John Mearsheimer speech in Australia

John Mearsheimer is professor of political science at the University of Chicago he's also author of many prominent books most notably the tragedy of great power politics that was published in 2001 which predicted that the rise of China would not be peaceful now John is according to the next edition of the prestigious New York based foreign affairs magazine quote one of the most famous political scientists in history and that, please, welcome John Mearsheimer. Thank you all, coming out tonight I’m amazed at that how many people are here the subject I want to talk about for about 25 minutes and then I'll be more than willing after Peter makes his comments on my comments to take any questions that folks have is all about American grand strategy and my argument is that the United states is losing focus and you said to yourself what exactly does that mean I believe that the principal threat to the United states faces in the world is the rise of China and the possibility that China might try to dominate Asia and I think we have a deep seated interest in containing China but what's happened is that the United states has lost focus and it's got diverted it into the Ukraine war in Europe and it's now getting diverted into the Middle East with the war between Hamas and Israel and the United states therefore unable to pivot completely to Asia and I think this is a major mistake for the United States and what I want to do tonight is elaborate my thinking on that main thesis OK the best starting point for thinking about this issue is just to talk about the global balance of power it's very important to understand that most of the young people in the audience came of age during the unipolar moment period from 1989 when the Cold War ended up until about 2017 it's commonly known as the unipolar moment what that means is that there was only one great power on the planet and that one great power was the United States of America this is a world that Australians almost to a person loved because the United states provided security for you and there was no China threat there was no Soviet threat and you were able to grow economically and all sorts of ways to become more prosperous this was the unipolar moment but it's very important to understand that what's happened is that the unipolar moment is in the rearview mirror it's gone we are now in a multipolar world where we went from one great power to three great powers The United states China and Russia and we now consider Russia a great power because Vladimir Putin since he took over in 2000 has brought the Russians back from the dead most of you know that in the 1990s Russia had basically died. Putin brought them back from the dead so Russia is a great power China is a great power and of course Uncle Sam is a great power and it's important to understand that Uncle Sam is still the most powerful state on the planet but nevertheless China is a pure competitor it is growing economically it is growing militarily and it is beginning to close in on the United States and that's why I said to you folks before China is the real threat to the United states, Russia is the weakest of those three great powers, it's very important to understand that's the basic architecture of the system at this point in time right went from unipolarity to multipolarity, we have three great powers Sam is one China two and the Russians are a distant third that's the world let me switch gears now and just talk a little bit about American grand strategy and tie it to that global balance of power in the United states from America there are three areas that you die for where you expend blood and iron those three areas of the world are Europe, East Asia and the Persian Gulf you care about Europe and you care about East Asia, that's where the great powers are and if you're the United States of America and you're a great power you care about the other great powers the gulf is of great interest to the United States and other countries on the planet simply because it has oil and oil is a very special resource and the United states does not want any country controlling all the oil in the Persian Gulf so the United states has a deep seated interested in maintaining a balance of power in the Persian Gulf down we have these three areas of the world East Asia Europe and the gulf. Historically, the United states has cared most about Europe has been historically much more important than East Asia and that's because the most powerful great powers on the planet have been located mainly in Europe Nazi Germany was a much greater threat than imperial Japan the Soviet Union which spanned Europe and Asia had most of its military might concentrated in Europe so we have long had a Europe first policy that changed after 2017 for the first time in American history East Asia is the most important area of the world for us why is that the case one very simple reason who's the peer competitor out there it's not Germany it's not Russia it's China where is China located it's located in East Asia therefore East Asia is the most important area of the world and what I'm telling you is that the United states should pivot right to East Asia and not get bogged in Europe Russians don't matter that much they're not a threat to dominate Europe and the Persian Gulf does not have a potential hegemon sitting in that region there's no one country that's gonna take over all the oil so we're in an ideal world free to pivot but we've not fully