John Mearsheimer: The Tragedy of Great Power Politics

Chapter 1: Introduction
I. Offensive realism theory (ORT) overview (1-11)
A. Power is the only reliable way to guarantee safety, so states look to gain power at one another’s expense to
maximize their power (which ultimately means becoming a global hegemon); since other states will balance
against the aspiring global hegemon before it reaches GH status, becoming a GH is impossible. Therefore:
1. Great powers are doomed to fight with one another.
2. The “next best”/ realistic status to aim for after global hegemon is being the only regional hegemon.
B. Multipolar systems more war-prone than bipolar; multipolar with potential hegemons = most war-prone
C. Great power status determined by relative military capability
a) Enough assets to put up a “serious fight” against the most powerful state in the world in an all-out
conventional war (at least turn the conflict into a war of attrition)
b) Nuclear deterrents that can survive a nuclear strike against it
D. Overtly or covertly, policymakers use theories to make/justify decisions; should try to pick a good one
E. ORT limitation: Variables that it omits such as individual leader characteristics can occasionally dominate a
state’s decision-making process, and then ORT doesn’t explain things well.
F. ORT is mostly descriptive (tries to explain and predict) but also prescriptive (suggests states should seek
power). States don’t often deviate from offensive realist strategy, but when they do there are consequences.
II. Book tries to answer 6 key questions about power: 1) Why do great powers want power? 2) How much power
do states want? 3) What is power? 4) What strategies do states pursue to gain power or maintain it when another
great power threatens to upset the BoP? 5) What are the causes of war? 6) When do threatened great powers
balance against a dangerous adversary, and when do they attempt to pass the buck to another threatened state?
III. Liberalism vs Realism
A. Summary of different assumptions (15-18)
Liberalism Realism
Main actors in IP States
Importance of internal Important: “good” (democratic) states likely to Not important: behavior mainly influenced
characteristics pursue cooperative policies; “bad” (autocratic) by external environment
states likely to use force
Calculations that explain state Political and economic Power
behavior
B. Key liberal theories (16-17)
1. Economic interdependence → low likelihood of war between states
2. Democratic peace theory: democracies don’t go to war against other democracies
3. International institutions → more cooperation, lower likelihood of war
C. Key realist theories (18-21)
Human Nature Realism Defensive Realism (Waltz; also Jervis, Offensive Realism
(Morgenthau) Snyder, Van Evera) (Mearsheimer)
What causes states to Inherent will to power [Anarchic] structure of the system
compete for power?
How much power do All they can get; maximize relative Not much more than what they have; All they can get; maximize
states want? power with hegemony as the focus on maintaining balance of power relative power with hegemony
ultimate goal as the ultimate goal
D. Other details on realist theories
1. E.H. Carr says states want power but doesn’t explain why

1
 2. Offense-defense balance (Jervis, Snyder, Van Evera) complements/ justifies defensive realism: military
power chooses between offense and defense depending on which gives them the greatest expected
advantage at a given point in time.
a) Mearsheimer critique: If defense has a “natural advantage” over offense, that should discourage
great powers from pursuing aggressive / offensive strategies, and war should be more rare than it is.
3. Americans really don’t like realism; prefer liberalism, because it lets them think of the US as a
“benevolent” force in the world → policymakers often talk like liberals but act like realists (25)
Chapter 2: Anarchy and the Struggle for Power
I. Five conditions together mean that states will look to maximize their power (29-31)
A. The international system is anarchic
B. GP inherently possess some offensive military capability → the ability to hurt/destroy one another
C. States can never be certain about another state’s intentions
D. Survival (maintaining territorial integrity and autonomy of domestic political order) is the primary goal of GP
E. Great powers are rational actors
II. Behaviors that result from these conditions (31-39)
A. Fear: Great powers fear each other (capability to attack + 911 problem)
B. Self-help: States aim to guarantee their own survival
C. Power-seeking behavior: States realize the best way to ensure survival is to become the most powerful state in
the system → look for opportunities to alter BoP by acquiring additional increments of [relative] power.
1. Security dilemma: measures a state takes to increase its security usually decrease the security of other
states → rivals can’t know other state’s intentions → have to match these measures → power competition.
D. Calculated aggression: before great powers take offensive actions, think carefully about BoP and how other
states will react; If the benefits do not outweigh the risks, they will wait (37).
1. Still, states can miscalculate due to: a) Misinformation from rival b) Hard to know how military forces will
actually perform on battlefield c) Uncertainty of rival (or allies’) resolve
● Therefore, even when the benefits of war seem to outweigh the costs, they might not actually.
2. Defensive realists exaggerate how much miscalculation concerns + balancing activity should deter states
from offensive behavior. History shows aggressors are often rewarded (60% success rate by one estimate).
III. Hegemony’s limits (40-42)
A. Hegemon: a state so powerful that it dominates all of the other states in the system (world or region), and no
other state can put up a serious fight against it.
1. Never has been a global hegemon; must a) have “excellent prospects” at defeating each opponent and
“good prospects” of defeating some in tandem b) be significantly ahead of the second most powerful state.
2. The US is a regional hegemon, and the only one in modern history, but not a global hegemon; what keeps
it from wanting to dominate other regions.
IV. Power and fear
A. Fear is what makes a state look for ways to enhance its security via power.
B. The more power a state has, the more fear it generates among its rivals
C. Power:
1. Potential: Size of population and level of wealth (building blocks for military)
2. Actual: army, air, and naval force capacity; armies are principle instrument for conquering and controlling
D. How power impacts fear:

2
 1. Rival states that possess nuclear forces that can survive a nuclear attack are likely to fear each other less
than if those same states had no nuclear weapons.
2. When great powers are separated by large bodies of water, they do not have as much offensive capability
against each other, regardless of the relative size of their armies.
3. Distribution of power among the states in the system affects levels of fear.
E. Power configurations + fear (45)
1. Bipolarity: produces the least amount of fear among great powers, because there is a rough balance of
power between two major states.
2. Balanced multipolarity: multipolar systems without a potential hegemon: have power asymmetries among
their members, so there is more fear than in bipolar systems.
3. Unbalanced multipolarity: most dangerous/fear-generating system of all.
V. Hierarchy of state goals: Great powers can pursue non-security goals that don’t conflict with BoP logic (47-48)
VI. Great powers do not work together to promote world order for its own sake because (49-51):
A. States unlikely to agree on a general formula for bolstering peace
B. GP can’t put aside power considerations to promote international peace; can’t be sure their efforts will succeed
VII. Cooperation is difficult to achieve & sustain, because of security competition logic (51-53):
A. Considerations about relative [rival] gains
B. Concerns about cheating
Chapter 3: Wealth and Power
I. Types of power (55)
A. Latent: the socio-economic ingredients that go into building military power (wealth and population size)
B. Military: Mainly size and strength of army + supporting navy / air force
II. Power is specific assets or material resources available to the state (not outcomes of interactions between
states), because (57-60)
A. When focusing on outcomes, it becomes almost impossible to assess the balance of power before a conflict,
since balance can be determined only after a side wins.
B. Defining power in terms of outcomes leads implausible conclusions (e.g., “Russia defeated France in 1812,
therefore Russia was more powerful than France in 1812.”)
C. In international politics, power is a means to an end (outcomes).
III. Latent/ potential power’s two most important components are size of population and wealth (61-62)
A. However, Mearsheimer uses only wealth as a measure for potential power, because a large population does
not ensure great wealth, but great wealth requires a large population.
B. Within wealth, what matters is mobilizable wealth: the resources state can use to build military forces (62-75):
1. GNP is commonly used as a wealth measurement
a) Does a “reasonably good” job of comparing great powers at similar levels of economic development
b) Poor indicator when states are at different levels of economic development, because highly
industrialized states have more surplus wealth to spend on defense and are more capable of
producing large quantities of sophisticated weapons.
2. Mearsheimer uses GNP after 1960 as a proxy for latent power; for 1816-1960, uses a composite indicator
made of iron and steel production + energy consumption
IV. Although wealth explains a lot of variation in power, it doesn’t explain all, because (76-80):

