of West-
ern involvement, Mearsheimer maintains his position
that the U.S. is at fault for provoking him. I recently
spoke with Mearsheimer by phone. During our conver-
sation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we
discussed whether the current war could have been pre-
vented, whether it makes sense to think of Russia as an
imperial power, and Putin’s ultimate plans for Ukraine.

Looking at the situation now with Russia and

Ukraine, how do you think the world got here?
I think all the trouble in this case really started in April,
2008, at the nato Summit in Bucharest, where after-
ward nato issued a statement that said Ukraine and
Georgia would become part of nato. The Russians
made it unequivocally clear at the time that they
viewed this as an existential threat, and they drew a
line in the sand. Nevertheless, what has happened with
the passage of time is that we have moved forward to
include Ukraine in the West to make Ukraine a West-
ern bulwark on Russia’s border. Of course, this in-
cludes more than just nato expansion. nato expansion is
the heart of the strategy, but it includes E.U. expansion
as well, and it includes turning Ukraine into a pro-
American liberal democracy, and, from a Russian per-
spective, this is an existential threat.

You said that it’s about “turning Ukraine into a

pro-American liberal democracy.” I don’t put much
trust or much faith in America “turning” places
into liberal democracies. What if Ukraine, the peo-
ple of Ukraine, want to live in a pro-American lib-
eral democracy?

If Ukraine becomes a pro-American liberal democracy,

and a member of nato, and a member of the E.U., the
Russians will consider that categorically unacceptable.
If there were no nato expansion and no E.U. expansion,
and Ukraine just became a liberal democracy and was
friendly with the United States and the West more gen-
erally, it could probably get away with that. You want
to understand that there is a three-prong strategy at
play here: E.U. expansion, nato expansion, and turning
Ukraine into a pro-American liberal democracy.

You keep saying “turning Ukraine into a liberal

democracy,” and it seems like that’s an issue for the
Ukrainians to decide. nato can decide whom it ad-
mits, but we saw in 2014 that it appeared as if many
Ukrainians wanted to be considered part of Europe.
It would seem like almost some sort of imperialism
to tell them that they can’t be a liberal democracy.

It’s not imperialism; this is great-power politics. When

you’re a country like Ukraine and you live next door to
a great power like Russia, you have to pay careful at-
tention to what the Russians think, because if you take
a stick and you poke them in the eye, they’re going to
retaliate. States in the Western hemisphere understand
this full well with regard to the United States.

The Monroe Doctrine, essentially.

Of course. There’s no country in the Western hemi-
sphere that we will allow to invite a distant, great
power to bring military forces into that country.
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Right, but saying that America will not allow coun-

tries in the Western hemisphere, most of them
democracies, to decide what kind of foreign policy
they have—you can say that’s good or bad, but that
is imperialism, right? We’re essentially saying that
we have some sort of say over how democratic
countries run their business.

We do have that say, and, in fact, we overthrew demo-

cratically elected leaders in the Western hemisphere
during the Cold War because we were unhappy with
their policies. This is the way great powers behave.

Of course we did, but I’m wondering if we should

be behaving that way. When we’re thinking about
foreign policies, should we be thinking about trying
to create a world where neither the U.S. nor Russia
is behaving that way?
That’s not the way the world works. When you try to
create a world that looks like that, you end up with the
disastrous policies that the United States pursued dur-
ing the unipolar moment. We went around the world
trying to create liberal democracies. Our main focus, of
course, was in the greater Middle East, and you know
how well that worked out. Not very well.

I think it would be difficult to say that America’s

policy in the Middle East in the past seventy-five
years since the end of the Second World War, or in
the past thirty years since the end of the Cold War,
has been to create liberal democracies in the Middle
East.

I think that’s what the Bush Doctrine was about during

the unipolar moment.

In Iraq. But not in the Palestinian territories, or

Saudi Arabia, or Egypt, or anywhere else, right?

No—well, not in Saudi Arabia and not in Egypt. To

start with, the Bush Doctrine basically said that if we
could create a liberal democracy in Iraq, it would have
a domino effect, and countries such as Syria, Iran, and
eventually Saudi Arabia and Egypt would turn into
democracies. That was the basic philosophy behind the
Bush Doctrine. The Bush Doctrine was not just de-
signed to turn Iraq into a democracy. We had a much
grander scheme in mind.

We can debate how much the people who were in

charge in the Bush Administration really wanted to
turn the Middle East into a bunch of democracies,
and really thought that was going to happen. My
sense was that there was not a lot of actual enthusi-
asm about turning Saudi Arabia into a democracy.

