Against the Stream

A review of The Great Delusion – Liberal Dreams and International Realities by John Jay Mearsheimer

John Jay Mearsheimer speaking at the launch of his new book.

From such a crooked wood as man is made no carpenter will ever fashion anything completely straight.” Immanuel Kant

Part One

So, when did the Trente Glorieuses (1945-1975) end, and the great counter-reformation begin exactly? Some would argue when Nixon took the dollar off of the gold standard in 1971, or perhaps with the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, or again possibly during the late 70s early 80s when the Anglo-American duo, Regan and Thatcher, rewrote the political playbook. It seems probable that the inflexion point was reached when the interaction of these variables attained critical mass; but this exact moment cannot be known. What is known, however, is that an historical shift – probably irreversible – took place involving the demise of the social-democratic, welfare-capitalist, model in western Europe and New Dealism in the US.

Moreover, it seems unlikely that, in the short to medium term at least, we will see its like again. For such a reconstitution would require not simply a break with the globalist project of neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism, but additionally entail a determined opposition to the relentless hostility of the Anglo-American political and business elites, this combined with active resistance against the fashionable identity politics of contemporary fake-left, evident in the rightward shift of the US Democrats, the German SPD and, worst of all the German Greens, the archetypal fake-left outfit.

The new post-modern, liberal orthodoxy has seemingly been imbibed by other European social-democratic parties which have fallen in line with the new political zeitgeist, with the possible – and I would emphasise, possible – exception of the British Labour party.

Suffice it to say that the new order which has so far carried all before it has consolidated itself as a new enlightenment with its own priesthood ensconced in the media. This is quite normal in revolutions, when the turbulent, dynamic period ebbs and the stabilization process begins. In Max Weber’s terms there takes place a ‘routinization of charisma’ when legal-rational authority supplants charismatic authority, as it has to. Thus, Talleyrand displaces Danton, Stalin displaces Trotsky, Chou En Lai, a party moderate, comes to power on a par with Mao Tse Tung. Globalisation, neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism have now in their mature phase become the established church, the unchallengeable articles of faith, the defining features of a new order which must never be questioned.

A specific geopolitical feature of the new order which had been incubating during the first cold war and was to emerge from its embryonic state as the doctrine of neo-conservatism, a geopolitical dogma which became known as the ‘Wolfowitz doctrine’ after its chief architect. It had been the brain-child of Under Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz who together with co-author and deputy, Scooter Libby were responsible for an initial draft in February 1992. In published form the Wolfowitz doctrine became the ‘Defence Planning Guidance for 1994-1999 fiscal years’ and was made available in the public realm at this later date.

However, the initial draft had been handed to the New York Times prior to this, presumably by persons unknown. This unexpurgated, neo-conservative policy doctrine contained the main premises of a militant foreign policy worldview. The document ran as follows:

Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavour to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.”

Unlike today, sentiments such as these caused something of a stir in political and diplomatic circles. Even an establishment politician in the shape of Edward Kennedy described the document as “a call for 21st century American imperialism that no other nation can or should accept.” How times change!

Thus, neo-conservatism irrupted into the political arena claiming poll position. The rest of what was an extremely ideological baggage train followed in due course. This involved:

• US Primacy
• Unilateralism
• Preventive Intervention
• Russian Threat
• Further refinements included R2P Responsibility to Protect (for which read bombing defenceless states)

And so on and so forth. It is interesting to note that a few years later the same US, Zionist gaggle which dominated the neo-con movement was to a great extent involved in the production of the Israeli-Zionist text A clean break – A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.

The new policy that was prepared in 1996 by a study group led by Richard Perle for Benjamin Netanyahu, the then Prime Minister of Israel.[2] Which in plain English should be read as “It’s open season on Palestinians.”

The ongoing imbroglio in the Middle East has had its roots in neo-conservative foreign policy, as did events in Europe with the expansion of NATO and the colour revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia. These events have received a critical examination and evaluation in the work of John J Mearsheimer – a self-designated foreign policy ‘realist’ – and Stephen M Walt in their voluminous rebuttal and critique of the Zionist cause in The Israel Lobby first published in 2006. This is not the place to examine this particular work, but it was perhaps the first indication that the neo-con project had begun to run into traffic as the Americans are wont to say. All of which brings me to an examination of Mearsheimer’s latest work The Great Delusion.

