Author
John Mearsheimer
Political scientist and theorist of offensive realism
John J. Mearsheimer is R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago and the leading proponent of offensive realism, the theory that great powers pursue dominance because the international system offers no guarantee of survival.
He applies it consistently and unpopularly: he opposed the Iraq war before it began, argued with Stephen Walt that the Israel lobby distorts American policy, and attributes the Ukraine war substantially to NATO expansion. Whether one accepts the conclusions, the theory is applied without exception, which is rarer than it sounds.