Well, I think focussing on Saudi Arabia is taking the

easy case from your perspective. That was the most
difficult case from America’s perspective, because
Saudi Arabia has so much leverage over us because of
oil, and it’s certainly not a democracy. But the Bush
Doctrine, if you go look at what we said at the time,
was predicated on the belief that we could democratize
the greater Middle East. It might not happen overnight,
but it would eventually happen.

I guess my point would be actions speak louder than

words, and, whatever Bush’s flowery speeches said,
I don’t feel like the policy of the United States at
any point in its recent history has been to try and
insure liberal democracies around the world.
There’s a big difference between how the United States
behaved during the unipolar moment and how it’s be-
haved in the course of its history. I agree with you
when you talk about American foreign policy in the
course of its broader history, but the unipolar moment
was a very special time. I believe that during the unipo-
lar moment, we were deeply committed to spreading
democracy.

With Ukraine, it’s very important to understand that,

up until 2014, we did not envision nato expansion and
E.U. expansion as a policy that was aimed at contain-
ing Russia. Nobody seriously thought that Russia was a
threat before February 22, 2014. nato expansion, E.U.
expansion, and turning Ukraine and Georgia and other
countries into liberal democracies were all about creat-
ing a giant zone of peace that spread all over Europe
and included Eastern Europe and Western Europe. It
was not aimed at containing Russia. What happened is
that this major crisis broke out, and we had to assign
blame, and of course we were never going to blame
ourselves. We were going to blame the Russians. So
we invented this story that Russia was bent on aggres-
sion in Eastern Europe. Putin is interested in creating a
greater Russia, or maybe even re-creating the Soviet
Union.

Let’s turn to that time and the annexation of

Crimea. I was reading an old article where you
wrote, “According to the prevailing wisdom in the
West, the Ukraine Crisis can be blamed almost en-
tirely on Russian aggression. Russian president
Vladimir Putin, the argument goes, annexed
Crimea out of a longstanding desire to resuscitate
the Soviet Empire, and he may eventually go after
the rest of Ukraine as well as other countries in
Eastern Europe.” And then you say, “But this ac-
count is wrong.” Does anything that’s happened in
the last couple weeks make you think that account
was closer to the truth than you might have
thought?

Oh, I think I was right. I think the evidence is clear that

we did not think he was an aggressor before February
22, 2014. This is a story that we invented so that we
could blame him. My argument is that the West, espe-
cially the United States, is principally responsible for
this disaster. But no American policymaker, and hardly
anywhere in the American foreign-policy establish-
ment, is going to want to acknowledge that line of ar-
gument, and they will say that the Russians are respon-
sible.

You mean because the Russians did the annexation

and the invasion?

Yes.

I was interested in that article because you say the

idea that Putin may eventually go after the rest of
Ukraine, as well as other countries in Eastern Eu-
rope, is wrong. Given that he seems to be going af-
ter the rest of Ukraine now, do you think in hind-
sight that that argument is perhaps more true, even
if we didn’t know it at the time?

It’s hard to say whether he’s going to go after the rest

of Ukraine because—I don’t mean to nitpick here but
—that implies that he wants to conquer all of Ukraine,
and then he will turn to the Baltic states, and his aim is
to create a greater Russia or the reincarnation of the
Soviet Union. I don’t see evidence at this point that
that is true. It’s difficult to tell, looking at the maps of
the ongoing conflict, exactly what he’s up to. It seems
quite clear to me that he is going to take the Donbass
and that the Donbass is going to be either two indepen-
dent states or one big independent state, but beyond
that it’s not clear what he’s going to do. I mean, it does
seem apparent that he’s not touching western Ukraine.

His bombs are touching it, right?

But that’s not the key issue. The key issue is: What ter-
ritory do you conquer, and what territory do you hold
onto? I was talking to somebody the other day about
what’s going to happen with these forces that are com-
ing out of Crimea, and the person told me that he
thought they would turn west and take Odessa. I was
talking to somebody else more recently who said that
that’s not going to happen. Do I know what’s going to
happen? No, none of us know what’s going to happen.

You don’t think he has designs on Kyiv?

No, I don’t think he has designs on Kyiv. I think he’s

interested in taking at least the Donbass, and maybe
some more territory and eastern Ukraine, and, number
two, he wants to install in Kyiv a pro-Russian govern-
ment, a government that is attuned to Moscow’s inter-
ests.
I thought you said that he was not interested in tak-
ing Kyiv.

