Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.
We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio ad staff, give you, guys, the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that, let's get to the show. We're very excited now to be joined by Professor John Meersheimer, personal hero of mine. He is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor in the Political Science Department at the
University of Chicago since nineteen eighty two. Thank you very much for joining us, sir.
We appreciate it, my pleasure.
So, Professor, you're well known in many circles for being a well known scholar on realism. But recently, I would say you've really come into especial relevance with the collapse of the liberal international system and of how we are to deal with it, especially with the flare ups of Israel and Ukraine. We wanted to start actually on the issue of Israel. I read your book The Israel lobby many many years ago, really opened my eyes as to
the influence here in Washington. But what I would I really like to know from you is how the US policy visa the Israel since October seventh has only further isolated the United States, both in terms of Israeli action and in terms of Israeli policy.
Well, I think there's no question that the United States, in large part because of the Israel Lobby, has been joined at the hip with Israel. And after October seventh, when the Israelis decided to go on a rampage in Gaza, the United States fully supported the Israelis. Many Israeli generals have made it clear that they could not conduct this offensive against the Palestinians in Gaza without the materials support.
And here we're talking mainly about weaponry that the United States is providing them, and furthermore, we're providing them with diplomatic cover. The United States is COMPLICITUS with what Israel is doing in Gaza. And this is hardly surprising given the power of the lobby in the United States.
I wanted to get your reaction to recent events. So we've had many quite significant factors emerged recently. We have the ICC signaling they're likely to issue arrest warrants for net Yahoo. And in addition, Defense Minister you of Galant, you have the ICJ just recently issuing yet another injunction
basically saying you cannot go into Rafa. You had Biden sort of weekly signaling this redline and pretending at least like he was going to halt weapons shipments if there was what he described as a quote unquote major invasion of Rafa.
You have three more.
European countries coming out and recognizing a Palestinian state, and yet in spite of all of that, or perhaps because of some of that, you still have the IDF. Going forward. We saw this horrific massacre of Palestinians who were displaced in a safe zone inside of their tents, at least forty five killed. What do you make of the Israeli calculation at this point and the moment that we're in right now.
Well, just to talk about the Israeli calculation, I think it's important emphasize that Netya, who has no real interest in ending the war, the longer the war goes on, the better for him politically, because once the war ends, he'll have to face the music for what happened on October seventh, and he could be pushed overboard. So he has a vested interest in keeping the war going for that reason. Secondly, he's committed to defeating Hamas completely. He's
committed to winning the decisive victory. I don't believe for one second that he can do that, but if he's going to attempt.
To do it, he has to go into Rafa.
So to defeat Hamas, in his mind, it's necessary to go into Rafa. Now, with regard to why he did it, given all the intern national condemnation of Israel's behavior towards the Palestinians in Gaza in general, and especially with regard
to what's happening in Rafa, she just doesn't care. It doesn't matter to him what world opinion says one way or the other, as long as the United States backs them, as long as the United States has his back and Joe Biden has his back, and he knows full well that if Trump gets elected in November, the Trump will have his back as well. So he's free to do whatever he wants. And given that he has a vested interest and continuing this war and trying to defeat jumas we go on and.
On, Professor, how do you see in the short term. Obviously they're going to have the back of the US, the US is the dominant power in the world. But the increasing isolation of both the United States and Israel, what does that look like for Israel in the long in the medium to long term future, are they going to be an international pariah state? How do you see the evolution of the international system with respect to Israel over time?
Well, I think it's very important to emphasize that independent of what's going on in Gaza, Israel is an apartheid state. And here we're talking about Greater Israel, which includes the West Bank and Gaza.
Which are part of Greater Israel. For sure.
