John J. MearsheimerRezensionen

John Mearsheimer, political scientist at the University of Chicago specialising in international relations, talked about the ongoing Gaza war and the fighting between Israel and Iran between 1 April and 19 April 2024.
M. speaks clearly and concisely. Unlike politicians who practically all have a - mostly hidden - agenda he argues rationally and realistically.

About the Gaza war:
Todays 'Greater Israel' includes all "land between the River and the Sea": Israel before the 1967 war plus the West Bank plus Gaza inhabited by ca. 7.3M Palestinians and 7.3M Israeli Jews. In principle Israeli governments has/had four options to deal with this situation:

1. a democratic Greater Israel with equal rights for all: with ethnic populations now equal in size, Israel would no longer be a "Jewish-state"; this would be totally unacceptable for Israeli Jews;
2. a two-state solution: successive Israeli governments were adamantly opposed to a two-state solution. This option was systematically destroyed by encouraging colonisation of the West Bank; it had been dead for years. The US is fantasising when still advocating it.
3. an apartheid state: this is the present state of Israel with Gaza as an 'open prison';
4. ethnic cleansing of Gaza: killing and expulsions of the Palestinians and destroying the infra-structure and housing to make Gaza unliveable in; Israels assault on Gaza with the support of the US now constitutes genocide: https://www.un.org/unispal/document/anatomy-of-a-genocide-report-of-the-special-...

According to Mearsheimer and many others, Israel will not achieve its objective in destroying Hamas (which in fact Israel had supported so as to weaken the PLO) and has not so far been able to ethnically clean Gaza. They are stuck and in trouble.
M. does not mention that the IDF ignored ample warnings of an imminent Hamas attack and why and by whom the decision was taken not to act on the information. A convincing answer may never be established, so the suspicion remains that the Netanyahu government decided not to act so as to get the US backing for a major Gaza assault and ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

As to Iran versus Israel and the US:
Unlike Israel neither the US nor Iran wanted the up to then shadow war to escalate after the Israeli attack against the Iranian consulate in Damascus on 1st April 24. So the US and Iran worked together through intermediators to make sure that the Iranian reprisal on the 14th caused limited damage with the defence coordinated by the US and Israeli allies.
Consequences: Israelis are stuck in Gaza without solution, Israels deterrence weakened, surrounded by adversaries with increasing military capabilities; finally Israel has become a pariah-state in the eyes of an increasing number of people in the US and Europe.
Conclusion: the situation in the near East has fundamentally changed before and after October 7th . (V-24)

2001…foresaw China in the starkest terms as the future great power rival of the United States. Footnote RD Kaplan 2023 page 245.

It was worth reading this non-fiction explanation of how countries act towards one another, but the author spends a lot of time telling us what his theory is, over and over. There is certainly enough information to make it a valuable book, but I did not like the style.

A non-fiction book about foreign policy theories. If you are interested in that subject, you will likely benefit from this book. If the subject does not interest you, this won't suit. I liked it a lot because I learned quite a bit.

What a horrible disappointment. This books starts off very promising in the first four chapters (hence 2 stars) sticking to a fairly generalistic theoretical approach to polities and associated foreign policies, before veering sharply towards practical examples which all start in the vein of "Liberal hegemons are prone to doing this and that.. The United States for example..". When comes the point that you realise that the title of the book should have been "The failures of US foreign policy" without the attempt to extrapolate every issue into one of "all liberal hegemons"?

We all remember the events of 9/11, but can you remember your thoughts from 9/12? Were you confused, questioning the reason(s) for these attacks? Aren't we the good-guys, fostering human rights, democratic values, and the removal of authoritarian rulers? Clearly, there must be, or must have been, something about our foreign policy in the Middle East to cause such hate and anger toward us. Do you find President Bush's attempted explanation that "... they hate us for our freedom and our democracy" as weak and totally inadequate?
Well, this book isn't intended to answer the question as to why we were attacked on 9/11, but it does attempt to address some of the claims of unequal treatment toward peoples in the Middle East, and how or why some of the U.S. policies anger Muslim nations. It also might give some insight into why Arab leaders often claim that this Country is "controlled by the Jews" or by Jewish interests. We tend to trust our media and policy makers as fair and even handed, because they tell us they are. But if you're looking for a critical review of those statements, this book is a good place to start. I found this to be an eye-opening and enlightening book, and should be interesting to anyone groping for a deeper understanding of how some of our policies in the mid-east are developed and applied and how that affects us all.

