Judging Freedom - Prof. John Mearsheimer: Are Russia and China a Threat to the US?

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

Prof. John Mearsheimer: Are Russia and China a Threat to the US?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Whatever your stage, businesses that grow, grow with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash listen. Music Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, May 1st, 2025. Professor John Mearsheimer joins us now. Professor Mearsheimer, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you. You always make yourself available to us no matter where you're lecturing or you happen to be. Is the Russia of Vladimir Putin a threat to the national security of the United States? No, not at all. There are three great powers in the system, the United States, China, and Russia.

And I think it's quite clear that China is a peer competitor. It's an incredibly powerful and impressive country that's closing the gap between the United States and China, the power gap that is. Russia is a distant third. It is a great power. It should be respected.

But the idea that Russia is a threat to take over any countries in Eastern Europe or that it's a threat to Western Europe is laughable. And the argument that it's a threat to the United States is not a serious argument unless we push the Russians too far and force them to use nuclear weapons against us. But absent us doing that, it is not a serious threat to the United States.

This is not the Cold War. The United States is arguably, I think you would agree, a co-belligerent with Ukraine in the war against Russia. President Trump has surrounded himself with neocons, although he just let one of them go and moved them from National Security Advisor to the UN, so I don't know if he really let him go. The president has also surrounded himself with America firsters. The president is through his closest friend, Steve Witkoff, negotiating directly with President Putin. Is this any time to enter into a mineral deal with Ukraine, which requires some security assurances by

the United States? Well, there are no security assurances. We have explicitly refused to give a security guarantee. And I think the mineral deal is not a good deal for Ukraine. And I understand the Ukrainians are trying to sort of trap us into some sort of loose security guarantee, but that's not going to happen. The more important point, apropos your comments about the splits within the administration, is that President Trump can't seem to make up his mind as to whether he's going to side with the hawks or whether he's going to side with the people

who want to make major concessions to the Russians and get a deal. He goes back and forth and he's unwilling to go one way or the other. And the end result is he's not going to get a deal and this is just going to go on and on. What kind of a message does this send to the Kremlin? And in a minute I'll play you some nonsense

from General Kellogg and ask you the same thing. But before we get to the general, Trump's mercurial attitude, he's a hawk, he's a dove, he's with Zelensky, he's with Putin, he meets Zelensky in St. Peter's Basilica of all places, and he says he's reasonable. And three days later in an interview with Terry Moran, he goes Putin's easier to deal with than Zelensky.

Is he credible? No, it's as simple as that. Virtually every leader around the world, including our and regarding the, you're dealing with a loose cannon. One day he says something, and then the next day he says the opposite. And you can never be sure exactly where he stands. What this tells you is that the Russians

can't trust him in any meaningful way. And they have to make sure that on the battlefield, they secure an arrangement that protects them against the vagaries of President Trump. Here's what the president's special envoy to Ukraine said yesterday on Fox. This is General Kellogg. You tell me if this makes any sense. Chris?

... out of London last week where we sat down with the Ukrainian team with the Europeans as well, and we had 22 concrete Terms that they've agreed to what they want to at the very first and what they have is a very Comprehensive and permanent ceasefire that leads to a peace treaty But I mean comprehensive sea air land infrastructure for at least 30 days Why is 30 days important? Because it can build to a permanent peace initiative. And the reason why 30 days is important, it stops the killing. That's what President Trump wants to do.

Russians are not going to go for that. This guy's living in cloud cuckoo land. I mean, I don't know what else to say. The deal that he was pushing along with the Europeans and the Ukrainians is guaranteed to go nowhere. It's just not a realizable proposal. And in fact, when Witkoff went to Moscow last Friday to meet with Putin, he took a different deal.

He did not take that deal because Witkoff fully understands and other people in the Trump administration fully understand that the deal that Kellogg is pushing is foolish in the extreme. It's an order. We've been playing this throughout the day but you gotta hear it.

Cut number six. If you want a ceasefire just to continue supply arms to Ukraine, so what is your purpose? You know what what Kaya Callous and what's his name, Mark Ruth said about the the... The NATO secretary general and the European Union. They bluntly stated that they can support only the deal, which at the end of the day will make Ukraine stronger, would make Ukraine a victor. So if this is the purpose of the ceasefire, I don't think this is what President Trump wants.

