“Great powers care only for survival.”
Joining live from Chicago, John Mearsheimer is one of the most influential and provocative political theorists of our time. A former U.S. Air Force officer turned academic, he is best known for crafting the theory of offensive realism, which argues that great powers are doomed to compete for dominance in an anarchic world.
Currently the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, Mearsheimer has shaped generations of thinkers with works such as The Tragedy of Great Power Politics and The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. Fearless in his critiques, from NATO expansion to U.S. policy in Ukraine, his arguments cut against the grain of liberal optimism, demanding a colder, more clear-eyed look at global affairs.
“A theorist of power who refuses to flinch.” — Foreign Affairs
