John J Mearsheimer: The Great Delusion

ladies and gentlemen on behalf of it's going to be a very exciting evening my name is Brian Schmidt I'm an associate professor in the Department of Political Science and I'd like to welcome you all before the excitement overwhelms myself I would first like to thank some of those who made tonight possible I would like to thank Dean Andre Plourd the associate Dean's of the Faculty of Public Affairs the committee members of the FPA Research series for accepting and providing some funding for my proposal to invite tonight's speaker and include him in the FPA research series I like to thank the College of Humanities and its director Sean Hawkins for providing generous financial support thank you very much I like to thank the department political science the chair dr. Eleanor Sloan the administrator of Darlene Moss my graduate administrator Brooks fee and especially the administrative assistant to the chair Sarah Landry for all the support and helping to make this possible and most of all I want to wholeheartedly thank my friend and mentor John J Mortimer who is the our Wendell Harrison distinguished professor at the University of Chicago for agreeing to make another trip to Ottawa and deliver tonight's lecture the great delusion which is also the title of his newest book published by Yale University Press in late 2018 for many of you in the audience I don't need to talk very long because professor murmur does not really need any introduction at all he is not be a towering figure in the field of international relations isn't a renowned scholar around the world he's one of the few academics who actually achieve the status of a rockstar he lectures the thousands of people around the world he attracts giant audiences his events sell out random people ask for his autograph and have a picture taken with him and he's on YouTube so briefly I just want to say there's four reasons why he's attained this status first of all he's published six major books countless articles in all the top journals his work has been translated into dozens of different languages and his work will be read in perpetuity because his ideas and arguments are profound and having timeless quality that's true of his new book and it's especially true of his book the tragedy of great power power politics published in 2001 secondly he's not just an academic working in an ivory tower although he does have a nice office but he's a person who is engaged with the policy issues of the day especially those related to American foreign policy he has discussed Iraq Iran Ukraine Afghanistan Israel and of course the rise of China he's addressed these issues in his publications op-ed pieces lectures and TV interviews three he's a public intellectual not only were his students at University of Chicago previously her privileged to hear him speak but so are thousands of others he is not afraid to speak truth to power and like another giant who once taught at the University of Chicago hans jay Morgenthau he's willing to take controversial and adversarial positions on some of the major topics of the day and i always remind people that it was Professor merch timer and other realists who opposed the Iraq war before it started and argued that it was contrary to the American national interest and trying to do regime change in the Middle East would likely be a disaster finally professor merch heimer is a super nice human being like many others I was scared out of my wits when I figure found out that I was on a panel with him in 1998 in Minneapolis but like many others I learned that he was not a mean arrogant warmongering evil realist he actually was the opposite but do not get me wrong he is a realist par excellence and says some unpleasant truths that some people would rather not hear one of my favorites is that international politics it's better to be Godzilla than Bambi but here's the catch it is by ignoring and forgetting the basic principles of realism that have got us in the mess that we are in today ladies and gentlemen the great delusion a lecture by John J Murch I'm er thank you very much for that wonderful introduction I really appreciate it very much I'd like to thank everybody for coming out to hear me speak today it's a very humbling experience to know that so many people are interested in what I have to say about different subjects regarding international politics so thank you I also want to thank Carleton University for sponsoring my talk today especially the Faculty of Public Affairs and the FPA Research series and also of course the Department of Political Science so thank you very much what I'm going to speak about today is this book that I wrote which is the great delusion liberal dreams and international realities and basically the story I'm going to tell you is that when the Cold War ended the United States adopted a foreign policy called liberal hegemony and the basic goal of that foreign policy was to remake the world in America's image that policy was a colossal failure and it's one of the principal reasons that Donald Trump is in the White House today and I'll talk more about that at the end of my talk very important to understand that Donald Trump ran hook line and sinker against liberal hegemony and what I want to do is describe this policy I want to tell you what the proponents of the policy thought the benefits were why we pursued liberal hegemony at that particular juncture in time ie the end of the Cold War I want to tell you about some of the policy issues involved around it and then explain to you why it failed and then I'll wrap up by talking about the future so that's the basic architecture of my talk today this is all about liberal hegemony it's all about American foreign policy during the unipolar moment now what exactly is liberal hegemony as I said a minute ago liberal hegemony is all about remaking the world in America's image that has three dimensions to it the first of which is to promote liberal democracy across the planet to go to great lengths to make every country on the planet a liberal democracy to make it look like the United States of America so that's the first goal the second goal is to embed every state and especially those big states like China and Russia in that international economic order that the United States was principally responsible for creating during the Cold War in other words you want to get everybody hooked on capitalism you want a lot of economic interdependence in the system so that's the second goal again the first goal is to promote liberal democracy second is to embed countries in the international economic order that uncle Sugar created during the Cold War and in the third goal which is related to the second is to get countries embedded in international institutions for example you want to get China embedded in the World Trade Organization you want to get Russia into the IMF and the World Bank you want to get more and more countries into NATO in the European Union which are international institutions so these are the three principal goals and it's easy to understand how a country like the United States would pursue these particular missions so that's really what liberal hegemony was all about now the second question you want to ask yourself is what were the benefits of this in other words why was Uncle Sam pushing so hard to remake the world in America's image well we thought there were three major benefits the first has to do with human rights as you all know because Canada is a thoroughly liberal country much like the United States liberals care greatly about individual rights and this is a wonderful thing it's one of the reasons that I'm very thankful and I was born and raised in liberal America okay so we care about rights and we believe those rights are inalienable and what that means is that every person on the planet has those rights and that we as Americans and we as Canadians care not only about the rights of our fellow Americans or our fellow Canadians we care about the rights of everybody on the planet rights really matter they're a centerpiece of liberal theory and the idea here is that if you could create a planet that's filled with nothing but liberal democracies we will no longer have to worry about massive violations of human rights because liberal democracies by definition privilege individual rights and hardly ever engage in massive violations of those rights so again liberal agenda is holding out the prom of effectively eliminating the problem of massive rights violations that's the first benefit what's the second benefit the second benefit which all of the students