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and but Selim, which is the leading human rights organization inside of Israel, have all issued lengthy and sophisticated reports that make a compelling case that Israel is an apartheid state. The Israelis are well aware of what happened to South Africa. South Africa with ones in apartheid state, and it's no longer in apartheid state because it's very hard to sustain an apartheid state
in the modern world. So Israel has real problems moving forward because it's an apartheid state and it has no way at the moment of getting out of that situation. When you marry that to the fact that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. And by the way, if you don't think Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, you at least have to admit that they're engaged in mass murder and that they're attempting to starve the Palestinians in Gaza. What they're doing in Gaza is absolutely horrible. I would
call it a genocide. So what you have here is an apartheid state that's engaged in genocide. And the question you have to ask yourself is what is the long term viability of a state that fits that description? And I would argue over the long term this presents enormous problems for Israel, and one can argue that the survival of Israel will be at stake if it doesn't change its ways.
Could you talk a little bit about how you came to the conclusion that this isn't just a mass laughter, that it does in fact meet the definition of genocide and whether you see that determination as being significant.
Well, at first I didn't think it was a genocide.
I thought there was no question that the Israelis were inflicting significant punishment on the civilian population.
Of Gaza.
And it was clear in the beginning that what they were trying to do was they were trying to ethnically cleanse Gaza. You want to understand that if the Israelis were able to cleanse Gaza, they would solve the apartheid problem. And that's true, of course with regard to the West Bank as well. If Israel could cleanse Gaza and the West Bank of Palestinians, they would solve the apartheid problem. So I think from the beginning what the Israelis were doing in Gaza was they were trying to cleanse Gaza.
They were trying to drive all the Palestinians out, and the way they tried to do that was by making the place unlivable. So they were killing huge numbers of Palestinians. They were destroying their homes, they were destroying schools, they were destroying cemeteries, they were destroying government buildings, they were destroying moss. And at a certain point it became clear that this was genocide, that they were trying to kill an enormous number of people in Gaza for the purposes
of cleansing Gaza. And then you marry on top of that the fact that they were starving the population. They were greatly greatly the amount of food and water and fuel and medicine that could come into Gaza, and all of this was for the purpose of making the place unlivable and killing large numbers of Palestinians. And this is what led the International Court of Justice in January to say that there was enough evidence to make a plausible
case that Israel is committing genocide. And I think, having looked very carefully at the case, that the evidence is quite clear that this is a genocide.
Professor, what standing has the US's real relationship had, or sorry, what effect has the US's relationship had, especially post October seventh, on the US is standing in the international community and in the world. Has it how negatively do you think it's affected the US And what are the long term impacts in terms of our own policy and standing.
Well, I think it's done significant damage to our repation. I mean, I think that outside of the West, most people believe that this is a genocide. And again, if you don't believe it's a genocide, it's at least mass murder. This is certainly a crime against humanity what the Israelis are doing in Gaza. But I think most people outside of the West believe it is a genocide, and I think most people believe correctly that the United States is complicit in this genocide.
And the end.
Result is that's going to do enormous damage not only to Israel's reputation, but to our reputation.
Then it taken a step further.
As you both know well, the United States privileges the liberal international order, or.
The rules based order.
We believe that international law, international rules really matter. When you look at how the Israelis are behaving in Gaza and how they react to the ICC and the ICJ, and how we support them in their reaction, it's quite clear that we are massive hypocrites when it comes to international law. And this too damages the United States. The United States basically created the international liberal order. It has
a vested interest in making it work. And what we're doing in our support of israel Is, we're undermining the international liberal order. People around the world are actually quite shocked at the extent to which the United States is willing to excuse Israeli behavior when it's in direct violation of international law.
I'm almost afraid to ask the next question, but how do you think this ends? I mean, do they effectively succeed in completing the genocide? Because, as you point out, Nanna, who has no interest in ending this war, Joe Biden clearly has no interest in moving away from the unconditional support posture. Donald Trump would be the same, probably without the little bit of liberal hand ringing that we get from Joe Biden. So how do you see this playing out?
It's very hard to say.
I mean, I'm hoping that the shooting stops at some point they're not too distant future. I'm hoping that after the assault on Rafa, the Israelis stop the large scale offensive military operations in Gaza and instead they restrict their military operations to small scale attacks against Tamas. I mean, I'd like to see all the shooting stop, but I think that's highly unlikely. But I'd like to see it
become more limited. And I think that what will end up happening here is that the Israelis will end up occupying Gaza for the foreseeable future, and Israel will remain in apartheid state, and the Palestinians, of course, at some time in the future will revolt again. I mean, you want to understand that what happened on October seventh is not the first instance of the Palestinians rebelling against the Israelis.