pivoted and what I'm telling you and I'm gonna lay this out more detail is we are going to get more deeply involved in Ukraine and in the Middle East and we already are and in both cases the problem is not going to go away the situation regarding Ukraine and Russia is going to get worse with time for us and the Israeli Palestinian conflict and the problems in the Middle East are going to get worse as well. Darkness ahead in both regions and what does that mean it means it's difficult to pivot point it's very important to understand that if the United states worried about feeling the China and there's one other great power in the system and that other great power is Russia you want Russia on your side of the Ledger in other words if you're in the United States and you're looking at a China threat and there's Russia you want Russia with you because Russia represents power it is a great power you want the Russians with you against the Chinese, what have we foolishly done we have foolishly pushed the Russians into the arms of the Chinese so the Russians and the Chinese you surely will know are tightly allied. This is not in our interest it should be Uncle Sam and the Chinese I mean, excuse me, Uncle Sam and the Russians that are tightly allied against China, That’s the basic situation we face. We are in trouble. This is why I say we've lost focus and word trump now what I wanna do is I wanna unpack it for you I wanna unpack this argument in greater detail number one I want to briefly talk about East Asia and what's happened with regard to U.S. policy toward China that's pretty straightforward but then I want to get into the tricky issues one Ukraine and to the Middle East talk about the Ukraine war and the Israel Palestine conflict and its potential for escalation and make my point that we're gonna have a tough time fully pivoting these days let's start with Ukraine let me just give you a little bit of background on the history of the Ukraine problem so you have a feel for sort of how this got started and why we're in the present situation. When the Cold War ended the United states debated whether or not to expand NATO east and we decided in the early 90s the Bill Clinton administration did that we were going to expand NATO eastward and the Russians made it unequivocally clear from the beginning this was unacceptable they just proposed but they were very weak in 1990 from what I said before and they were even very weak in the early 2000s this is before they are brought back from the dead by Putin so in 1999 we shoved NATO expansion down their face down your throat when we bring in Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic it's 1999 OK then in 2004 we shove another tranche of NATO expansion down their throat this is when we bring in the Baltic states; Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Slovakia, the Russians are hollering out loud that this is unacceptable they don't want it but they're too weak and we push it down that's 2004 first trunch 99 second trunch 2004, in April 2008 that's when we made the really big mistake. We say in Bucharest the annual NATO summit in Bucharest. April 2008 we're bringing Ukraine and Georgia into the alliance Putin says that the time the Russians make it unequivocally, clear across the board is this is not happening and Putin makes it clear that he will destroy Ukraine before he allows it to become a member of the alliance the Americans think that they can just shove it down Putin's throat just like they did in 1999 just like they did in 2004 so we continued to push and not only are we pushing NATO expansion we're pushing EU expansion at the same time and we're trying to foster a color revolution many of you I'm sure wherever the orange revolution we were trying to foster in Ukraine what are we doing there we're trying to turn Ukraine into a liberal democracy that has a pro West orientation. This spooks the Russians like you wouldn't believe a Liberal Democratic Ukraine that's in the EU that's in NATO especially in NATO. On their boarder, the crisis breaks out in 2014, 2008, Bucharest 2014 is when the crisis breaks out that's when the Russians take Crimea number one and two, that's when the civil war breaks out inside Ukraine in the Dombass so there's big trouble in 2014 and that trouble continues through 20 21 and at the end of 2021 the Russians are scrambling to get some sort of agreement the Americans won't agree and on February 24th 2022 a war breaks out the present war breaks out so you see the crisis broke out in 2014 and that's when Crimea was lost and then eight years later February 2022 the war that we now read about every day broke out that's the background would you wanna now think about is what's happening in that war where is this train headed that's what you wanna know now in 2022 remember the war breaks out in February 2022 if you go from February 2022 to the end of the year let's say December 31st 2022 over that time period the Ukrainians do very well they do very well the Russians are slow to mobilize and the Russians are not a highly efficient fighting force at that point in time and we're beginning to think in 2022 we're gonna beat the Russians push from that of the Dombass pushed them out of Crimea and really maybe even knocked them out of the ranks of the great powers so we're playing hardball with the Russians but what the Russians do in the end at the end of September 2022 is they mobilized 300,000 men and they begin to learn how to fight on the battlefield