in the audience will know right away is Democratic peace theory this is the idea that liberal democracies do not fight against each other well if liberal democracies do not fight against each other which liberal hegemonist believe to the core I'm sure many Canadians believe to the core if you believe that then if you create a planet that has nothing but liberal democracies on it you have wolf piece and dope what else can you help there's going to be no more war you all know Frank Fukuyama's very famous piece at the end of history right at the end of history right says that what's happening here is that liberal democracy is inexorably spreading all across the planet and we're eventually going to reach the point Frank says where there's nothing but liberal democracies on the planet and what does he say is then going to be the most formidable problem we face boredom boredom why because nobody fights against each other there are no massive violations of human rights so you can see where if you have a country like the United States right that's a thoroughly liberal country that it's gonna think that spreading liberal democracy is a really good thing because it's going to bring peace to the world and eliminate human rights violations the third reason that the third benefit that we think you're going to get from liberal hegemony is it's going to make the world safe for democracy for liberal democracy it's very important to understand that liberal democracies are very skittish about their future they worry about internal threats and they worry about external threats when I was a little boy growing up in the United States of America we meaning Americans the American government worried about communists we're really worried about Communists we worried about the American Communist Party forming an alliance with Moscow well if you have a world where there's nothing but liberal democracies you don't have to worry about your communist party forming an alliance with Moscow because there's no Moscow that's communist that's out there it's a liberal democracy too so for the purposes for the purposes of maintaining your liberal democracy forever and ever to use Woodrow Wilson's term the purposes of making the world safe for democracy what you want is a planet that has nothing but liberal democracies on it so this was our goal right to make the world a place that had nothing but liberal democracies because it would give us these three major benefits now the next question you want to ask yourself is why didn't we do this in 1980 or in 1920 why did we do it in the post Cold War period right why why is liberal hegemony in my story peculiar to unipolarity and your three factors you want to keep in mind here first and this is a general point you should all keep in your frontal lobes over the years moving forward what's going on in the world today is that the Glacius plates are moving we're going from unipolarity to multipolarity and when many of us in the room I'm talking here about the old dogs when we were young we grew up in a bipolar world and the glaces plates shifted in the late 80s early 90s and we went from bipolarity to unipolarity so in my lifetime we've gone from unit from bipolarity to unipolarity and we're now going to multiply polarity all of those our viewer trying to make sense of what's going on the in the world today and you can't figure out what's happening a large part of the story is that the glaces plates are moving and all sorts of adjustments are being made there all sorts of consequences from this but anyway we went when the Cold War ended from bipolarity to unipolarity now why does this matter for liberal hegemony the fact is if you live in a bipolar world you have the US and the Soviet Union those two countries are gonna behave towards each other in a realist fashion balance of power politics is going to dominate relations between the United States and the Soviet Union but when you move to a unipolar world you have by definition only one great power so you can no longer have great power politics all of this is a way of saying that the Unipol or the sole pole which is the United States of America does not have to worry about balance of power politics because there are no other great powers in the system and just to get way ahead of myself you understand what's happening now is we're moving at a unipolar 80 to multiply polarity ie balance of power politics is coming back but that's getting way ahead of myself the point is in the early 1990s we were moving squarely into a unipolar world especially after December 1991 when the Soviet Union went down the toilet bowl right so we were in a unipolar world where we did not have to worry about balance of power politics all of that's another way of saying we were free to pursue an ideological foreign policy in ways we were not free to do before 1989 so that's the first enabling condition the second excuse me an enabling condition is that the United States is a thoroughly liberal country we are wired that way it in our DNA so you take a really unusual situation where the United States doesn't have to worry about balance of power of politics and it's free to pursue an ideological foreign policy and it's a highly ideological state ie it's a crusader state you all understand the United States is a crusader state Canada by the way would be a crusader state if it was powerful enough right cuz you believe in liberal hegemony just like we do right it's just that we happen to be really powerful so the second condition is you have this highly ideological state right that is the Unipol then the third reason that we did this is we thought it was going to be easy some of you in the room were old enough to remember the optimism that existed in the early 1990s we thought we had we meaning the Americans and Canadians and West Europeans we thought we had the wind at our back and this is what Frank Fukuyama told us Frank told us that the world is eventually going to be filled with liberal democracies what the United States had done in the first half of the 20th century is it had defeated fascism in the second half of the 20th century we defeated communism and there was only one viable political order left liberal democracy and it was slowly gonna be spread slowly but steadily spread across the planet and therefore we had the wind in our back so here you have this highly ideological beautiful also known as a crusader state right that has the wind at its back and we're off to the races so this is how it all got started so question is what happened there are three big policies worth talking about here that really illustrate liberal hegemony at clay one is the Bush Doctrine has mainly to do with the Middle East - is Ukraine and the crisis with Russia over Ukraine and number three is engagement with China these are three of the colossal failures from liberal hegemonies run during the unipolar moment let me start with the Bush Doctrine the Bush Doctrine was all about turning the Middle East the greater Middle East into a sea of liberal democracies the United States believed that it could make Afghanistan a liberal democracy it could make Iraq a liberal democracy and we would live happily ever after because we would have peace for the first time in the Middle East because as you all know liberal democracies never fight each other and we'd have no human rights violations in the Middle East when I make this argument people say John I don't remember us going into Iraq for purposes of spreading liberal democracy we went in there to deal with two problems proliferation and terrorism and I said yes we did go in to the Middle East to deal with those twin problems of proliferation and terrorism but the way we thought we would deal with those problems was to create a sea of democracies because once you create a sea of democracies conflict is talking taken off the table you don't need nuclear weapons nuclear proliferation goes away and liberal democracies don't engage in terrorism this is the story that you tell yourself so when we went into Afghanistan and we won would appear to be a stunning military victory between October of 2001 in December 2001 and then we put Hamid Karzai in power and Kabul week thought we had laid the foundation for liberal democracy the Taliban had been routed we got out of town and we reloaded the shotgun to go into Iraq and you might not believe this you young people in the audience today but Iraq was not the last stop on the train line we thought we were going to go in and do in Iraq what we did in Afghanistan go knock off the government put hollaby in place of saddam hussein and then march on to