You had the first into Fada in nineteen eighty seven, you had the second into Fada in two thousand and then you had October seventh, and there were all sorts of mini revolts in between those three important events. And this is what happens when you have an apartheid state. The people who are being dominated, and that course is the Palestinian population, they are going to revolt. And therefore I think that we can expect to see trouble for as far as the eye can.
See, Professor, how do you see the risks of a regional conflict? If that is going to increase, and then the odds of the US would be dragged along. We talked previously in some mar shows, has been cross border fire between the Egyptians and the Israelis. Is there going to be a power vacuum similar to the nineteen sixteen seventies, or the Palestinian cause brings a lot of popularity and could invite broader regional conflict. Where do you see that going.
Well, you want to remember that the United States is already fighting the Huthis in the Red Sea as a result of what going on in Gaza. But the really interesting question has to do with Iran. Now, it's clear from what happened in April. You remember, on April first, the Israeli struck the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria, and on April fourteenth, the Iranians attacked Israel in response, and then on April nineteenth, Israel launched a very limited strike
against Iran. So between April first and April nineteenth, we had this conflict not simply involving Israel and Iran. The United States was involved as well. We were in in the combat that took place on April fourteenth when Iran attacked Israel. We shot down about half of the drones and cruise missiles and ballistic missiles that were aimed at Israel. So we were deeply involved. Now what does this tell you?
If you look carefully, you see that the United States and Iran had no interest in having this conflict take place. It's the Israelis who wanted to drag the Americans into a war with Iran. It's the Israelis who started these events on April first when they attacked the Iranian embassy in Damascus. Then after April first, the United States and the Iranians went to great lengths to make sure that the conflict did not escalate to the point where you had a war between the United States and Iran. We
don't want a wider conflict in the region. We're not happy about the fact that we're fighting the Whothies. We certainly don't want a war with Iran, and we don't want a war with Hesbelah either, And in that case, we've been putting significant pressure on the Israelis not to get into a major league fight with Hesblah on their northern border, because again, we're afraid that we'll be pulled in.
So I think it's very important to understand that there is potential for escalation in the region beyond what's happening in the Israel Palestine conflict, but that the United States has no interest in seeing itself get dragged into another forever war and Therefore, I think it is unlikely that we will end up fighting against Iran in the foreseeable future.
Do you see any Israeli domestic political considerations that could and pressures that could lead to some sort of a ceasefire agreement in the short term? You had both Benny Ganson, you have Glant coming out against specifically issuing these series of ultimatums. Looks like he's preparing to exit the war
cabinet on June eighth. You have massive protests. You know, there isn't a lot of disagreement about the prosecution of the war, the treatment palace and civilians per se, but there is massive friction over the pursuit of a hostage deal. Do you think that any of those things could bring this conflict to a close the at least the micro conflict that's being engaged in right now.
Well, as you point out, there are you know, very powerful centrifugal forces inside of Israel, the threatened that government, and at first glance appear to push.
In the direction of some sort of cease fire.
But I would just say that if you watch Benjamin Nettna, who in action, he is something of a magician when it comes to maintaining his position in power. There's no question that you know, his work cabinet is deeply unhappy with the fact that he has no plan for how to run Gaza once the shooting stops. It's very clear that the hostage problem is causing him enormous trouble. But again, he is something of a magician, and I would not bet a lot of money that he's toppled anytime soon.
I would also know that if he is toppled, it won't matter that much. The fact that you know, net Yahoo is not an outlier here. Many liberal American Jews like to make the argument that the real problem here is Benjamin nan Yaho, and if only we can get rid of Benjamin nan Yahoo will live happily ever after. I think this is not the case. I think that nan Yahoo has views that are, you know, similar to Benny Gantz's views, similar to Yoav Galand's views. I mean,
he's not an outlier. And in fact, if you look at his entire cabinet, he has a number of people who are far to the right of him. He looks like a statrist in the context of.
