Judging Freedom - Prof. John Mearsheimer: Ignore Putin at Your Peril.

Episode Date: November 30, 2024

Prof. John Mearsheimer: Ignore Putin at Your Peril.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. WGU is an online accredited university that specializes in personalized learning. With courses available 24-7 and monthly start dates, you can earn your degree on your schedule. You may even be able to graduate sooner than you think by demonstrating mastery of the material you know. Make 2025 the year you focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu. Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, November 27th, 2024, Thanksgiving week, the day before Thanksgiving in America. Professor John Mearsheimer joins us now. Professor Mearsheimer, it's a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you very much for joining us. We have much to talk about, both Israel and Ukraine. I want to spend a fair amount of time on Ukraine and Russia, and basically, is the West ignoring Putin, and if so, at its peril?

But before we get there, in your view, was Prime Minister Netanyahu's hand forced by the Biden administration and IDF weaknesses unacknowledged publicly by the Israeli government into entering into a ceasefire with Hezbollah this week? Yeah, I think there's no question that the Americans have been putting great pressure on him. And also, he is not on the verge of winning the war against Hezbollah. And given that he has his hands full in Gaza and has all sorts of problems on the home front, I think it made sense for him to have a pause. And in his speech that he gave yesterday, he gave three reasons for why a ceasefire now. And by the way, this is despite the fact that there's huge resistance to this ceasefire inside of Israel itself. But the second reason that he gave is that he said that the IDF was under strain and it needed R&R. It needed a chance to rearm and to get itself

ready to fight in the future because it was not in great shape today. That's effectively what he said. We have a clip from that, which I'll play for you. It's not very long. I was surprised that he heard that and want to ask you a few more questions after we play it. Chris, cut number 16. So why have a ceasefire now? Three main reasons for it. One, focusing on the Iranian threat. And I'm not going to go into it.

And I expand not going to go into it. And I expand on that to refreshing our forces and getting armaments. I'm not going to hide it from you. There were many delays in getting armaments and weapons. And soon this is going to open up. We're going to have, we will have the armaments, we'll save our soldiers' lives, and we'll give us additional force to complete our task. Third reason for the ceasefire,

separating Hamas and this front. From the first day of the war, Hamas planned from the beginning that Hezbollah will be at its side. But when Hezbollah is not in the picture, Hamas will be alone. And this will aid us in our sacred goal to release our hostages. I'll talk about Hamas in a minute. I'm going to assume that because he's the master political escape artist, he chooses his words carefully. So I will repeat some of this. There were many delays in getting armaments. Knock at the Biden administration. Soon, this is going to open up welcome the trump administration did you read that as i did exactly uh i made notes to myself this morning when i was reading it i think you're right on

the money and i wonder what the biden administration threatened did they threaten to hold back one of their ubiquitous vetoes at the Security Council, the most recent of which was just two days ago? Did they actually threaten to hold back 2,000-ton bombs as if he needs more of these? Well, I read him to say that they've already withheld important munitions and equipment that the IDF needs. I find that hard to believe. There's been no evidence in the media up to now. Nobody's been talking about that. And with regard to future threats, I think they're meaningless. Joe Biden gives the Israelis pretty much everything they want whenever they want it. Don't you think if Biden had actually held up

what the Israelis had every reason to expect to receive, we would have heard about it from the donor class and their allies in the media? Wouldn't that be on the front page of the New York Times, on the Washington Post, on the Wall Street Journal? No question about it. That's why I say I don't believe that. I think this mainly has to do with the fact that he needs to take a break, right? They need to regroup and they need to think about how they're going to move forward. It's very important to understand that although we now have a ceasefire, and it's just a 60-day ceasefire, and who knows whether it'll even last that long. The fact is the IDF is not close to defeating Hezbollah. They're not close at all. And nevertheless, the Israelis have been fighting a long war with a military that's not configured

to fight long wars. The Israelis have constructed their army over time so that it can fight short wars, like the Six-Day War. But we're in about the 14th month now. They're still deeply involved in Gaza. They've not defeated Hamas. They have lots of troops deployed there. They're having all sorts of problems getting the reservists to report for duty. And I think that being in a quagmire like Lebanon has pushed them to the point where it makes sense to have a ceasefire, at least for the time being. How weak is Israel economically and militarily as we speak, as you say, 14 months after October 7th? Well, let's just talk about the military dimension. In terms of raw military power, they are by far the most powerful country in the region. And they're certainly,