the next target very important to understand that when the israelis caught wind in early 2002 remember we have one quote unquote in Afghanistan by December 2001 when the Israelis catch wind in early 2002 that we're thinking of doing Iraq next they send a high-level delegation to the United States and say are you crazy you should be doing Iran next because Iran is the real threat this makes perfect sense if you read the newspapers every day what does the administration the Bush administration and their neoconservative allies on the outside tell the Israelis relax or act as the low-hanging fruit we're gonna deal with Iraq first then we'll deal with either Syria or Iran next and we might not even have to deal with Iran because Iran will throw its hands up and surrender knowing that we're on the March that the Crusader state is capable of knocking off regimes here there and everywhere turning them into liberal democracies this is what the Bush Doctrine was all about of course it failed so people don't talk much about this now but that's what they were thinking now there was a real sense of optimism in the United States right but anyway we gave up on invading countries after Iraq but we still have been interfering and causing all sorts of trouble Syria in the United States they like to say the United States is had hardly anything to do what happened with what happened in Syria this is nonsense the United States is deeply involved in Syria we were funding and training rebels we worked with the cutter ease the Saudis and the Turks to help overthrow Assad we bear a huge amount of responsibility for that giant mess Libya we all know what we did there we told Colonel Qaddafi give up your WMD programs and we'll leave you alone he gave up his WMD programs you know where he is now six feet under and you know who helped put him six feet under under uncle sugar did that's what happened to the amount of murder Mayim in the Middle East the greater Middle East that were responsible for is truly remarkable just truly remarkable the Bush Doctrine was a colossal failure our policies in the greater Middle East were a colossal failure if there was any countability in our system most of those policy makers would be in the gulag that's the bush dock then there's Ukraine in this case the argument in the United States and in Western Europe and I'm sure it's true up here in Canada among most people is that the Russians are principally responsible for the Ukraine crisis and by the way it was lucky that we were expanding NATO eastward because what happened and the Ukraine crisis shows you that the Russians were highly aggressive and therefore we anticipated that problem smartly and we've solved it this argument bears little resemblance to reality right the West is principally responsible for this crisis and basically what happened here is that we needn't simply move NATO eastward we move the EU eastward as well and we fomented the color revolutions you've all heard of the orange revolution in Ukraine the Rose Revolution in Georgia and we were even threatening to foment a color revolution in Moscow itself now what's going on here what we're doing is we're taking liberal hegemony and we are moving it eastward in Europe what we're doing is number one trying to spread liberal democracy that's the first goal of liberal agenda we're trying to spread liberal democracy in Eastern Europe think the color revolutions second goal is to get these countries hooked on capitalism get them integrated into the international economic order that Uncle Sam created what do you think EU expansion is all about the third goal is to get these countries integrated into international institutions think the EU think NATO so the basic goal here was not to contain Russia Michael McFaul who was the American ambassador to Moscow will tell you that he told Putin the NATO expansion was not aimed at containing Russia and I believe that was true it was part of a policy of liberal hegemony which was to make Eastern Europe up to the Russian border look like Western Europe to make countries like Ukraine and Georgia a bulwark on Russia's borders right Liberal Democratic bulwarks right and there was even talk that maybe eventually Russia would become part of this liberal international order well do you think the Russians were going to tolerate this the Russians were adamantly opposed to NATO expansion from the very beginning they opposed the 1999 expansion which included countries like Poland Czech Republic and Hungary they opposed the 2004 expansion and then the big mistake was made in Bucharest in April 2008 at the NATO summit or when the summit concluded a communique was released by NATO which said that Georgia and Ukraine would become part of NATO and the Russians said that is not happening it's no accident ladies and gentlemen that in August of 2008 there was a war over Georgia and it's no accident that in February 2014 a war broke out over Ukraine the Russians have absolutely no intention of letting either Georgia or Ukraine become part of NATO and as you can understand the Russians don't like the idea of a color revolution in Moscow I'll talk more about this in a minute but we with NATO expansion EU expansion and the color revolutions went a bridge too far and this all blew up in our face and now the United States which needs the Russians to deal with Iran needs the Russians to deal with China has pushed the Russians into the arms of the Chinese and pushed the Russians into the arms of the Ukrainians excuse me the Iranians but the idea that the Russians caused this that they were poised to take over Ukraine there's no evidence to support it was all a reaction to Western policies and then finally we get to engagement with China this is the biggest blunder of all right the basic goal here is to get China hooked on capitalism to make China really rich get it into the WTO which we finally accomplished in 2001 then let the Chinese violate a lot of the important rules in the WTO get richer and richer that's the second goal third goal is embed them in institutions which we're doing get them in the WTO and then the belief is that once you do that they will become a liberal democracy the richer you make them the more likely it is they'll become a liberal democracy and once they become a liberal democracy they're hooked on capitalism and their rule abiding citizens because they're in all these international institutions which are really all about rules they will become what Robert Zoellick famously called a responsible stakeholder that one worked out really well didn't it Zhi Jing ping he looks like a paradigmatic Liberal Democrat doesn't he and it looks good looks real good as a colossal failure read Kurt Campbell's piece and foreign affairs he was one of the principal architects of that remarkably foolish policy who now admits it was wrong but what's the end result of that we helped grow a country that is a potential peer competitor we are up to our eyeballs and alligators and thinking about how to with this country which has four times as many people us and is growing economically at a rapid pace this is a potential peer competitor from the American point of view this is the worst possible outcome and we helped create it and many Chinese will tell you behind closed door that they were amazed at the time that we were feeding the beast they couldn't understand what we were doing from our own point of view it's very simple liberal hegemony so the question is what went wrong here and as some of you know my argument is that nationalism Trump's liberalism and realism Trump's liberalism and what happened here is that liberalism ran into two different buzz saws one was nationalism and the other is realism and let me just take a few minutes to lay this out for you let's just talk about the Bush Doctrine the idea that the United States can invade countries and do social engineering in those countries especially at the end of a rifle barrel in the age of nationalism is foolish in the extreme nationalism is the most powerful political ideology on the planet and it's very clear that if you invade a country like Iraq or Afghanistan you are eventually going to go from being a liberator to being an occupier and once you and once you become an occupier nationalism kicks in and there's tremendous resistance from the people who live in this country I learned this when I was a young boy slash man when I was in the American military I was in the American military from 1965 to 1975 which was coterminous with the Vietnam War Marines landed at Danang on March 8th 1965 I went into the army as an enlisted man on June 22nd 1965 