Judging Freedom - Prof. John Mearsheimer: Can Europe Survive?

Episode Date: March 20, 2025

Prof. John Mearsheimer: Can Europe Survive?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

you Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, March 20th, 2025. Professor John Mearsheimer joins us now. Professor Mearsheimer, thank you very much for your time. I want to spend some time speaking to you about Europe and the reaction on the part of the Europeans to the apparent cozying up of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin and Trump's disdain for the amount of money the United States pays in NATO and how a lot of that may end up. But before we do, why did the United States, from your understanding, bomb civilians in Yemen this week, claiming that somehow the Houthis are a danger to US shipping when there's not a single recorded incident

of the Houthis striking an American vessel. Well, as usual, we did this for Israel. Almost everything we do in the Middle East these days is done on behalf of Israel. And the fact is that what's happened here is that the ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza has broken down, and the Israelis have gone back on a rampage. They're beginning to execute the genocide once again.

And the Houthis have said that as soon as that happened, they'd go after shipping in the Red Sea that was aimed at Israel, and they would also fire ballistic missiles at Israel itself. And that's exactly what's happened. What are they trying to do to prevent goods and supplies and commodities and oil making its way to Israel? Yes, I think it's largely symbolic to be honest, but the Houthis are deeply committed to stopping the genocide. I mean, what's really kind of amazing here is that if you look at all the different players in the international system,

the two players who've gone to the greatest lengths to shut down the genocide in Gaza, which one would think is a good thing, are Hezbollah and the Houthis. And in contrast, the United States and its European allies are complicit in the genocide. No question about that. Isn't it odd? I mean, Donald Trump, with some justification, took credit for the ceasefire before he was even in the White House via his aide, Stephen Witkoff, and now he's trashing his own agreement. It is odd. I'm actually somewhat surprised. I thought that when they pushed, Witkoff and Trump pushed through the ceasefire right before Trump was inaugurated, that they would see to it

that you moved from the first phase into the second phase, and that they would prevent Israel from stymie movement into the second phase. But in fact, they have not acted that way. And as you know, it's Israel that has caused the ceasefire to break down. It is not Hamas. And we have nevertheless backed Israel hook, line,

and sinker. And in fact, Trump has said today that he fully supports the restarting of the genocide in Gaza. Right before we came on, I was looking at Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper that you and I read regularly in English, the death toll in 48 hours in Gaza, 710. in 48 hours in Gaza, 710.

I mean, this is just catastrophic at this rate. This will exceed the slaughter that they perpetrated starting on October 7th or October 8th, whenever they invaded. Donald Trump is worse than Joe Biden in in this respect. No, because you add you add the domestic repression here, which you and I have talked about. And there seems to be a new incident every day. There's a medical researcher at Georgetown University, a resident alien permanent resident alien, permanent resident alien, who tried to get back into the US. They wouldn't let him back in because they found on his phone, criticisms of Trump. Now, but what authority did they get the phone? They don't have authority just to take his phone, but they took the phone and

there it was, and so now they're not gonna let him in. Wait a minute, criticisms of Donald Trump? What about Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech? That's pretty clear. Look, I think your basic point that overall Trump is worse than Biden is certainly true. If you look at the assault on civil liberties now taking place in the United States, it is really terrible. And it's Trump at work. Biden, for all his flaws, did not do much on this dimension.

He was not good on this dimension. He sided against the protesters who were executing their right to protest Israeli policy in Gaza, but he was not doing anywhere near as much to suppress free speech and freedom of assembly as Trump is. Yeah, I mean, this stuff is just overt. The case of the young man from Columbia University. You know the Constitution says you have to if the government wants life liberty or property from you for whatever reason. the

litigation must occur in the judicial district in which the government says you did whatever forms the basis for its claims against you. Well, that would be New York City. They shipped them to Louisiana. Why? Because the judges in Louisiana obviously have a more pro-government attitude about immigration. And then the trial judge in New York before whom his habeas corpus petition was filed said, well, I'm going to move you to New Jersey. Well, there's no connection to New Jersey here either. It's a little bit closer. It's a lot closer than Louisiana, but nobody seems to care about the process. Due process is very, very important. Those so-called gang