No, he’s interested in taking Kyiv for the purpose of

regime change. O.K.?

As opposed to what?

As opposed to permanently conquering Kyiv.

It would be a Russian-friendly government that he

would presumably have some say over, right?

Yes, exactly. But it’s important to understand that it is

fundamentally different from conquering and holding
onto Kyiv. Do you understand what I’m saying?

We could all think of imperial possessions whereby

a sort of figurehead was put on the throne, even if
the homeland was actually controlling what was go-
ing on there, right? We’d still say that those places
had been conquered, right?

I have problems with your use of the word “imperial.”

I don’t know anybody who talks about this whole prob-
lem in terms of imperialism. This is great-power poli-
tics, and what the Russians want is a regime in Kyiv
that is attuned to Russian interests. It may be ultimately
that the Russians would be willing to live with a neu-
tral Ukraine, and that it won’t be necessary for Mos-
cow to have any meaningful control over the govern-
ment in Kyiv. It may be that they just want a regime
that is neutral and not pro-American.

When you said that no one’s talking about this as

imperialism, in Putin’s speeches he specifically
refers to the “territory of the former Russian Em-
pire,” which he laments losing. So it seems like he’s
talking about it.

I think that’s wrong, because I think you’re quoting the

first half of the sentence, as most people in the West
do. He said, “Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union
has no heart.” And then he said, “Whoever wants it
back has no brain.”

He’s also saying that Ukraine is essentially a made-

up nation, while he seems to be invading it, no?

O.K., but put those two things together and tell me

what that means. I’m just not too sure. He does believe
it’s a made-up nation. I would note to him, all nations
are made up. Any student of nationalism can tell you
that. We invent these concepts of national identity.
They’re filled with all sorts of myths. So he’s correct
about Ukraine, just like he’s correct about the United
States or Germany. The much more important point is:
he understands that he cannot conquer Ukraine and in-
tegrate it into a greater Russia or into a reincarnation of
the former Soviet Union. He can’t do that. What he’s
doing in Ukraine is fundamentally different. He is ob-
viously lopping off some territory. He’s going to take
some territory away from Ukraine, in addition to what
happened with Crimea, in 2014. Furthermore, he is
definitely interested in regime change. Beyond that, it’s
hard to say exactly what this will all lead to, except for
the fact that he is not going to conquer all of Ukraine.
It would be a blunder of colossal proportions to try to
do that.

I assume that you think if he were to try to do that,

that would change your analysis of what we’ve wit-
nessed.

Absolutely. My argument is that he’s not going to re-

create the Soviet Union or try to build a greater Russia,
that he’s not interested in conquering and integrating
Ukraine into Russia. It’s very important to understand
that we invented this story that Putin is highly aggres-
sive and he’s principally responsible for this crisis in
Ukraine. The argument that the foreign-policy estab-
lishment in the United States, and in the West more
generally, has invented revolves around the claim that
he is interested in creating a greater Russia or a reincar-
nation of the former Soviet Union. There are people
who believe that when he is finished conquering
Ukraine, he will turn to the Baltic states. He’s not go-
ing to turn to the Baltic states. First of all, the Baltic
states are members of nato and—

Is that a good thing?

No.

You’re saying that he’s not going to invade them in

part because they’re part of nato, but they
shouldn’t be part of nato.

Yes, but those are two very different issues. I’m not
sure why you’re connecting them. Whether I think they
should be part of nato is independent of whether they
are part of nato. They are part of nato. They have an
Article 5 guarantee—that’s all that matters. Further-
more, he’s never shown any evidence that he’s inter-
ested in conquering the Baltic states. Indeed, he’s never
shown any evidence that he’s interested in conquering
Ukraine.

It seems to me that if he wants to bring back any-

thing, it’s the Russian Empire that predates the So-
viet Union. He seems very critical of the Soviet
Union, correct?

Well, I don’t know if he’s critical.

He said it in his big essay that he wrote last year,

and he said in a recent speech that he essentially
blames Soviet policies for allowing a degree of au-
tonomy for Soviet Republics, such as Ukraine.

But he also said, as I read to you before, “Whoever

does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart.” That’s
somewhat at odds with what you just said. I mean, he’s
in effect saying that he misses the Soviet Union, right?
That’s what he’s saying. What we’re talking about here
is his foreign policy. The question you have to ask
yourself is whether or not you think that this is a coun-
try that has the capability to do that. You realize that
this is a country that has a G.N.P. that’s smaller than
Texas.
Countries try to do things that they don’t have the
capabilities for all the time. You could have said to
me, “Who thinks that America could get the Iraqi
power system working quickly? We have all these
problems in America.” And you would’ve been cor-
rect. But we still thought we could do it, and we still
tried to do it, and we failed, right? America
couldn’t do what it wanted during Vietnam, which
I’m sure you would say is a reason not to fight these
various wars—and I would agree—but that doesn’t
mean that we were correct or rational about our ca-
pabilities.