At the outset Mearsheimer delineates the purpose and structure of his book.

Liberal hegemony is an ambitious strategy in which a state aims to turn as many countries as possible into liberal democracies like itself while also promoting an open international economy and building international institutions. In essence the liberal state seeks to spread its own values far and wide. My goal in this book is to describe what happens when a powerful state pursues this strategy at the expense of balance-of power politics.[3)

Fair enough. But it should be noted that Mearsheimer is using terms such as ‘liberal democracies’, and ‘open international economy’ in a somewhat cavalier fashion tacitly assuming that these descriptions are non-contestable but let that pass for now.

The main points of liberal hegemonic theory and practise as charted in the book are firstly: the belief in the absolute virtue of liberal democracy; among the faithful, this view is regarded as axiomatic and known a priori through its various manifestations and practises which are inherently ‘good’. It follows that spreading liberal democracy around the world – if necessary, by force – is a wise and humanitarian policy.

Secondly: it is further argued that since liberal democracies do not go to war, the liberal democratisation of the world would result in peace and an open trading system (this is where neo-liberalism comes in) whose upshot would be prosperity for all.

Even if these beliefs and policies were true and effective, which they aren’t, in Mearsheimer’s view the policy of liberal hegemony still wouldn’t deliver the goods; indeed, they were not only incapable of producing the outcomes proclaimed, but often the policies had quite opposite and deleterious effects.

Part Two

At least half of the first part of the book is taken up with political and sociological theories of human nature and domestic and transnational political systems. Domestic liberalism, an internal liberal-democratic order, is given pride of place by Mearsheimer, though not without reservations. He refers to two types of liberalism: liberalism which traces its origins to political theorists, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes and the economic liberalism of Adam Smith.

Emanating from these theorists was the view that in the ‘state-of-nature’ the individual finds himself/herself an individual marooned in an anarchic, threatening environment without laws or social order. This accent on ‘individualism’ was a view shared by both Hobbes (who, although he was not a liberal theorist articulated some of the seminal ideas underpinning liberalism) and Locke; but this was not altogether surprising since both men lived during the long period of the English Civil War 1642-1651 involving the conflict between the King and Parliament which saw widespread anarchy and lawlessness throughout the land.

Following the train of liberal logic, a return to a peaceful environment would necessarily involve a voluntary sacrifice of the absolute equality and liberty ‘enjoyed’ by societies’ inhabitants. Therefore, a sovereign power was needed – a Leviathan, in Hobbes’ words – to impose law and order. This intervention was and still is a sore point with libertarians like Ron Paul and Peter Schiff in our own time, ideologues who Mearsheimer terms modus vivendi liberals. These gentlemen argue in favour of a minimisation of public intervention into the lives of the citizens. Guarantees of freedom of speech, of assembly, freedom of the press, the right to hold property are intrinsic to their political credo.

However, liberalism was not a static theory and its transmutations developed pari passu with historical trends. As an overarching theory of liberalism Mearsheimer uses the term political liberalism – a theoretical perspective which comes in two varieties, modus vivendi liberalism, already mentioned, and a more updated version, progressive liberalism. There would be no argument initially from the progressive liberals, on the values as espoused by their modus vivendi forebears. But unlike their purist antecedents the progressives are favourably disposed to government intervention, including legal statutes enshrining policies on equal opportunity, freedom from discrimination on racial, gender, and affirmative action. The British historian Isiah Berlin described these freedoms as being negative or positive, freedom ‘from’ or freedom ’to’ – public authority as enabler or as disabler.

However, the bottom line for both types of liberalism is a deep commitment to individual freedom and autonomy which means collectivist and communalist theories tend to get short shrift. In passing perhaps this is possibly why the US has the highest prison population in the world, the lowest rate of social-mobility, and a Gini Coefficient which puts them on level pegging with developing countries (including China). Is this really liberal-democracy or a de facto oligarchy? It is a debatable issue.