This is what Europeans, together with Zelensky, want to make out of President Trump's initiative. How can Marco Rubio, Donald Trump, and Keith Kellogg not understand that? You got me. I don't get it. I mean, Witkoff has had long conversations with Putin and with key Russian players. And Witkoff surely has to understand what the Russian demands are

and how committed the Russians are to having those demands accepted. And I'm sure that Witkoff has conveyed this to Trump and others, but they just don't seem to buy into it. And they continue to embrace, at least to some extent, the arguments that people like Kellogg are putting forward.

And I think at some point, Trump simply has to make a decision which way he's going to go. And he's been unable to do that. And the end result is he's stuck in neutral. Are the Europeans prepared to replace the United States if Trump terms off, whether in a fit of anger or after deliberation, the spigot of supplies to cave military supplies? They can't make up for what we now provide if it goes away. They just simply can't do that. And you want to remember

that the Ukrainians have been losing on the battlefield with full-fledged support from Joe Biden and from the Europeans. And again, the Ukrainians were still losing. So if you take the Americans away and you're left with just the Europeans even if they up the ante a bit It still is not going to rectify the problem The Ukrainians are losing the balance of power is shifting against them And that of course is why they should cut a deal now before they lose more territory and more Ukrainians die But the Europeans would refuse to accept accept that logic as do the Keith Kellogg's of the administration. Here's a portion of a radio interview with General Sir Richard Sherriff, the former deputy supreme allied commander and obviously a British.

There are two points to this as I see them. One is his view that the Europeans can form a new NATO without the United States. You can opine on that after you hear him. The other is that Trump, Hegseth and Vance are not credible. Chris, cut number 12. How you Europeanize a NATO in which America cannot be trusted as an ally and Europe and Canada have got to go it alone. And is that a kind of European force of some description? Well, it would be European, the nations of Europe plus Canada coming together to build a new form of NATO alliance to which they would contribute troops, ships, planes and

all the other stuff. That is entirely possible, but again, it needs the political will and the recognition that after everything that Trump, Hegseth, Vance have said, America is just not in the room. What are your thoughts about the second part? What Trump, Hegseth, and Vance have said America is not in the room? Well, I think it's quite clear that President Trump and certainly Vice President Vance have contempt for the Europeans and they want to greatly reduce our footprint in Europe, both our military footprint and our political footprint, and they want the Europeans to provide for their own security, which of course gets to the first part of the general's discussion,

which is where he is talking about the Europeans themselves coming together and creating a NATO of their own without the United States. That's what he's talking about. And that's because he understands, I think quite correctly, that the United States would like to wash its hands of its leadership position in Europe. And then the $64,000 question is whether they can do that. Are the Europeans genuinely in their heart of hearts expecting an invasion from Vladimir Putin or is this some sort of a stunt to raise taxes and spend money with the military industrial complex and all that? My sense is, and I based this on my experience

watching leaders spin myths over the years, that in the beginning, people understand that what they're saying is not true and it's a myth or it's threat inflation that's designed to mobilize public support. But then as time goes by those same people and their successors come to believe the myths where they can't come to believe the threat inflation to represent a real threat. And I think at first, most people understood that the Russians were not a threat to Western Europe, but it's been repeated,

that argument has been repeated so many times now that I think a lot of Europeans actually do believe that. I think they're scared. I think they're wrong. I don't think there's any danger of Russia invading Eastern Europe, much less Western Europe. I think the Russians have their hands full in Eastern Ukraine. They haven't even tried to conquer all of Ukraine.

They've had a double the time conquering the Eastern one-fifth of Ukraine. The idea that this is the Wehrmacht poised to head to the beaches at Dunkirk is just not a serious argument. But again, many Europeans now believe that. Here's a retired Australian general. This is off the wall, but I have to play for you, Chris. Cut number 10. In many respects, we're already there.

I think historians in a hundred years will look back and go, the Third World War started in February 2022. There know there are many elements that are still a phony war. I mean we saw that at the beginning of World War II right. That's what we're seeing in the western pacific. You know the middle east has been at war for some time. It's going to be at war for a long time to come I think. Russia has made it very clear that it has aggressive designs in the Baltics and in Scandinavia as well as against Poland and Ukraine. So we're kind of already there, but it's a mindset that we need to have. And it's something that our Western politicians really have to contemplate hardly because they're going to have to have a different balance of domestic and foreign investment in their budgets. You discerned a scintilla of evidence that Putin has designs on Poland and the Baltic states.

There is zero evidence to support that argument. There is just no evidence that Putin is interested in taking all of Ukraine. He has never said that, much less that he's interested in conquering other countries in Eastern Europe. He not only doesn't appear to have the intention to do that, it's also that he doesn't have the capability, as I was saying a few minutes ago. This army that he has is not the second coming of the Wehrmacht.

