Judging Freedom - Prof. John Mearsheimer: Is the US Still Indispensable?

Episode Date: August 15, 2024

Prof. John Mearsheimer: Is the US Still Indispensable?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, August 15th, 2024. Professor John Mearsheimer joins us now. Professor Mearsheimer, I want to talk to you about big picture. Does the United States still perceive itself as the indispensable nation? And if so, what are the dangers to that self-perception? But before we get there, some of the news that is relatively hot today, it appears that whatever happened in Kursk, whatever the Ukrainians did, whoever was with them, it's still going on. Do you have an opinion or an understanding about who invaded Kursk? Well, it's quite clear to me that the Ukrainians did. It's quite clear what the units were, which brigades were involved,

and roughly how many troops were involved. So I don't think there's much question there. The real debate today is whether this was a smart move or not. I believe it was a remarkably foolish move on the part of the Ukrainians. And I think, by the way, if you look at the initial response of the Ukrainian bloggers, the Ukrainians who follow this war very carefully and are obviously pro-Ukrainian, they were shocked by the invasion. And the initial response almost to a person was that this was a bad idea. And of course, they were correct. But what's happened over time is that the West and many Ukrainian spokespeople have turned the propaganda machine on, and this is now being spun as a stunning victory for the Ukrainians. But it's

no such thing. Before we get to the spin and before we get to President Putin's likely response, Russian surveillance claims that it surveilled voices amongst those participating in the invasion, and it detected English speakers and its linguists identified the English speakers as, quote, having American accents. Would it surprise you if contractors, soldiers of fortune, CIA agents, American military technicians, operating equipment, people like that, perhaps from Poland, Estonia, Romania, Latvia, Germany, France, Great Britain, and the U.S. were there? Well, a couple points. First of all, if they were there, I don't think the numbers were very large. Second point I'd make is I wouldn't be surprised if there were Americans involved, mainly mercenaries or private contractors who

were working for the Ukrainian government. That wouldn't surprise me. I'd be surprised, maybe even shocked, if there were any American soldiers who were involved in the operation. I mean, could this have happened without CIA and MI6 either involvement, guidance, or at minimum acquiescence? It's hard to imagine that, to be honest. It's quite clear that the Ukrainians were very secretive about this whole operation. And there are all sorts of reports that many of the soldiers who were involved in the operation were surprised. They were told at the last moment that this offensive was going to take place. But you would think, given how closely the United States and the West more generally works with the Ukrainians,

and given the intelligence capabilities that we have, we would have seen evidence of this coming. So I think that in all likelihood, we knew it was coming and we didn't stop the Ukrainians. Did this foolhardy invasion put pressure on President Putin from the more nationalistic people around him, like, say, Dmitry Medvedev, former president of Russia, now deputy chair of their National Security Council, to get rough, to end this once and for all, to invade Kiev, to do something dramatic and, from the Ukrainian perspective, catastrophic? Yeah, there's no question that to Putin's right, there are a good number of people who think that up to now, he has not waged the war vigorously enough.

And what he needs to do now, given what a consequential development this is, I mean, here we have for the first time since World War II, a country invading the motherland, it's time to take the gloves off. I'm not sure that Putin would be smart to do that. I think if he's smart, he'll just continue to wage the war the way he has been waging it over the past two years. But what he does remains to be seen. Well, he must defeat and crush and remove the invaders, no? Yes. I mean, the key to understanding what's going on in this war, and I cannot

emphasize this enough, is the casualty exchange ratio. What is that? In other words, how many Russians are dying compared to how many Ukrainians are dying on a daily basis? Talking about overall, not just in Kyrgyzstan. Oh, absolutely. Right. This is a war of attrition. This is two armies standing toe to toe and beating the living daylights out of each other. And one side is trying to bleed the other side white and vice versa.

And the question is, what does the casualty exchange ratio look like? And the Ukrainians who have less troops to begin with than the Russians, so you want to understand that they're starting at a disadvantage in this war of attrition, the Ukrainians are suffering much greater casualties. And the question you then have to ask yourself is if Ukraine sends its forces into the Kursk area, are they going to alter the casualty exchange ratio in any way? In other words, to put this in slightly different terms, what's the Ukrainians' theory of victory here? How does going into Kursk rescue the desperate situation that they're now in on the battlefields in the eastern part of Ukraine? And in fact, if you look carefully at what happened, if anything, the casualty exchange

ratio has shifted even further in the Russians' favor as a result of going into Kursk. Now, you say to yourself, why is that the case, John? Well, first of all, the Ukrainians basically invaded territory that had remarkably few Russians in it. So they didn't kill lots of Russians in the process of conquering this territory. Furthermore, once the Ukrainians get into this Russian territory, the first thing the Russians do is they bring air power and drones to bear to clobber the Ukrainian forces down on the ground. And because it is a Ukrainian offensive, the Ukrainian forces are out in the open and they're on the move. And they have hardly any air defenses.

