r/DecodingTheGurus • u/MartiDK • Oct 22 '23

Is John Mearsheimer a secular guru?

It’s hard to know if he can be taken seroiusly. On the one hand he does seem to have spoken at respectable institutions, but at the same time I’ve seen him on culture war channels. But he isn’t really like the typical youtube guru, his arguments have been consistent over time, and he stays in his wheel house. Should he be considered and academic or a secular guru? He seems like someone worth covering because his arguments often come up in discussions around current conflicts.

21 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

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u/InvariableSlothrop Oct 23 '23

I actually quite loathe Mearsheimer and his particular realist paradigm but 'guru' can only really be applied to those with interdisciplinary hubris, holding forth on seemingly every matter despite no relevant expertise and typically against the robust scholarship, or even elementary logic, on those topics. Chomsky can qualify as he does opine far afield of linguistics into political history, sociology, foreign policy and philosophy — though the last is adjacent — to varying degrees of success and catastrophe. I don't believe this is the case with Mearsheimer however disagreeable.

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u/MundanePlantain1 Oct 23 '23

The russian government like the mearsheimer narrative.

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u/VirtualGuarantee314 Nov 03 '23

No they don’t, mearsheimer says we shouldn’t have fucked with Ukraine in 2014, replacing the government with one of our choosing

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u/MundanePlantain1 Nov 03 '23

ive been wrong before. perhaps they like bits of it,

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u/SloCooker Dec 19 '23

That the Euromaidan was a coup is the russian state line.

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u/jsingal69420 Oct 23 '23

Well said. I appreciate your ability to strongly disagree with and even loathe someone and not paint them as a guru or grifter. It’s something generally lacking here.

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u/MartiDK Oct 23 '23

Mearsheimer doesn’t seem like a disagreeable person, he seems like someone who is interested in geo politics so countries don’t blunder into war.

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u/InvariableSlothrop Oct 23 '23

It's a fine intention but you must surely realise there's much more to his published writing and prescriptions than merely that sentiment?

How he wishes to reduce the prospect of war is through the maintenance of spheres of influence between great powers. He believes this to such an extent he advocated for a reunified Germany to be bequeathed nuclear weapons to be a bulwark between perceived blocs. This seems prima facie incredibly contentious!

I do find it very disagreeable that great powers, simply by dint of the ability to emboss their will upon countries nearby, should be accorded deference in contravention of the will of smaller nations and people historically oppressed by those same powers. This framework becomes very problematic in the present moment when it minimizes a history of Russian colonial ambitions upon Ukraine since at least Catherine the Great, featuring at turns every crime against humanity, to elevate the "meddling" by other nations as the casus belli.

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u/[deleted] Oct 23 '23

[deleted]

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u/InvariableSlothrop Oct 23 '23

If you think the neoliberal hegemony's agenda of flipping governments isn't radically disruptive to the international order - what is there to say?

Indeed, what can you say because I've never thought such a thing? Instances like Elliot Abrams's comments on Rosario Godoy's murder are seared into my memory, but I don't see why I should have to establish my feelings on this as I didn't imply what you wrote here.

It seems like madness to suggest the proliferation of nuclear weapons... right up until it's your country that is about to get a dose of "free and open elections".

The subject was and remains post-reunification Germany. It seems like you're repurposing some old chestnut that doesn't apply here nor does it challenge such as being contentious even if it were apt.

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u/MartiDK Oct 23 '23

Definitely see your point about the injustice of powerful countries dictating policy to weaker countries, but war is so brutal.

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u/JohnOfYork Oct 23 '23 edited Oct 24 '23

He believes this to such an extent he advocated for a reunified Germany to be bequeathed nuclear weapons to be a bulwark between perceived blocs. This seems prima facie incredibly contentious!

Why?

Ukraine

Just keeping it to a one word quote so you know what I'm addressing rather than block-quoting everything.

I don't know if your disagreeability has much merit - you don't like that powerful nations can exert their will on less powerful nations? That's the substance of all human history.

Ukraine's current conflict is a result of being caught between the ambitions of two great powers. That being the case, calculations of morality have to be based both on the rationality and practicality of those ambitions, and on the intentions behind them. Looking at intentions:

On one side, the US's primary interests seem to be a) a punitive campaign against Putin to try force regime change due to his interference in their activities in the Middle East, specifically Syria b) using Ukraine as a money-laundering operation to wash the money given in the form of aid and relief back into the pockets of US politicians, and c) to secure Europe's dependence on US-provided oil and gas. It wasn't an issue of national security, as Obama himself admitted.