in terms of raw military power, superior to both Hamas and Hezbollah. But you have to put that military power into a context. And if you go into Gaza and you put the IDF up against Hamas, or you go into southern Lebanon and you put the IDF up against Hezbollah, that raw power just doesn't matter that much. And the other side has a lot of advantages that the Israelis don't have. This is similar to us in the Vietnam War. In terms of raw power, there was never any question the United States was far, far superior to the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong. But in the context of the war we fought, we were not in a position where we could defeat the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong. But in the context of the war we fought, we were not in a position where we could defeat the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong. And the end result is we lost the war. And this is a

similar problem to the one that the Israelis face. They just can't defeat Hamas in a decisive way. They can't defeat Hezbollah in a decisive way. And it appears now that they're stuck in a protracted war in both cases. And this gets to the economy then, because this is a huge drag on the economy. How economically weak or degraded is the Israeli economy? Has the Israeli economy become in the past 14 months, Professor Mearsheimer? I don't have a good answer to that. I've been reading the newspapers and listening to videos to see if I could get some sense of how much damage is being done. You would surmise that a lot of damage is being done, but it's just hard to get good evidence

that indicates how severe the problems are. Does Netanyahu himself remain in hot water? Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. With courses available online 24-7 and monthly start dates, WGU offers maximum flexibility so you can focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu. The documents released, the records alteration, the ultra-orthodox into the military, the settlers not home, the hostages not home, Hamas not defeated. Well, anybody who runs that country is going to be in hot water to begin with because there's such powerful centrifugal forces underneath the surface.

But on top of that, he has a whole slew of personal problems that just compound the trouble for him. There's no question about that. But as we have talked about before on the show, he is something of a Houdini when it comes to dealing with political problems. And he has managed to hang on quite well since October 7th, to the surprise of most people. And it doesn't look like his goose is cooked anytime soon. It could be that something unexpected happens in the next month or two, and he runs into real trouble. But for the moment, he is surviving politically. One could even argue he's thriving politically under the circumstances. And there's little reason to think that that situation is going to change soon. Are you, switching gears, Professor, are you surprised that Donald Trump's

senior executive leadership, I'll use that phrase because not all these positions are in the cabinet and not all of them require Senate confirmation, but the announcements his transition team has been making since election day, are you surprised that his senior executive leadership is to a person 60% Jewish and 100% Zionist? I'm not surprised that he has appointed a significant number of hawks to his administration. And I am surprised, however, that he has not been pushing them to curb their tongue. If you look at what Mike Waltz was saying this past weekend and Sebastian Gorka, especially Sebastian Gorka, it is not in the interest of the Trump administration, given that President Trump says he's interested in shutting down the war in Ukraine and establishing good relations with the Russians.

If that's his goal, picking the people that he's picked and then allowing them to basically say whatever they want, which includes antagonizing the Russians, makes no sense at all to me. Mike Waltz, Congressman Waltz, who's the new or will be the new National Security Advisor, said that he and Jake Sullivan were on the same page. This is the same Jake Sullivan that spent $250 billion in Ukraine and destroyed a whole generation of young men, the same Jake Sullivan that orchestrated the financing of the slaughter of innocents in Gaza, he and Jake are on the same page. Should we take that as meaningful because Donald Trump has not refuted it? Well, the interesting question is whether Vladimir Putin should take it as meaningful.

Before you get into Vladimir Putin, I know you've seen this, but it's so absurd, so preposterous, I have to run it for you. This is the Sebastian Gorka quote to which I believe you were referring. Chris, cut number 10. I'll give one tip away that the president has mentioned. He will say to that murderous former KGB colonel, that thug who runs the Russian Federation, you will negotiate now or the aid that we have given to Ukraine thus far will look like peanuts. That's how he will force those gentlemen to come to an arrangement that stops the bloodshed. How much ignorance can one human being manifest? It's really quite remarkable. I mean, first of all, again, if you want to cut a deal with Putin saying things like that, having somebody who's going to have an office in the White House talk like that at this point in time is foolish in the extreme. Furthermore, I don't know what Gorka's talking about. We don't have the material that we can give to the Ukrainians to in any way affect events on the battlefield.

