LIVE: News18 Rising Bharat Summit 2024 | John Mearsheimer in Conversation with Palki Sharma

international relations scholar and also the R Wendel Harrison distinguished service professor at the University of Chicago He joins us in conversation with news 18's palky Sharma for a session titled geoc calculus cracking the code let's have a huge round of applause ladies and gentlemen for our esteemed guest thank you py over to you [Music] thank you and good evening to all of you we live in exciting but dangerous times geopolitically there are two Wars and many internal conflicts that are going on across the world there are new alliances being forged and old ones being dismantled and in this context we're exploring a very important and complex question what is the driving force of decision- making today is it realism is it power is it morals or is it a mix of everything also where does India stand in this mix what role will India play in the looming conflicts of this Century we look forward to exploring all of this with you Professor me shimer uh welcome to bhat Rising um my first question to you is what would you call the current world order how would you describe it would you say it's still unipolar with America in the lead would you say it's truly multi-polar how would you see this I believe I believe that the world today is multi-polar uh most of you in the audience uh came of age during the unipolar moment which ran from roughly 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed up until about 2017 and the United States was of course the most powerful State on the planet by far during the unipolar moment but by 2017 roughly 2017 Vladimir Putin had rescued Russia from the dead and Russia was back as a great power and China because of all of the economic growth that had taken place uh during the 1990s and the first 17 years of the 21st century was also a great power so we're now in a system where there are three great Powers the United States China and Russia what about India where do you see India standing in this and do you see India then as a bridging power trying to bridge uh different ideological camps or is India just tilting thing things in the direction that that suited well I would say first of all India is an aspiring great power the two building blocks of power in the International System are population size and wealth you need a great deal of wealth and you need a lot of people to qualify as a great power the reason that China was not considered a great power until recently was because it didn't have the wealth it certainly had the population size what China now has is population size plus wealth what India has for sure is population size and it's growing wealthier and wealthier by the year but I think according to most accounts it has not yet reached the point where it qualifies as a great power nevertheless there is no question that India is a major power and it is in a very important way caught in between those three great Powers because India has all sorts of potential problems with China mainly revolving around the border between those two countries India has very close relations with both Russia and the United States and from the American point of view that causes problems because the Americans don't want India to have good relations with Russia but of course from India's point of view it makes good sense to have good relations with Russia so relations between India and the United States have been somewhat testy they've been very good in terms of relations with Russia and the question of China is uh I think a looming problem for India but nevertheless the world that India operates in now is very complicated and India is going to have a comp at task moving forward dealing with this world is another way of looking at it this that India is best poised to make of you know to make the most of this complicated situation because India can talk to and do business with all camps I think at some point India will have to make some hard choices uh I think the most interesting question is what happens between uh India China and the United States my sense is that China will continue to grow more powerful that it will build a potent BluWater Navy and it will try to project power into the Persian Gulf and it will therefore move through the Indian Ocean and this will not make the Indians happy and will push the Americans and the Indians closer together in the event of a a conflict between India and China do you think Russia will be forced to take aide I think if there were a conflict between India and China the Russians would do everything they could to sit on the fence and to not get committed the Russians have no interest in having bad relations with either China or India so if there was and hopefully there will not be a conflict between India and China I think the Russians would do everything they could to stay far away you've said in the bast that great Powers will always seek hijman or dominance over others you say that India is an aspiring great power when it does become a great power do you think would do the same because seen any or any of the rhetoric uh that comes with with these henic Tendencies my basic view of international politics is that the ideal situation is to be a hedgemon in your region of the world and to make sure that there's no other hedgemon on the planet and I basically argue that the United States is the only Regional hedgemon in the world it's a hedgemon in the Western Hemisphere and the United States goes to Great Lengths to make sure that no other country dominates its