The above political theories are premised upon and presuppose a particular view of human nature in a social context. Here Mearsheimer outlines his own preferences thus parting company with the liberals by emphasising the collectivist nature of social being and its nationalist and realist manifestations (particularly when applied to foreign policy). It seems self-evident that the state-of-nature never existed; there would not be any individual of any description since individuals are social products and individual freedom is a function of social conditioning. Man is a social animal a zoon politikon (Aristotle). Without society any human being would wither and die.

Law and morality represent the totality of bonds that bind us to one another and to society, which shapes the mass of individuals into a cohesive aggregate. We may say that what is moral is everything that is a source of solidarity, everything that forces man to take account of other people, to regulate his actions by something other than the promptings of his egoism, and the more numerous ties are, the more solid is the morality … Man is only a moral being because he lives in society, since morality consists in solidarity with the group and varies according to that solidarity. Cause all social life to vanish, and moral life would vanish at the same time having no object to cling to.” [4]

What is therefore the most dysfunctional aspect of liberalism is the centrifugal social forces unleashed by unfettered individualism, the emphasis on rights to the neglect of duties which in certain respects gives rise to decadence, corruption and social disintegration. All of which was grist to Mearsheimer’s mill. He takes the position that nationalism is the most powerful force in the modern world and liberal hegemony – i.e., the foreign policy and export of liberal democracy – is bound to lose any fight with the more deeply rooted nationalist impulses which are pretty well universal. It was George Orwell who realised this from an early stage.

One cannot see the modern world as it actually is unless one recognises the overwhelming strength of patriotism, national loyalty. In certain circumstances it can break down, at certain levels of civilization it does not exist, but as a positive force there is nothing to set beside it. Hitler and Mussolini (not to mention Franco) rose to power in their own countries very largely because they could grasp this fact and their opponents could not.”[5]

Interestingly Orwell uses the term ‘patriotism’ rather than ‘nationalism’ presumably ‘nationalism’ carried some unpalatable political baggage courtesy of Messer’s Franco, Hitler and La Duce.

Talking of nationalism, as a belief-system it can take on various political hues, reactionary, as is the case with fascism, or a radical nation-building project possibly including an armed struggle against an occupying power, as was been the case in Algeria or Indo-China, both former colonies of France. Significantly enough both movements were called National-Liberation-Front.

Sovereignty is at the core of nationalism. Free sovereign nations around the world are self-governing and organized socially, economically and politically. Occupied nations – members of NATO – sometimes referred to as allies, are not sovereign and therefore also not democratic (liberal or otherwise).

Nationalism is a powerful social integrator engendering a group loyalty perhaps as powerful as a family. Other loyalties are generally subsumed under the umbrella of nationalism and form part of an individual’s cultural identity. It would be true to say that nations do not always have states (Palestinians and Kurds) and states do not always have nations.

In the pre-industrial age states as we now know them, did not exist. Instead there were small principalities who ruled by local potentates and warlords. After the Romans left England the system broke down and the land was vulnerable to Viking and Danish raids, and eventually into the warring principalities of Wessex, Mercia and Northumbria. One of the most typical examples of this internecine conflict was the ‘War of the Roses’ 1455-1485 fought between the houses of York and Lancaster.

The Tudor dynasty came to power when Henry Tudor was crowned King of England on the battlefield at Bosworth after his army defeated and killed the Yorkist leader Richard III. The beginnings of the British state which starts with Henry VIII and the setting up of the Royal Mail, the building of a deep-water large fleet, the promotion of the protestant religion, the treaty with Scotland, were all parts of the incipient centralisation of power which led ultimately to the creation of the modern United Kingdom. The same was to happen in Germany and Italy at a later stage.

