On the Ukraine war: "The end result will be a frozen conflict"

by John J. Mearsheimer

[This article posted on 3/14/2024 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.telepolis.de/features/John-J-Mearsheimer-zum-Ukraine-Krieg-Das-Endergebnis-wird-ein-eingefrorener-Konflikt-sein-9654514.html.]

A genuine peace agreement in Ukraine is not to be expected, and there is no end to the conflict in sight. The US political scientist makes a negative prognosis. An interview.

To mark the second anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Chinese daily newspaper Global Times published an interview with John J. Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago.

In it, Mearsheimer explained his long-held conviction that the West was primarily to blame for this conflict and that US policy had failed. There is no end in sight to the military conflict that has been going on for two years. He explained why this is the case and what effects can be expected from his realistic perspective.

In an earlier interview, you said that the Ukraine conflict will be a long-term threat. As the conflict enters its third year, the question is how long it will last. And under what circumstances will it end?

John J. Mearsheimer: I don't think the actual fighting will last beyond 2025. The Russians will conquer even more territory than they control now and there will be a ceasefire.

The end result will be a frozen conflict, but there will be no real peace treaty, and therefore there will always be the danger that the ceasefire will turn into another shooting war at any time.

The West, primarily the USA, will not accept a final peace agreement in which Russia retains a substantial part of Ukrainian territory. Even if it is a frozen conflict, the West and the Ukrainians will go to great lengths to subtly undermine Russia's position in the areas of Ukraine it has conquered.

At the same time, the Russians will go to great lengths to ensure that the Ukrainian rump state remains a weak and dysfunctional political and economic entity.

You will have a situation that will not be a hot war, but will be characterized in the foreseeable future by a competition for greater security between Russia on the one hand and Ukraine and the West on the other.

This is a very depressing situation, because there is no real end in sight to the conflict between the two sides. Acute and deep enmity will remain for a long time to come. I don't think Russia will rebuild good relations with the West or Ukraine any time soon.

Your warnings from 2014 that NATO would provoke Russia into war in Ukraine are well known. Why were voices like yours not heeded?

John J. Mearsheimer: When NATO decided to expand in the 1990s, there was a big debate within the USA. Opponents of NATO expansion, who were basically all realists, said that expanding NATO eastward would antagonize Russia and lead to a serious conflict.

They were opposed by an influential group of foreign policy liberals who believed that the US was seen as a "benign hegemon" and that the US could extend Nato eastwards towards Russia without causing trouble. In the 1990s, Russia was very weak and could do nothing to stop Nato expansion.

So the supporters of NATO enlargement won the debate. The first major enlargement then took place in 1999 and the second in 2004. It was essential that NATO declared in April 2008, at the urging of the USA, that Ukraine should be admitted to the alliance. At the time, the Russians made it unmistakably clear that Ukraine posed an existential threat to Moscow within NATO and that they would not allow this to happen.

Nevertheless, the USA and its European allies pushed further eastwards and continued to try to bring Ukraine into NATO. A serious crisis erupted in February 2014. At the time, I wrote my famous article in Foreign Affairs in which I said that the West was largely responsible for the crisis.

I said that the main cause of the crisis was NATO enlargement and, more generally, the West's efforts to turn Ukraine into a Western bulwark on Russia's borders. I argued at the time that this was remarkably foolish because the Russians clearly saw it as an existential threat. And if we kept pushing to bring Ukraine into Nato, it would lead to even greater difficulties.

However, after the crisis erupted in February 2014, the US and its allies redoubled their efforts and continued to push for Ukraine to join Nato.

Every time the Russians tried to work out a deal with us to avoid war, the Americans and their allies refused to negotiate with the Russians.

They told the Russians that they had to accept that Ukraine would become part of NATO. But the Russians refused to accept this outcome. And in February 2022, eight years after the conflict broke out in February 2014, the Russians invaded Ukraine because they were determined not to let Ukraine become part of Nato.

"Nato enlargement as the main cause of the crisis"

Together with Sebastian Rosato, you have published a new book entitled "How States Think: The Rationality of Foreign Policy", in which you argue that Nato enlargement was rational. You also believe that Putin's fierce opposition to it was also rational. How should we understand these judgments that ultimately led to war?