This is not to deny, by the way, that you could not have a war in the future over the Baltic states. It's not to deny that you couldn't have a war over the Arctic, over the Baltic Sea, over Moldova, over the Black Sea, over Belarus. What you wanna understand here, and this is very, very important to understand, is that we have this conflict involving Ukraine and Russia

that we are finding very difficult to shut down. And I think what you'll end up with is a cold peace. And superimposed on top of that cold peace are six potential flashpoints. Again, the Arctic, the Baltic Sea, Kaliningrad, Moldova, Belarus, and the Black Sea. What is Moldova? Pardon?

What is Moldova? What is the dispute over Moldova? Who's ever even heard of it? Yes, for sure. The Russians have heard of it and we've heard of it? Yes, for sure. The Russians have heard of it and we've heard of it. And of course, we're trying to play around, we in the West, with the politics inside of Moldova in ways that the Russians don't like. So there is a competition for political influence in Moldova.

And one can easily imagine things spinning out of control there. You want to remember the Russians were involved in a war in Georgia in August 2008, and you of course have this war in Ukraine. There are a lot of flashpoints in Eastern Europe that are not directly related to the war between Russia and Ukraine. And if you don't shut down the war between Russia and Ukraine in a meaningful way, in other words, if you just get a frozen peace, right?

The potential for that conflict to heat up again is real. But again, on top of that, you have these different conflicts in the places that I just mentioned where you could get a war. All right, before I ask you some questions about China, you used an interesting phrase a few minutes ago. I think it was a cold peace ending the Ukraine War. Is that the phrase you used? The word cold was in it, Professor. I'm not sure. Did I say cold peace? was in it, Professor? I'm not sure.

Did I say cold peace? Frozen? The word frozen. OK. How do you envision what will Ukraine look like when the war is over? How do you envision it ending, and what do you think the war will look like?

What do you think Ukraine will look like when the war is over? Well, I think that Ukraine will definitely lose all the four oblasts that the Russians demand and in fact have annexed, and they will definitely lose Crimea. The question is how much more Ukrainian territory will the Russians take? There's all sorts of evidence that the Russians are committed to taking Odessa, Kharkiv, and a handful of other oblasts between them. I think that whether or not they take them is a function of what the military balance

looks like moving forward. And you want to remember what's going to happen here is that eventually all of that support that the Biden administration stuffed into the pipeline is going to go away. And it's quite clear that Trump is not going to put more American weaponry and material and money in that pipeline. So that means that the Ukrainians are going to be weakened on the battlefield. And that's going to put the Russians in a position where it will be, I think, relatively easy for them to conquer more territory.

This is, again, why the Ukrainians have a vested interest in settling now. But putting that aside, they're not going to settle now. And I think the Russians are primed, certainly by the time the Biden wherewithal runs out, the Russians are primed to take even more territory than they now control. So I think what you will end up with is with the Russians controlling more than those four oblasts plus Crimea, and what they will do is they will go to great lengths to make sure that Ukraine is a dysfunctional rump state. They'll make sure that that Ukraine that is left over once you get this frozen conflict

will be very weak and they'll go to great lengths over time to interfere in the politics of that dysfunctional rump state to make sure that Ukraine remains weak because they don't want Ukraine to be a threat to Russia and they don't want Ukraine to be in a position to join either NATO or the EU. So this is all going to end disastrously for Ukraine. Is China a threat to the national security of the United States? Well, as you know, I believe that it is in the American national interest to make sure that China does not dominate East Asia the way the United States dominates the Western hemisphere. I do believe that China is not a status quo power. They are explicit about that.

And if you look at their ambitions, they want to dominate East Asia. If I were in Beijing, if I were the national security advisor to Xi Jinping, I would tell him that we should try to dominate Asia. I would tell him we should try to push the Americans out beyond the first island chain and then we should try to push them out beyond the second island chain. I believe as an American in the Monroe Doctrine. Well, if I believe in the Monroe Doctrine as an American, if I were a Chinese national security advisor, why wouldn't I want my own version of the Monroe Doctrine? Why wouldn't I want to push the Americans out of East Asia? Why do I want the Americans in my face?