region the way we dominate the Western Hemisphere and that's why in the 20th century we played a key role in putting Imperial Germany Imperial Japan Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union on the scrap heap of History the United States does not tolerate peer competitors at the same time I believe it makes eminently good sense for China to dominate Asia I think that as China grows more powerful economically it will try to dominate Asia and I think from China's point of view that makes good sense from America's point of view it does not make good sense and certainly from India's point of view it does not make good sense for China to dominate Asia just one final point I would argue that if India were to grow more powerful than China and the Chinese economy were to falter and India's economy was to take off and India looked like it could dominate Asia it would try to dominate Asia not because of Indian culture or Indian politics because that's just the way great power politics work the best way to survive in the International System is to be really powerful interesting uh let's talk about the Ukraine war now and you've accused the west of poking the Russian Bear uh it's been 2 years it's a frozen conflict no side is making much Headway uh and Putin has won a a record fifth term in power how do you see this War ending and what do you think the West should do should they stop military a to Ukraine I believe that it's actually not a frozen conflict I believe that the Russians are winning the war and that the Russians will end up with an ugly Victory I believe the Russians now control about 20% % of Ukrainian territory uh the balance of power has shifted decisively in Russia's favor in terms of both weaponry and Manpower which are of great importance in a war of attrition like the one you see taking place in Ukraine and what I think is going to happen is that the Russians will end up conquering about 40% of Ukrainian territory I think they now have annexed four oblas plus the Crimea my guess is and I want to under I want to I want to underline that this is just my guess is that they will uh end up uh annexing four more oblas and they will end up with 40% roughly 40% of Ukrainian territory and what will be left is a dysfunctional rum State Ukraine in other words will be a dysfunctional rum state that the Russians will go to Great Lengths over time to make sure is politically and economically weak so that it cannot become a part of NATO but that I think is the likely outcome that's the military end that you're talking about what about the political end do you think Ukraine will end up joining the NATO no I think politically uh that uh the Russians will go to Great Lengths to make sure Ukraine doesn't join NATO and I think that the West will not bring a dysfunctional Ukraine into the alliance so I think that it will not n uh Ukraine will not become part of NATO do you then think the West should stop the military aid to Ukraine because the American Aid is tied in the Congress and the Europeans are still struggling to find the money to fund this war yes this is a great question I believe that it is best for Ukraine and I want to underline that I believe it is best for Ukraine to now end the war to reach a settlement with the Russians and that means two things one Ukraine must sever all of its security relations with the West not just give up entering NATO Ukraine should become a truly net net should become a truly neutral state by severing its military or security ties with the West because Russia's principal concern is the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO that the Russians say to a person is an existential threat and they do not accept that so I think it's imperative that Ukraine become a neutral State and then the other thing is I think it's very important that the United States cut off all assistance to Ukraine and that the Europeans collectively provide Aid economic aid not military aid to Ukraine moving forward until it gets on its feet I'll come to the question of the aid in a bit but you've said that Ukraine should become a neutral State and you've argued in the past against NATO expansion to the east uh the the argument from the other side is that that's not a choice for Russia to make which side Ukraine should go to that's not something that Moscow gets to decide uh plus recent polls have said that close to 70% ukrainians want to be part of the NATO so there is realism and then there is public opinion and in most quote unquote democracies leaders uh are swayed by public opinion so if you ukrainians want to join the NATO what should the leadership do well the thing is that Ukraine for obvious reasons at this point would like to join NATO but this would be a fundamental mistake because if they join or try to join NATO their country is going to be wrecked Ukraine had never made any attempt to join NATO Ukraine would be in attack today Crimea would be part of Ukraine those four oblast that have been already annexed to UK to Russia would still be part of Ukraine this war is all about NATO expansion into Ukraine if the West had not pushed hard to bring Ukraine into NATO starting in 2008 there would have been no major crisis in 2014 there would have been no war in 2022 and Ukraine would be intact so the argument that Ukraine has a right as a sovereign democracy to join NATO makes people feel good when they hear that because we love to talk about rights in the west but the fact is talking about the right to join NATO and pushing Ukraine to join NATO has led to the destruction of NATO