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"Then in 2006, along with his co-author Stephen Walt, [John Mearsheimer] wrote 'The Israel Lobby', which examined the complex of organisations that sought to encourage the US to provide material aid to Israel, often against American strategic interests. It was subsequently published as a book in 2007, and the argument saw Mearsheimer and Walt labelled as anti-Semitic, liars and bigots."

#GavinJacobson, September 2023

https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2023/09/tragedy-john-mearsheimer

That sounds familiar.

#JohnMearsheimer #Israel

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied · last week

"... Mearsheimer’s theory is based on five assumptions: the international system is anarchic (there is no supreme authority or nightwatchman that can limit the behaviour of states); all great powers possess offensive military capability; states can never be certain about other states’ intentions; survival is a state’s paramount goal; and states are rational actors that think about how they can survive in a time of anarchy."

#GavinJacobson, 2023

https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2023/09/tragedy-john-mearsheimer

(1/2)

#IR #realism

New Statesman

The tragedy of John Mearsheimer

How the American realist became the world’s most hated thinker.

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied · last week

All of these seem self-evident to me except the last one, which seems like an absurd fantasy.

For one thing, it's nonsense to say that states "think about" anything. A state's policy emerges from the interference patterns between the cultures and politics at work amongst its population. If individuals are not rational actors by default, then it seems absurd to call such an interference pattern an "actor" of any kind, let alone a rational one.

(2/2)

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