members from Venezuela, not a single one of them had due process. The government didn't even have their names, much less any evidence against them. It just swooped them up, condemned them on the basis of collective guilt, which is antithetical to due process, and in defiance of a court order, shipped them to El Salvador where they're in jail cells the size of a coffin It's shocking and I Mean two further points on this one is you just wonder where all of this leads Because this is just the beginning Donald Trump is going to be in power for roughly another four years and

the problems associated with Israel, which is what are really driving this whole phenomenon, are not going to go away. So the incentives for Trump to continue to act this way and maybe even double down are great. And then the second point I would make is where is the resistance? It's quite remarkable how little resistance there is to what... You're right. You're right. You and I lived through the Vietnam War era. The resistance was overwhelming. I'm beginning to think that it was not a principled resistance, that it was just based upon the

existence of the draft. Well, it was some of both. And you want to remember that there was evidence that once the draft went away and the draft. Well, it was some of both. And you want to remember that there was evidence that once the draft went away and the draft went away at the end of the war, the resistance died down significantly. Right. Right.

That is not surprising. But the point I would make here, Judge, is that there is lots of resistance or there has been lots of resistance in the United States to the genocide in Gaza. But what the Trump administration has done quite successfully at the behest of the lobby is shut down that resistance. That's what's going on here.

Why isn't, I don't know what the alliteration would be to comport with Genocide Joe, Genocide Donald, I don't know, but why isn't there that moniker being painted on him? Here's a guy who calls himself in his inaugural address a man of peace. Here's a guy who's taken American foreign policy with respect to Ukraine and Russia and turned a battleship around 180 degrees. And at the same time, he's funding slaughter, abject slaughter of women and children and babies in the Middle East. I don't get it. I don't get it. I'll give you the answer. It's very simple Three words the israel lobby Wow

Do you let's switch gears a little bit do you see any significance in the so-called agreement? between presidents Trump and Putin and belatedly Zelinsky on this so-called non ceasefire ceasefire. We won't attack Lee Zelinsky on this so-called non-ceasefire ceasefire, we won't attack energy infrastructure, even though each of them is done. So do you see, I'm being a little snarky, do you see any significance in that? No, it's largely irrelevant. It's just subject matter that gives us something to talk about on shows like this. This doesn't matter. What matters is whether or not Trump and Putin can reach an agreement on the three key demands that the Russians have made to settle this conflict once and for all. The Russians have made it unequivocally clear there's

going to be no meaningful ceasefire until there is agreement on their three demands and until you have in place a meaningful peace agreement. And as far as I can tell, we're nowhere near a meaningful peace agreement. And what we're talking about is a ceasefire. And again, the Russians say no ceasefire of any consequence until you get a meaningful agreement. No ceasefire of any consequence until you get a meaningful agreement Do you think that Putin said to this is pure speculation To Trump turn off the spigot of aid and Intel and then we'll talk. I

Don't know What they talked about for me? The really key issue is not that question that you just raised. The key issue for me is what they said about the key Russian demands. Right. And to settle this war, the Americans, the Ukrainians, and the Europeans have to agree to what I think are the three key demands of the Russians. And if you don't accept those demands, it goes on and on and on.

They can't even agree on what they talked about because the Kremlin readout was different from the White House readout. Now here's Carolyn Levitt being grilled by a reporter, it may be a Russian reporter, I'm not sure, but in the White House press room about the difference between the two readouts. Chris, cut number two. The Kremlin readout mentioned that Trump and Putin spoke about potential U.S.-Russia hockey

games and the Kremlin readout also said that Russia wanted the U.S. to stop U.S. intelligence and U.S. funding to Ukraine. The President has said that that conversation did not happen. I'm just wondering if you can get us any more clarity on that. And also, again, if it's energy infrastructure or if it's energy and infrastructure, because I think there is a big difference between that. Again, as for the readouts of the call, I would defer you to ours. And when it comes to the topic of hockey, it did come up.