Mearsheimer is always good for an intriguing, often contrarian view. I missed his speech at U of C this fall, sadly, but was very interested in this work. It dovetails in some ways with Deirdre McCloskey's views, although McCloskey is much more concerned with domestic economics. But the message is clear--- STOP MEDDLING. Fitting that I finished after Bush's memorials. Since Desert Storm, we have been bogged down or meddled in draining conflicts with unsatisfactory results-- Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya. Mearsheimer makes a convincing argument that foreign policy restraint with ultimately pay greater dividends and he successfully got me to rethink some of my positions.½

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/2007-11-01/jerusalem-syndrom...

No simple resolution. The militancy of the Palestinian politicos continues to increase.

Mearsheimer's writing is extremely clear and his arguments are assertively made. However, he cherry-picks from the historical record and distorts even the examples he chooses to make his point. Even conceding that he's right about state behavior during WWII (which he isn't), he is incapable of conceiving of how nuclear weapons have changed world politics. He maintains that the great powers will once again go to war even though it has been 70 years and his prediction has yet to come to fruition. At times, he resorts to absurd contentions lacking in even the barest shred of plausibility in order to rescue the explanatory power of his theory (example: To explain Britain's failure to seek regional hegemony, he argues that "stopping power of water" means the British government couldn't project power onto the European continent during the very period when their impressive navy allowed them to maintain an empire upon which the sun never set).

Sensible, evenly-tempered, concise book. Bit odd in its scope, perhaps, in that it seems to have been written as a reaction to the Iraq War, and looks only at lying in international politics, and almost exclusiely in (or by) the US. Which constrains it somewhat. I wonder if it had its genesis in academia.

Concludes, worryingly and I think correctly, that democratic leaders are mostly likely to lie, that fearmongering and strategic cover-ups are hugely damaging to the body politic, and that given America's unique military strength, the years to come will see it fighting wars of choice far from home, something that virtually guarantees more lying - and more debacles like Iraq - in future.½

Mearsheimer takes the "offensive realist" approach, that in an unstable, anarchic world, countries will do what is necessary to a. maintain the balance of power, and b. gain any additional power they are able to. For each claim of offensive realism, Mearsheimer goes great lengths to back it up with historical examples from the late 1800's to present day (and in some places, back to the 1700's). It is well worth the read for any student of international politics, providing a foundational knowledge of realism and divergent theories, while presenting his case - of which I could see much of in today's world. Easy to comprehend and very well written. One of the better IR books I've had the pleasure of reading.½

A well known pun says that all so called scientific fields that carry "science" in their name aren't science at all. This is certainly true for Mearsheimer's political science and international relations where most writings are but sophisticated repackaging of one's prejudices and opinions. One has just to read some old issues of Foreign Affairs to discern the flaw in their theological approach. In all too few pages, Mearsheimer tackles an important and timely topic, but is crushed by the recent Wikileaks revelations and his own flawed approach.

It is quite unclear why he assumed to be able to answer his topical question in so few pages (as Frankfurter has done in his seminal Bullshit). All he offers are a set of categories of lies with some US and international examples for each type. All of his three major topics (lying to their own population, lying to other governments, and lying to the international audience) are important and large topics in themselves which merit full-length book treatment. He also fails to develop a multi-actor perspective: From the president's plausible deniability approach to the professional liars called press secretaries and diplomats, there are vastly different expectations and practices regarding lying. Curiously, Mearsheimer does not discuss the house of cards of lies that made up the Soviet Union and its satellite states either.