His own cabinet.
The fact is that Israel is a remarkably hawkish state. The Israel that I knew when I was a young boy and a young man has gone away. It's moved steadily to the right over time, and I believe with the passage of time it will move even further and further to the right. This is a hawkish country that that has extremest views towards the Palestinians.
Yeah, that's one of the only countries where younger people are actually more hardline, more hawkish, more right wing than older populations. I wanted to ask you about Joe Biden to the best that you can assess if there are for people here who want to put pressure on him to change policy in some way? You know, do you
see any pressure points? Is it your assessment that he's driven primarily by his own ideology, clearly has this great sentimental attachment to that Israel of long gone Israel of your Is it about the power of the Israel lobby.
We saw, you know, an email from a top Biden donor that was outraged that he wouldn't consider cutting off weapons ever, or is it, you know, is it a political calculation where he thinks there's more to be gained from being very pro Israel than to be gained by, you know, having a more sympathetic view towards the Palestinians and reflecting what the overwhelming majority of the Democratic base
wants to see. How do you assess those things? What would your assessment be of potential pressure points on Joe Biden himself.
I think there's no question that Biden is profoundly committed to Israel. He is an art Zionist, and he self describes as an art Zionist, so no question about that. At the same time, I think he believes that the Israelis have gone too far in Gaza and it's not good for Israel to continue on the path that it's now on. And I think he believes you could be an art Zionist. You can be deeply committed to Israel and you can still think that Israel should change its behavior in Gaza.
So I think there is.
A difference of opinion between Benjamin nan Yahu and Joe Biden at this point in time on moving forward in Gaza.
However, the problem he faces is the lobby.
If he does anything that puts pressure on Israel to change its behavior in Gaza, the lobby is going to land on him like a ton of bricks, and this would be disastrous for him in terms of getting re elected. In November, he has an election coming up, and the last thing he wants to do is antagonize the Israel
lobby because he's fully aware how powerful it is. At the same time, because he's a Democrat, and because the Democratic Party has a large constituency of progressives in it who are outraged by what Biden is doing via the Gaza, he has to go to great lengths to try to appease those people so that they don't vote against him or stay home in November. So what you see is that Biden is caught between a rock and a hard place. If he tilts towards Arab American in sentiments, the lobby
will punish him. And if he continues to support Israel hook line and sinker, the Arab Americans and the progressives more generally will punish him in the full election. So he isn't a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, and he could very well lose the election because of this.
Certainly possible.
So I want to switch gears a little bit to Ukraine and to check in on where we are now. You were possibly one of the most maligned people in the foreign policy world at the outbreak of the conflict, even though you'd long been and writing about the fact that it was in fact NATO expansion in US policy visa v. Russia, that it was a contributing factor to the Russian invasion of Ukraine several years now into US policy and many of the Ukrainians stalled so called counter
offensive and ongoing Russian gains. How do you assess the situation in Ukraine today?
Oh, I think the Russians are clearly in the driver's seat. The balance of power, I think through most of twenty twenty two favored the Ukrainians and the West on one
side over the Russians. In late twenty twenty two, the Russians began to mobilize in a serious way, and then in twenty twenty three, over the course of twenty twenty three, the balance shifted in significant ways towards the Russians, and now in twenty twenty four, were five months into twenty twenty four, the balance continues to shift more and more in Russia's favor, and if you look at what's happening on the battlefield the Russians are really pounding the Ukrainians.
The Ukrainians are in deep trouble. This is a war of attrition. This is basically, you know, Muhammad Ali and Joe Fraser stand in toe to toe and beating the living daylights out of each other. Two big armies just pounding each other. And the question is which army is going to bleed the other army white first. And it is to me manifestly clear that the Russians are bleeding the Ukrainian army white, and the Ukrainians are not able
to much to the Russians anymore. And the reason for this is that the balance of man power and the balance of firepower, these are two indicators that really matter in a war of attrition, decisively favor the Russians. The Russians have an enormous advantage in artillery, They have an enormous advantage in air power. Those two things they add up to say they have an enormous advantage in firepower.