3
 A. States transform varying portions of their wealth into military might. Will spend less if they: face diminishing
returns, believe aggressive defense spending is bad for the economy, have wealthy and reliable allies, or are
occupied by another great power that wants them to stay militarily weak.
B. Efficiency of that transformation varies from state to state.
C. Great powers buy different kinds of military forces, and those choices impact military balance
Chapter 4: The Primacy of Land Power
I. Claim 1: Landpower is the dominant form of military power in the modern world, so we can just measure
landpower a rough indicator of relative power
A. Conquest vs coercion (85-87): Naval/air force powers effectively assist armies (transport them across oceans,
provide with air support), but can’t win major wars independently. Bombing and blockading mostly useful for
lengthy wars of attrition; by itself doesn’t lead to surrender.
B. Limits of naval power (87-95)
1. Three army-supporting power-projection missions of the navy: amphibious assault, amphibious landing,
troop transport.
2. Independent projections of power against another state:
a) Naval bombardment: Horatio Nelson logic, “A ship’s a fool to fight a fort,” still prevails.
b) Naval blockade; theorized to work by 1) making the people so miserable they revolt 2) weakening
enemy economy so much that they can’t continue the fight. However, evidence doesn’t support this.
3. Some reasons that blockades fail (94-96)
a) Blockading navy is checked at sea; can’t cut victim’s sea lines of communication
b) Blockade becomes porous over the course of the war
c) Great powers beat blockades by recycling, stockpiling, and substitution
C. Limits of strategic airpower (96-110)
1. Once air superiority is gained, the air force can pursue three power-projecting missions to support the
army: close air support, interdiction, and airlift.
2. AF can independently project power by strategic bombing, striking directly at enemy homeland, but
history shows this a) can’t by itself make enemy surrender b) rarely significantly weakens enemy armies
3. Strategic bombings usually fail to coerce opponent because: a) civilian populations can absorb tremendous
pain an deprivation without rising up against their governments b) decapitation doesn’t work c) it’s
impossible to cut of all comms between leadership + broader population or leadership + military (109-110).
D. Dominating influence of armies: In the 10 wars between great powers over the past 2 centuries, land forces
have been the key factor that impacted outcomes.
II. Big claim 2: Large bodies of water profoundly limit the power-projection capabilities of land forces, so global
hegemony is impossible (114-119).
A. Navies face limits on the number of troops and amount of firepower that can be brought; this was a key limiting
factor pre-1850, when it was easier to land troops on enemy territories. Now, in addition, navies are challenged
by increased army, AF, and navy capability of sinking rival navies as they approach.
III. Nuclear weapons and balance of power (128-133)
A. Nuclear powers markedly decrease the probability of great-power armies clashing
B. Nuclear hegemony is very unlikely; more likely 2+ GP with survivable nuclear forces will compete and be more
cautious about military force of any kind. We can’t conclude that GP with nukes won’t fight, or will fight purely
with conventional forces, because escalation dynamics are unknown.
C. Therefore, Security-dilemma dynamics persist; land-power still remains most important of conventional forces

4
IV. Measuring military power: A three-step process
A. Measure relative size and quality of opposing armies: count the number of soldiers, quality of soldiers, number
of weapons, quality of weaponry, how the soldiers and weapons are organized for war
B. Factor any air forces that support armies
C. Consider power-projection capability inherent in armies: large bodies of water + allies across water ⇒ naval
power matters; large body of water + enemies directly across ⇒ naval power not worth counting
V. Implications
A. Most dangerous states in the international system are continental powers with large armies
B. Insular powers unlikely to initiate wars of conquest against other GP
C. Given that oceans limit the ability of armies то project power and that nuclear weapons decrease the likelihood
of great-power army clashes, the most peaceful world would probably be one where all the great powers were
insular states with survivable nuclear arsenals.
Chapter 5: Strategies for Survival
I. Goals states pursue in their competition for power:
A. Regional hegemony: more feasible than global; don’t want peers and will intervene if needed (141)
B. Wealth: foundational for military might (means wealthy states are a threat even if they don’t have a big military)
C. Having the strongest land forces: dominant form of mil capability, and therefore biggest (but not only) priority
D. Nuclear superiority: M doesn’t define it but says in a state’s ideal world, it would have the only nuclear arsenal.
1. Some argue that states should not pursue this, because the unlikely event of achieving it would undermine
MAD. However, states pursue it because if they somehow got NS, it would give them hegemon status. (146).
II. Strategies states use to shift balance of power in their favor
A. War - main strategy
B. Blackmail - more appealing, because relies on threat of force, not force, but harder to achieve
C. Bait and bleed - provoke long and costly war between rivals (also very hard to make work)
D. Bloodletting - make war a rival already involved in protracted/deadly
III. Strategies states use to prevent aggressors from upsetting balance of power
A. Balancing (principal strategy) - threatened states commit to containing opponent
B. Buck-passing (principal strategy) - threatened states try to get another great power to contain opponent
C. Appeasement (ineffective)- threatened state tries to modify behavior of aggressor by conceding it power
(making it feel more secure / dampening motivation for aggression)
D. Bandwagoning (ineffective)- threatened state joins forces with aggressor
Chapters 6-7:
I. 5 cases aim to show that:
A. Great-power politics involves primarily the clashing of revisionist states
B. The only status quo powers that appear in the story are regional hegemons
II. Three cases support his theory (states always jumped at opportunity to expand by conquest)
A. Japan (1868 -1945): From Meiji restoration 1868 until 1945, was expansionist
B. Germany (1862 - 1945): 1862-1870, 1900-1945 challenged BoP; 1870-1900 focused on preserving power structure,
because of its limitations.
C. USSR (1917-1991): Russia before USSR very expansionist; USSR aggressively took the few opportunities it had to
expand; limited by not wanting to instigate direct conflict with the US.
III. Two cases seem to challenge ORT, but Mearsheimer argues that they were both defended and limited by water.