John J. Mearsheimer: One of the questions we had to answer in our book was: What does it mean for a state to be rational? Our argument is that a state is rational if it has a credible theory of international politics that underpins the relevant policies that the state is pursuing.

We also said that it is important that the decision-making process is not made by one individual alone. Foreign policy decisions are usually collective decisions, but individuals often have different views about what the right policy is, so the people involved in the decision-making process need to be able to express their views and challenge each other.

As I said in relation to NATO enlargement, there were two groups arguing about whether it made strategic sense.

One group consisted of the realists who were against NATO enlargement. They based their view on fundamental realist theories. They had a realpolitik view of international relations. That is certainly a credible theory. Therefore, it was fundamentally rational to oppose Nato expansion.

The proponents of expansion took a different view, based on the three major liberal theories of international politics - Democratic Peace Theory, Economic Independence Theory and Liberal Institutionalism.

These are all credible theories that are widely accepted in the international relations literature. So the politicians who pushed for NATO enlargement were also acting rationally.

Our argument was that the two contending sides in the debate over Nato enlargement based their views on credible theories. Although the side I disagreed with won, I felt that they were pursuing a rational policy.

This discussion shows that there is a difference between "being wrong" and "being rational". I am convinced that the proponents of NATO enlargement were wrong, but I believe they were rational.

As for Vladimir Putin's policy, this is clearly the case of a country that felt it faced an existential threat from Nato enlargement.

To eliminate this threat, those responsible decided to start a war against Ukraine. This is called a pre-emptive war. A pre-emptive war is rational, whether you like it or not. That's why I think Putin acted rationally when he invaded Ukraine. It is fair to say that it makes sense for a leader faced with an existential threat to launch a pre-emptive war.

One can argue that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a mistake or violated international law. You can make such arguments, but whether it is wrong or rational are two different things. I think it was rational because it fitted perfectly with the theory of pre-emptive war, which is a credible theory of international politics.

Putin's latest interview with Tucker Carlson reveals how he envisions negotiations and peace. How much will Western audiences listen to him? How will the interview influence public opinion in the West about the war?

John J. Mearsheimer: It's very clear that Tucker Carlson's interview with Putin will have almost no impact in the West. What is truly amazing is the extent to which Western elites across the board have had nothing but bad things to say about the interview and Putin himself.

If you look at the reaction of the West, there was no interest in reacting positively to anything Putin said. I don't think this interview will have any impact on how the Ukraine war develops.

Since the beginning of the war, you have believed that the West is to blame and that US policy has failed. Some people think that Russia has been misunderstood. How would you refute this criticism?

John J. Mearsheimer: The conventional wisdom in the West is that Putin started the war because he is basically an imperialist or expansionist. Specifically, he is said to be interested in creating a Greater Russia, which means that he is determined to conquer all of Ukraine. And then he will conquer other countries in Eastern Europe and create a new Russian Empire.

My argument is that this view is wrong. What Putin did when he attacked Ukraine was a pre-emptive war. He had no imperial ambitions. He was not determined to create a Greater Russia. His decision had mainly to do with the fact that he saw Nato expansion in Ukraine as an existential threat to Russia and was determined to prevent it.

So I have a view that is in direct contradiction to conventional wisdom in the West.

You asked me how I can prove that I am right and that the conventional wisdom in the West is wrong? The answer is simple. There is no evidence to support the conventional wisdom in the West. There is no evidence that Putin wanted to create a Greater Russia. There is no evidence that he wanted to conquer the whole of Ukraine. And there is certainly no evidence that he wanted or wants to conquer other countries besides Ukraine.

On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence to show that he was motivated to invade Ukraine by the policy of Nato enlargement, or more generally speaking, he was motivated by the West's efforts to turn Ukraine into a Western bulwark on the Russian border.

He has said on numerous occasions that this is unacceptable. I think all the available evidence shows that my position is correct and the conventional wisdom in the West is wrong.

"No evidence that Putin wanted to conquer all of Ukraine"

Russia has not been defeated and the Western sanctions imposed on Russia have proven ineffective. Has the West's mentality of "defeating Russia" changed?