Mearsheimer's question actually cannot be answered (unless we suddenly develop mindreading capabilities). They lie because they can. Lying is a form of communication. Its success lies totally in the sphere of the liar's audience. Unfortunately, Mearsheimer fails to address this crucial topic. The interesting question is why so few politicians from Silvio Berlusconi to David Vitter to Bibi Netanyahu to George W. Bush pay a political price for their blatant lies. Has any of the recent Wikileaks revelations caused the end of a political career or shaming of a major politician? Politicians lie because they can and because some of their audience even rewards their lying. Why they can't handle the truth remains to be answered.

Clear, comprehensive record of U.S.-Israeli relations in the Middle East during the first decade of the 21st century.

The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2007

In March 2006 Mearsheimer and Walt published in number 6 of volume 28 of the London Review of Books a ten page article titled "The Israel Lobby". In that paper, the authors questioned the wisdom of the U.S. close relationship with Israel and the influence that the group of individuals and institutions they termed The Israel Lobby has in shapping that policy. This book, with more than three hundred and fifty pages plus notes, considerably extend the argument and provides a weealth of supporting references for their claim in more than one hundred fine printed pages of notes. The way the Israel lobby has been able to influence U.S. foreign policy is no secret to anyone interested in Middle Eastern and Israeli affairs and the same type of evidence is common knowledge in Europe, and has been repeatedly shown in the U.S. by writers such as Chomsky, Finkelstein, or Findley. But to see this argued by two pillars of the U.S. academic establishment is indeed a novelty, and one that outraged the lobby: after all, they could not dismiss the authors by calling them anti-semites, or member of the radical fringe, and they could hardly honestly contest the carefuly amassed and referenced evidence produced in the book. Is this the first crack on the most taboo issue in the U.S. foreign policy: its unswerving support for Israel? Given the role of the lobby in shapping the U.S. position vis-à-vis Iraq, Syria, Iran, Palestine, and its general regional policies, and given the counterproductive nature of its influence for the U.S. (and for Israel...) standing in the region, I would very much hope the answer to be yes!

If only it were that simple - checks and balances leading to feelings of oppression and eventual power-play. A worthy read, but definitely not the only answer.

I recently saw an Intelligence Squared Debate (http://intelligencesquaredus.org/index.php/past-debates/the-us-should-step-back-from-its-special-relationship-with-israel/) where the motion called for the US to step back from its special relationship with Israel. Roger Cohen of the New York Times and Rashid Khalidi of Columbia University argued for the motion and in fact won the debate. The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt makes a similar argument in a comprehensively researched and well written narrative. The genesis of the book was in an article commmissioned by the Atlantic Monthly in the fall of 2002. The authors worked on the project for about two years but their manuscript, incorporating most of the suggestions made by the magazine, was rejected in January 2005. The authors finally managed to publish the article in the London Review of Books in March 2006. The publication of the article led to a storm of protest and controversy, and severe criticism. The book represents the authors' attempt to respond to the criticism and to present a more detailed case with an extensive list of references and notes.

The book is divided in two sections. Part 1 deals with the special relationship that exists between the United States and Israel. The authors examine the reasons advanced by defenders of the relationship - is Israel an important strategic asset or is it actually a liability to US interests in the Middle East? The authors think it is the latter. They also question the moral justification of continued US economic, military and diplomatic support of Israel. Part 1 also identifies the loose collection of lobbyists, journalists and special interest groups that are collectively called "The Israel Lobby". The authors are at pains to emphasize that these groups are not necessarily coordinated or centrally organized and they are well within their democratic rights to influence US policy in a direction they deem most beneficial to both the United States and Israel.
Part 2 extensively discusses the affects of the lobby on US policy in the Middle East. It is in this section that the authors make their boldest claims. At least one of the conclusions, that the United States would not have invaded Iraq had the lobby not existed is difficult to accept. However, the authors make convincing arguments on the looby's potentially harmful long term affects on US interests in the Middle East. The chapters on Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and its conduct of the 2006 war in Lebanon are essential reading.

Debate about the relationship between the United States and Israel is unnaturally muted in the American media and this book makes a strong case for changing the status quo. The authors claim there is more debate within Israel than there is in the US media and their extensive bibliography is testament to that claim. I don't necessarily agree with all of the arguments made by Messrs Walt and Mearsheimer but this is an important book and I highly recommend it.

