Inaccurate theory---developed for the wrong era and is haunted by worst-case anxieties that misdiagnose why states act

However, there are significant problems with Mearsheimer’s ontology—and, indeed, with the ontology of realism in general. To understand why this is so, we must examine realism’s midcentury origins. Realism was developed in the 1940s and 1950s by a cohort of German émigrés scarred by the international relations of the 1930s, a decade in which two great powers—Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan—launched a devastating world war that killed and maimed tens of millions. It is not surprising that in response to the horrors of World War II—and the inability of the League of Nations to prevent it—thinkers such as Morgenthau, John Herz, Hans Speier, and Arnold Wolfers developed a theory of international politics that was incredibly pessimistic about the possibilities of international cooperation and which considered great power wars endemic features of geopolitics. These beliefs formed the core of realism and remain at the center of its philosophy.¶ These convictions are problematic, however, because they reify a peculiar historical moment as ontological reality. As Mearsheimer succinctly puts it, “realism is a timeless theory” that is true throughout all eras of history. But as the historian Nicolas Guilhot has shown, this belief “places limits upon the kind of political goals that one can pursue and . . . makes it difficult if not impossible to pursue positive or transformative goals.” Thus Mearsheimer maintains that human beings will never be able to create a world state capable of transcending international anarchy and are instead doomed to fight war after war until one, presumably, finally wipes out the entire species. There is a reason that Mearsheimer’s most famous book is titled The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.¶ From a historical perspective, though, Mearsheimer’s pessimism appears unwarranted. If anything, the broad sweep of human history evinces a trend toward ever-larger political units that encompass wider and wider geographic and cultural spaces. Human beings, in other words, have repeatedly built new solidarities that at one time appeared impossible. Why would this process stop at the nation-state, a political form that is only 225 years old? Even if one believes a world state is an unrealistic fantasy, why is it impossible to create novel political constellations based on mutual respect and cooperation? Simply put, I am not convinced that Mearsheimer is correct to claim that human beings are congenitally unable to build regional, continental, and, perhaps, global political communities that, eventually, transcend war. While this process will no doubt be difficult and painful, there is no reason to believe it is impossible—unless you think it always is, and will forever be, the 1930s.¶ Realism’s midcentury origins also lead Mearsheimer to emphasize worst-case scenarios. This is clear in his anxiety over China’s rise, which he considers a threat to U.S. hegemony, and hence to the U.S. national interest. Beyond the fact that it seems to me profoundly unrealistic to believe Americans will indefinitely support a U.S. military presence in East Asia, it is unclear why, exactly, the emergence of another great power far from our shores threatens the United States. Indeed, a negotiated security transition in East Asia (the United States maintains approximately 375,000 personnel in its Indo-Pacific Command) would free up funds that could be used to bolster the social safety net and address domestic income inequality, two of the most pressing issues of our time. It could also make China a true stakeholder in maintaining international peace. Furthermore, there are historical reasons to be wary of worst-case scenarios. During the Cold War, the mistaken belief that the Soviet Union was necessarily an existential enemy bent on the United States’s destruction engendered costly arms races, prevented the sort of honest negotiations that could have ended the U.S.-Soviet struggle in the 1950s, and encouraged Americans to create a massive global basing system (currently about 800 bases in dozens of countries). More recently, the fear of another 9/11 led to the fruitless “War on Terror” and its many violations of civil liberties that Mearsheimer rightly deplores. This is all to say that we must not allow worst-case scenarios to determine U.S. foreign policy. In the entirety of its existence, one could argue that the United States’s survival has been urgently threatened by external forces only twice—during the War of 1812 and during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. Our average condition is one of safety, and it is from this base that we must develop our grand strategy.¶ Mearsheimer’s—and many realists’—obsession with worst-case scenarios emerges from the assumption that “most states, most of the time, follow balance-of-power logic.” This is simply not true. As manifold historians have demonstrated, decision-makers pursue policies for a diversity of reasons, whether they be ideological, economic, developmentalist, racial, gendered, or, perhaps most importantly, political. To take a famous example, Lyndon B. Johnson escalated the Vietnam War not only—or even mostly—because of the “domino theory,” but because he was anxious about his political future. In retrospect, even the Cold War—the balance-of-power struggle par excellence—seems to have been mostly about the ideological fight between capitalism and communism. Ironically, Mearsheimer himself has recognized the limits of the balance of power as an explanans of state behavior, co-writing a book about the pernicious effects of the “Israel lobby” on U.S. foreign policy. Indeed, in The Great Delusion he admits that an important way to combat liberal hegemony “is to build a counter-elite that can make the case” for a heterodox approach to world affairs. By Mearsheimer’s own admission, then, the balance of power often does not explain U.S. international relations. A central category of realist thinking about geopolitics is thus undercut, which implies that the pessimism of realism might be unwarranted.