The New Cold War with John Mearsheimer

Mearsheimer argues that the US and China are in a dangerous security competition, more perilous than the first Cold War. In essence, once China grew wealthy, a US-China cold war was inevitable. Had US policymakers understood this logic in the early 1990s, they would have tried to slow down Chinese growth and maximize the power gap between Beijing and Washington.
However, the US did the opposite: it pursued a policy of engagement, which aimed to help China grow wealthier - based on the assumption that China would become a democracy and a responsible stakeholder, which would lead to a more peaceful world. Instead of fostering harmonious relations between China and the US, engagement led to an intense rivalry.
Are Australia and the world in deep trouble? Absent a major internal Chinese crisis, Washington and Beijing are consigned to waging a dangerous security competition. Can we manage on the margins to prevent disaster?
John Mearsheimer is a professor of political science and international relations at the University of Chicago and author of The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001). He was a guest at the Centre for Independent Studies in 2019.
Host: Tom Switzer is executive director of the Centre for Independent Studies.
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[@baronvonlimbourgh1716]

Mearsheimer has become one of my favorites lately. Great views on the world.

[@internationalrelationspolitics]

Thanks for watching, remember to like and Subscribe

[@latestmoviesandentertainme9910]

thanks for the ammonizing content

[@raginald7mars408]

As a German Biologist and Pythagorean - what an ideological Non Sense! Already in the 1960´s in Germany - even small businesses went out into the world to produce cheaper and produce more without any interference. Driven by pure GREED! - this lead to the first waves of unemployment and social devastation - up to now. The entrepreneurial GREED is Universal - and ASIA adapted GREED fast. The long term devastation is the loss of worker skills and the unwillingness to start producing the essentials at home. Now we see the much bigger cost in sudden military threats, tax increases, rise in costs - so that the initial benefits of GREED backfire and what was earned - costs now 100 times more. It is Greed! Not political! China will suffer the very same fate

[@neilabernath5862]

I agree with the Prof, but for another reason. Sending all us manufacturing to China was a terrible economic shook to our country.

[@blee04524]

then enjoy the high price

[@hullopillow4853]

That is why the Western bloc is declining.

[@under18fearless]

To think that it is morally correct to suppress any country from improving the lives of its citizens is not a scholar of history.

[@fightignorance3598]

Exactly, He is in his bone an imperialist and white supremacist. He may give a good account of what’s happening but make no mistake , he is like his government a threat to human dignity, equality. Imperialist and white supremacists are the ones who have cause much unspeakable human sufferings and a threat to human existence by ushering in a nuclear war.

[@neilabernath5862]

He's a realist. The world is not perfect. Sometimes compromise is necessary, even if you're morally right. Like Ukraine.

[@under18fearless]

@@neilabernath5862 Yes I agree with you. The harm is that he is preaching that it is ok to continue with the strongest is predestine to suppress the weak and we do not have free will to change that. There are two philosophies human are inherently bad or are inherently good. It is your choice to start your family values from there.

[@puayyonglee7052]

@@under18fearless I think he is just stating what will happen in reality. As much as we want peace, current cultures and reality work otherwise, especially when great powers are involved. He is a good professor with pristine clarity what will happen and has correctly predicted the development of ukraine vs Russia outcomes.in

[@under18fearless]

@@puayyonglee7052 What he is predicting is nothing new. Lin Yutang in his book “Between Tears and Laughter” published in 1943 has predicted how the will response to the rise of Russia and China. The path the West has taken is the same path of the Athenian and the outcome will be the same for them as the Athenian. Please read the book and you will understand the difference between a real scholar and a racist under the guise of a scholar.

[@Beanp2025]

Why would China, a 5000 yr old civilization that generated its own growth and prosperity largely within its own boundaries, a nation that didn't expand, invade and colonize other countries, want to change itself and imitate the Anglo Saxons? For what benefits? Without a growing China, who would have kept inflation down then, during the decades as the US QEed and took on $26 trillion of debt, and what would have happened during the 2008 financial crisis, if Hank Paulson didn't go to Beijing, and if China didn't have the reserves to buy up $2 trillion to support QE, TARP for the TBTF, or the ability to crank up production of free flowing goods to keep inflation down while the US$ printing press ran at manic pace? The US would have collapsed under the weight of its own debt and stagflation. Reality, a complex system, cannot be talked about as if one can deconstruct neatly by retracing steps. Like the butterfly effect, tiny initial changes might very well lead to a very different outcome from what Mearsheimer so definitively speak of today. What's important is to simulate what it would be like going forward fighting a lethal new war, this time with China, Russia and Iran aligned, as Brzezinski warned.

[@latestmoviesandentertainme9910]

true,china is too great a nation to loose a cold war

[@Beanp2025]

@@latestmoviesandentertainme9910 I get it that from an Offensive Realist point of view, the question of morality is moot. However, fighting wars, hot or cold, means one expends one's own resources as well. As a strategic Offensive Realist, the calculations must be accurate, precise that the benefits outweigh the risk. Otherwise, isn't it like a Dubya doppelganger? It's not a cakewalk facing a united Eurasia, and the harder one attacks, the tighter the union of one's targets. Perhaps it simply takes a shift in perspective from belligerence to co-prosperity and co-sharing of power. I think, though, that the US public opinion has become so warped it has become an impossible juggernaut that has the reverse effect of driving this cold war trajectory to the detriment of US geopolitical goals.

[@ImperiumVita]

The idea that China has not expanded, invaded, and colonized other countries or peoples is laughable. Look up the Chinese treatment of the Dzungars. Tibet and Xinjiang are two colonies of the Han Chinese core Empire even today. Their peoples and cultures are in the process of being wiped out. Seek truth from facts.