They have virtually no air cover. And the Russian Air Force and Russian drones are pretty much free to pick them off. And that's exactly what happens in the initial days of this Ukrainian offensive. So if anything, the Ukrainians are suffering greater casualties than the Russians by a big distance in this Kursk offensive, which is just contributing to the overall problem they face in this war. I'm going to ask you what the actual casualty ratio is, but before we do that, I to play this this is President zielinski two days ago crowing crowing about the momentum he now has from the invasion in Kursk Chris number 12. all of us in Ukraine need to act as Unitedly and effectively as we did in the first weeks and

months of this war, when Ukraine seized the initiative and began turning the situation in favor of our state. We have done the same now. We have once again proven that in any situation, we Ukrainians are capable of achieving our objectives, of defending our interests and our independence. It's political, Pap. Yeah, I mean, you use the word momentum. What does momentum mean? They gained momentum.

What does that mean? Who cares whether they gained momentum? As I said to you before, I want to know what is the theory of victory? My view is this is a war of attrition. How does this contribute to improving Ukraine's situation in a war of attrition? And the answer, it doesn't. He has no good answer as to how this operation in Kursk is going to work to Ukraine's advantage. That's where we are. leaders in America, and you'll see two of them in a minute, claim that he can now negotiate the

exchange. This sounds ridiculous even to say, but this is what they claim, the exchange of Kyrsk for the exchange of the Donbass. I can't imagine Putin even considering that. You're right. This is a laughable argument, and it's exactly what you would expect from people like Lindsey Graham and others. They make these sorts of arguments all the time. Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to suffer defeats on the battlefield and is going to end up suffering a catastrophic defeat. What is the ratio of deaths between the two countries? Is there a number? Do we know what it is? Is it five to one, three to two? Well, it's very hard to get a solid number because neither side gives official casualty figures. The Russians do talk about how many

casualties there are on the Ukrainian side, but we can never be too sure or too certain how reliable those numbers are. Look, in a war of attrition, the key killer on the battlefield is artillery. And by almost all accounts, the Russians have somewhere between a five to one and a 10 to 1 advantage in artillery. So let's say, let's be conservative and say they have a 5 to 1 advantage. Furthermore, the Ukrainians themselves say that over 80 plus percent, over 80 plus percent of the casualties suffered in this war on both sides are the result of artillery. So if you have a situation where one side has a five to one advantage in artillery and 80 percent of the casualties on both sides, just use those numbers, is inflicted by artillery. That tells you the side with all that artillery probably has somewhere in

the order of a three to one or four to one advantage in terms of killing people on the other side. So I, in the past, have said the number, the casualty exchange ratio is probably two to one, just to be very conservative. I would not be surprised for one second if it's three to one. I would guess it's not four to one, but even if it was four to one, I wouldn't be shocked. Because again, artillery is the main killer on the battlefield, and the Russians have a huge advantage. Now, on top of that, and we do not want to underestimate this, the Russians have superiority in the air, and they're bringing massive air power to bear on the battlefield. They have all these smart bombs which are inflicting huge numbers of casualties on the

Ukrainians. So there is no question that the Russians have a huge advantage in terms of the casualty exchange ratio. And remember, as I said to you before, the Russians have more troops. They have more people to draw upon than the Ukrainians do. So you're going right where I want to go. The Mearsheimer version of E equals MC squared is power equals population plus wealth. Am I right? There's no question about that. Those are the building blocks. Okay. Power equals population plus wealth. There's no comparison in population and wealth of Russia to Ukraine. Am I right? There is no question that you are right. And, you know, the economists just had a big story on how the Russian economy is flourishing, and that's

flourishing compared to most Western economies. The Ukrainian economy is on its back. It is in deep-seated trouble. If the West wasn't backing up or propping up the Ukrainian economy, it would completely collapse. And in terms of population, we just went through those numbers. It's a five-to-one advantage, just to put it in very simple terms, in terms of population size between Russia and Ukraine. So here is a liberal Democrat from Connecticut and a conservative Republican from

South Carolina whose voting records don't match on anything except war. Listen to what they say. Cut 13 and then cut 12. You're fighting our fight, the independence and freedom of people around the world, including the United States, but we want the American people to appreciate the value of this alliance. So two and a half years later, you're still standing and you're in Russia. Remind me not to invade Ukraine. I'm so proud of you, your people, your military, your leadership, your country. You're under siege unlike anything I've seen in my lifetime. They were predicting in Washington that Key would fall in four days,

whole country fall in three weeks. Well, they were wrong. Senator Graham is either a colonel or a general in the Air Force Reserve, I believe, in the legal end of it. I don't know of any experience that he's had in combat. And if he's had experience in combat, my hat is off to him. It's hard for me to take my hat off to him. Does he know what he's talking about? I think he is in the Naval Reserve, but I'm not sure. But it's largely irrelevant. The question is, what is his analysis of the situation? What is the story that he has to tell about how Ukraine is going to win this war against Russia. He seemed ecstatic because some Russians were killed. Russian blood was spilled and Lindsey Graham rejoiced.