Steven Rosen, the former AIPAC official, illustrates AIPAC's power for the New Yorker's magazine's Jeffrey Goldberg by putting a napkin in front of him and saying, "In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin." As Mearsheimer and Walt make clear, this is no idle boast, and they go on to say, "As will become clear, when issues relating to Israel come to the fore, Congress almost always votes to endorse the lobby's positions, usually in overwhelming numbers".

They note AIPAC President Howard Friedman telling the organization's members in August 2006, "AIPAC meets with every candidate running for Congress. These candidates receive in depth briefings to help them completely understand the complexities of Israel's predicament and that of the Middle East as a whole. We ask each candidate to author a "position paper" on their views of the U.S.-Israel relationship - so it is clear where they stand on the subject."

One congressional candidate (Harry Lonsdale) who went through this vetting process recounts that, "I found myself invited to AIPAC in Washington, D.C. fairly early in the campaign, for "discussions". It was an experience I will never forget. It wasn't enough that I was pro-Israel. I was given a list of vital topics and quizzed (read grilled) for my specific opinion on each. Actually I was told what my opinion must be, and exactly what words I was to use to express those opinions in public..... Shortly after that encounter at AIPAC, I was sent a list of American supporters of Israel..... that I was free to call for campaign contributions. I called, they gave, from Florida to Alaska."

AIPAC also keeps track of congressional voting records and direct funds to opponents of congressmen who don't follow their line.

Apart from Congress, Mearsheimer and Walt show successful Jewish activists in key government positions (particularly from the 1970's onwards), such as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Elliott Abrahams, David Wurmser and Lewis "Scooter" Libby in the Clinton and Bush administrations. This political combination managed to steer George Bush, sideline Condoleeza Rice, and bully Colin Powell into the Iraq war . The authors show the enormous frustration of the CIA as their intelligence was distorted to support the lie of Iraqi WMD and start an unprovoked war that was not in the interests of the United States.

A feeble Congress votes record aid budgets to Israel (currently four billion dollars a year), with loans being converted to grants, and quick acquiescence to Israeli demands that aid be paid up front (which the U.S. government has borrow to give to them) rather than after tax collection, and to the Israeli refusal to account for how it is spent (both necessary conditions for other aid recipients).

The whole process is supported by Jewish Think Tank activists such as Daniel Pipes, Michael Rubin, and Joshua Muravchik at the American Enterprise Institute, and prominent journalists such as William Kristol, Michael Ladeen and Norman Podhoretz who are now agitating for America to declare war on Iran (and subsequently Syria and Saudi Arabia although they are not so open about this).

In their conclusion, Mearsheimer and Walt ask what can be done about the outlandish failure of the American government to act in the interests of America. They doubt that the Israel Lobby will relinquish its power in the press, campaign finance or government, so they suggest pressure for more open discourse, which seems to be happening. It was initially impossible to publish this book in America but it did eventually see the light of day after an article in the London Review of Books and an unprcedented 275.000 downloads of the working paper on Harvard's Kennedy School of Government website.

The authors see the (remote) possibility of congressmen treating Israel like any other country and they show clearly that the majority of American Jews aren't Likudniks and opposed the war in Iraq. They didn't like the AIPAC / Wolfowitz group but of course they lost out to the activists, so its not clear where all this goes, apart from generating some rumbling at the other end of the spectrum (for example, Robert Griffin's, "The Fame of a Dead Man's Deeds" ).

Mearsheimer and Walt are wrong in retrospect about Iraq so their basic thesis is undercut by the Coalition success in that country. Nonetheless, they provide a rationale for the continuing attacks on America, which this country should consider, the increasing unimportance of Israel as a strategic ally since the collapse of the Soviet Union. They advocate "offshore balancing" which sounds like it may have worked until the necessity of increased presence, particularly ground troops, in the Middle East.