Firepower being airpower plus artillery put together. And then if you look at the manpower balance, the Russians have a significant advantage there. You know, the average age of a Ukrainian soldier on the front lines is forty three years old. Forty three years old. Combat is designed for young men and now young women, right, you want people in their twenties. You don't even want people in their thirties. The idea that the average aide of a soldier on the Ukrainian
side is forty three years old, it's hard to believe. Furthermore, you have a significant problem with draft dodging inside of Ukraine. All sorts of young Ukrainian men fully understand that Ukraine is doomed and they don't want to die in a lost cause. Therefore, it's very hard for the Ukrainian military to mobilize people. Moreover, you have a huge number of Ukrainian men who are of draft age, who are in the European Union and don't want to come back to
Ukraine and fight. So the Ukrainians are at a significant disadvantage in terms of the balance of soldiers on the front line, and as I said before, there are a significant disadvantage in terms of the balance of firepower.
And this is a war of attrition. So they are.
Being clobbered on the battlefield day by day, and eventually that military is going to suffer significant defeat. They're going to in a position where they can no longer carry on the war.
What do you think the political calculation is in Washington at this point, Because from an outsider vantage point, I think in the early days, back when there was potential peace negotiations on the table, there was a lot of arrogance. There was a thought, no, we can push for a total victory. Then we had the counter offensive and all the hopes surrounding that that's when Ukraine is going to be able to take back significant amount of terrain that
obviously didn't happen. Now there doesn't even seem to be a narrative about how this is going to play out, how it's going to result in anything other than disaster. So what do you see as Washington's political calculation being at this point.
Well, in terms of a purely political calculation, I think given that the elections coming up in early November, the administration wants to make sure that Ukraine does not suffer an obvious defeat before early November, before the election, they what a great lengths to prevent that from happening. I think the story that people tell themselves, which they probably don't believe very much anymore, is that if Ukraine can hold out in twenty twenty four, by twenty twenty five.
All of this weaponry that we have in the West.
That we're building for Ukraine will be available and we can shift it or we can send it to Ukraine twenty twenty five, and that will shift the balance back in favor of Ukraine. It will look like the situation that you described Crystal in twenty twenty two. That's I think that's the most optimistic story that people tell themselves. But my sense is that deep down, at this point in time, most people fully understand that Ukraine is doomed.
That the only interesting question at this point in time is how much territory are the Russians going to cap sure before this turns into a frozen conflict. But there's really no way to rescue the situation here. The Ukrainians
are simply doomed. They can't fix the manpower problem, and with regard to the weaponry problem, we don't have the weaponry to give them, and we're not going to be able to spin up the industrial base to provide them even in twenty twenty five, with enough weaponry to rescue the situation.
But again, even if we give them the weaponry.
They have a huge manpower problem, and the Russians just get stronger and stronger. Putin is on a roll. The Russians are on a roll. So I think that what you're going to see here is what I call an ugly Russian victory.
Professor, here in Washington, the justification for the Ukrainian cause is if we don't stop putin Ukraine, then Estonia, latf and the other NATO countries are at risk. You have long argued, and I've long agreed with you, that what happens in you is not all of that much interest. But what would you say to those who say, that's why, Professor Marshamer, we must give even more to Ukrainians to make sure that that doesn't happen. Why does this not
actually matter that much? And what's wrong with that logic about if we don't stop him here that he'll continue onwards.
Well, first of all, I don't even think that Putin is interested in conquering all of Ukraine. He's never said that he's interested in conquering all of Ukraine, and in fact, he's told the Ukrainians in recent months that the great danger to them is that Romania and Poland in countries on Ukraine's western border, may someday take territory in Western
Ukraine that once belonged to them. It's very important to understand that a huge chunk of Western Ukraine once belonged to Poland, and there are a number of Poles who would like to get that territory back. I'm not arguing that Poland is operating on the basis that it can get that territory back. But nevertheless, Putin has said that there is a danger that this will happen. That indicates to you that he is not planning to take western Ukraine.
And indeed, he would be.