Yes, there's no question about that. And there's no question that as a result of the Ukrainian offensive into the Kursk region, that there are going to be a good number of Russians who die. The point that I'm making to you is, first of all, that more Ukrainians, many more Ukrainians than Russians will die in this operation. And furthermore, I believe those Ukrainian forces would be better suited to be fighting on the battlefields in eastern Ukraine where they're desperately needed. And out there, by the way, I believe more Russians are dying than will die in the Kursk region. So if Senator Graham is interested in killing Russians,

those units would be better suited to be on the Eastern Front rather than the Kursk region. Are Senators Blumenthal and Graham representative of the warped Cold War era, Victoria Nuland, you can see where this is going, thinking that the United States is the indispensable nation and everybody has to listen to us. There's no question about that. I mean, they're two of the principal spokesmen for that view brought us but the entanglements today? President Biden said, I forget who pointed this out. Well, Aaron Maté pointed this out. I didn't catch it. In the speech he gave from the Oval Office about four or five days after he withdrew from the Democratic or from the presidential race, for the first time in 100 years, the United States is not at war.

So I guess he forgot Syria, Yemen, Jordan, Libya, Ukraine, Gaza. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what to say. The United States is up to its eyeballs in alligators in all of these different conflicts. There's no end in sight in any of them. And there's a real danger that they may even escalate. And lots of us worry about the possibility somewhere down the road of nuclear escalation. President Biden has not left us safer during his four years in office. There's no question about that. I believe, for example, he's principally responsible for starting the Ukraine war. I think he could have prevented it

if he had behaved wisely in the three or four months before the war. And with regard to the Gaza conflict, which I would clearly refer to as a genocide. He is complicit in that genocide, which I think is absolutely disgraceful for any president of the United States. So the idea that this man has a right to boast about his record in foreign policy is one that I completely reject. Here he is, boasting about his foreign policy, the clip that I mentioned from the Oval Office just about two weeks ago. I'm the first president in this century to report to the American people that the United States is not at war anywhere in the world. We'll keep rallying a coalition of proud nations to stop Putin from taking over Ukraine and

doing more damage. We'll keep NATO stronger, and I'll make it more powerful and more united than any time in all of our history. I'll keep doing the same for our allies in the Pacific. You know, when I came to office, the conventional wisdom was that China would inevitably surpass the United States. That's not the case anymore. And I'm going to keep working to end the war in Gaza, bring home all the hostages, and bring peace and security to the Middle East and end it. Add to that, I'm sure you caught it, what Senator Blumenthal said as he was looking at President protect every country in the world that might be threatened by an adversary of ours.

So as the indispensable nation, we have a responsibility, both a moral responsibility and a strategic responsibility to protect countries like Ukraine. We cannot afford to allow Ukraine to be defeated. Ukraine has to become a member of NATO. Or if it can't become a de jure member of NATO, it has to be a de facto member of NATO. We have to be everywhere on the planet. We are indispensable for maintaining stability here, there, and everywhere. That's our job. And this involves policing the world. And when you have this mentality, you're going to find yourself getting into all sorts of problems. And this is what's happened to the United States, at least since the Cold War ended.

If we are the indispensable nation and our duty is to police the world, why don't we stop genocide in Gaza? Well, we know the answer to that. It's mainly because of the Israel lobby. It's an absolute disgrace that we have not only done nothing to stop this genocide, that we are, in in effect complicitous. I mean, as I said before, it's disgraceful. Are you surprised that Iran has not responded yet with military force to the,

there's a long string of assassinations, but the most recent one in their guest house in Tehran, the evening of the inauguration of the new president in which the head of Hamas, the chief negotiator for Hamas, was murdered. I am surprised, Judge, and I'm surprised that Hezbollah has not retaliated as well, because you want to remember that there were two assassinations, one in southern Beirut of a Hezbollah leader on July 30th, and then the next day, July 31st, they assassinated the head of Hamas in Tehran. And today is August 15th, and that's a long time since July 30th and July 31st. And one would have thought that the Iranians would have retaliated sooner, but apparently they have not. And it's an open question whether they will respond. When you listen to them talk

today, the Iranians, it sounds like they're still planning on attacking Israel and really slamming Israel. And you would think, given the kind of rhetoric they're using, they really don't have a lot of choice but to execute a large-scale attack or a significant attack against Israel. But again, they haven't done that for about 15 days. That's a good two weeks. And you then obviously begin to start wondering whether they're ever going to do it. Maybe they are waiting for Prime Minister Netanyahu to come out of his bunker, where apparently he has been for 12 days. He hasn't been seen in public in 12 days. I think that what's going on here, at least according to some sources in the media, is that the Iranians will States is working overtime to get a ceasefire in