The arsenal is basically empty. Doesn't he understand that? Making threats like this is ridiculous. Are these threats of such a magnitude that it is incumbent upon the president-elect to distance himself from them? Well, he should have done that. He should have told Gorka that he couldn't make those kinds of comments to start with. And then once he made them, he should have disowned them right away. He didn't do that. And the end result for Putin is that he's going to see that there's no way he can trust Donald Trump, that when he deals with Donald Trump, it's just like dealing with Joe Biden,

Tweedledee and Tweedledum. And the end result is this is not going to help Trump get this deal that he's promised. So this makes no sense at all from Donald Trump's point of view. You just wonder, what is he thinking? After President Biden changed his mind and allowed the Ukrainians to utilize American technology to shoot attack missiles into Russia. You remember he originally said no in a publicly embarrassing situation involving the prime minister of Great Britain. Biden changed his mind, shot the missiles. The Brits shot their storm shadow. And then the Russians came out with this monster missile, the Areznik.

How big a deal is the Areznik? Well, I think the Areznik matters for sure. You know, it's an intermediate range ballistic missile. And the fact that an intermediate range ballistic missile that is very effective at destroying targets was used, sent a clear signal to the West that Putin is serious about the fact that NATO or the Americans have crossed the red line and he plans to escalate as we escalate. So he sent a clear signal here. I think there's been a bit too much hype about the Ereznik. A lot of people have indicated that Putin really had two choices with regard to the attack of the scalps and the storm shadows. And those two options were one, to do nothing, or two, to escalate to the nuclear level.

But all of a sudden, he now has this weapon which gives him an option without either having to do nothing or go to the nuclear level. And I think he had lots of other options, independent of the Aresnik, that he could have turned to. I think the Ereznik is an effective deterrent, and I think it's smart from his point of view to use it. But I don't think it's that big a deal. I think the fact is that if the Americans continue to cross the red line regarding these missiles that are being launched into Mother Russia, and they begin to have an effect, a military effect, that Putin will escalate. And he can do that with the Resnicks or without, or with the Resnicks and other weapons that are in his inventory. How do you think Putin regards the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ukraine, because they are continuing Ukraine in conjunction with the United Kingdom

and the United States. We all understand that it is integral and essential for American and British technicians and troops to be involved in the use of this equipment because it involves national security, top secret information from the British perspective and from the American perspective, and they can't legally share it with the Ukrainians. So without repeating myself, or at the risk of repeating myself, how do you think Putin regards the U.S. and the U.K. and Ukraine that they have again fired after arresting missiles into Russia? Do you think that Putin thinks that the West doesn't take him seriously? Well, I think that first of all, he clearly understands that the West is a mortal threat

or an existential threat to Russia. He might have had some doubts about that at the beginning of the conflict, but I think he has no doubts about that now. And I think he fully understands that he has to play hardball with the West, and in particular with the United States. I think he has to be somewhat careful at this point in time, because he is in the driver's seat on the battlefield, and he doesn't want to do anything that diverts him from continuing to succeed in the ground war on the Eastern Front. So he doesn't want to overreact is what I'm saying, but he fully understands that he may have to overreact. I'm sure he understands that at some point he may have to use nuclear weapons. I'm sure he understands that

that's highly, if not extremely unlikely today, but there's a real possibility there. I mean, the thing you want to keep in mind here is that NATO is going to lose this war. The United States is going to lose this war. This is going to be a devastating defeat. And we are desperate. We are clearly desperate at this point in time. And you want to ask yourself, what is a desperate West, a desperate United States likely to do? And Putin understands that the United States could take measures that really escalate things in ways that are not to Russia's advantage or to the United States' advantage. And I think he has a vested interest in making sure that he keeps a lid on the escalatory ladder. He prevents us from going too far up the escalatory ladder, while at the same time,

he continues to dominate on the battlefield. So last week, Jake Sullivan announced that the administration has $7 billion in cash and equipment in the pipeline, meaning, I don't know if it physically exists anywhere, but it's been authorized by Congress and it hasn't been sent to Ukraine, and they plan on sending it. Since that time, there's been another round of attack-ums. Since that time, President Biden has authorized the use of anti-personnel mines, which are unlawful under international law everywhere except Russia, Ukraine, China, Iran, and North Korea. And this morning, the administration leaked, this is inconceivable, that they plan to ask the lame duck Congress to authorize another $24 billion, with a B, in aid to Ukraine. I don't know how they can expect to get that out of the Congress. But if you add all that up, my question to you is, what do you think Joe Biden is trying to do in the last two months of his presidency?