I got out of the military American military in August of 1975 the Vietnam War ended in the spring of 1975 and one thing I learned during those years is that we were not fighting communism in Vietnam the reason that the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong fought like wild dogs against us was not because of communism it was because of nationalism they didn't want a bunch of Europeans when the French were there telling them what color toilet paper they could use and they didn't want us telling them what color toilet paper they could use they wanted to run their own politics right I remember in 1979 when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan everybody said oh my god this is the end of the world the Soviets are on the March I said exactly the opposite the Soviet Union has just created a huge blunder they just invaded a country in the developing world where they're soon good to be seen as an occupier and they're going to be up to their eyeballs dealing with resistance you want to stay out of places like Afghanistan if you're the Soviet Union or if you're the United States of America my view is if your arms racing or you're in a security competition with another great power what you want to do is encourage that great power to intervene in places like Afghanistan and Vietnam when I first started going to China in the early 2000s I told the Chinese tongue-in-cheek of course but I said what you want to do is tell the Americans that they have to win the war on terror you're counting on them to win the war on terror and they have to stay in Afghanistan and in Iraq until they win I said they'll be there forever wrecking their military wrecking their economy right you want to stay out of those places right this is why I opposed the Iraq war Brian references Steve Walt and I and all the realists because the realists appreciate the importance of nationalism most powerful political ideology on the planet let's talking about the Russians and the Chinese you don't think you don't think that Vladimir Putin got really upset at the idea that we were doing social engineering in Moscow that Michael McFaul was going to be active with groups that were interested in turning you Michael McFaul was the ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014 you don't think the Russians and Putin in particularly gonna be very upset about the fact that we were trying to tinker with the Russian political system you all follow American politics you know how ballistic the United States goes that the mere thought that the Russians are interfering in our politics you know what that is that's American nationalism that's nationalism is all about sovereignty we are a sovereign state we do not like the idea of the Russians meddling in their politics well as my mother taught me when I was a little boy what's good for the goose is good for the gander and if we don't like the Russians interfering and our politics are you surprised that they didn't like us interfering in their politics that's nationalism go to Beijing ask the Chinese what they think about us interfering over issues like protests in Hong Kong they do not think for one second that we have a right to interfere and with with what's going on in Hong Kong you all follow this story for sure about Houston Rockets general manager who tweeted in support of those protesters in Hong Kong he got himself into one a whole heck of a lot of trouble why nationalism go to China today boy the nationalism is really powerful well this is to say in a world where nationalism is really powerful if you're a crusader state and you're sticking your nose and everybody else's business and especially if you're trying to occupy one of those countries you are going to get yourself in a whole heap a lot of trouble and what you want to do again is you want to stay out and encourage your adversaries to go in that's nationalism then there's realism let's just talk about Ukraine does anybody seriously think that you can March NATO right up to Russia's border and turn Ukraine and Georgia into Western bulwarks and the Russians are just gonna sit there and take it that they're gonna understand that we're a benign hegemon this is not the way international politics works just take the United States of America we have the Monroe Doctrine right the Monroe Doctrine says that no country in the Western Hemisphere is allowed to invite a distant great power into this Hemisphere and form a military alliance with and put military forces in the hemisphere do you think the United States let's let's hypothesize situation it's twenty years from now China forms a close relationship with Canada and Mexico they form a military alliance and the Chinese decide that they're going to deploy some military forces in Canada and in Mexico you think the United States is going to say Canada is a sovereign country Mexico is a sovereign country and they can do whatever they want if you believe that you are really asking for trouble if you show any interest in forming a military alliance or getting too close to the Chinese the Americans will be on top of you like nobody's business you remember the there's enough old Boggs in this room remember the Cuban Missile Crisis Fidel Castro had the audacity to form a military alliance with Cuba then invite them excuse me two former military alliance with the Soviet Union then invite the Soviets to put missiles in Cuba we still have not recovered from that you notice that we still have our gun sights on Cuba wow that just drove us crazy as a violation of the Monroe Doctrine again you know my rhetoric about what's good for the goose is good for the gander you're surprised that the Russians were upset about NATO expansion it was not just NATO expansion there was NATO expansion plus EU expansion plus the color revolutions and you know a lot of people say to me don't you understand John that Ukraine is a sovereign state and it could choose its own foreign policy switch my response is that's a foolish way of thinking about international politics if you're a small state and you live next door to a gorilla you have to be really very careful what you do because if you make that gorilla angry that gorilla is going to do all sorts of horrible things to you and we basically probably unintentionally encouraged Ukraine to pursue policies that got into a heap of trouble and then when they got into a heap of trouble what did we do nothing we led them down the primrose path and we did the same thing with Georgia the Georgians were expecting us to come to the rescue they're expecting the seventh Cavalry cavalry to arrive it didn't happen surprise of surprises but anyway all I'd say is you got to understand basic realpolitik here all right talk in conclusion about the future liberal hegemony is dead and it's dead for two reasons one is Donald Trump it's very important to understand that Donald Trump ran against liberal hegemony as you all know he said we're getting out of the business of spreading liberal democracy around the world he said that as you know he's never met a dictator that he wasn't willing to jump into bed with and in most cases with enthusiasm and most of our Democratic allies he's into slapping around right with regard to economic interdependence and an open International economy he likes to refer to himself as mr. tariffs right this is a guy who's not interested in maintaining the open international economic order that the United States created after the Cold War ended he has a fundamentally different view with regard to institutions the guy's never met an institution he doesn't love right he thinks dedos obsolete some of the EU leaders identify him as public enemy number one when it comes to the EU he hates the World Trade Organization he hates the IMF he hates the World Bank one of the first things he did foolishly in my opinion was to nix the TPP the trans-pacific partnership when he came to office as you up here in Canada know he hated NAFTA he hates institutions so he hates institutions he has no interest in spreading democracy and he's mr. tariffs he ran against liberal hegemony and he got elected and why did he get elected he got in lek he got elected in part because the policy was bankrupt the stories that I'm telling you about failure after failure is not what I'm making up Trump recognized that and he ran against his Republican opponents in the primaries on that platform he said explicitly the george w bush was a failed foreign policy president and then he ran against hillary clinton and the democrats and he won that's the first reason it's done but the more important reason that liberal