John Mearsheimer & Sergey Karaganov - Nuclear Strike on Europe to Restore Deterrence, June 13, 2026

John Joseph Mearsheimer (born December 14, 1947) is an American political scientist and international relations scholar. He is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. Mearsheimer is best known for developing the neorealist (or structural realist) theory of offensive realism, which describes the interaction between great powers as being primarily driven by the rational desire to achieve regional hegemony in an anarchic international system. In accordance with his theory, in the 2001 book The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, Mearsheimer says that China's growing power will likely bring it into conflict with the United States. In his 2007 book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, Mearsheimer argues that the Israel lobby wields disproportionate influence over U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. His more recent work focuses on criticism of the «liberal international order» (laid down in his 2018 book The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities) and why he believes that the West is to blame for the Russo-Ukrainian War.