The Tragedy of Great Power Politics

by John J Mearsheimer

Overview

A decade after the cold war ended, policy makers and academics foresaw a new era of peace and prosperity, an era in which democracy and open trade would herald the "end of history." The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, sadly shattered these idyllic illusions, and John Mearsheimer's masterful new book explains why these harmonious visions remain utopian.

To Mearsheimer, great power politics are tragic because the anarchy of the international system requires states to seek dominance at one another's expense, dooming even peaceful nations to a relentless power struggle. Mearsheimer illuminates his theory of offensive realism through a sweeping survey of modern great power struggles and reflects on the bleak prospects for peace in Europe and northeast Asia, arguing that the United States's security competition with a rising China will intensify regardless of "engagement" policies.

Author Biography: J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and the co-director of the Program on International Security Policy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393349276
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	04/07/2014
Edition description:	Updated Edition
Pages:	592
Sales rank:	30,847
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and codirector of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago.

Table of Contents

List of Maps vii

List of Tables ix

Preface to the Updated Edition xi

Preface to the First Edition xv

Acknowledgments xix

1 Introduction 1

2 Anarchy and the Struggle for Power 29

3 Wealth and Power 55

4 The Primacy of Land Power 83

5 Strategies for Survival 138

6 Great Powers in Action 168

7 The Offshore Balancers 234

8 Balancing versus Buck-Passing 267

9 The Causes of Great Power War 334

10 Can China Rise Peacefully? 360

Notes 413

Index 541

Editorial Reviews

A signal triumph.

Robert D. Kaplan - The Atlantic

Mearsheimer provides an admirable mixture of conceptual clarity and detailed historical observation…He is an excellent critic of rival perspectives, exposing their weaknesses with real forensic flair. Admirably, he seems to be happiest when swimming against the prevailing tide of academic opinion.

Adam Roberts - Times Literary Supplement

Backed by an impressive historical review and a refreshingly systematic analysis of power…[S]ure to provoke debate among scholars…An ambitious undertaking.

Patricia Cohen - New York Times

[John Mearsheimer's] target is the optimistic view of geopolitics that grew up after the cold war's end in 1989. He demolishes all the main components of that happy vision.

Economist

A superb book....Mearsheimer has made a significant contribution to our understanding of the behavior of great powers.

Barry R. Posen

This is the definitive work on offensive realism.

Choice

The central tenet of the political theory called "offensive realism" is that each state seeks to ensure its survival by maximizing its share of world power. Mearsheimer, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, sets out to explain, defend and validate offensive realism as the only theory to account for how states actually behave. He proceeds by laying out the theory and its assumptions, then extensively tests the theory against the historical record since the Age of Napoleon. He finds plenty of evidence of what the theory predicts that states seek regional dominance through military strength. Further, whenever a condition of "unbalanced multipolarity" exists (i.e., when three or more states compete in a region, and one of them has the potential to dominate the others), the likelihood of war rises dramatically. If history validates offensive realism, then the theory should yield predictions about the future of world politics and the chances of renewed global conflict. Here Mearsheimer ventures into controversial terrain. Far from seeing the end of the Cold War as ushering in an age of peace and cooperation, the author believes the next 20 years have a high potential for war. China emerges as the most destabilizing force, and the author urges the U.S. to do all it can to retard China's economic growth. Since offensive realism is an academic movement, readers will expect some jargon ("buckpassing," "hegemon"), but the terms are defined and the language is accessible. This book will appeal to all devotees of political science, and especially to partisans of the "tough-minded" (in William James's sense) approach to history. Maps. (Oct.) Copyright 2001 Cahners BusinessInformation.

Publishers Weekly

Mearsheimer (political science, Univ. of Chicago), an articulate spokesman for the realist school of international politics, here serves up a theory dubbed "offensive realism." Because of the anarchic structure of the international system, he contends, the great powers compete perpetually to become the "hegemon," or dominant state in the world and thus to obtain that elusive quantity called security. Theories of the "democratic peace" have no place in this gloomy world, and the internal makeup of a state has little bearing on its international behavior. Readers of an idealist bent will be distressed to discover that America's grand endeavors of the 20th century the world wars and the Cold War sprang not from altruism but from amoral calculations of power. And the future will be no different: China and the United States are fated to become adversaries as Chinese power waxes, regardless of whether the Asian behemoth evolves in an authoritarian or a more benign direction. One of the finest works of the realist school, this belongs in all academic collections. James R. Holmes, Ph.D. candidate, Fletcher Sch. of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts Univ., Medford, MA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Freelance journalist Mearsheimer (Political Science/Univ. of Chicago) argues that powerful states obey rules centuries old, rules that he believes should prescribe as well as predict a state's behavior. Mearsheimer calls his theory "offensive realism." Since there is no pervasive and powerful global government (the UN is a pale, frail imitation of one), states have obeyed-and should obey-a simple imperative: survival. In this deeply conservative, Darwinian view of the world, the states most likely to survive are those that can both achieve regional hegemony (as the US has done) and prevent other states from doing so anywhere else. (Mearsheimer argues that there has never been, and likely never will be, a global hegemon.) He asserts that there are two kinds of power: latent (population, wealth) and military. And the best kind of military force is a huge, well-equipped, well-trained army. Naval and air forces are at best supplementary and cannot on their own win a war (Nelson's massive victory at Trafalgar, for example, antedated Waterloo by ten years). Mearsheimer points out repeatedly what he calls "the stopping power of water"-the notion that the US and the UK, for example, are relatively safe because they are protected by sizable bodies of water. And because he believes China is now the principal threat to the US, he declares we should attempt to slow the Chinese economy (and thus retard its military capability) rather than invite it into the family of nations. To validate his theses, he examines every major-power conflict since the Napoleonic era-slighting only the effect of prominent individuals (Napoleon, Hitler-were France and Germany just waiting for them?). Mearsheimer has donean astonishing amount of research for this provocative, important study (there are 130 pages of endnotes) and tosses into the trash-bin of history any effete Enlightenment notions about the potential perfectibility of our species. Our nations, he concludes, are like ourselves: territorial, feral, canine, vulpine. A seminal book: controversial, scholarly, compelling-and ultimately frightening. (9 maps, 24 tables)

Kirkus Reviews