hegemony is done is we're no longer in a unipolar world in fact we're now moving into a multipolar world with one the rise of China and to the resurrection of Russian power under Vladimir Putin in the 2000s roughly over the past 20 years the Russians are back the Chinese have grown very powerful the United States by the way is still the most powerful country in the world I don't want to make light of that you know it's a it's very powerful but nevertheless we're now in a multipolar world and as I told you at the beginning of my talk when you are in a multipolar world the United States has to pay primary attention to balance of power politics you can't pursue an ideological foreign policy because the balance of power matters so much so liberal hegemony is out the window for that reason let me conclude with just one quick observation I have very mixed emotions about this and the reason I have learned makes demotions about this is that we have turned China into a peer competitor and I believe that from an American point of view we are now moving into very dangerous waters I think the United States behaved foolishly during the unipolar moment and there's no question we did a lot of damage in places like the greater Middle East but I think the world was far less dangerous in the unipolar moment then it's going to be moving forward because I think the us-china competition is going to dominate the landscape in the decades ahead and I think the potential for big trouble on that front is not to be underestimated and the key point you want to keep in mind is that the individuals who ran American foreign policy during the unipolar moment created this situation by feeding the beast thank you I'll be happy to take questions and the only thing I would ask is if people would stand up and they would only ask one question it allows more people to ask questions and the other thing is it's very hard from my point of view to always remember two questions so if you just ask one pointed question that would be much appreciated oh there are microphones okay theirs they said there's microphone oh you if you want yeah and I can always repeat the questions one will be liberal the United States will be liberal the Russian and Chinese poles will not be just with regard to that point I think the Russians and the Chinese is I tried to make clear in my talk I didn't say this explicitly but it was implicit but I want to be explicit here during the unipolar moment the Russians and the Chinese acted in a realist fashion it was the United States that did not okay moving forward the Russians and the Chinese will continue as you said to act in a realist fashion my argument is the United States will act once again in a realist fashion as it did during the Cold War so you will have three great powers competing among themselves your question in particular was what effect will this have on the liberal international order I did not talk about the liberal international order I've written a major article on this which I can send you that came out in the in the spring of last year but I sent you the piece oh okay shows you how much I remember but anyway okay but but my point is the liberal international order is kaput right and many people think that Trump is principally responsible for tearing down the liberal international order and my argument is that is not true it's in response to your question it's the fact that you now have three great powers competing that takes the liberal international order off the table when you say global conflict what do you mean okay yeah yeah yeah it is a great question I think that as a result of nuclear weapons it is almost impossible to get a world war one or a world war two like situation between China and the United States and by that I mean a massive conventional war between the United States and China I could tell you a story I won't do it here unless somebody asked the question is why a war between China and the United States is more likely than a war was between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War I think there is a reasonable chance you will have a shooting war between the United States and China but I do not think that will lead to World War three which is your question although you tacked on the nuclear weapons argument and I do think if there is a war between the United States and China there is the ever-present threat of nuclear escalation it's very important to understand that because we have never had a nuclear war thank goodness right we do not understand the dynamics that underpin escalation and the real issue here is that you get into a conventional war and then it spins out of control it escalates and we all get incinerated now is that likely to happen I think not I actually think if the United States and China got into a shooting war it would be limited and we would go to great lengths to shut it down simply because we would live in mortal fear us and them that it would spin out of control because again we just don't understand the dynamics here very well so my bottom line to you is you don't have to worry about World War 3 looking like World War 1 and World War 2 but you do have to worry about the positive of a limited war especially because it could escalate this woman here yes why don't you just wait for two seconds just so everybody can hear you yes ulti polar where realism is kind of the necessary strategy but back in the United States you talk as if the United States foreign policy is a monolithic single thing but yet in the United States and their politics it's been bipolar for a very long time how do you expect that to play out in this new you know this new if things go as you think thank you I think you're the first two-thirds of what you said was an excellent synopsis of my views I actually disagree with you when you say that you had this sort of bipolar relationship or polarization between let's say the Republicans and the Democrats on foreign policy actually what I believe is that you have remarkable consensus among the Republican and Democratic foreign policy elites in the United States they were all liberal hegemonist the Democrats are constantly accused by the Republicans of being Pussycats and and President Obama was said to have been an isolationist this is nonsense President Obama upped the ante in Afghanistan yes he was forced out of Iraq but we went back in President Obama is responsible for what happened in Syria because it all started in the summer of 2011 President Obama is responsible for what happened in Libya yeah the guy was infatuated with drones and became the assassin in chief as we went around the greater Middle East killing people from the sky right the idea that President Obama was a wussy in an isolationist I mean this is the kind of rhetoric that takes place between the Republicans and the Democrats that bears no resemblance to what's really going on they were two there are two political parties that are filled with liberal agendas Trump was the outlier Trump ran the table in the Republican primaries and then he beat Hillary Clinton Trump was calling for a radical change in American foreign policy and it's no accident that a huge chunk of the foreign policy establishment the Republican foreign policy establishment was and remains appalled but the Trump presidency because they view Trump as a threat to this Crusader State mentality that they all have now just a final point on with is really the essence your question what's gonna happen moving forward my argument as you would expect from a structural realist like me right is that as the structure changes we go from unipolarity to multipolarity and the United States has to play balance of power politics both the Republicans and the Democrats will become more realpolitik right you go to China today and you talk to very high-level people about the trade war and us-china competition and you asked them do you think things will change if President Trump is defeated and virtually everybody will tell you it doesn't matter whether Trump is defeated or not the Americans have their gunsights on us they're coming after us we fully understand that and I think that's just a way of answering your question by saying that Republicans and Democrats will probably unite it again but they'll be united in a more realpolitik and less in liberal hegemony hegemony kind of way should we get somebody down there just sorry you know I just took the initial a cup to the mic oh sorry about that sir you recently you recently joined the Quincy Institute on responsible States craft yes as a non-resident fellow yes Washington dc-based think-tank aiming to