Well, I've said before, I think that what he wants to do is he wants to make sure that Ukraine doesn't lose on the battlefield before he leaves office. I mean, there's a real possibility. I don't think this is likely, but there is a real possibility that the Ukrainian military will collapse before January 20th. And this disaster will manifest itself in full bloom on Biden's watch. He doesn't want that to happen. He wants it to happen on Trump's watch so that he and others can blame Trump for our defeat in Ukraine. Furthermore, he wants to go to great lengths to be able to say once he leaves office that he did everything possible to help Ukraine. And it wasn't his fault that this disaster happened. It was Trump's fault.

So I think that's basically what's going on here. There's no way he's going to rescue the situation. Ukraine's going to turn the tide and Russia's not going to win this war. He's just buying time here and doing everything he can to save his reputation, which of course is in tatters at this point. Professor Mearsheimer, Donald Trump said at least a dozen times during the campaign that he will end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. Is that even conceivable? Well, it was not conceivable before he won the election. And since he's won the election, given the steps that he's taken in terms of appointing people and given the comments that some of those people have been making, like Gorka and Waltz, which we just talked about, the chances that he can shut this one down are, in the way that he describes, are zero. And in fact, I believe that this war is going to be

settled on the battlefield. I don't think that Trump matters much at all. In fact, I don't think Trump's going to have much effect on what's happening in the Middle East, what's happening in East Asia, or what's happening in the Ukraine war. Trump likes to think that he is remarkably clever and that he has a huge amount of power and that he can get things done in ways that others can't. But I think he greatly underestimates the extent to which he's in an iron cage here and how little maneuver room he has. And what little maneuver room he had, he's basically eliminated by turning people like Waltz and Gorka loose. Do you think that the elites in Europe, Prime Minister Stormer, President Macron, probably personifies them the best?

The leadership of NATO, the name escaping me, Mark Rutte, replacement for Stoltenberg. Do you think that they want to delay and extend the end of the war in Ukraine? Do you think they're foolish enough to think that the Russians could actually lose that war? I'm sorry for the double question. It's hard to say because they are individually and collectively strategic ignoramuses. I mean, one can only wonder what they're thinking, right? I mean, when you look at Western leaders, you just shake your head and say, did these people ever take Strategy 101? And then you say to yourself, if they did take Strategy 101, it must be the case

that they failed the course, because the way they approach these different foreign policy problems facing them, it's really quite remarkable in how ignorant they, ignorantly they behave. I'm not sure what to say anymore. Does Russia have a deep state or does Putin control everything? No, every country has a deep state. I mean, in the modern world, especially in industrialized countries like the United States and Russia and China, you, by definition, have a powerful central state. You need that powerful central state to administer the country, and not only on the foreign policy front, but in terms of domestic politics. And inside all of those institutions

that comprise the deep state, you have lots of people who have vested interests and who are very good at protecting those interests. So any president who comes along or prime minister or chancellor and that person wants to change policy in a drastic way, he or she is going to run into a lot of resistance from people down below inside the deep state who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. I remember when I was young and Richard Neustadt, who was a Harvard historian, wrote a book called Presidential Power. And I think it dealt mainly with JFK's time in power. And I think the point that Neustadt made in the book was that any president who comes into office can at most deal with two or three big foreign policy and domestic policy issues at the same time. It's just so cumbersome to get anything through the deep state, anything through the modern bureaucracies that comprise a modern state, that you had to limit the number of wars you were going to fight with the deep state. And someone like Trump, when you listen to him talk, he talks as if he's going to come in

and deal with 15 different problems simultaneously and just simply get his way, regardless of what the deep state thinks. And my view is that that's not the way the real world works, and he's going to be sadly disappointed. You and I discussed at length a few months ago, it was probably back in the spring, the plight of student demonstrators on college campuses. We also talked about the plight of college presidents who were roughed up and abused by Congress as if they have to answer to Congress for the way they permit the freedom of speech on

