John Mearsheimer engages with a wide variety of interviewers on the Middle East and Ukraine

Über-Realist John Mearsheimer is willing to participate in a wide range of podcasts, from grumpy conservatives to flaming lefties. He seems to have a good sense of the ideological leanings of his interview partners, like the prominent academic Russophile Glenn Diesen. He seems to enjoy the exercise of navigating distinct ideological perspectives from his interviewers.

I’ve listened to so many of his interviews and speeches over the last three years or so that I don’t react with “huh?” to as many of his comments as I once did. He has a provocative style. But what may sound at first like callous cynicism about how great powers make foreign policy decisions, is actually his “realist” frame of reference. But he is also broadly committed to liberal values and does make moral judgments as well about political decisions.

And he’s also not deterministic in his thinking. In fact, he has often been very critical of US foreign-policy decision-making because it too often ignores practical lessons from experience in a way that leads to less-then-optimal policies. And he also takes account of the fact that foreign policy makers are human beings, with all the limitations that condition involves. And he’s aware that political, emotional, and sentimental considerations – especially when they have effective lobbying operation supporting them – can and do lead decision-makers to make careless, dumb, or reckless calls. And he’s very aware of material considerations of military power and of the need for competent diplomacy.

Having said all that, I’ll add my usual warning notice: if you listen to an interview with the length of the two I’m including below, and you don’t hear Mearsheimer say something that irritates you – you’re probably not paying attention.

This one is a weekly appearance on the podcast of Andrew Napolitano, who’s well to the right on a lot of issues and usually opens his show with an annoying and dubious-sounding goldbug investment pitch, where they are mainly talking about US-Israel policy: (1)

We get a flash of Mearsheimer’s emotional outrage over the Gaza genocide in that one. And he also talks specifically about Trump’s strange and less-than-competent behavior on the Israel-Gaza issue.

This is an over-two-hour interview with smug MAGA isolationist and heir to the Swanson food fortune, Tucker Carlson: (2)

And if that’s not enough Mearsheimer for a while, here he is talking to a consciously left podcaster, Katie Halper, beginning at 17:30 in this video: (3)

Notes:

(1) Prof. John Mearsheimer: Can Israel Save Itself? Judge Napolitano-Judging Freedom YouTube channel 07/31/2025. <https://www.youtube.com/live/S6DznZTgoDc?si=hSMyDA-RmEoG3v3-> (Accessed: 2025-31-07).

(2) John Mearsheimer: The Palestinian Genocide and How the West Has Been Deceived Into Supporting It. Tucker Carlson YouTube channel 07/30/2025. <https://youtu.be/2VXbY4V7LCk?si=8lUjquiozVNLWM8T> (Accessed: 2025-31-07).

(3) John Mearsheimer on Israel, Russia, Iran & WW3. Katie Halper YouTube channel 07/23/2025. <https://www.youtube.com/live/Dt9dj-6aygo?si=oelSCsRaocoViomS> (Accessed: 2025-31-07).