stop what they call forever wars what do you see the role of think tanks and shaping national foreign policy and what do you hope to do with the Quincy Institute the the Quincy Institute is a new Institute that was created this is kind of hard to believe by George Soros his money and Charles cokes money and as you know coke this out here and Saros is out here but they're both against as this gentleman said the forever wars and the Quincy Institute is its principal mission is to do everything to influence American foreign policy so we stop intervening in the politics of countries all over the planet now with regard to think tanks I think most think tanks are very interested in promoting policies that cause us to intervene here there and everywhere the the foreign policy consensus that exists in the United States between Republicans and Democrats the answer I gave to this woman here right the think tanks are behind that a hundred percent I'm not saying they're the only driving force but they're one of the main driving forces right all the think tanks in Washington except maybe the Cato Institute right which is a libertarian think tank all the think tanks are heavily invested in liberal hegemony and what's going to happen here with the Quincy Institute is you're going to have a new player on the block that has a fundamentally different view of how we should conduct conduct foreign policy and the $64,000 question is whether the Quincy Institute will end up mattering very much really interesting question you all understand that Barack Obama opposed the Iraq war and Barack Obama when he became president said that my goal is to do nation building at home and what he wanted to do was get out of the business of liberal hegemony and what happened is that the establishment rose up and it beat down President Obama and if you read President Obama's exit interview with Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic Monthly for those of you haven't read it you should go read it basically President Obama says The Blob he and his lieutenants used to refer to the foreign policy establishment Democratic and Republican as the Bob Obama says that The Blob beat me right I played by the Washington playbook right and one of the big questions about Donald Trump when he took office was whether or not Trump who has more agency than any president I've ever seen where the Trump could beat the blob right and that blob includes those think tanks so when you think about the Quincy Institute you want to think about the problems that Barack Obama had and you want to think about the problems that Donald Trump has had and it's not clear they'll succeed okay yeah thank you so professor you talked about sorry you talked about how we're moving into a more multipolar world and specifically the three states you mentioned America China and Russia do you see Russia and China as taking it more balancing strictly against America or do you see them kind of balancing against each other and in this case would it be China and America as the main adversarial positions and then Russia playing the spoiler or how do you see that that relationship played out great question I think the the central feature of the multipolar world we're moving into as I said before is the us-china competition and then the question is what are the Russians do my argument has been all along until recently that the United States and the West created the Ukraine crisis and that has driven the Russians into the arms of the Chinese I think that's true still okay and my argument was that with the passage of time as China becomes more powerful the Russians will switch sides and I believe it'll be the Russians and the Americans against the Chinese what I've come to think differently about this argument is that I was in Moscow I think was two years ago and I was talking to these two young Russian IR scholars who are both very very smart and I told them the story I just told you folks and they said to me John you're missing Russia's third alternative and I said what's that and they said to sit on the sidelines and not get involved and as soon as they said that I said that's a brilliant thought you know why didn't it occur to me but it had not occurred to me so I think moving forward the question you want to ask yourself is which one of those three strategies will the Russians end up pursuing and there's a lot to be said for sitting on the sidelines the problem the Russians face is belton road in Central Asia right the Russians are very nervous about the Chinese because one they understand how powerful the Chinese are number two they're geographically co-located right in Central Asia really matters right and the Russians not all Russians I've talked to but a lot of Russians will tell you that the natural position for them is to be alive with the United States if anybody China is the last country they should be alive with but this gets back to my point about the Ukraine crisis and the negative effects of it we've driven the Russians into the arms of the Chinese but I think those are the three options and I think you'll either get the Russians sitting on the sidelines or being with us over the long term or whatever and so in and then have the Russians like president macro has said bring the Russians back into the tent to lift the sanctions yeah everybody heard the question no okay I'll just repeat it very quickly the question is how likely is it that we will be able to solve the Ukraine problem and improve relations between the Russians on the one hand and the West on the other and then once that happens we are more flexible the Russians are more flexible in dealing with this gentleman's question I'm not sure what the answer is there I think there is so much hostility towards Russia in the United States and it's not geopolitical it's mainly a consequence of the fact that President Trump is associated with the idea that we should improve relations with Russia and therefore that has caused huge problems in terms of improving us-russian relations and working to solve the Ukraine problem so I think there are real problems from our side the west side and I think if you look at the politics inside Ukraine which I'm not an expert on this but given what's going on in the East and how many people in the West feel it's very hard to see how you can work out some sort of arrangement inside Ukraine that makes everybody happy so I don't I hope I'm wrong but I don't hold out much hope that you're gonna be able to solve this one anytime soon I come to you in one second let me just go down this way the get a person or two professor given your criticism of the previous administration what grade would you give to Trump's foreign policy so far his question was what grade would I give Trump's foreign policy I'm simply just I'm tempted to say just one letter but I just say a few words I think some of trumps instincts are smart I think ending the forever wars is a good idea a number of people have pointed out that Trump is the first president in a long time who hasn't started a war and I think that in terms of getting getting tough with China I think that was a smart move and I was recently in Geneva talking to some people who were involved these are not Americans and WTO issues who say that a lot of people won't say it publicly but they're happy with what Trump is doing with regard to the Chinese in terms of trade policy so I think Trump's instincts on a number of issues are good they're bad on a number of other issues I think for example on the israel-palestine business I think he's blown that big-time and I think on Iran pulling this is another pulling out of the jcpoa boy I don't want to get into that because I'll be here for the next hour talking about that that was a big mistake but anyway I think he has some good instincts but I think the execution is almost always disastrous just let's talk about balancing against China he wants to balance against China I think this is the right thing to do but we have to balance with allies we especially need our East Asian allies we also need our European allies but this guy president Trump goes around the world you know beating up on our allies poisoning relations with our allies this is no way to form a balancing coalition and I could go on and on so if you were to ask me what grade I would give him I'd give him a grade of D I think when you look at what he's done we could go down the whole list I won't do that because there are a lot of questions but yes ma'am you could have yeah oh yeah I would rather sit if that's okay yeah um thank you very much most of the historic liberals including