Professor John Mearsheimer on Ukraine and Taiwan

Mearsheimer contends that the American strategy of encouraging the 2014 Euromaidan clashes in Kiev and courting Ukraine into NATO and the European Union is considered in Russia to be an existential threat.

I can enthusiastically recommend Professor John Mearsheimer’s recent interview conducted by the excellent Freddie Sayers for UnHerd.

Professor Mearsheimer is an American political scientist at the University of Chicago and is perhaps the most influential foreign policy realist operating in academia. He is particularly famous (and often criticised) for his stance on the Ukrainian crisis, in which he argues that the United States is principally responsible.

To daringly sum up Mearsheimer’s position in two sentences; he contends that the American strategy of encouraging the 2014 Euromaidan clashes in Kiev and courting Ukraine into NATO and the European Union is considered in Russia to be an existential threat. The Professor argues that this sense of Russian vulnerability is not unreasonable and therefore concludes that Russia was forced by the West into its current position.

In the interview Sayers observantly points out that there seems to be an incongruity between Mearsheimer’s position on Ukraine and his stance on Taiwan. Mearsheimer believes that America should absolutely defend the Western alignment of Taiwan against anticipated future Chinese aggression, and it may well be in the strategic interests of the West to use force in that defence. In both cases we are dealing with nuclear powers, but in one case the risk may be worth taking, whilst not in the other.

However, Mearsheimer’s response to Sayers charge of inconsistency is sound. China, unlike Russia, is a peer competitor to the United States, and a potentially serious menace that should be contained. It wants to annex Taiwan, regardless of any other geopolitical considerations. Russia on the other hand, as this war has shown, is not a major military power, and, according to Mearsheimer, has been driven over time to be more interested in Ukraine as the pursuit of NATO membership has accelerated, than they otherwise would ever have been.

I have qualified sympathy with Mearsheimer’s case on Ukraine. However, from the position of a realist, mistakes made in the past (such as executing unnecessarily provocative foreign policy moves in eastern Europe), don’t automatically mean you shouldn’t double-down on them later when they become the most strategically sensible move on the great chessboard of long-term geopolitics.

Let us accept the following points Mearsheimer makes:

1.    China, unlike Russia, is a peer competitor to USA.

2.    We should not want China to become the dominant foreign policy power.

3.    USA should be concerned about the orientation of Taiwan and put every effort into keeping it Western aligned.

Now, let me add two points, that Mearsheimer’s interview at least implies, though he is less explicit about them:

4.    If there is a diplomatic solution which involves the agreeing of Ukrainian neutrality and no further pursuit of NATO membership, the USA may be perceived as weak in the eyes of China (even if Russia retreats entirely to the pre-invasion border).

5.    This perception makes a Chinese invasion or other attempts to wrestle away Taiwan more likely. Something which the United States should make a priority to prevent from happening.

Should the realist position therefore not be that we made a bunch of geopolitical strategic mistakes up to now and must take at least some, if not quite a lot, of responsibility for antagonising Russia into taking reckless action. However now that we are here, we must stay the course, only engage in a diplomatic solution if it cannot be perceived as anything other than a Western victory, and ensure Russia isn’t perceived by China to have achieved anything by invading?