their college campuses. I don't remember if there was a problem at the University of Chicago, but the problems at Columbia University were manifest and, in my view, exacerbated by the involvement of government, particularly the police of the city of New York and a congresswoman, Elise Stefanik, who's now going to be Trump's ambassador to the UN. That's background to this question. Here is the incoming Attorney General of the United States of America on the freedom of speech, which she says when it's abused, the FBI should interrogate the abusers. Cut number 14. Whether they're here as Americans or if they're here on student visas and they're out there saying, I support Hamas, you and I have seen that on all

of these television shows. Frankly, they need to be taken out of our country or the FBI needs to be interviewing them right away when they're saying, I support Hamas, I am Hamas. That's not saying I support all these poor Palestinians who are trapped in Gaza. That's not what they're saying. So I think their student visas need to be revoked. I think we need to reinstate President Trump's travel ban immediately. There's a lot of things that can be done to stop this. But, yeah, the anti-Semitism that is rampant throughout this country now. And it's truly, truly heartbreaking to see what's happening to all of our Jewish friends in this country.

One woman will soon be in charge, directly in charge of every federal prosecution in the United States and indirectly in charge of the FBI. She wants to send the FBI to do something expressly forbidden by the First Amendment, evaluate the content of public speech. What are your thoughts? I think this is a horrible situation. It cuts at the very essence of a liberal democracy. And I'm shocked that somebody like that is going to be the attorney general. It just shows you how much trouble we're in. Now, let me make a couple of points about some of her specific comments. First of all, very few of the protesters are defending Hamas. What they're doing is protesting the genocide in Gaza, as they should be. But furthermore, anybody who says that they

support Hamas is entitled to say that in the United States of America. Precisely. This is what freedom of speech is all about. One doesn't have to agree with people who make that argument or even like what they say, but they are free to say it just as people are free to burn the American flag. Am I happy about someone burning the American flag? No, but I fully understand they have a right to do that. But finally, let me make a point about antisemitism. The idea that there's rampant antisemitism in the United States is not a serious argument, and that is certainly true on university campuses. I have been at the University of Chicago for 43 years. Before that, I was at Harvard for two years,

and then I went to Cornell as a graduate student for five years. I have hardly ever heard anybody make an anti-Semitic comment during all those years. It's truly remarkable. And in fact, nobody was saying before October 7th that our campuses were infected with anti-Semitism. Just think about that. This was simply not a subject that people were talking about. But all of a sudden, after October 7th, and certainly in the spring of 2024 this year, when the protests started on college campuses in a serious way, all of a sudden we were hearing all these stories about universities and colleges being infested with anti-Semitism. This line of argument fails the common sense test. There is not rampant anti-Semitism at colleges and universities.

And in fact, if you look at the composition of the people in many of these protests, they are Jewish students. Lots of Jewish students, along with non-Jewish students, are protesting the genocide in Gaza. They are not engaged in anti-Semitic activities. This is not 1938 Germany. This is a protest against genocide. Thank you, Professor Mearsheimer. Thank you for your time. It's a short week. We appreciate you jumping on with us. Thank you for letting me pick your very fertile brain. A happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. I hope you can come and join us again next week. Happy Thanksgiving to you, Judge. I appreciate everything you've done with the show. It's one of the most important things that we can give thanks about in an

otherwise bleak time. Thank you, Professor. Thank you for being such a mainstay and an important part of the show. All my best to you and your family. Likewise. Thank you. Please remember to like and subscribe. We have broken 490,000. You're probably tired of hearing me say this. Our goal is a half a million by Christmas. That's just four weeks away, weeks from today as a matter of fact I think we'll reach it But of course not without your help Like and subscribe Both are important for dealing with the algorithms Of the venues

That offer the show Remaining today At three o'clock Phil Giraldi at four o'clock Just got back from eight days In Palestine He landed in the US Either last night or this morning Phil Giraldi at four o'clock just got back from eight days in Palestine. He landed in the U.S. either last night or this morning, and he's filled with some wonderful and sad stories about what he observed. Wonderful because it's the truth. Sad because of the genocide.

Matt Ho, Justin Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.