And the answer is I don't. But of course, from an American perspective, the thought of China dominating East Asia is unacceptable. And that's the reason that the United States is bent on containing China. Here's a rather startling statement by a Japanese legislator on the floor of the Japanese House of Representatives in Tokyo. We have the translation, of course, addressing the Japanese prime minister basically saying,

Trump is not believable. The Americans are not reliable. Let's ally with China. Chris, cut number 11. What the US is saying is already an impossible task. The theory is already a mess and there is no consistency whatsoever. However, if Japan were to negotiate about what they have been saying, to put it bluntly, it would be like a delinquent kid extorting someone. If Japan listens to the and bends the other way in response to the impossible demands of bargaining and deals, it will set a bad example as a customary and historical precedent.

If you get mugged and put money in their hands, the will come back to mug us again. He's not a straight partner, so he won't listen to our straight talk. Anyway, I hope that you will never give in to the American extortionists. I know it's harsh to say, but they are extortionists. Do you think that that view is representative of the Japanese response to Donald Trump's tariffs? And do you think that Trump runs the risk of seeing Japan join BRICS or Japan at least

aligning itself with Beijing instead of Washington? I'm not sure it's representative, but I'm sure there are a good number of people inside the Japanese foreign policy elite who are thinking like that gentleman. There's no way, if you're Japanese or you're South Korean, that you can look at President Trump's behavior and not be really nervous about where this is all headed.

The idea that the United States is a reliable ally for Japan or South Korea is an argument that's very hard to make at this point in time. You simply do not want to underestimate the damage that Trump is doing. I mean, he's only been in office for a little over 100 days, but the damage here is just enormous. It gets back to our previous discussion about what he's doing with regard to the Russians. You see the same kind of behavior with regard to Iran, and now you see our allies in East

Asia. These are the most important allies on the planet for us because these are allies we need to deal with the Chinese. And what are they basically saying? You cannot rely on President Trump. You cannot rely on the United States. This is a terrible situation and to be honest, it's hard to believe we're in this situation. Trump

in one of his social media announcements stated about two hours ago that anybody any country that buys oil from Iran will not be allowed to do business with the United States. This is crazy. China gets 90% of its oil from Iran. We get 50% of our antibiotics that are needed in every hospital in the country from China.

I mean, I agree with you, but this is just more evidence of the fact that this administration is operating in Klaokukuland. I mean, this is just not the way serious people run foreign policy. Just hard to believe where we are. I don't know what else to say. Yeah, by the way, the phrase you used earlier, Chris checked it, was cold peace when you described what Ukraine would look like. That was the phrase that the two of us couldn't think of

that you had used earlier. I should have used the word frozen conflict. It's a better phrase. Okay, okay. Before we go, I know you just came from a conference on India at Yale University. Excuse me. Are India and Pakistan close to another war?

I don't know if they're close. It is a serious possibility. What happened in Kashmir with this terrorist attack led to a situation inside of India What happened in Kashmir with this terrorist attack led to a situation inside of India where Mr. Modi is under tremendous pressure from his base to strike out against Pakistan. In other words, to use military force in a serious way against Pakistan.

On the other hand, the problem that Modi faces is he does not have a good military option here. It's not like he can go and slam Pakistan with military force and Pakistan won't do much and that'll be the end of the story. The real problem here is that if Modi turns the Indian military loose, and of course, it would be done at the conventional level, there's no question that India has superiority at the conventional level.

But Pakistan has nuclear weapons. And there is good reason to think that if the Indians were defeating the Pakistanis in a conventional conflict, that the Pakistanis would turn to nuclear weapons. Is that likely? No. Is it a serious possibility?

Yes. And the mere fact that that's a serious possibility basically means that Modi does not have a good military option, but at the same time, he is facing tremendous pressure from below. Modi is a hardcore nationalist, and most of his base is very nationalistic. As you can imagine, they would really relish the idea of bashing Pakistan. Which has the better military, India

or Pakistan, or is there no way to assess that? Oh, no, India clearly has a better military. And as I said, that's why we worry that Pakistan would turn to nuclear weapons. In the past, whenever there's been a crisis that threatened to lead to war, American presidents have gone to great lengths to put pressure on India not to launch a conventional attack or fear that it would escalate.