Accordingly, states need a nation to function as an economic/political unit as Mearsheimer explains:

In the industrial age states which want to compete economically have no choice but to create a common culture … industry requires workers who are literate and who can communicate with each other through a common language. This means universal education … in other words demand a high degree of cultural homogeneity; they require a nation. The state plays the leading role in fostering that shared culture where it plays a central role in determining what is taught in the classroom.” [6)

It might also be worth mentioning that the state also plays a crucial role in the provision of public goods (through taxation) including infrastructure, legal system, armed forces and police, public health, and publicly funded research. The state and the economy are not antipodes, they are twins. In times of war the state could also mobilise the whole economy in addition to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of conscripts who were willing to die for their country, whereas paid mercenaries might run away. In the words of Machiavelli:

The fact is, mercenaries have no other inducement or reason for keeping on the battlefield other than the small stipend you pay them. This is not sufficient to make them willing to die for you. They are ready enough to be your soldiers while you do not make war, but if war comes, they either disperse or desert…” [7]

Liberalism with its emphasis in individualism, simply does not and cannot produce sufficient social solidarity, a sense of shared common values or an awareness of community which are the absolute pre-requisites which give rise to the integration of societies and the formation of nation states as we now know them. In liberal ideology society is seen as secondary to the individual, but this failure to make individuals part of vibrant collective weakens the individuals’ attachment to the social organism. This is important to people psychologically as well as for keeping society intact. In the liberal regimen everyone is enjoined to pursue his/her own self-interest as narrowly defined. And from this atomistic melting pot is based the assumption is that the sum of all individualistic behaviour will maximise the common good.

Part Three

The existence of nation-states and the propensity to conflict has been a feature of geopolitics since at least middle-ages, but really got into gear in the 20th century. Periods of peace where interrupted by wars and ultimately by world wars. US foreign policy took a decisive militaristic turn in the late 20th century. This was undoubtedly due to its unipolar position circa 1991, and the prevalence of the newly established ideological paradigm – liberal hegemony – a policy in which a domestic liberalism was applied to foreign policy issues.

Prior to this ‘post-modern’ foreign policy model – a model which had been almost universally adhered to, apart from rogue states such as Germany and Italy, was the Westphalian system. The Treaty of Westphalia (1648) brought about an end to the Wars of the Reformation which had been the scourge of Europe in the middle ages. The doctrine invested sovereign states with legitimate power within the international system which granted each state the right to total (negative) treatment to do as it desired, provided only that it does not infringe on the freedom of others to do likewise. It follows that a world political order in which each states sovereignty is respected is basically a just order. It goes without saying that Mearsheimer is a keen advocate of this ‘realist’ doctrine.

However, this paradigm is now regarded by the foreign policy establishment in Washington, London and Tel Aviv (or should I say Jerusalem) as being hopelessly passé. Although the imperial actors officially adhere to its provisions, these are often disregarded. This is particularly the case with the Anglo-Zionist empire who continually oscillate between the Westphalian position when it suits, and the liberal hegemonic position when it doesn’t. We should not expect consistency in liberal-hegemonic circles.

The export of liberal hegemony is regarded by Mearsheimer as naïve in theory and calamitous in practice. He writes:

The importance individualism accords to human rights inexorably leads to a belief that the best way to guard those rights is for every country to be a liberal democracy … We should therefore expect a liberal state to pursue a foreign policy that emphasises advancing liberal democracy … The task will obviously involve regime change, sometimes by military force, as well as some heavy-duty social-engineering to transform the target state. When you consider that aim is to spread liberalism around the world, it becomes clear that a liberal foreign policy is extremely ambitious and highly interventionist…” [8]

Mearsheimer notes that regime change and forced liberalisation of a foreign nation state is no easy matter. Please note this is not a moral judgment but a pragmatic one, this in keeping with his realist position. Firstly, such expansive and over-ambitious policies can only take place when the would-be hegemon is the only player in town, i.e., in a unipolar world. If there is more than one powerful state this is likely to form a strong counter-balance to the more aggressive state. Such was the case during the first cold war where the US had its sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere and Western Europe and the Soviet Union had its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.

Paradoxically, the fact that the US has up until quite recently been the sole super-power has been a strategic disadvantage rather than an advantage. It is a fact of life that nationalism, and nations of whatever internal structure, have an over-riding commitment to self-determination and will fight tooth-and-nail against foreign invasion and occupation. This is the reason that US foreign policy adventurism has been such an abject failure in both realist and nationalist terms.

It gets worse. The growth and power of the military-industrial-security complex has been the unintended (we assume?) upshot of this foreign policy adventurism. Like all bureaucracies the MICS has a will to expansion and survival often moving well beyond its original goals – a phenomenon known as ‘goal displacement’ – with a constant search and justification for its continued existence. War is the usual rationalization for this excrescence of the US polity and economy and is not peculiar to the United States.

