Mearsheimer's Double Standard: Realism for Russia, Idealism for Israel
post by Ghdz (gal-hadad) · 2024-11-29T11:10:56.061Z · LW · GW · 0 commentsContents
No comments
I’ve examined Professor John Mearsheimer’s arguments, interviews, and works over the years and have found some of his theories and stances intellectually stimulating. His perspective often tends to challenge the status quo, and that's certainly worth a closer look. Recently, though, his takes on the Ukraine-Russia war and the Israel-Palestine conflict have caught my attention. There seems to be a notable incongruity between the lens through which he views the confrontation between Israel, Hamas, and Hezbollah on one hand, and the Ukraine-Russia war on the other. This is the dimension of his analysis that I'd like to dissect here.
For clarity, I’m not here to refute all of Mearsheimer’s views. Some of his points hold water and deserve discussion. What I do want to do, however, is shine a light on a key inconsistency in his argument that seems to have gone largely unchallenged in the public discourse.
Professor Mearsheimer has long embraced what can be interpreted as "pro-Russian perspectives" while simultaneously vilifying Israel in ways that are both unidimensional and myopic upon closer examination. When he talks about Russia, he paints their actions as perfectly rational, even strategically inevitable, because of security threats (NATO expansion, Western provocations, etc.) It’s a narrative that’s coherent enough if you buy into his brand of realism. But when it comes to Israel, those same arguments about national security and the need to use preemptive force vanish quite rapidly. Suddenly, Israel's actions are all about aggression and malice. Why is there such a double standard here?
Mearsheimer loves to frame Russia as a victim of circumstance, almost helpless in the face of NATO expansion. He goes as far as to justify Russian aggression on these grounds, arguing they were "cornered" and had "no other choice" but to secure their sphere of influence, in a manner akin to the Monroe Doctrine, which no one dares to challenge. I might buy that line of reasoning - flawed as it is - if he were consistent. But when Israel responds to threats right at its border - threats from Hamas and Hezbollah, threats from states and groups openly calling for its destruction - Mearsheimer offers no such nuance. The understanding he so generously extends to Russia dries up.
Mearsheimer has once responded to such criticism by effectively asserting that his theory only applies to great powers, and that Russia's war is, in essence, a great power war while Israel's conflict is not. Not only is it not a great power war, it involves non-state actors, the behavior of which his theory is not supposed to account for. Moreover, he often argues that Israel relies heavily on lobbying to influence U.S. policymaking (which, if true, automatically distinguishes Israel's position from that of a great power and may therefore grant legitimacy to his alleged inconsistency in applying realist principles.) He also indicated that he can morally criticize Israel while discussing Russia in a more detached, "cold" realist manner, and that there's "no contradiction" there since those are two fundamentally different dimensions of analysis. Let’s address these points more methodically.
First, the idea that realism only concerns great power politics is, at best, a narrow reading of what the theory could and should say, if it were to hold any meaningful significance and explanatory scope in today's geopolitical landscape. It certainly is the case that classical realism focuses a great deal on great power dynamics, but the basic principles of state behavior under threat security dilemmas and strategic imperatives are, or at least should be, universally applicable. Smaller states have their rationale to be security concerned, while their actions also emanate from the same structural forces guiding the great powers. Although Israel is not a global hegemon, it faces serious existential threats; it operates within one of the most volatile regions of the world. Thus, in very real ways, its strategic choices also follow the same types of pressures that Mearsheimer attributes to Russia. Applying realism only to some actors, on the other hand, destroys the universality of this theory and diminishes its explanatory power.
Second, Mearsheimer’s emphasis on Israel's reliance on lobbying to influence U.S. policy is a recurring theme in his work. However, this focus does not thoroughly address the broader structural dynamics that shape Israel's security environment. Lobbying is a tool that many nations use, including great powers like the United Kingdom or even Russia itself in various forms. The presence of a lobby does not negate the security pressures that drive a state’s behavior, nor does it exhaustively represent the shaping forces at play. Mearsheimer appears to sidestep the structural factors -- such as regional hostility, asymmetric warfare threats, economic vulnerabilities, demographic pressures, political instability, and historical insecurity (all of which are central to understanding Israel’s actions) by overemphasizing the lobby's role, perhaps in large measure to remain consistent with, and bring attention to, his earlier work. The problem with invoking the lobby as a critical factor in Mearsheimer's framework is that by doing so, he shifts the discussion from systemic forces to a narrower, more politicized view, which is inherently inconsistent with his broader realist framework.
Third, Mearsheimer claims that he can criticize Israel morally while maintaining a detached, realist stance toward Russia. But this distinction is clearly problematic because it introduces a double standard into his analysis. If realism is about understanding the structural forces that drive state behavior, then moral judgments should be secondary to explaining why states act as they do. To apply a moral lens to Israel while treating Russia’s actions as a natural outcome of geopolitical necessity is to adopt a bifurcated approach, which substantially weakens his overall argument. Realism, by definition, seeks to strip away moral considerations to focus on the cold logic of international politics. What Mearsheimer does, however, undermines the objectivity that realism requires as he selectively applies morality. If Russia’s actions can be explained through structural imperatives, then so too should Israel’s, particularly when it faces direct threats to its survival. Whether those threats are real or perceived is beside the point since Mearsheimer mentioned more than once that it "does not matter" what other people think about the threat posed by NATO expansion, what matters is what Putin/Russia thinks, Mearsheimer argued. The same logic doesn't apply to Israel. What other people (non-Israelis) think about the threat posed to Israel does matter, and it matters enormously according to Mearsheimer. So much so, that he frequently cites a variety of non-Israeli and international sources to support his views.
Mearsheimer's non-mainstream conclusions about Israel in themselves do not surprise me. Mearsheimer thrives on being unconventional. But it’s not just that his views are unconventional -- they’re so selectively applied in this instance that it's quite shocking very few have picked that nuance up. He’s happy to use a realist lens when it comes to Russia, but when Israel comes into focus, it’s like he switches to a different worldview entirely. I’ve never seen such a sharp pivot in someone claiming consistency. He gives multiple lectures about great power politics and nations acting in their self-interest, and there’s a thread of logic -- until Israel enters the conversation. Then, suddenly, structural forces don’t matter, and Israel becomes the villain.
I can't ignore the contradiction here. For Russia, Mearsheimer defends their sphere of influence with an almost romantic notion of geopolitical inevitability. NATO's expansion, according to him, is an existential threat to Russia, so their actions are utterly justified, or at least understandable. But when it comes to Israel, facing actual rockets and hostilities right on its borders, that empathy evaporates owing to non-structural, value-laden considerations that are at odds with the fundamentals of his theory.
0 comments
Comments sorted by top scores.