And I don't know. One very interesting question is what President Trump is doing to make sure that this war doesn't escalate. He's very good friends with Mr. Modi, and it may be that he's talking to him and he's discouraging him from launching an offensive against Pakistan. But on the other hand, Trump has so many balls in the air at this point in time, he may just not have much time for India and may not be paying much attention. And if that's the case, let's just hope the Indians don't slam the Pakistanis

because of the potential for escalation here. There was just an enormous explosion at a port in Iran which received chemicals necessary for use in Iranian industry. 70 people were killed, 500 were injured. Were the Israelis behind it? held 500 were injured. Were the Israelis behind it? I don't know. That was my first instinct. But as you and I both know, you wanna have evidence before you state one way or the other that the Israelis are behind this

or are likely to be behind it. But as best I can tell, there's no evidence that I see that the Israelis are behind it. It might have just been a major league accident. But then again, maybe it is the Israelis. But I think we have to wait to see what happens in terms of turning up evidence on this case before we can make any judgment. Here's, I don't know if this was a direct response to that attack or what prompted it, but here's a wacky ex-post, formerly Twitter, from the Secretary of Defense. caps support to the hoodies. We know exactly what you are doing. You know very well what the US military is capable of and you were warned you will pay the consequence in caps at the time and

place of our choosing. Does that strike you as a mature statement from the Secretary of Defense of the United States? Absolutely not. And it's not the way you conduct international politics. I mean, the Trump administration is filled with amateurs, people who do boneheaded things. And this is just another example. But I'll tell you what I think is going on here. I think the Trump administration, and in particular particular the Defense Department is deeply frustrated by the fact that they have not defeated the Houthis. The Houthis are shooting down Reaper drones, which are very expensive, very sophisticated drones, and the estimates are they've shot down seven of them since the Trump administration went to war

against the Houthis. And furthermore, we lost an F-18 on an aircraft carrier that fell off when the aircraft carrier was trying to dodge a missile that the Houthis had launched at the aircraft carrier. There's no question that we've launched lots of bombing raids against the Houthis, and we have murdered huge numbers of civilians in Yemen.

But there's no evidence that we're winning this war militarily. It's quite interesting, the US Navy in its first big fight since World War II can't defeat the Houthis. And frustration. Larry Johnson, one of our former military folks that's on here every week, he's actually on twice a week, estimates counting the F-18 that's at the bottom of the ocean now, which is

worth between $78 and $80 million, $500 million worth of missiles and drones destroyed in this effort to defeat the Houthis. I have to play for you or post for you the response of an Iranian professor from the University of Tehran, Professor Marandi, M-A-R-A-N-D-I, Sayed Marandi, message to Hegseth. We see your lethal in caps support for the Zionists, the child killers, the rapists. We know exactly what you are doing. You know very well what the resistance is capable of and you were warned you will be remembered as an accomplice to the hashtag Gaza Holocaust.

So you see what the excess childlike statements provoke. Yeah, exactly. And of course, I don't know that professor, I know the name, but he is right. We are supporting a genocide in Gaza. Just wanna think about what the Trump administration is doing here. It is bungling the negotiations with Russia to settle the Ukraine war. It's bungling the negotiations with the Iranians. It's supporting a genocide in Gaza.

It's levied these tariffs against countries all across the world, including some of our closest allies, like the Japanese that we need, and pushing them to the point where at least some of them are beginning to think about whether or not they want to rely on us in the future. It's really quite amazing what a mess the Trump administration has made of our foreign policy in only 100 days.

One can only wonder what it's going to look like after four years. Do we still have a Congress? No. That's long gone. That disappeared many years ago when you and I were still young. And presidents started declaring their own wars and getting away with it. Well, you remember the Vietnam War, by the way. The only reason the Vietnam War ended or participation in 1973 was because Congress stepped in and said enough is enough.

Right. Congress was a different animal in those days. At this point in time, Congress just doesn't matter. We live in the age of the imperial presidency, whether it's Biden or it's Donald Trump. We do and it's going to get worse if he threatens to suspend habeas corpus, if he threatens to defy courts, if he threatens to vilify judges and arrest them, we will have a constitutional crisis on our hands that'll make Watergate look like a child's Christmas party.

Right. So what you're describing is the domestic front. What I was describing two minutes ago is the foreign policy front. It's a deadly one-two punch here. Yes. The United States is shooting itself in the foot, both domestically and in terms of our foreign policy. What is going on here? Do we have a Congress? Yes, it's called the Knesset. That's another matter. That's another story.

We shouldn't laugh at it. Chris suggested the line and I couldn't help using it. It's deadly serious. And it's another story for another time you are the foremost authority on this subject matter. Professor Mearshamer, thank you very much. Been a long conversation or longer than usual but deeply gratifying to be able to pick your brain on all these topics from all around the globe and look look forward to seeing you next week, my dear friend. I look forward to being back. Thank you.

Coming up tomorrow at four o'clock Friday, the end of the day, the end of the week, the Intelligence Community Roundtable with Larry Johnson in Florida and Ray McGovern in Moscow. Don't wanna miss it. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. You