Joseph Schumpeter contended that in ancient Egypt ‘a class of professional soldiers formed during the war against the Hyksos (the Fifteenth Dynasty of Asiatic rulers of northern Egypt) persisted, even when those wars were over along with its warlike interests and instincts. He averred that “created by the wars that required it, the machine now created the wars that it required.”

The founding fathers of the United States were well aware of this problem also, and we well know, had a pronounced fear of and antipathy toward standing armies — large, permanent, professional military establishments — because of the dual temptations for domestic oppression and international adventurism by those in power, the drain on public resources, and, not least, the not-infrequent aberrant behaviour of those in uniform. This fear led them to invest Congress with specific power to determine the size and composition of the armed services, make rules to govern those forces, mobilize and oversee the federal use of the militia, control the size and distribution of the military’s budget, and, most importantly, declare war.

Such statements would not go down at all well with the US media complex who are little more than PR outlets for the increasingly illiberal institutions noted above. Mearsheimer notes in this respect:

…Liberal hegemony involves significant costs for the American people, in both lives and money. The ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are expected to cost more than $5 trillion. Surely if we were intent on adding that much to America’s huge national debt – sovereign and private – the money might have been better spent on inter alia, education, public health, transportation infrastructure, and scientific research… Perhaps the greatest cost of liberal hegemony, however, is something else: the damage it does to the American political and social fabric. Individual rights and the rule of law will not fare well in a country addicted to fighting wars.”

Tragically, however, the US is not only addicted to fighting wars, it is also addicted to fighting wars in perpetuity as part of its global crusade to ‘make the world safe of democracy’. Moreover, these are not just wars against weak secondary nations, but wars planned against other powerful states – states which possess the military, technical and economic power to fight back. Taken at face-value this is a crackpot policy premised on a crackpot ideology, liberal utopianism.

Such hare-brained ideologies have been an historical leitmotif which surfaced during the Enlightenment and continue to the present day. Mearsheimer would argue – unquestionably correctly – that liberal hegemony is not consistent with US’s vital interests and should not be taken up to this military level unless it is absolutely imperative to do so.

This was also the view of George Kennan who in 1996 had cautioned the American foreign policy establishment that expansion of NATO into those areas “was a strategic blunder of potentially epic proportions.” Kennan warned against a foreign policy that was “utopian in its expectation, legalistic in its concept … moralistic … and self-righteous.”

So, Kennan’s view was pretty much aligned with those of Mearsheimer. However, the realists are not in the driving seat and the neo-cons and liberal hegemonists are. Therein lies the problem. Like all crackpots they cannot be reformed, they are not amenable to reason, and the believe they have been given a divine mandate to do good (their version of course) in the world.

But of course the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

But this is an internal struggle within the US foreign policy elites. It is simply that the pragmatic realism of Mearsheimer and company is at least sane, whereas the frenzied posture of their neo-conservative opponents is not, or at least appearing not. It would be foolish not to expect a realist belief in ‘America First’ even if that means the end of its imperial ambitions. With the neo-cons it seems apparent that such imperial ambitions should be boundless and that they are ready to sacrifice American national interests to that end.

It would be a mistake, however, to imagine that the realists believe in peace harmony and everyone being nice to each other. In the pursuit of US national interests Mearsheimer and the rest of the realist fraternity would be just as ruthless as the neo-cons, but minus the ideological baggage carried by the latter. Thus, if the realists believed they could fight and win a war against Russia, with minimal costs they probably would do so. However, they are savvy enough to appreciate Russia’s military capability and conclude that a war against Russia is decidedly not in America’s national interests. And besides with the rise of China this poses the question of a war on two fronts. Suffice it to say that wars fought on two fronts usually result in defeat.

According to Mearsheimer:

Realists believe that institutions are important instruments of statecraft. The US for example relied heavily on NATO the EU, IMF, World Bank and other institutions waging the cold war … Realists actively supported globalization during the Cold War which certainly worked to America’s advantage. The nub of the disputes between liberals and realists regarding institutions and economic inter-dependence has to do whether they promote world peace. Liberals believe that they ameliorate conflict, realists do not.

