John Mearsheimer

Mearsheimer was born in Brooklyn, New York, on December 14, 1947.⁠[1]

He received a B.S. from the U.S. Military Academy (West Point) in 1970, having been in the U.S. Army from 1965 to 1970, and served in the U.S. Air Force from 1970 to 1975, rising to captain; in the meantime he earned an M.A. from the University of Southern CaliforniaUniversity of Southern CaliforniaThe University of Southern California (USC) is a private research university in Los Angeles, California, planned by a group led by Judge Robert Maclay Widney and opened to students in 1880.Open the full entry in 1974.⁠[1]

In 1975 he began graduate study in political science at Cornell UniversityCornell UniversityCornell University is a private research university in Ithaca, New York, and a member of the Ivy League. It is New York State's federal land-grant university, a distinction unique within the Ivy League. Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White founded the university in 1865, and it opened in 1868. In addition to its Ithaca campus, Cornell operates Weill Cornell Medicine and Cornell Tech in New York City and a medical college in Qatar. It enrolled 26,793 students in fall 2024. Its president is Michael I. Kotlikoff.Open the full entry; he spent the 1979–1980 academic year as a research fellow at the Brookings Institution and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private research university in Massachusetts, established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature in 1636 and named in 1639 for early benefactor John Harvard. Its principal campuses are in Cambridge and the Allston and Longwood neighborhoods of Boston. It includes Harvard College, graduate and professional schools, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Two governing boards share oversight. Alan M. Garber was president as of October 2026, and the endowment stood at $56.9 billion at the end of fiscal 2025.Open the full entry’s Center for International Affairs from 1980 to 1982.⁠[2]

He received a Ph.D. in political science from Cornell University in 1981.⁠[3]

From 1982 he taught in the University of Chicago’s political science department, serving as assistant and associate professor before becoming professor in 1987; he chaired the department from 1989 to 1992 and has been R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor since 1996.⁠[4]

His first book, Conventional Deterrence, appeared in 1983 and won the Edgar S. Furniss, Jr., Book Award; Liddell Hart and the Weight of History followed in 1988.⁠[5]

During the 1998–1999 academic year he was the Whitney H. Shepardson Fellow at the Council on Foreign RelationsCouncil on Foreign RelationsThe Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is a nonpartisan, independent U.S. membership organization and think tank founded in 1921 and based in New York, which has published Foreign Affairs since 1922 and takes no institutional positions on policy; Michael Froman has been its 15th president since 2023.Open the full entry in New York.⁠[2]

In 2001 Norton published The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. A review summarized its “offensive realism”: each state seeks to ensure its survival by maximizing its share of world power; the book saw China as the most destabilizing force and urged the U.S. to do all it can to retard China’s economic growth.⁠[6]

A 2002 review said the book reads in places like a legal brief but concluded that it deserves a place on statesmen’s bookshelves.⁠[7]

In 2003 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.⁠[8]

In January–February 2003 he and Harvard’s Stephen Walt published “An Unnecessary War” in issue 134 of Foreign Policy.⁠[9]

He describes himself as one of the most outspoken opponents of the 2003 Iraq War before it began, and above all as a realist international relations theorist.⁠[10]

In March 2006 his paper with Walt, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” was posted on a Harvard website and appeared in abridged form in the London Review of Books, arguing that U.S. support for Israel is sometimes inconsistent with American interests.⁠[11]

Critics including Eliot Cohen called the paper anti-Semitic, while Tony Judt said its questions had nothing to do with anti-Semitism. The authors said they were surprised the attacks became so personal and would respond in print.⁠[11]

In December 2006 the two published “Setting the Record Straight: A Response to Critics of ‘The Israel Lobby,’” saying that a revised version clarified some points but left their main position unaltered.⁠[12]

In 2007 the book of the same name, co-written with Walt, was published; it made the New York Times best-seller list and has been translated into 26 languages.⁠[5]

Why Leaders Lie (2011) identifies five types of strategic lies, including inter-state lies, fear mongering and strategic cover-ups, and argues that leaders rarely lie to each other. A review endorsed his critique of trying to remake other countries in a democratic image but said he perhaps overstated it as the central theme of U.S. foreign policy.⁠[13]

In the September/October 2014 issue of Foreign Affairs he published “Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault,” arguing that the United States and its allies unknowingly provoked the crisis over Ukraine and calling NATO expansion “the taproot of the trouble.”⁠[14]

Michael McFaul and Stephen Sestanovich wrote rebuttals; McFaul argued his account could not explain why Russia waited more than a decade after NATO expansion to intervene in Ukraine. He replied that they misrepresented his core argument, which treated NATO expansion, EU expansion and democracy promotion as one strategy.⁠[14]

His 2015 lecture “Why is Ukraine the West’s fault?”, given to a University of Chicago alumni gathering, had been viewed more than 18 million times on YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry by March 2022. On February 28, 2022, the Russian foreign ministry tweeted its endorsement of his view, and critics including Anne Applebaum denounced him.⁠[15]

In 2018 Yale UniversityYale UniversityYale University is a research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Its predecessor, the Collegiate School, received a charter in 1701. Trustees chose New Haven in 1716; the institution became Yale College in 1718 and Yale University in 1887. Yale provides undergraduate, graduate and professional education and has 14 undergraduate residential colleges. As of October 2026, its president was Maurie McInnis, who took office in July 2024. In 2026, Yale expanded aid for incoming undergraduates and celebrated its 325th anniversary.Open the full entry Press published The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities, which argues that a U.S. foreign policy of “liberal hegemony” has backfired and calls for a realism that seeks a balance of power. A review called its prose accessible, if not free of jargon.⁠[16]

In 2020 he received the American Political Science Association’s James Madison Award; the citation called him one of the most cited international relations scholars in the discipline and described The Tragedy of Great Power Politics as very influential.⁠[17]

In May 2022 he and Stephen Walt faced Michael McFaul and Radosław Sikorski in a Munk Debate on the Russia-Ukraine war.⁠[18]

On December 1, 2022, he and Carl Bildt took part in the Holberg Debate “Will Fear Keep Us Safe?”, discussing the global security order, the war in Ukraine, China-West tensions and nuclear deterrence.⁠[8]

In February 2023 Gideon Rachman wrote that Russia’s full-scale invasion had made Mearsheimer look prophetic, but criticized his theory as amoral and argued that he becomes an “unwitting apologist” for Putin’s war of aggression.⁠[19]

On September 5, 2023, Yale University Press published How States Think: The Rationality of Foreign Policy, co-written with Sebastian Rosato.⁠[10]

A review summarized its conclusion that most states act rationally most of the time in grand strategy and crisis management, but said the book can read like a veiled promotion of “offensive realism.”⁠[20]

On November 18, 2023, he appeared as the guest of episode 401 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, discussing power, Hitler, the Russia-Ukraine war, Israel and Palestine, China, and life and mortality.⁠[21]

In a December 2023 UnHerd interview he said he was criticizing how Israel responded to Hamas’s attack and that the emphasis should have been on going after Hamas; he said he had long supported a two-state solution but no longer considered it a realistic possibility.⁠[22]

His curriculum vitae updated in September 2026 lists The Two-Leviathan Problem: Why Rival Hegemons Cannot Exist, co-written with Joshua Byun and due from Yale University Press in 2027.⁠[4]

He publishes writing, appearances and news through his Substack.⁠[23]

Personal website: Public link: https://www.mearsheimer.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[21]

Substack: Public link: https://mearsheimer.substack.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[10]

University of Chicago: Official website: https://www.uchicago.edu/ (opens in a new window)⁠[5]