and then over the course of 2023 the year that we're now in they are raising an additional 425,000 men and they have an industrial base that allows them to produce huge amounts of artillery, huge numbers of tanks, huge numbers of aircraft, huge numbers of helicopters. Ukrainians don't have that capability they depend on us and you know what we ran down our industrial base during the year polar moment we do not we in the West this includes Australia we do not collectively have the capability to produce lots of artillery tubes artillery shells tanks and so forth and so on the Russians do and why does this matter what you wanna understand about this war between Ukraine and Russia is it's a war of attrition, it's Muhammad Ali right and Joe Frazier standing toe to toe pounding the living daylights out of each other that's what it is think World War One on the Western Front , that's the kind of war this is nothing fancy about this one the question you want to ask yourself is who wins in a war of attrition where two armies are head to head two factors matter the population size of each country because that tells you how many soldiers you can send to the front population size and how much artillery each side has when I went to West Point and I was in the American military we were taught that artillery is the king of battle and the war of attrition that is certainly true the question is what's the population ratio look like between the two sides what's your artillery ratio look like wanna know what the population ratio is it's five to one in the Russian space you wanna know what your tillery ratio looks like it's somewhere between 5 to 1 and 10 to 1, and most people think it's 10 to 1, this point in time and the Russians favor and we cannot we in the West cannot rectify that imbalance so you have the situation where the Ukrainians are outnumbered population wise 5 to 1 they're outnumbered probably 7 to 1, 10 to 1, in terms of artillery can't improve either one of those situations and in a war of attrition that's the kiss of death, and furthermore, on top of all that is you know they launched a counter offensive on four June of this year my God the Ukrainians have suffered enormous casualties with these offenses we've encouraged them to attack the Russians it was foolish in the extreme in my opinion the Ukrainians should remained under defensive they have suffered such casualties and they already were down 5 to one population wise and down in terms of artillery they're gonna to lose. There's no way the Ukrainians can win, what does losing mean in this case the Russians are not gonna conquer the whole country it would be a massive mistake it's a huge piece of real estate in Ukraine and furthermore there are lots of people especially in the central part in the western part of Ukraine or ethnic Ukrainians who hate the Russians occupying that area would be insane with the Russians are gonna end up doing because they now control close to 23% of Ukraine. I believe they'll try to take another 20% they have annexed. The Russians have annexed four bolas plus Korea and I believe that they will try to annex another four bolas and at the same time they're gonna go to great lengths to turn Ukraine into a dysfunctional rum state this rum state they will interfere in the politics of Ukraine they will interfere with the Ukrainian economy and they will do everything they can to wreck Ukraine and keep it wrecked as they said they would in 2008 and they have consistently said afterwards. How the problem here such from the fact that this is devastating defeat for Ukraine problem is Ukraine won't be knocked out of the fight completely and what you will get at some point is not a peace agreement you're not going to get a peace agreement here you're gonna get a frozen conflict the fighting will stop there'll be a ceasefire and you'll have a frozen conflict it'll be a lot like Korea on the 38th parallel as you all know North Korea on one side South Korea on the other over frozen conflict and the potential for escalation will be ever present if you want to understand the United states will be involved in Ukraine in Eastern Europe doing everything it can to damage Russia we will not lose gracefully we will not lose in Ukraine and pivot to Asia we will stay in Ukraine we will continue to support Ukraine we will continue to look for opportunities to screw the Russians and the Russians will look for opportunities to screw us you will have this nasty security competition in Eastern Europe, there's no end insight to the trouble that we are now facing in Ukraine which by the way tells you what a massive mistake we made in April 2008 trying to bring Ukraine into NATO but my bottom line to you here is that that makes it very difficult to pivot. That's the Ukraine issue and if I had come here last month instead of coming this month at this point in time I would have stopped the talk here right but now we have another massive problem confronting us that I don't know who saw it coming ? I certainly didn't , the Israelis certainly didn't see it coming, but if you go back to October 6th it looked like the Middle East was a peaceful region compared to what was going on in Eastern Europe it looked like a remarkably peaceful area and Jake Sullivan is you know basically said that the Middle East had look so good a long time but then came up October 7th and Hamas attacked Israel and uh in a deadly effective way and of course the Israelis have reacted by declaring war on Hamas