8.3M views · Nov 17, 2023 · 3:26:42 · 0 HN recommenders · 3 mentions · discussed 2023–2024
A three-and-a-half-hour Lex Fridman interview with international relations scholar John Mearsheimer. He discusses war and power politics, covering Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and the risk of a larger war.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN commenters cite it as a representative statement of Mearsheimer's realist views, such as anarchy among nation-states and Russia seeking early peace talks.
Mearsheimer interview as example of people from that era
There is something oddly nostalgic about foreign policy pre-smartphone. People could hide in the shadows, spies didn't sit in offices all day, deals were made in cigar smoke without the fear of out-of-context leaks to twitter. People from that era are still giving interviews though: this video
“John J. Mearsheimer touches on this briefly in his interview with Lex Fridman”
Mearsheimer on anarchy among nation-states
At the level of nation-states, there is an anarchistic relationship between one another. There's no real concept of legality at an international level when you peel away all the bureaucratic nonsense. John J. Mearsheimer touches on this briefly in his interview with Lex Fridman: this video The permanent members of the UN's Security Council do not abide by laws they force other members to abide by. This is because there really are great powers in the world, which, despite being difficult for people in the West to understand, is very obvious in the rest of the world.
“Russia was ready to negotiate a peace at the start of the war”
Mearsheimer's argument that Russia sought early peace talks
>> So it's sad to see anyone falling for Putin's lies so easily. (See also Mearshimer.) Mearsheimer can be a bit too convincing for his own good, surely. What he has argued that is certainly convincing is that Russia was ready to negotiate a peace at the start of the war, when Russians and Ukrainians met in Belarus and then in Istanbul. If Putin wanted to recreate Imperial Russia, or the Soviet Union, then why would he negotiate for peace? That's Mearsh's argument, which he articulates, e.g. here in Lex Friedman's show (sorry, I couldn't find a better source): this video Full transcript here: link