Crazy to take western Ukraine because it's filled with ethnic Ukrainians who hate Russians, and he would have a major insurgency on his hand hands if he tried to conquer all of Ukraine. So he's not even going to take all of Ukraine. He's never been interested in taking all of Ukraine. Now, the idea that he's going to then, you know, go conquer countries in Eastern Europe, he's never
indicated any interest in that. And by the way, during the Cold War, the Soviet Union occupied all of Eastern Europe.
It was a nightmare. The Soviets have been there, done that, and it did not work out very well.
The last thing they want to do is start occupying countries in Eastern Europe so they can do hung fifty six again, Czechoslovakia sixty eight again, East Germany fifty three again. The problems that they had were with the Poles were legion. The problems they had with the Romanians and the Albanians were even worse. I mean, the idea that they want to conquered territory and recreate the Russian Empire in Eastern
Europe is just not a serious argument. It's standard threat inflation that we engage in here in the West, all for the purposes of getting the public to support continued support of Ukraine. And again this is just not.
A serious threat, Professor.
At the beginning of this conflict, we really through the kitchen sink at Russia in terms of sanctions, made it maybe the most ancient country on the entire planet. I'm not going to say that those sanctions didn't bite at all, but the Russian economy seems to be doing fairly well in spite of those master massive coordinated Western sanctions. The significance of the failure of that sanctions regime.
Here it's very significant.
I mean, if you go back to twenty twenty two when the war first started, and as we were talking about before, it looked like the Ukrainian military was doing very well against the Russian military in twenty twenty two. It was that factor plus the fact that we thought that the sanctions would work, and we thought the sanctions
would bring the Russians to their knees. So it was the combination of a belief that the sanctions would work, combined with the success of the Ukrainian military on the battlefield in twenty twenty two that led us to think that we could win the war against Russia. You want to remember that there were peace negotiations that started immediately
after the war began in February. These were the famous peace negotiations between Zelensky's side and Putin's side in Istanbul, and it looked like the two sides were going to work out in agreement. This was in March early April of twenty twenty two, and the war started on February twenty fourth, twenty twenty two, so it looked like the
war was going to be brought to an end. It's now quite clear that the West, and here we're talking mainly about the United States and the British told the Ukrainians to walk away from the negotiations.
And why did they do that.
They did it because the West thought that Ukraine could defeat the Russians on the battlefield number one and number two, that the sanctions would do grave damage to the Russian economy. Then in the fall, you remember, after the Ukrainians had been successful on the battlefield in two big areas of eastern Ukraine, General Milly, who was then Gairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it's time for peace negotiations. This is the high water mark for the Ukrainian military.
This is what General Milly said in the fall of twenty twenty two. He understood the Ukrainians had done quite well on the battlefield, but now was the time to reach some sort of agreement or settlement with the Russians, because again, this was the high water mark for the Ukrainian military. That's what he thought, correctly, of course, But the White House said absolutely not and told General Milly
to stop making these arguments in public. Why did we tell or why did the White House tell General Milly to cease and desist from making those kinds of arguments. It's because we thought the sanctions would work. We thought we would bring the Russians to their knees, and we thought the Ukrainians would continue to win on the battlefield. This was a giant miscalculate with regard to what was happening on the battlefield, and it was a giant miscalculation regarding the sanctions.
General Milly was right.
We should have tried to cut a deal in the fall of twenty twenty two. Indeed, going back to the negotiations in Istanbul in March early April of twenty twenty two, we should have let them play themselves out those negotiations and hopefully brought an end to the conflict. But we did not do that because in good part we thought
the sanctions would work. They haven't worked. The Ukrainians have done have been less successful on the battlefield, and the end result is that the Russians are going to win an ugly victory.
Yeah, well, very well, said Sir. I can't say enough how much we admire your work. How I personally was inspired funny story I had the Israel Lobby on my shelf in college and a guy said you should take that down. That guy's an anti semi Yeah, I said, have you read it, and of course that the answer was no. So the rightest man in international relations. We appreciate you very much, sir, Thank you, professor, thank you, thank you.
For having me on the show. I appreciate it.