Gaza, not only because we want to put an end to the killing in Gaza, but also because that will mean that the Iranians will abandon the idea of retaliating against Israel. That may be what's holding this up. The Iranians may just be waiting to see whether we can pull this off. But if there's a ceasefire in Gaza, this gentleman will not be very happy. Cut number 10. We are at the Temple Mount on Tisha B'Av. Today we commemorate the destruction of the Temple, but we must also honestly acknowledge that there is significant progress here regarding the governance and sovereignty.

The sight of Jews praying, as I said, our policy is to permit prayer. But I'll say something else. We must win this war. We must win, not go to summits in Doha or in Cairo, but defeat them. Bring them to their knees. That's the message. We can defeat Hamas, bring it to its knees. That, of course, is Mr. Ben-Gavir, who's the head of their version of the FBI and a key member of Prime Minister Netanyahu's cabinet. And if he and his friend, Professor, Mr. Smotrich, the finance minister, we have that full screen from Smotrich.

So we have them both who's calling a ceasefire effectively a surrender deal. The two of them leave the cabinet. Then Netanyahu is out of a job and all other things will happen to him. Yeah, there's no question about that. And that's why Netanyahu shows virtually zero interest in some sort of ceasefire, because what would happen if he accepted a ceasefire is his government would fall apart, as you described it. The problem that Netanyahu faces is that his defense minister, Yoav Galant, and all sorts of senior military leaders, including the chief of staff, believe that it is impossible to achieve a total victory

in Gaza. It's impossible to decisively defeat Hamas, and they therefore are calling for a ceasefire and getting the hostages back. So you have this huge divide in Israel between Netanyahu on one hand, and let's call it the defense establishment on the other hand. And in this tug of war, it's not clear who wins over time. But as you said, if Netanyahu caves, the end result in all likelihood is that his government will collapse. I neglected to ask you something when we were talking about Ukraine. I don't know if you know these people. I never heard of them. TF Global, whoever or whatever it is, is reporting this morning that General Sersky, the Ukrainian chief of staff of the military, is about to resign and to tell his troops to surrender. If true,

would this surprise you? No. I'm not saying that that is going to happen or it's even likely to happen. It would not surprise me. If you read the Ukrainian accounts and even the Western accounts, not all of them, but many of them, on what is happening on the front lines in eastern Ukraine, it is hard to imagine how the Ukrainians can continue these fights. So many people have been killed inside various battalions and brigades that it would seem to me that those fighting units are on the verge of collapse, or by most historical standards, should have collapsed already. It's truly remarkable. This gets back to our discussion of the casualty exchange ratios, that it's truly amazing the price that the Ukrainians are paying here. I don't understand for the life of me why people like Sierski and even Zelensky just didn't shut this war down months ago. They were doomed. And again, this gets back to our discussion about going into Kursk. That doesn't solve the problem at all. It makes a bad situation worse.

So if we hear tomorrow that what you just described about Sersky's planned actions is a reality, I wouldn't be surprised. One last question. In the same year that NATO was founded, and for which there was a week-long celebration last month in Washington, D.C., the Geneva Conventions were written and ratified. So for both, it's the 75th anniversary. Here's what Secretary Blinken said on the 75th anniversary Today we commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 The United States reaffirms our steadfast commitment to respecting the international humanitarian law And mitigating suffering in armed conflict

We call on others to do the same A lie if ever I heard one. A profound deception and misleading of the American public. So serious it should be enough to remove him from office, in my view. He should be ashamed of himself. It's disgraceful. Disgraceful that he would say that. Here he is playing the role of a facilitator of a genocide

in Gaza. And he has the nerve to say that we, you know, we are celebrating what happened in 1949 with regard to these important rules and laws. Wow. Professor Mearsheimer, it's a pleasure, my dear friend. No matter what we talk about, no matter how gloomy it is, it's a joy for me to pick your big brain. But thank you so much for joining us. Look forward to seeing you next week. My pleasure, Judge. Look forward to seeing you as well. Thank you. A great and brilliant man coming up, a brilliant man and a character. Five o'clock, worth waiting for. Max Blumenthal, Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thanks for watching!