Mearsheimer On 'What If Trump Wins?' And More

Danny Davis had a great conversation with Professor John Mearsheimer today. The title of the video shows how it started out, but after twenty minutes or so the discussion broadened out:

John Mearsheimer: Political Winds Shift Against Ukraine War Support

Mearsheimer began by agreeing that the EU Center—which is to say, the war mongering elite—retains its grip. The Right, which is opposed to the war on Russia, has gone from about 1/5 to 1/4. The difference will be at the national level, in particular countries (Germany, France), as we discussed previously. But then Mearsheimer, recognizing that the US is running this show—the war on Russia—suggests that it’s worth considering what effect the US election will have.

Obviously, if Zhou is “reelected” nothing changes. He has said and continues to say, the Anglo-Zionist empire will back Zelensky and the Ukrainian-Zionist oligarchs “for as long as it takes”, or “ten more years.” Something like that.

But what if Trump gets elected? Davis plays a tape of Trump expressing his position—one that has been fairly consistent over time:

I will end that war in one day. It'll take 24 hours. I know Zelensky well, I know Putin well. I would get that ended in a period of, you can break that deal 100 %. It would be easy--that deal would be easy! A lot of it has to do with the money, a lot of it has to do with the military, you know, that we're giving, but I would get that deal done within 24 hours. That war has to be stopped. That war is a disaster.

Sounds good, but it takes two to tango, or to make deal. Mearsheimer is of the view that Trump might find that Putin is no longer much interested in such a deal. Why should he be? Russia has the upper hand, and Trump could effectively find himself talking to himself. I think, judging from comments here over a period of many months, that Mearsheimer’s argument and his reasoning will not come as a big surprise to regular readers.

In Mearsheimer’s view, it's only a matter of time before the Russians push the Ukrainians back in a serious way and capture more territory. And, from a Russian point of view, it would be highly desirable to conquer as much territory as possible to ensure that Ukraine—or whatever remains of it—will never again be in a position to serve as a jumping off point for the Anglo-Zionist war on Russia. The Russians have learned their lesson. They know they cannot trust that Ukraine and the West would abide by any settlement and would not go back on the offensive sometime in the future. Therefore, Russia's incentive is to keep the war going and take as much territory as possible, working from their current position of strength. And, from this standpoint, it makes little or no difference to Russia who is installed in the White House in January, 2025.

Returning to his earlier point about Zhou, Mearsheimer notes that Zhou continues to make promises he can't keep - keeping the war going and supporting ukraine's revanchism with regard to Russia’s captured territories in Crimea and the Donbass. There is simply no way that we in the West can provide the Ukrainians with the material and the manpower that they need to win this war. The only question is how quickly Ukraine loses at this point in time and how much territory they lose. Zhou’s empty promises and rhetoric simply incentivizes Russia to keep the war going. The US generals and others who favor escalation and claim that Putin is bluffing simply have no evidence to support their views and are playing with fire.

Then the two move to an interesting exchange that I’ll provide a transcript for. It covers a lot of ground in a short time:

DD: You've recently published a video presentation that you made that's gone viral--has close to three million people already--I think it was called 'Israel's in trouble' or something to that effect. There's a kind of string that ties together all the missteps we've been making in the Middle East and that is this really awful double standard that we have that's nakededly and openly ridiculous, and I think it just does us really harm. There was a statement that Secretary of State Blinken made from the tarmac from Israel. He makes this statement about how we're better than other people that just makes me cringe. I would just like your reaction to it.

Blinken: What separates Israel the United States and other democracies when it comes to incredibly difficult situations like this is our respect for international law uh and as appropriate uh the laws of War uh so uh we uh we know that Israel will take uh all of the precautions that uh that it can just as we would and again that's what separates us from Hamas.

DD: [Smiling broadly] The rule of law! So we are certainly not guilty of violating any rules of law, or our allies in Israel, for that matter in Palestine, and we could probably make some of the same correlations up in the Russia Ukraine war, too. But just what is your reaction when you see something like that? How do people around the world react to that?

JM: It's a stunning set of lies. I mean, what else can you say? To put it in slightly different terms, it's hypocrisy of the first order and, when people around the world hear Blinken talk like that they are invariably outraged. They just think it's hard to believe that he's making those kinds of arguments--the idea that Israel is the most moral army in the world, that it obeys international law. It's not a serious argument, and we are backing the Israelis hook, line, and sinker. The idea that we are obeying international law, are doing everything we can to preserve the rules-based order, is contradicted by our behavior and Israel's behavior in Gaza.

DD: Yeah, and I thought it was equally egregious and just as cringeworthy, a month and a half or so ago, when one of the law issues came out trying to say that Israel is committing genocide and that the Court found that there's probable evidence to support that, and then Blinken goes to China or into Asia and says that it's actually China who is committing genocide against the Uyghurs--even though they're not actually killing the Uyghurs and the Israelis are killing thousands upon thousands of Palestinians. Those kinds of just naked double standards--I just can't think it helps our country.

JM: The idea that they respect international law and that the Israelis are behaving in Gaza in ways that are consistent with international law is just simply not a serious argument. It's hard believe hard to believe anybody could make that argument.

DD: Yeah I don't know why they continue to do that. We'll see where all this stuff ends up, because I fear that it's going to end up at some point with a collapse of the Ukrainian Army, and then all of this fiction will be exposed for what it is. Then the real risk is not just that they'll be embarrassed and humiliated but that they'll have the risk of escalating to try and cover it over.

JM: Just one quick point, Danny. We started the show by talking about politics in Europe, and then we morphed or sequed into talking about politics in the United States--the possibility of Donald Trump getting elected. But in a very important way one could argue that, before politics has a chance to play itself out, events on the battlefield will determine the outcome of where this is headed. The fact that the Ukrainians are in so much trouble and that the Russians are on the march tells me that this one cannot last that much longer. And by the time the politics plays itself out I would imagine that things will be pretty much settled on the battlefield.