and in my personal opinion that is a horrendous disaster yes and Russia's War has also led to the expansion of NATO in the last two years we've seen two countries join but you talked about uh the West stopping military aid America stopping military aid to Ukraine if and when that happens what message would it send to other players for instance AI jingping what would stop him from seeing a Ukraine in Taiwan there's this argument that if the United States cuts and runs or loses in Ukraine that this will have significant effects in East Asia because xiin ping will think that the United States won't fight in East Asia if China behaves aggressively I do not believe for one second that xiin ping or the Chinese Elite thinks that the United States for example will not fight over Taiwan Joe Biden has said on four separate occasions that the United States will fight for Taiwan there is no doubt in my mind that the United States will fight for Taiwan because Taiwan is of great strategic importance to the United States and the United States as I said earlier in my comments is determined to contain China so I do not believe that losing in Ukraine and I want to be clear here I do think the United States is in the process of losing in Ukraine I do not think it will weaken our deterrent position in East Asia Visa the Chinese the thing is that we do not know for sure that Joe Biden will be around uh until the end of this year to make that decision Visa taiwwan uh having said that do you think that Xi Jinping is going to attack Taiwan in this decade no I don't think that Xi Jinping is going to attack Taiwan anytime soon and there are a variety of reasons for that one of the main reasons is that for him or for China to attack Taiwan it has to cross a large body of water and amphibious operations are among the most difficult military operations you can ask an army to perform it is very difficult to cross a body of water as large as the Taiwan straight so the task that the Chinese have set for themselves if they decide to attack Taiwan would be a formidable one the second point is China has not fought a war since 1979 just think about that the United States of America is fighting War Wars all the time the United States has a prime highly primed military it's primed for combat the Chinese military has not fought a war in a long time it's a rusty military and we know from watching how the Russians performed in Ukraine in the early stages of that war armies take time to get used to fighting Wars to fighting battles you just don't don't take an army that hasn't fought a war in a long time and send it into battle and expect it to do well so what I'm telling you here is that the Chinese would have to perform an extremely difficult military task launching an amphib launching an amphibious operation across the Taiwan straight number one and number two they don't have uh a highly tuned military that can perform that difficult task so logic says that China will not attack but leaders do not always operate on logic and the region is a powder keg so uh there's always the possibility of of conflict breaking out if that happens my question is what role do you see India playing there because India controls the entry to the malaka strait India has an agreement with the US to allow the the aircraft to refuel at Indian bases do you think India will have a role and will it support America militarily in a Taiwan conflict uh my sense is that if a conflict were to break out it would not break out over Taiwan for the reasons that I just stipulated I think the most dangerous area in East Asia is the South China Sea and I would not be surprised if a conflict broke out between the Philippines and China and the United States got dragged in which then goes to your question what would India do uh I think that India in that event would provide indirect support for the United States I don't think that India would get involved in the fighting I think if conflict broke out at a low level the Americans would pretty much handle it by themselves maybe with the Philippines uh as uh by their side in the fight uh if it escalated into a larger War I think the Japanese South Koreans and Australians would be likely to come in before the Indians but it is possible that India would come in the problem that India faces is that it has to protect its home Waters and it has to protect its border with China and I think the last thing India is going to be anxious to do is join the fight and get into a war with India I excuse me with China I think it's in India's advantage in the scenario that you described uh to provide indirect assistance to the Americans and do as little as possible to help the Americans that will make that will not make the Americans happy but that I think is in India's national interest you mentioned the Chinese economy and they're not in the best phase they they have way too many challenges uh the world is talking about decoupling drisking fren Shoring do you think Shi Jinping revealed his hand too soon that he should have waited for a few more years before openly challenging the US there's no question that it was in China's interest as dong Xiao ping pointed out many many years ago for China to rise as quietly as possible and not in any way threaten the Americans and I believe that the Chinese by and large Tri to do that but the problem is that the United States eventually came to see that China was growing economically and militarily more powerful and we started telling ourselves stories about how China might end up being a really formidable military foe