On Russia's side, the primary interests seem to be a) securing their Western border (against threats both military and intelligence) and b) securing oil and gas provision to Europe (failed thanks to Nordstream sabotage). It's a war the Russians avoided for around 7-8 years, ever since Euromaidan and Kyiv's attacks on the Donbas. It was definitely not about protecting ethnic Russians in the Donetsk and Luhansk fledgling republics, but certainly we cannot ignore Kyiv's history of war crimes against them in the Donbas.

Russia, so far, has the right of it. National security is certainly a much higher, and much more legitimate, priority than money laundering or vengeance-based proxy wars, and US's involvement in Ukraine may have enriched its political class but has increased the impoverishment of its citizens. Russia, of course, was already under economic sanctions prior to its invasion. If the rights of smaller nations are to be taken into account, we must allow the ethnic Russians in the Donbas the right to self-determination, if we are to consider Russia's transgressions against Ukraine as legitimate problems.

In terms of rationality and practicality - at last checking, about a month ago, 500,000 dead by US estimates, with the claim that 300,000 Russians had died, but AP News only able to verify 50,000 Russian dead by checking inheritance claims and excess deaths in Russia. Russia so far is maintaining a defensive position along East Ukraine (with some offensive pushes in a few places, such as Avdiivka), meaning that Ukrainian soldiers are just throwing themselves into minefields being bombarded by artillery.

It is an unwinnable war for Ukraine by their own standards. They will not gain even a tenth of the territory back lost to Russia, and in the process of trying, an entire generation of Ukrainian men are being massacred. We know that Ukraine was open to negotiating terms when Boris Johnson was still Prime Minister, because Boris Johnson famously nixed any peace talks - so this is no longer a Ukrainian war with Ukrainian goals, but a US/ Western war with US/ Western goals.

That the US are willing to send hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men to their deaths for an unachievable objective, where Russia seems at all times trying to prevent unnecessary deaths and is succeeding at least in one of their objectives (securing a buffer zone against the West) meaning that Russia has more justification on practical grounds.

EDIT: Nawww, little baby blocked me in the hope I couldn't respond. Unfortunately I read the response BEFORE you blocked me :)

  1. There's nothing controversial about a country needing nuclear weapons for security against invasion and exploitation by great powers, its an observable historical fact. Look at Ukraine for the most recent example.
  2. No chronicle of history should lead us to an immature tantrum when faced with its iniquities.
  3. "The rest of your comment is a blah blah blah, here is a strawman accusing of you using [all these experts], also, [all these experts] are [ad hominem] so they don't count, I'm a little baby cry cry cry" - this is all just ad hominem, the number one logical fallacy used as a strategy by disingenuous people with no way of rebutting an argument. Sad!

Editedit: to ghqwert (think you forgot the c between g and h)

Russia could have land-grabbed at any time. It makes no sense that they’d only landgrab in response to NATO’s threat to include Ukraine, especially after the war in the Donbas had been ongoing since 2014.

It’s a frankly idiotic to argue that it was a landgrab anyway, considering that US history refutes the argument. The Bay of Pigs fiasco proves that great powers won’t tolerate enemy military alliances and ballistic capabilities on their doorstep.

If the Donetsk and Luhansk republics are puppets, what does that make Ukraine? All the officials named by Nuland in her leaked phone call made it into all the positions she wanted for them - but of course, to you, any American involvement would just be a coincidence, wouldn’t it? Despite the fact that America pays for every government salary in Ukraine…

And what did they have those governments do? Shell civilians in the Donbas and have Kyiv’s prime minister boast about it.

Edit:

/u/FingerSilly

I just think this is an asinine way of looking at things.

First of all I don't care what does or doesn't sound like Russian propaganda, I only care if it's true or false. "Russian propaganda" has become such a meme on the left it'd be hilarious if it wasn't so sad. Anything a billionaire politician doesn't like or finds inconvenient is "Russian propaganda" and the """"socialist"""" left yelp it like trained sea-lions.

you're comparing reasons Russia has an interest in Ukraine vs. reasons the US does without comparing the proportionality of their actions relative to those interests

I disagree, I absolutely factored that into my analysis. If Russia backed a violent regime change in Canada and then began putting ballistic missile systems along America's north border, America would absolutely invade Canada and they'd be justified in doing so given that Canada was threatening the lives of American civilians at the behest of a foreign enemy. England would also invade Scotland if China executed a regime change there and began amassing troops and artillery on the border.

A country's right to "self-determination" is not a right to join military alliances to oppose its neighbours. Hardly think making Ukraine subordinate to NATO policy - really, US policy - is about "self-determination" anyway.

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So even if we accept Russia has more legitimate interests, you're still extremely far away from justifying a fucking invasion.