The odd aspect of their thesis is undercut by the duplicity in the Obama regime. The Israel lobby, according to the authors, compromises American interests yet in the anti-Israel machinations of Obama, the lobby, if it can truly be said to exist, is silent on Obama. The "Israel Lobby" is is a no-show to the Middle Eastern debates and AIPAC has not played an important role in opposing Obama.

The Obama administration has obsessed about the necessity of Israel declaring its support for the "two-state solution" and yet the Israel lobby is not a significant factor.

The Road Map, which made the Palestinians oft-promised end to incitement and terrorism preconditions for further negotiations, has even been set aside by Obama in favor of advocating the Saudi 2002 Peace Plan, yet, still no important reaction on the part of the lobby.

On another point and player in the equation: Iran. Obama promotes a nuclear Iran and still no lobby to rear its influence.

What has been the response of American Jewry and the Mearsheimer-Walt Israel Lobby to the mounting threats to Israel promoted by Obama? Silence.

In Israel Jewish survival is the key; for American Jews the chimera of peace, in the form of any type of treaty, is paramount.

American Jews remained largely quiet during the Holocaust, partially because of their adulation of FDR, and Stephen Wise, the most influential voice in American Jewry, could not overcome his worship of FDR to challenge the latter's position that nothing could be done to save Jews other than win the War. (David Wyman's The Abandonment of the Jews reveals how much could have been done.)

American Jews are dazzled again. This time the object of their longing is Obama, who has thrown Jews under the bus. Likewise Clinton accomplished nothing for Jewry but the packaging of both has proven sufficient during the lack of accomplishment

The Israel Lobby of Walt and Mearsheimer obviously is vapid. Obama has made that clear.

Update: 13 July 2010

The influence of the Israel lobby is pervasive:

“Well I voted for Obama, I helped write one of his speeches,” Mortimer Zuckerman told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto.

Asked which speech he helped write, Zuckerman responded, “I’d rather not go into that.”

Zuckerman was identified by John Mearsheimer, political science professor at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Walt, academic dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, as a a member of the media wing of the “Israeli lobby” in the United States. Zuckerman responded to the charge by stating he was “proud” to be part of the Israeli lobby.

"Influence over the executive branch derives in part from the impact Jewish voters have on presidential elections. Despite their small numbers in the population (less than 3 percent), American Jews make large campaign donations to candidates from both parties. . . . Furthermore, Jewish voters have high turnout rates are are concentrated in key states like California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, which increases the weight in determining who become president. Although they still favor the Democratic party, their support for Democratic candidates can no longer be taken for granted" (p. 163).

The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2007

This book takes a much-needed look at the "special relationship" that exists between America and Israel.

First of all, the authors do not question that Israel has the right to exist within secure borders, or its right to lobby Washington for its interests, or that America should aid Israel if it is attacked. But, the current unconditional level of US support for Israel ($154 billion since 1948) cannot be justified on moral or strategic grounds.

Perhaps Israel was a strategic ally during the Cold War, but now it has become a growing liability. America’s one-sided support for Israel has helped fuel America’s terrorism problem, it has reinforced anti-Americanism around the world, and relations with key allies have suffered. The moral case for unconditional US support also is not compelling. Israel is a democracy, but no other democracy gets the same level of US support. Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians and its Arab neighbors have helped to destroy the myth of Israel as victim and the Arabs as aggressors.

Why does Israel keep receiving such one-sided support from America, even when its actions directly contradict US interests? Why is the discussion of Israeli actions more wide-ranging in Israel than in America? The "Israel Lobby" is a loose confederation of groups like AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League and Christian Zionists, with Israel at the center. They don’t just lobby Washington and write newspaper op-eds, they also publicly smear anyone who says something of which they don’t approve.

An actual discussion of Israel’s influence in America, free of charges of anti-Semitism, is long overdue here in America. This book does a fine, and non-partisan, job of starting that discussion. It is very much recommended.

Very clearly written, almost too much so. Argues that the international system is inherently unstable do to constant quest for power, which is driven by survival instinct and fear of other states. Argues that unbalanced multipolar systems are far and away the most unstable and are likely to very quickly lead to war.½

controversial. very interesting but more detail than i need