However, we're more interested in securing a peace deal than scheduling hockey games right now. Sean? So, who knows what they talked about? They certainly didn't talk about a ceasefire on the energy infrastructure for two and a half hours. I mean, they must have talked about bigger pictures. Do you think they talked about realism and reset?

I would bet that they talked about the Russian demands and they're just not going public. I find it hard to believe that they talked for two plus hours and didn't get to the heart of the issue. I mean, Trump has a deep-seated interest in settling this sooner rather than later. Right, right. You would think he would therefore bring up, and you would think Putin would bring up the key issues that have to be addressed.

Do you see any connection between these two disparate sets of behavior on Trump's part? One, doing what he can to bring about peace, short of turning off the spigot of arms, to bring about peace in Ukraine. And two, giving Netanyahu whatever he wants to slaughter innocents in Gaza. You see any connection there? No, there's no connection. I said I think the difference is the Israel lobby has huge influence in the Middle East. If you took the Israel lobby out of the American political system. Let's assume there's no Israel lobby.

The United States would have had for many years now, decades now, a fundamentally different policy toward Israel. It is very important to understand, hardly anyone will say this, but US policy toward Israel is not in the American national interest. Israel is an albatross around our neck, but no president can challenge Israel in any meaningful way because of fear of the Israel lobby, and this includes Donald Trump. So you take away the Israel lobby and I would bet my life savings

that Donald Trump would have a fundamentally different policy towards the Middle East and it would look a lot like his policy toward Ukraine. But the fact is Donald Trump's views and his policies on the Middle East are heavily influenced by Miriam Adelson and people of that sort. Okay, let's transition to Europe. Is there any evidence from any source of which you are aware that Vladimir Putin plans to invade Western Europe? No, it's not even a serious argument. Maybe do you think that Stammer and Macron and Mertz and Maloney go to bed at night worrying and wondering if this is going to happen?

I'm tempted to say no, because they're supposed to be serious people. But just listening to them talk, I'm not sure they're serious people. I mean, when I listen to Stamor and Macron talk about this coalition of the willing and what it's going to do in Ukraine and so forth and so on, I tend to think they're delusional. And so I find it hard to believe myself,

just using my own critical faculties, that they think that Russia is going to invade countries in Eastern Europe, much less be a military threat to Western Europe. But they talk about that all the time, so maybe they are delusional. Is the United States abandoning Europe? Well, I think there's no question that Trump intends to greatly reduce the American commitment to Europe. I think he does not like the Europeans.

He's contemptuous when it comes to the Europeans. He does not like NATO. He wants to have good relations with Putin and with Russia more generally. And I think slowly but steadily, we are moving away from Europe. Now, whether we fully pull out remains to be seen. I would note to you, Judge, that if you listen

to the Europeans talk, if you listen carefully, I think most of the European leaders understand that that is in the offing. They understand that Trump wants out and that relations between the two sides of the Atlantic are not good and not likely to improve and indeed, if anything, get worse. So I would be very surprised if NATO is a meaningful institution is a meaningful institution by the time Trump leaves office. So two observations from my interview last week with Sergey Lavrov.

One, I asked him if or when the United States leaves NATO, what will become of it? And he rejected my premise. He doesn't think the United States will leave NATO and two was off the record and not being taped. I said, are you guys really going to is at the time that Marco Rubio said he had an agreement with Zelensky for a ceasefire. I said, are you really seriously considering a ceasefire? And he said, where would we? We are. And then he stopped, meaning that close, holding his forefinger and thumb about an inch and a half apart to indicate

very close to achieving our objective. So to the first statement, rejecting my premise that the United States will leave NATO. What are your thoughts on that? Well, I think he's probably right that the United States is not going to leave NATO in a formal sense. But as I was saying before, I think that we are going to greatly reduce our commitment to NATO. And we are going to great length.