Mearsheimer has also gone on record his view that that a war between China and the US is inevitable in the not too distant future; indeed, its contours are already discernible at present with naval games in the South and East China seas being conducted by the US Navy.

Conclusions

At first sight developments in the international situation look to be a precursor to a ‘hot’ war between NATO and Russia. All the pieces are falling into place and a NATO semi-mobilization is taking place along a front ranging from the Baltic to the Black Sea and now the Sea of Azov. This is accompanied by NATO provocations which are becoming increasingly threatening.

A war in Europe against Russia waged by the US and its wretched Petainist European vassals begins to look like a genuine possibility. The situation is reminiscent of 1941 or even 1920 when the allied intervention powers and their White Guard allies sought to defeat the Bolshevik regime. But the notion of a possible ‘hot’ war – unless it happens by accident – is, I believe, contestable. Do the neo-cons actually believe what they are saying, or is the whole thing simply a bluff? If it is a bluff, it wouldn’t be the first time that the Americans have tried it. On 10 October 1969, 18 B-52 bombers took off from Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington, each loaded with nuclear weapons. Although the bombers were headed toward Moscow, the goal was to influence outcomes around Hanoi.

he bombers’ mission was to proceed directly to the Soviet Union in order to convince the Soviets that America at the hands of President Nixon was willing to resort to nuclear war to win in Vietnam. A critical component of Nixon’s foreign policy was to make the leaders of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc think he was insane —genuinely insane — and he wanted the Communist leaders of the world to believe that he was ready to start World War III to prevent communist expansion. He was quoted as saying “I want the North Vietnamese to believe I’ve reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war,” Nixon told his Chief of Staff. “We’ll just slip the word to them that, ‘for God’s sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about communism.”

Forward to the present day. The possession of a whole new range of Russian hypersonic weapons, mobile ICBM’s submarines armed with nuclear torpedoes, Electric Magnetic Pulse Weapons, as well as the dead hand system of Perimeter defence, must be well-known to the war party in Washington, and the question is – do they really believe that they can ‘win’ a nuclear exchange? I am personally not convinced. Neo-cons incinerate just like anyone else.

Secondly there is a tendency throughout the book to take the US estimation of itself at face value.

The United States is a deeply liberal country that emerged from the first cold war as by far the most powerful state in the international system. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left it in an ideal position left it in an ideal position to pursue liberal-hegemony.”[10]

Deeply liberal country? Really? You might find some disagreement with this internal liberal-democratic order, particularly from (what’s left of) the indigenous inhabitants, not to mention newly arrived slaves as well as the structural racism and the actually existing oligarchic social/political/economic structure. The bald fact is that US has been an unashamed imperialist juggernaut both internally and externally and has been engaged in various wars for 222 years out of 239, i.e., 93% of its existence.

Its record of interventions and wars against independent sovereign states which did not threaten US soil has involved mass exterminations – this is simply a matter of record. This is the country whose ex-Secretary of State, Madeline Albright spilled the beans during a Television interview who was asked if the death of 500,000 Iraqi children due to US sanctions was worth it, replied, ‘Yes, it was worth it.’

This is the reputed ‘liberal-democratic ‘country which in fact in its own backyard uses tactics which would shame the mafia. The US regime-change strategy does not take into account whether or not a government is democratically elected or the human rights consequences of such interventions, nor does it much care. In fact, virtually all of the Latin American governments that the United States has successfully overthrown over the past 65 years were democratically elected.

Among the democratically-elected leaders that have been ousted were Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala (1954), Salvador Allende in Chile (1973), Jean Bertrand Aristide in Haiti (2004) and Manuel Zelaya in Honduras (2009). Washington targeted all these leaders with economic sanctions and destabilization campaigns that created the economic chaos and humanitarian crises required to justify a military solution.

So much for the shining city on the hill.

In this sense its hostility to Russia and China is in keeping with its record of wars, conflict and genocide, both internal and external.

These facts are incontrovertible and not worth the time for any further discussion.

On the whole Mearsheimer’s book is very timely, challenging, well informed and well-worth a read.

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