John J. Mearsheimer: It is quite clear that the economic sanctions have failed. That is quite remarkable. The Americans thought that the sanctions against Russia, combined with the early victories of the Ukrainian army on the battlefield, would allow Ukraine to defeat Russia inside Ukraine once the war started. The sanctions were seen as a weapon of war against Russia.

But they have almost completely failed. The Russian economy is doing extremely well. If anything, it is the European economies that are affected by the sanctions. The sanctions against Russia have not worked. The question now is how does the US react to its failure to defeat Russia?

Does the US face reality and push the Ukrainians to negotiate an agreement with Russia?

The answer is no. I think the US wants to continue the war for the foreseeable future in the hope that Ukraine - with the help of the West - will somehow and at some point be able to reverse the situation on the battlefield to help it regain its lost territories.

But this will not be possible and is indeed delusional thinking. It would make much more sense for the Ukrainians to try to reach an agreement with the Russians now.

But that won't happen, because the West won't give up, and it seems, at least for now, that the Ukrainians won't give up either.

"I think the US wants to continue the war for the foreseeable future"

How do you comment on current US policy towards China?

John J. Mearsheimer: It's necessary to emphasize that the policy of a certain kind of cooperation that the US pursued with China from about 1990 to 2017 is dead. We are not going back to that policy.

The US has pursued a policy of containment since that time. The US is determined to contain the rise of China and this policy will not fundamentally change. This shows that relations between China and the US will be fundamentally characterized by a situation of competition in the future.

There will certainly continue to be cooperation between our two countries. China and the US have common interests. So they will cooperate on some fronts. For example, I believe that there will be a lot of trade between the US and China, even if innovative cutting-edge technologies will be excluded.

The US will go to great lengths to slow down Chinese development of cutting-edge technologies, but otherwise there will be a lot of trade in food, textiles, manufactured goods, etc. between China and the US. The two countries will also continue to cooperate on issues such as nuclear proliferation and hopefully climate change.

But it is important to understand that this cooperation will take place in the shadow of intense global competition. This competition will dominate relations between China and the US because they are the two most powerful states in the world. Both countries will compete for power and will be very concerned about each other's balance of power.

I sincerely hope that both sides will make great efforts to conduct the competition in a reasonable manner so that we do not end up in a military confrontation. That would be a disaster.

Nevertheless, it will be difficult to avoid a conflict between the two sides, just as it was difficult to avoid a hot war during the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union.

Fortunately, Moscow and Washington managed their intense competition between 1947 and 1989 in such a way that there was no direct military confrontation between the superpowers.

We live in troubled times and the dangers we face will not change for the better. If anything changes at all, it will get worse rather than better in the foreseeable future.

It was Donald Trump who abandoned cooperation with China in 2017 and pursued a policy of containment.

After the 2020 election, in which Biden defeated Trump and became president, he did not return to the previous policy. Instead, he followed in Trump's footsteps and even redoubled efforts on containment policy.

Whether Biden or Trump is in the White House in 2025 will therefore not play a major role in relations between the US and China.

Major military conflict would be a "catastrophe"

John J. Mearsheimer is an American political scientist and internationally recognized expert on international relations. He was born on December 14, 1947. Mearsheimer is particularly known for his work in the field of the neorealist school of international relations.

His most influential work is probably the book "The Tragedy of Great Power Politics", which was published in 2001. In this book, he argues that the structure of the international system tends to push great powers towards conflict and competition.

Mearsheimer has also written on various other topics in the field of international relations, including the role of nuclear weapons, US-China relations, and the Middle East conflict. He teaches at the University of Chicago, where he is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science.

Translation: Klaus-Dieter Kolenda, Prof. Dr. med., specialist in internal medicine - gastroenterology, specialist in physical and rehabilitative medicine/social medicine, was head physician at a rehabilitation clinic for diseases of the cardiovascular system, respiratory tract, metabolism and locomotor organs from 1985 to 2006.

Since 1978, he has worked as a medical expert for the social courts in Schleswig-Holstein. He is also a member of the Kiel group of IPPNW e. V. (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and for Social Responsibility). E-mail: klaus-dieter.kolenda@gmx.de