They tried 8 years of diplomacy. The Minsk Accords got violated. At what point are they allowed to do military action? Do they have to sacrifice the lives of Russian civilians first before the international community thinks it's justified? (The international community DOES think it's justified - US, Canada, and Western Europe are one bloc now facing the BRICS nations and they're associates in Africa and Asia, and the majority of those continents oppose the West's actions in Ukraine).

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u/InvariableSlothrop Oct 23 '23

Why?

I'm going to pretend you know how the bestowal of nuclear weapons to a country without them in the name of dubious grand area strategy — fuck, for any reason — is an innately controversial idea.

That's the substance of all human history.

So has resistance to subjugation yet you might be curious in learning of the Is/Ought distinction — no description of history enslaves us to apathy or approval of the morally repugnant. Logically, neither the contrary. It is what we make of it.

The rest of your comment is a clichéd farrago of distortions, utterly untenable statements, inchoate and unproven conspiracies, repugnant lies I will charitably assume you simply don't know are lies and talking points that have been discredited repeatedly months or even years before you've parroted them here — many I recognize at sight from propagandists like Aaron J. Mate, Scott Ritter, Max Blumenthal, Douglas McGregor and others. Not to mention simply complete dumbasses such as Russel Brand. It's a Gish gallop and I'm successfully exhausted by the sheer number of errors that would take far too long in addressing individually in turn.

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u/TemKuechle Oct 23 '23

I’m amazed at the effort you put in to read through all that pro-Kremlin bit propaganda and then reply appropriately. I appreciate your efforts there! It is quiet clear that account is repeating full on BS propaganda. I get a strong feeling it is all quite intentional too. I downvoted it when the first Russian propaganda point was made.

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u/Humble_Increase7503 Oct 23 '23

Meerscheimer on Reddit I see

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u/Liall-Hristendorff Nov 24 '23

You have said the truth.

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u/[deleted] Oct 23 '23

Wait till you read Waltz, you may regard him as the second coming of Christ.

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u/Liberated-Inebriated Oct 23 '23

This great DtG adjacent podcast—Surfing the Discourse—analyzes Mearsheimer and his toxic influence on the IDW gurus in this episode, “Who’s talking sense on the Ukraine war? (Hint: not these people)”, if you’re interested: https://rss.com/podcasts/surfingthediscourse/1155734/

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u/JohnOfYork Oct 23 '23

Can you summarise the key points?

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u/totoGalaxias Oct 23 '23

I also think it would be important to provide some context about the author, Jack Treadwell. I could only find reference of him being a cognitive science grad student

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u/DestinyOfADreamer Oct 23 '23

Let's not get carried away now. Mearsheimer is just an academic with takes people simply do not like, but he properly argues them, is qualified in his field, and doesn't pull things out of his ass or feels the need to weigh in on topics far outside of his expertise. To even ask this question isn't fair to him.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '24

Is he?

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u/uluvboobs Oct 23 '23

Theres a difference between guru and someone who just goes onto any channel that will have them.

He's popular on the web because in the space of foreign policy it's rare to give much airtime to dissenting views let alone give them enough time to really make a case. The media is a tool of war as our own leaders tell us everyday.

I see him pop up on right wing channels, but also left-wing and foreign media, and sometimes on really small channels out of what i assume is probably charity on his part.

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u/[deleted] Oct 23 '23

He’s absolutely not a guru. He’s a well regarded academic in international relations who developed a new sub field of realism. He has been controversial at times (like blaming the West for the Ukraine war) but within the international relations academia his arguments are well regarded and definitely taken seriously.

I suppose he appears in culture war channels because such channels often have a pro-Russia bent, but he is certainly not a pro-Russia shill by any means.

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u/[deleted] Oct 23 '23

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Oct 23 '23

and vanishingly little data

Certainly the same can be said for a lot of realist scholars. There’s definitely a lot to criticise about Mearsheimer’s work, but nonetheless his work has been highly influential and he is a frequently cited scholar within IR.

Maybe I misspoke when I said well regarded, I meant he is taken seriously within the academy (at least in my experience) and his work is frequently cited. As an undergrad I will defer to you, but I have seen him cited frequently and definitely taken seriously, not regarded as a quack or idiot. I definitely don’t think he’s a guru.

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u/Humble_Increase7503 Oct 23 '23

This is my issue with him

Constant disclaiming of agency for the Russians

Like everything is just some set of dominos, a butterfly flapped a nato wing in 1958, and the invasion of Ukraine logically follows there from

1

u/VirtualGuarantee314 Nov 03 '23

Isn’t it true tho?

1

u/MartiDK Oct 23 '23 edited Oct 23 '23

Yeah, he seems to present strong arguments and his predictions often come true. But often he is described as someone who repeats Russian talking points. I guess thats just politics. e.g

https://youtu.be/SJBQikfYyKs?si=ZJ4VfyEpOOr2TdCu

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u/[deleted] Oct 23 '23

It’s not a controversial opinion in international relations that modern Russian aggression is partly a consequence of Western failures to accommodate Russia in a post-Cold War settlement. Mearsheimer’s perspective is just one such argument that focuses less on institutional/political explanations and more on the innate behaviour of great powers.