now you want to remember this is very important when the United States started to pursue a policy of Engagement towards China in the early 1990s which was designed to make China Rich we believed that China would eventually become a democracy and when it became a democracy it would get along very well with other democracies like the United States like India like Japan because democracies never fight against each other in the story that we told ourselves now I want to be clear I don't believe that story but the vast majority of foreign policy experts in the west do believe that story but the problem in that story is that China did not become a democracy so what happened here is it got richer and richer it began to build larger military forces and even though it didn't in my opinion do much to provoke the Americans the mere fact that it wasn't a democracy combined with all that military might that it was developing forced the Americans to abandon engagement and move to a containment policy the funny thing is that China does call itself a democracy with Chinese characteristics uh but you you've said in the past that that the US foolishly fed the rise of economic rise of China uh the US is now working very closely with India do you foresee a potential rivalry with India in the future no it just to go back to uh the Chinese American case as some of you remember uh in the early Cold War China and the Soviet Union were on one side and the Americans were on the other and then starting with Nixon and Kissinger in the early 70s we brought the Chinese over to our side so it was the Americans and the Chinese versus the Soviet Union during that second half of the Cold War we had a vested interest in helping China to get rich because as China got rich it helped us contain the Soviet Union when the Cold War ended when the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union went away my argument is we no longer have a vested interest in helping China to get rich now let's go to the India question at this point in time the United States has a deep-seated interest in seeing India grow wealthier and militarily more powerful because India can help the United States contain China India is a member of the Quad if China develops a powerful projection Naval projection capability into the Gulf Air area India will play a key role in helping the United States deal with that scenario so we have a vested interest in helping India grow if however China at some point in the future goes the way of the Soviet Union China breaks up it's much weaker tomorrow than it is today and India continues to grow more and more powerful you can rest assured the United States will put its guns sites on India all I can say is that American policy makers do not learn from their own history uh they also supported the rise of Pakistan to counterbalance India and that did not go very well um we're out of time but I have to ask you one last question how do you see the Gaza War ending we know that you've criticized Israel's actions very strongly uh which is also a contrast with how you see Palestine versus Ukraine but how do you see the end to this conflict I think the Gaza war from Israel's point of view is a dis faster it's very important to understand that Israel conquered Gaza in 1967 and after the 1967 war Israel ended up with the West Bank and with Gaza and they built some settlements in Gaza after 1967 and they stationed military forces in Gaza after 1967 in 2005 Ariel Chiron who was a super hawkish individual and who was prime minister of Israel at the time pulled all of the Israeli settlements and the Israeli military out of Gaza and basically turned it into a giant open air prison but there were no Israeli settlements or military forces inside of Gaza because Chiron understood that was not in Israel's National interest because Gaza was like a hornets nest for the Israelis well if you look at what's happened as a result of October 7th the Israelis are back in Gaza they have large scale military forces there and they plan to stay there at the same time there is virtually no chance that Israel is going to defeat Hamas so they are going to have s significant resistance from Hamas they're stuck in Gaza and World opinion and this includes countries like India which favor the two-state solution and the United States which favors the two-state solution are going to put enormous pressure on Israel Over time to move to a two-state solution which Israel doesn't want to do all of this is to say Israel is in real trouble I have a lot of questions but we are completely out of time thank you so much uh for joining us and for sharing your insights thank you indeed and it's interesting that you call the two-state policy that India holds to the present conflict and illusion uh ladies and gentlemen once again thank you for this engaging conversation with our guest political scientist John M shimer uh expressing his insights his recommendations his very crucial and sometimes uh very um interesting observations about geopolitics uh on just why the West is principally responsible for the Ukrainian crisis firmly believing The Reckless expansion of NATO that provoked Russia and in his concluding remarks how he holds Israel responsible for the present turmoil in Gaza so very controversial uh statements there but is also some one who is uh extremely respected in geopolitical circles so that was ladies and gentlemen

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Id: 1_iEzpqzf-0

Length: 29min 34sec (1774 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 20 2024