We will go to great lengths to turn NATO over to the Europeans. Let them run NATO. I wouldn't be surprised, for example, if the SACEUR, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, who has traditionally been an American, is at some point in the not too distant future a European general or admiral. So I think the United States is going to have much less influence

in NATO and I think it'll probably be as an institution it'll probably be a hollow shell by the end of Trump's term. If you define realism as a universal respect for the sovereignty, the borders, and the legitimate security needs of other countries, hasn't NATO collectively rejected realism? And am I not talking to, at this very moment, the principal progenitor of this theory, John Mearsheimer. Well, there is no question that the United States does not believe in the sovereignty of other

countries. Right. There's no country that interferes in the internal affairs of other countries more than the United States does the color revolutions in Eastern Europe our attempt our attempt to do regime change in both Beijing and Moscow and just some examples of our proclivity for violating the sovereignty of other countries and I would note to you that we recoil when anybody interferes in our sovereignty. You're always talking about the Russians being involved in the 2016 election. It just drove Americans crazy, even though it wasn't true. Russia gave was a false narrative. But nevertheless, we don't like any other country violating our sovereignty.

Yet we go around the world violating the sovereignty of other countries. And this does not make good sense. What do you think will become of Europe with a diminished NATO and an absent or a diminished US? I mean, is Germany going to rearm and point missiles at Moscow? Is the starmer going to quintuple the size of his 42,000 man army? Are the French going to saber rattle, nuclear weapons? Well, there are two issues at play here. One is what the United States does.

But the other issue is how serious you think the Russian threat is. If you believe there's a serious Russian threat to Europe, then that gives the countries of Europe an incentive to rearm in a systematic way and to coordinate their efforts to try to contain this Russian threat, even in the absence of the United States. But as you and I were talking about a few minutes ago, there is no serious threat to Europe from Russia. Russia is

simply not powerful enough or foolish enough to try to overrun Eastern Europe, much less all of Europe. So the threat is not there, number one. And number two, the Americans are greatly reducing their presence in European affairs, in all likelihood. What this means is that the European countries that form What we call Europe Are going to pursue their own interests in ways that lead to clashes among those countries And you're going to have a significant collective action problem among the countries in Europe

And you're not going to have the Americans there and the Russian threat there to help mitigate these collective action problems. So therefore, in the future, talking about Europe as if it were a single entity is not going to make any sense at all, because what we're going to see at play are different countries pursuing their own interests in ways that often clash with the interests of other European countries. So if Trump negotiates a deal with the BRICS and opens up channels of commercial intercourse

with Brazil, Russia, China, India, South Africa, are they gonna keep the EU out? Will the EU wanna stay out? with Brazil, Russia, China, India, South Africa? Are they gonna keep the EU out? Will the EU wanna stay out? Or will they, like Nixon with the blue jeans and stereos and washing machines, want to interact commercially with Russia in order to reduce cultural boundaries rather than build them up?

Well, I think that if the United States pulls out of Europe and it becomes clear that there is no meaningful Russian threat once the Ukraine war comes to an end, either through a frozen conflict or through some sort of genuine peace agreement, it is highly likely that different countries in Europe will start trading once again with the Russians. Which countries and how much trade you have

and how fast it happens remains to be seen. But I think that that will happen. You want to distinguish here when you talk about the United States and Europe between economic relations and military relations. I think there's no question that the United States will continue to have extensive economic intercourse with Europe. That's just going to happen.

The really interesting question is what about the American military presence in Europe? That gets back to your question about NATO. That gets back to your conversation with Lavrov. That's not about economic intercourse. That's about the American military presence in Europe. And that's a really big question. Don't you know about 25,000 troops in Germany? Don't you know about 25,000 troops in Germany? Yes. Wow. If Trump brings them home, that is an enormous void,

even economically, for the Germans, I would think. I don't think the economic dimension matters that much. It will matter some. I think the key point is that the United States is the pacifier in Europe. That's why the Europeans are desperate to keep us there. They understand that we solve the collective action problems that they face if they have to operate individually

by themselves. And also, we keep the peace because we are so powerful. In a very important way, we are the night watchmen. And if you take the night watchmen away, in a world where there is no external threat that motivates these countries to come together and coordinate their efforts, then those centrifugal forces that I was talking about begin to have a pretty profound influence on relations among the various states and Europe. Coming up tomorrow, at the end of the day, it is the end or will be the end of the week,

the Intelligence Community Roundtable with Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern at 4 o'clock Eastern. MUSIC