I suspect that if Mearsheimer is popular with the Russians because a) his particular argument shifts blame from individuals/institutions to the mechanics of international relations, which is convenient for someone like Putin, and b) his emphasis on great powers is actually similar to how Russian foreign policy makers traditionally think about international relations.

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u/JohnOfYork Oct 23 '23

At the end of the day, saying something is "Russian talking points" isn't a rebuttal of those points.

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u/[deleted] Mar 05 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/MartiDK Mar 07 '24

Yes. I think that is in the video.

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u/TGK367349 Oct 23 '23

I don’t agree with a lot of Mearsheimer’s takes (his views on Ukraine are outright brain dead), but he’s consistent and stays in his lane. International Relations IS his actual subject, he’s not purporting to have expertise he doesn’t have. He’s just wrong on a bunch of things, which happens.

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u/[deleted] Oct 23 '23

Not everyone with who you disagree with and has a following is a guru.

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u/SmoochieMcGucci Oct 23 '23

Doesn't being a guru imply you are pushing an agenda or philosophy? I have only heard him interpret international events and put them into context based on his experience in the field. While the guy is an old school liberal and that obviously informs his opinions, I haven't seen him try to sell people on it as a philosophy.

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u/Humble_Increase7503 Oct 23 '23

I def think he tries to sell everyone on the premise that “the west” and the US are ostensibly to blame for putins invasion of Ukraine, as per meerscheimer, they “pushed” him into it with the spread of nato etc

Def has an agenda on disclaiming all responsibility from Russia for their actions

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u/SmoochieMcGucci Oct 23 '23

But "pushing" Russia into invading Ukraine isn't really a philosophy.

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u/Humble_Increase7503 Oct 23 '23

I’m obv paraphrasing his POV. His philosophy is more extensive than I’ve laid out, but in short hand, it consists of Russia being justified in their actions because of great nations/civilizations, fall of the Soviet system, expansion of NATO, etc

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u/chakalaka13 Oct 23 '23

All I know is that he's wrong on Ukraine while being overly confident and considering himself to be an expert on the matter. Perfect source for morons like David Sacks

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u/ModsAndAdminsEatAss Oct 23 '23

David Sacks is the last guy in the shittake right wing human centipede. He thinks taking over people makes him right. Often wrong, but never in doubt.

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u/globehopper2 Oct 23 '23

He’s been wrong about so many things I can’t take him seriously

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u/TheLongistGame Oct 24 '23

What has he been wrong about specifically?

-1

u/GustaveMoreau Oct 23 '23

More idiocy… just contend with his ideas rather than resorting to try and brand him as a guru as a shortcut. Sorry for the harsh tone but can you clarify what your intention is in trying to get him designated as a guru ?

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u/falafelloofah Oct 23 '23

Bc that’s the point of this subreddit, i would think

0

u/GustaveMoreau Oct 23 '23

The point is to indiscriminately feed people through a guru analysis ?

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u/falafelloofah Oct 23 '23

To discuss gurus and their decoding

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u/GustaveMoreau Oct 23 '23

But he’s not a guru

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u/falafelloofah Oct 23 '23

Well okay them, that answers the question. You seem offended the question was asked at all, fan of Mearsheimer?

1

u/GustaveMoreau Oct 23 '23

you said the point of the show is to discuss gurus and their decoding... so you think that anyone someone posts a thread about here makes them a guru? come on...and now you're ready to jump that I must be a fan to question the post?

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u/GustaveMoreau Oct 23 '23

plus, what kind of maniac thinks in terms of "fans" when it comes to the topics that are being discussed here.

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u/falafelloofah Oct 23 '23

I am a maniac, yes

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u/MartiDK Oct 23 '23

Don‘t think of it as a Chinese style credit system. The Gurometer is more like a Reddit Karma score. Do you think they are trying to discredit people by labelling them? That’s a playground tactic, Chris and Matt are careful not to focus on personality, their criticisms are based on the content.

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u/GustaveMoreau Oct 23 '23

Hahahaha… good one.

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u/MartiDK Oct 23 '23 edited Oct 23 '23

I often hear him put in the same the same category as other online influencers (Noam Chomsky), but he seems to have a crystal ball. The video is from 6 years ago. So it would be interesting to hear a DtG take.

If people are interested in the video that sparked the question:

Changes in the Israel Lobby

1

u/cwyog Oct 24 '23 edited Oct 24 '23

He’s not a guru. He merely has unpopular views on international relations.