and you now have this giant conflict between Israel and Hamas that threatens to escalate to where Hezbollah might come in conflict might break out on the West Bank, or even the Iranians might come in so this is a really dangerous situation and much like Ukraine. We're gonna sink deeper into the mud here and this one's not going away anytime soon right now why do I say that first thing you want to keep in mind when you talk about Israel and the United states is that the two countries are joined at the hip there's just no question about that I don't think this is a controversial issue I don't think you've ever had a closer relationship between any two countries than you have between Israel and the United states so it's very hard for the United states in any meaningful way to distance itself from Israel so that's the first point you want to keep in mind second point you want to keep in mind is that the tap root of the problem here is the Israel Palestine or the Israel Palestinian conflict that that's the taproot and you just have to understand what that conflict looks like this is a long standing conflict as you all know and you just want to understand its essence because that tells you a lot about what's happening now and what is likely to happen over time The United states has been deeply interested in creating two state solution as most of you I'm sure know in Israel and what the United states has been interested in doing is creating a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza and in east Jerusalem living next door to a Jewish state, Israel. We have failed we’ve not been able to push the Israelis to accept that and there's no two state solution. So what the Israelis now have and which the government in Israel wants is greater Israel, greater Israel includes the West Bank, Gaza and 1967 Israel or green line Israel that's greater Israel, the key point you want to keep in mind is that there are approximately 7.3 million Palestinians and approximately 7.3 million Israeli Jews in greater Israel there is rough equality between Palestinians and Israeli Jews. You just think about that so when you think about Israel you think about Israel as the Jewish state it's completely understandable you want to understand that that Jewish state has as many Palestinians in it as it has Jews and by the way this very prominent Democrat demographic expert who is really who argues that there are slightly more Palestinians than there are Jews inside greater Israel and furthermore when you look at demographic trends overtime, there are going to be more Palestinians than there are Jews and this is the Jewish state so the question is what do you do here, what has happened is that the Israelis do not want to give equal rights to Palestinians because they gave equal rights for the Palestinians Israel would sue cease to be a Jewish state because they're more Palestinians than there are Jews, if not now, certainly in the future so in the case of the Palestinians who are in Gaza basically they have been cordoned off they have been isolated in Gaza and it is commonplace to refer to Gaza as the largest open air prison in the world and if you read virtually any account of what life is like for those Palestinians who live in Gaza it is absolutely horrible there is just no question about that they live under horrible conditions in effect in a prison you want to understand that Israel controls the borders around Gaza and it controls the air above Gaza these are not disputable issues and again there are about 2.1 million of those 7.3 million Palestinians in Gaza and the fact is that the Israelis who have been playing hardball with the Palestinian since 1948 when the state of Israel was created are in a situation where the Palestinians are going to erupt from time to time, most of us in this audience have heard of the first inapa we have heard of the second inapa, the inapas were uprisings by the Palestinians the Palestinians want their own nation state just as the Jews wanted their own nation state it's perfectly understandable that the Zionists were interested in coming to Palestine and creating a Jewish state a Jewish nation state that's completely understandable but as my mother taught me when I was a little boy what's good for the goose is good for the gander and if the Jews want their own nation state are you surprised that the Palestinians want their own nation state no and American policymakers especially American president going back to Jimmy Carter understood this completely and put enormous should have put enormous pressure on Israel to accept the two state solution but we were incapable of doing that we could not put great pressure on Israel and the end result is you have a greater Israel and inside that greater Israel are 7.3 million Palestinians just to take this step further it's very controversial to refer to Israel as an apartheid state given how they treat the Palestinians but Human Rights Watch Amnesty International and bet selum, bet selum is one of the leading human rights groups in the world and it's an Israeli human rights group, Human Rights Watch Amnesty International and bet selum all have produced significant reports that label Israel as an apartheid state so this is the reality that you now face and the problem is there is no way the Israelis are ever going to agree to a two state solution because the political center of gravity in Israel has moved far to the right over time and is likely to move further to the right over time if