[@Beanp2025]

@@ImperiumVita These regions all became part of China since CENTURIES BEFORE Europeans invaded and colonized the Americas, Australia and Africa. Amazingly, the native populations are still there thriving today, with language, culture, religious beliefs INTACT. In contrast, millions of natives were slaughtered globally by Anglo and European settlers, thousands of native children were forcefully taken away and never seen again in Canada, Australia and the US just a couple of decades ago and their bodies were recently found in mass graves. Now that's GENOCIDE. People are only useful for labor and transfer of wealth to centuries of colonialists, like African slavery and forcing the opium trade on China. No doubt to those who committed these crimes against humanity these are expendable lives. So get off your high horse. At least Mearsheimer isn't a hypocrite. The question is whether you can continue your ways now that you might possibly be outgunned.

[@ImperiumVita]

@@Beanp2025 I am able to say, yes you are correct about what western countries have done. China apologists are living in a fantasy world unable to accept the truth.

[@wazzup4u]

Agree with the analysis but disagree with the strategy as the US should partner with not compete with China

[@utmbunderground]

Right for all of the wrong reasons. The first Cold War wasn't that dangerous because Russia was demographically fucked after WW2, started the standoff with far more territory than it ever claimed, strictly adhered to Communism resulting in famously sluggish economic growth and were thoroughly baited into an Arms Race that ate 30%+ of its total GDP. China on the other hand has 1.5B+ people, has its eyes set on quite a lot of additional territory, has embraced the major tenants of Capitalism and Trade, and is not spending itself silly on outdated military tech. Instead, they have maintained just enough Nukes to be a deterrent and is focusing its finances on economic growth and development.

[@willwang3688]

China had completed building its heavy industry in end of 1970s, and it was starting to build its consumers industry in beginning 1980s, so whatever, China would be much prosperous with time. The difference might be how much US could benefit from this process, and the benefit from involving is so tremendous that we have the super rich and powerful USA empire never seen in this planet. This professor John is one of the blind men touching an elephant.

[@eleonoraformatoneeszczepan8807]

John Mearsheimer is a liberal hegemon whithout a peer competitor, with no security threat in the region - no others to roam into the backyard. ... Stay well. Peace. Eleonora Formato née Szczepanowski South Australia

[@bettybaumann5824]

Was that a hiccup or was he going to say slow down China.

[@miss_sharoney]

World at war politics can be appetizing in this ragged world of cold wars

[@fightignorance3598]

Do we really need to have people on this planet earth who couldn’t see the beauty of all people living in harmony, dignity and justices ? A person who could not as aspire to the noble goal of ‘love your neighbours as yourselves’ hasn’t acquired the art of being human.

[@whitegatorade6209]

Youre a fool that has been propagandized by the liberal world order. The will to power and the lessons of struggle for survival we learn along the way are the art of being human, not smoking grass and sodomy.

[@considerthis7712]

Jan 27th, In Europe, 100,000 + Russian troops were already moving towards Ukraine. Russia taking advantage of US focus in Asia. Now US has both…can it manage?

[@siamcharm7904]

in the inevitable US war on asia ,expects believe there is a 30 percent chance it will become nuclear. and of course this time the US homeland will not be spared.

[@siamcharm7904]

thats "experts".

[@fightignorance3598]

I believe the first nuclear will be dumped on US homeland if it breaks out

[@neilabernath5862]

This is a stupid statement. US and China will have to accomade each other.

[@siamcharm7904]

while i respect john's view of the US as a country without a moral compass in its efforts to lower the living standards of the peoples of asia, he greatly undersetimates the effect this confrontation will take on the US economy when so many major corps have tied their presnt and future growth to china. many now obtain as much as 35 percent of their revenues from china.

[@internationalrelationspolitics]

True, as a neo-realist he undermines the power of national interest in Asia

[@Beanp2025]

He fails to factor in the REACTION to every ACTION. Eurasian powers are not going to remain sitting ducks for cold war attacks.

[@meggallucci5300]

Very wise man. Too bad the US did not listen.

[@yiting7857]

Right for some aspects, But wrong with the essential reasons.

[@willemgrooters4958]

"New Cold War" ??? "Cold War 2.0" ??? There were / are people who have the opinion that the previous Cold War - which supposedly ended in 1990/1991 - never ended. I must confess that these people make a very good case HOW & WHY the previous Cold War neve ended. All the talk about "Cold War 2.0" becomes meaningless because "Cold War 1.0" never ended.

[@gtrs4ever]

Yes, China was poor. Because of the EPA & cheap labor we made them rich.

[@davidash2727]

China has now entered the soft power competition have you seen the video game world online story telling the influencers over Disney?

[@Simko21]

It is clear that the process of NATO's extension has no relationship with NATO itself to modernise or ensure security in Europe. On the contrary, this is a provocative factor that reduces the level of mutual trust. Now we have the right to ask: who is this extension against? And what happened to these insurance companies that gave us western partners after the Warsaw Treaty was broken? Where are these explanations now? You don't even remember them anymore. But I let myself remember what was said at this Conference. In Brussels on 17 May 1990, the Secretary General of NATO, Mr. Wörner, I would like to quote an offer on 17 May 1990. At the time, "The NATO Armed Forces already provide solid security guarantees for the Soviet Union, where we are ready for the station behind the FRG's borders." Where are these guarantees? " Wladimir Putin-Munich-2007

[@Existential_Bengali]

How neorealism explains imperialism and colonialism?