John Stuart Mill who I do work on built a foreign policy or policy on the basis of a theory of value and morality if you look at it that way you get a sort of a different picture about what liberalism is trying to do so my question to you is if you don't believe in universal in alien rights or that we should be at least working for them what do you do about situations where nationalism as in Rwanda massacres in horrifying degrees which was actually the circumstance that turned many people towards liberal interventionism and responsibility to protect your analysis overall is wonderful except if you come at it from a different angle I always say you leave people to be massacred tortured raped whatever if you are not interested in the circumstances under which you should be promoting policies to address that so the question really is what do you do if you're interested in human rights and yet you want to be realistic yeah this is a very tough question right and my view on this is that when there is genocide or mass murder a massive violation of human rights where people are being killed if you can you should intervene I was in because I was in favor of intervening in Rwanda right this is not for not because I supported liberal hegemonies but for liberal reasons I didn't make this clear in my talk I think but I consider myself to be a card-carrying American liberal I'm thrilled that I was born and raised in liberal America and I understand the importance of individual rights and it sickens me when I see situations like Rwanda right so I'm in favor of going into Rwanda and fixing that problem which would have been very easy to do but the question is what do you do beyond that and the real temptation here and I think it was reflected in your comments the real temptation is to go into a place like Rwanda and fix the politics so that it never happens again and if you listen to my description of what liberal hegemony is all about that's what we thought we could do that was benefit number one right the point that I tried to make in my talk is I think you do more damage than you do good when you go get into the business of social engineering I don't think you solve those problems there's a mic here you know no no go lots of questions [Music] well no I again I went I just want to be clear I'm not I'm not against intervening to stop the massacre my question my point to you was that then leads to the question should you intervene in countries to organize their politics so that a massacre never happens and that's what I'm opposed to okay uh hi I just have a question regarding the China situation okay now a lot of new theorists have come out Freed's acharya peters Ayhan and they say that china is much less of a threat than we give it credit for that the China situation right now is being overblown their demographics are failing their 300% debt to GDP ratio at the moment the belton run initiative you can't promise Iran 400 billion dollars in infrastructure that's unrealistic and so I just wanted to ask to those people who don't believe in the China threat and who don't believe that China is going to become a great power for whatever reasons geographical demographic etc how would you respond to these individuals there are two big issues when it comes to China two big questions when it comes to China one is will China continue to rise and number two if it continues to rise can it rise peacefully if I were giving my China talk tonight I would start off by saying I am simply assuming that China is going to continue to rise and I'm answering the second question can it rise peacefully okay now this gentleman says there are a lot of people who think it's not gonna rise I was in China for 17 days in October talk to all sorts of people it is quite striking how many smart Chinese basically agree with the thrust of what he said which is that I overestimate the threat from China because China is not likely to continue growing at an impressive rate in the years ahead my response to that is first of all that's great news right I want to see the Chinese economy flatline right but the second point I would make is I don't know how to think about what's going to happen to the Chinese economy over time and if you talk to economists and people who specialize on this issue that this gentleman raised there people are all over the map you know I don't know whether China is going to be able to rise peace I mean we continue to rise or not and just to embellish this just a bit more there are two sets of factors that can slow China down one is and this is the way the direction you were going there are structural problems inside of China that guarantee it will slow down he mentioned the demographic problem debt problems banking problems right these are the problems that a lot of Chinese point to this this train is slowing down for structural reasons inherent to China then the second reason is Trump's policies how do you think about Trump's policies you know is he gonna hurt Huawei it is the trade war hurting China more than it's hurting the United States if you try and get an answer to that as a non-expert it's almost impossible to figure out how to think about it so I don't know whether it's good to slow down but again going back to my first point you I hope it slows down because if it doesn't oh my god you know they have many many more people than us and if this place turns into a giant South Korea or a giant Hong Kong they're gonna have one heck of a lot more wealth than we have and we're taking them on 6,000 miles from the Chinese I mean from the California coast mm-hmm so what's hope for Reed's Akari and those people are all right hi professor thanks so much for the lecture I guess for my question I want to return to the point that you were making that in general in this period where it seems to be shifting towards multipolarity the United States is being forced to act in a more sort of self-interested way especially as it looks to you sort of international relations my question is sort of more towards the institutions that we have which have largely grown up you know both in a bipolar and a unipolar world but often you know done a lot to work with American interests how do you see them going forwards in a multipolar world and do you think that they would be able to you know take on more responsibilities when it comes to you know promoting peace for example that the United States might be relinquishing in the North Dakota world yeah it was a great question you know as I said to you before president Trump is somebody who hates institutions and one of the first things he did when he became president was to nix the TPP he hates NAFTA hates the WH WTO and so forth and so on well one thing I've learned over the years is one of these subjects I've changed my thinking about over time has to do with international institutions I believe that when I was younger I did not fully appreciate the importance of international institutions in a highly complicated world like the one that we live in you need rules and institutions are basically rules if you're gonna fight the Cold War all over again you do it with NATO every time the Soviets would do it with the Warsaw Pact every time these are institution institutions are very important and president Trump's I did it you can just sort of get rid of institutions ignore them because he likes to ignore rules it's foolish in the extreme right and I say that is a good realist a good realist should like institutions your question is a great one and it gets back to the International order question that Peter raised before and the point is the glacés plates are moving we're going from unipolarity to multipolarity and the question is what is the configuration of institutions going to look like the TPP which was aimed at China was an example of a new institution being created to deal with the transition from unipolarity to multipolarity so my is that some of the institutions that exist now we'll continue in place I think the IMF the World Bank there are a number of institutions that will be modified for one reason or another I think the World Trade Organization is one new institutions will be created if Trump or his successor get their act together will hopefully have some sort of meaningful alliance structure in East Asia or in Asia more generally that involves countries like India Singapore and so forth and so on so I think that what's going to happen here is that the institutional structure right in the West and on the Chinese side is going to change and by the way that prompts me to just say one very quick point you noticed the Chinese are