you look at the Israeli demographic situation, it's really women have large numbers of babies compared to western birth rates but your average ultra orthodox woman has about seven babies so what's happening is that the ultra orthodox who now represent 13% of the population will probably represent about 30% of the population in 2050 or 2060 they're growing significantly in number and the ones were orthodox I mean there are problems with for Israel because first of all they don't serve in the military secondly the husbands don't work and in effect live on welfare but furthermore their politics are far to the right the whole orthodox are not going to be sympathetic to a two state solution, furthermore after what happened on October 7th what do you think the Israelis are gonna say when you say let's move towards a two state solution they are going to look at you like you're crazy given what happened on October 7th so all of this is just to say the only hope in my opinion of ever sadly this conflict between the Palestinians and the Jews inside of greater Israel was a two state solution and a two state solution is not going to happen that train has left the station and again as I said to you it's very important to understand that the United states has joined at the hip with the Israelis and therefore as this situation continues to faster in Israel we are inextricably bound up in it, let me just take this step further talk about the Israeli Palestinian conflict, first of all, we have the deep seated interest instability in the Middle East we were working before October 7th you all remember with Saudi Arabia to get Saudi Arabia and Israel to reach some sort of accommodation the Abraham accords that we had helped facilitate during the trump years between Israel and Bahrain Israel and Morocco and Israel and the United Arab Emirates where relations between Israel and those three countries had significantly improved the Biden administration was trying to get another Abraham accord this one which would have been the big enchilada involving Israel and Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia is adamantly opposed to what's happening with regard to the Israeli war against the Palestinians there's a possibility Hezbollah may come into this conflict the Israelis in Hezbollah are exchanging rocket fire up on israel's northern border there's a possibility that Iran might come in as I said before there's a possibility that conflict will break out on the West Bank approximately 90 Palestinians have been killed on the West Bank since October potential for this one spiraling out of control within the context of the Middle East is really very worrisome by the way you understand we sent this Armada aircraft carrier battle group the Gerald USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier battle group off the coast off the coast of Israel shot down 3 Christmases U.S. forces shot down three cruise missiles that the most Houthis and Yemen had fired at Israel so in a very important way we've already been involved in of course a very tiny way in the fighting and if this one spins out of control in a big way we're likely to get dragged in and furthermore as I told you there's no hope of this going away anytime soon then there's the diplomatic dimension to this the Russians from the Chinese just love this situation right and they're saying all sorts of things about how the Americans failed to produce a diplomatic solution that would have given the Palestinians the state of their own and this is of course message that resonates all around the planet right we're all sorts of trouble in the Arab world this may lead to another oil embargo and furthermore in the global South the global South we're very interested in winning the allegiance of the global South especially to help us in Ukraine we're in deep trouble in the global South as a result of this so in terms of stability in the Middle East in terms of our diplomatic position around the world as a result the Arab Israeli conflict. We are in deep trouble right and again this is one of these situations that has no solution I mean that I can say I hope I'm wrong I hope I'm humiliated and a year from now when I return when Tom brings me back I can say I was wrong right the same thing is true with Ukraine but I don't see the Ukraine situation or the Middle East situation looking any better brings me to my bottom line, we have a pure competitor, the Biden administration as far as I'm concerned to a person will tell you that the principal threat the United States of America faces is China there is nobody who disagrees that China is our biggest threat but what I'm telling you is we're in a situation where we can't fully pivot to Asia to deal with that threat because we're pinned down in the Middle East now and before that in Ukraine furthermore the Russians who should be on their side because of our foolish policies have pushed them on to the side of the Chinese. This is not good the final point that I'll leave you with is you know we in the West and I'm sure this is true of many Australians vote the rules based order those talking about the rules based order we think it's important to better rules and West of course United States has played key role in establishing that rules based order which is in their interest but the rules based order is in tatters as result of Ukraine the Middle East and assorted other forms of behavior by the United states so all of this is to say we are in the deep kimchi .