I’m talking about the raw-power potential of Russia—

the amount of economic might it has. Military might is
built on economic might. You need an economic foun-
dation to build a really powerful military. To go out
and conquer countries like Ukraine and the Baltic
states and to re-create the former Soviet Union or re-
create the former Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe
would require a massive army, and that would require
an economic foundation that contemporary Russia does
not come close to having. There is no reason to fear
that Russia is going to be a regional hegemony in Eu-
rope. Russia is not a serious threat to the United States.
We do face a serious threat in the international system.
We face a peer competitor. And that’s China. Our pol-
icy in Eastern Europe is undermining our ability to deal
with the most dangerous threat that we face today.

What do you think our policy should be in Ukraine

right now, and what do you worry that we’re doing
that’s going to undermine our China policy?

We should be pivoting out of Europe to deal with

China in a laser-like fashion, number one. And, num-
ber two, we should be working overtime to create
friendly relations with the Russians. The Russians are
part of our balancing coalition against China. If you
live in a world where there are three great powers—
China, Russia, and the United States—and one of those
great powers, China, is a peer competitor, what you
want to do if you’re the United States is have Russia on
your side of the ledger. Instead, what we have done
with our foolish policies in Eastern Europe is drive the
Russians into the arms of the Chinese. This is a viola-
tion of Balance of Power Politics 101.

I went back and I reread your article about the Is-

rael lobby in the London Review of Books, from
2006. You were talking about the Palestinian issue,
and you said something that I very much agree
with, which is: “There is a moral dimension here as
well. Thanks to the lobby of the United States it has
become the de facto enabler of Israeli occupation in
the occupied territories, making it complicit in the
crimes perpetrated against the Palestinians.” I was
cheered to read that because I know you think of
yourself as a tough, crusty old guy who doesn’t talk
about morality, but it seemed to me you were sug-
gesting that there was a moral dimension here. I’m
curious what you think, if any, of the moral dimen-
sion to what’s going on in Ukraine right now.

I think there is a strategic and a moral dimension in-

volved with almost every issue in international politics.
I think that sometimes those moral and strategic dimen-
sions line up with each other. In other words, if you’re
fighting against Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1945, you
know the rest of the story. There are other occasions
where those arrows point in opposite directions, where
doing what is strategically right is morally wrong. I
think if you join an alliance with the Soviet Union to
fight against Nazi Germany, it is a strategically wise
policy, but it is a morally wrong policy. But you do it
because you have no choice for strategic reasons. In
other words, what I’m saying to you, Isaac, is that
when push comes to shove, strategic considerations
overwhelm moral considerations. In an ideal world, it
would be wonderful if the Ukrainians were free to
choose their own political system and to choose their
own foreign policy.

But in the real world, that is not feasible. The Ukraini-

ans have a vested interest in paying serious attention to
what the Russians want from them. They run a grave
risk if they alienate the Russians in a fundamental way.
If Russia thinks that Ukraine presents an existential
threat to Russia because it is aligning with the United
States and its West European allies, this is going to
cause an enormous amount of damage to Ukraine. That
of course is exactly what’s happening now. So my ar-
gument is: the strategically wise strategy for Ukraine is
to break off its close relations with the West, especially
with the United States, and try to accommodate the
Russians. If there had been no decision to
move nato eastward to include Ukraine, Crimea and
the Donbass would be part of Ukraine today, and there
would be no war in Ukraine.
That advice seems a bit implausible now. Is there
still time, despite what we’re seeing from the
ground, for Ukraine to appease Russia somehow?

I think there’s a serious possibility that the Ukrainians

can work out some sort of modus vivendi with the Rus-
sians. And the reason is that the Russians are now dis-
covering that occupying Ukraine and trying to run
Ukraine’s politics is asking for big trouble.

So you are saying occupying Ukraine is going to be

a tough slog?

Absolutely, and that’s why I said to you that I did not

think the Russians would occupy Ukraine in the long
term. But, just to be very clear, I did say they’re going
to take at least the Donbass, and hopefully not more of
the easternmost part of Ukraine. I think the Russians
are too smart to get involved in an occupation of
Ukraine.