creating their own institutions now the aíi Bay Belton Road so there'll be more Chinese institutions right but again the one thing I learned institutions do matter because you do need rules so we only have time for just one more question and then we can wrap up I'll stay till 10 o'clock if you Brian's looking at me like is that guy crazy but he knows I'm crazy with the rise of Russia and should hold that up to you with the rise of Russia and China and I guess the relative weakening of the United States do you predict that the United States will retrench on some of its like military bases and military presence around the world and sort of retreat back into its own sphere of influence or do you think it'll maintain its current network of bases and and military facilities yeah this is a great question boy let me make a couple points one is if you go to the Pentagon today there are huge numbers of people who want to end the forever wars which is mainly the these crazy wars in the Middle East because they want to focus on China okay now the way his question is what I would call a grand strategy question and what you want to think about is American grand strategy and when you think about American grand strategy first point is the Western Hemisphere because it's our backyard is the most important area of the world for us Canada and Mexico matter more to the United States than any other country on the planet because you're our neighbors it's the Western Hemisphere so the Western Hemisphere is really important the more much more interesting issue is what other areas of the world matter to Oakland sugar right and there are three of them one is Europe two is Asia historically was Northeast Asia and I'll say more about that in a second and third it was the Persian Gulf so during the Cold War when I used to lecture on American grant strategy I'd say outside the Western Hemisphere there are three areas of the world that mattered to us Europe is number one Northeast Asia is number two and number three is the Persian Gulf those are the three areas Europe and North East Asia matter because that's where other great powers are and the Gulf matters because that's where the oil is notice I didn't say the Middle East okay for all of our history I've talked about the United States here Europe has been the most important area of the world before we went into World War two we had a Europe first policy and even though the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor we added Europe first policy during the war why because Europe is the most important era of the world during the Cold War when we used to run wargames Central Europe is like a giant magnet it used to just sucked forces American forces from all over the planet to Europe why cuz that's where the Soviet threat was right our Asian allies used to go ballistic because we had the swing strategy who would swing force is that if Asia the central you're on why cuz that's where the fight was right Europe was number one the United States is now undergoing a fundamental transformation in its grand strategy East Asia not Northeast Asian I'll explain that in a second East Asia is the number one area of the world for us the number two area of the world for us is the Persian Gulf and the number three area way back is Europe now why is this the case the rise of China East Asia right remember when we used to worry about Northeast Asia the reason we didn't worry about Southeast Asia was with China was not a great power it was the Soviet Union Japan that's why Korea mattered Soviet Union Japan China all up there but down there was just China Southeast Asia didn't matter okay but now China matters so we care just we care about Northeast Asia we care about Southeast Asia oh by the way we care about Central Asia right we care about Southwest Asia that's surprising okay so Asia mainly East Asia is the number one area of the world for us why does the Gulf matter the Gulf matters because China now gets 25 percent of its oil from the Gulf and that number just goes up over time talk to the Chinese they're building a Bluewater Navy Chinese are building a Bluewater Navy so they can protect their sea lines of communication into the Gulf so you can rest assured that the Chinese are going to become more and more influential in the Gulf right this is why the Indians by the way India as in India Pakistan the Indians are scared stiff of the Chinese because they understand the Chinese are coming out of East Asia through the South China Sea through the Straits of Malacca into the Indian Ocean oh my god there's the Chinese baby right and into the Gulf because they get all that oil from the Gulf so the Gulf and East Asia are inextricably linked so you see we're doing a fundamental fundamentally shifting and thinking away from Europe and Europe doesn't matter anymore you know Europe is basically a giant museum that's why you won't go that's why you will go to Europe right it's a museum they don't make no seriously seriously they don't they don't make babies anymore so all these countries are shrinking right there's no potential hegemon there's no potential hegemon this is why the Europeans are so scared today because they understand there's no real reason for us to be there many people so what about the Russians oh come on the Russians are a declining great power that depopulating they're not modernizing their economy they're in trouble over the long term right if through the word the Russians have never they tried to conquer Eastern Europe once they've been there done that didn't work very well the last thing you want to do is do that again if you really want to wreck Russian courage them to try and swallow Ukraine that's like swallowing a porcupine right is that the Russians the Russians are not a big problem and furthermore if you do believe the Russians are a problem you believe I'm wrong that they're not a declining great power the Europeans could take care of them themselves what the Germans the French the British and the poles form a balancing coalition what do we have to do it for us what really matters is Asia so what you're gonna see happen here you remember Hillary Clinton 2011 what did she refer to the pivot to Asia think about the pivot Asia when you talk about pivoting to someplace that means you're pivoting away from someplace so if we're pivoting to Asia where do we pivot away from well in the Pentagon they want to pivot away from there forever wars but the other thing you're going to pivot away from is Europe and I say to the Europeans when I go there cuz the Europeans live in mortal fear that uncle sugar will leave because you know where the pacifier in Europe can you believe they gave the EU the Nobel Peace Prize this is a joke this is scandalous they should have given NATO the Nobel Peace Prize it's the American pacifier that keeps the peace that's why there has never been a single European leader who's called for the United States to leave Europe because they understand how powerful we are for keeping the peace there but the problem that they face is they understand that as China continues to rise the pressure on us to shift their forces out of Europe and NATO and moved to East Asia go up precipitously so when I go to Europe I tell them very simply you folks have a deep-seated interest getting back to this gentleman's question in hoping that China does not continue to grow at a rapid economic pace because if it doesn't grow at a rapid economic pace it will no longer be a potential peer competitor and we can stay in Europe and keep the peace but if it grows and you do things to make us angry right which is very easy to do when it comes to the United States as all the Canadians in the room understand right we may leave and again that means taking away the American pacifier I greatly regret that Brian won't let me talk for another two hours because I love the questions and love the conversation but he's the boss and we're lucky our speaker is 28 years old because he arrived in Ottawa last night at 2:30 a.m. and so we're very very grateful that you came and that was a great last question that took 10 minutes because I knew he wasn't gonna let me take another question I did that on purpose so on behalf of the Faculty of Public Affairs Department of Political Science thank you so much for coming and thank you John so much and have a good evening [Applause]

Channel: PolisciCarleton

Views: 8,117

Rating: 4.8343196 out of 5

Keywords: political science, carleton, university, John Mearsheimer, political theory

Id: nZVIaXFN2lU

Length: 85min 59sec (5159 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 13 2020