5
 A. UK (1792 - 1945): wealthiest state in Europe for much of 19th century but made no attempt to translate wealth into
military might and gain regional hegemony
B. US (1800 - 1990): Achieved Western hemisphere (see Monroe Doctrine, Manifest Destiny); When it did send
troops to the EU and NE Asia, it was to act as an offshore balancer.
Chapter 8: Balancing vs Buck Passing
I. Main strategies states use to defend BoP against a challenger (see ch5 definitions)
II. Which strategy states employ determined largely by polarity:
A. In bipolar world, states have to balance, because there is no buck-passer
B. In multipolar world, buck-passing is “commonplace”; determined by:
1. Threat level (high → more likely to balance; low → likely to buck pass)
2. Geography (shared border → likely to balance; no shared border → likely to buck pass)
C. Case studies
1. Varying amongst of buck-passing in multipolar systems: Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, Wilhelmine
Germany, Nazi Germany, Bismarkian Germany
2. Balancing in USSR-US case (bipolar)
Chapter 9: Causes of War
I. International anarchy is constant, but war isn’t; therefore, can’t be the only determinant of war
II. Polarity & balance of power account for a lot of variation in war:
A. Polarity: War more likely in multipolar world because there are more potential conflict dyads, and imbalance of
power more likely; also, probability of miscalculation is higher (e.g., underestimating resolve and strength of
rivals)
1. In a bipolar world, calculations are simpler → fewer miscalculations → less war
B. BoPr: potential hegemon strives for hegemony → increases level of fear of other great powers → conflict
III. Implications
A. Unbalanced bipolar systems don’t last long in the real world, so we can ignore them.
B. Bipolar systems tend to be the most peaceful
C. Unbalanced multipolar systems most prone to war
D. Balanced multipolar systems somewhere in between
Chapter 10: Can China Rise Peacefully?
I. Great power interactions have been less prominent since 1989, because China and Russia haven’t been able
to challenge the US meaningfully
II. However, that could change if the Chinese economy continues to grow as quickly as it is (was in 2014)
A. If China keeps growing economically, it will attempt to dominate Asia the way the worked hard to US
dominates the Western Hemisphere; Not possible now, but long run, China will gain relative power and
consequential allies
1. Specifically, it will try to dominate the Persian Gulf because of innate strategic value
2. It will also try to create security (and political? P 544) problems for the US in the Western Hemisphere so
as to limit the US ability to project power in other regions (Asia, Africa)
3. However, while China will seek to “maximize the power gap” with its neighbors (India, Japan, Russia),
unlikely to pursue military superiority so it can “go on a rampage” and conquer other Asian countries.
a) Unlike the US, China isn’t starting out small and weak, so it doesn't need conquest and expansion to
establish regional hegemony; already huge country, doesn’t need more territory.

6
 b) Instead, it will try to grow its economy and become so powerful that it can dictate the boundaries of
acceptable behavior to neighbors and penalize those that don’t follow the rules, similar to how the
US intervened in the domestic politics of numerous Latin American countries during the CW and
prohibited the USSR and Cuba to share nukes, a naval facility, etc.
(1) Will likely push US out of the Asia-Pacific (already doesn’t like when we do exercises there, etc)
(2) Also the potential for China to get embroiled in conflict with its neighbors, especially over its
claims to sovereignty over almost all of the South China Sea, as well as its claims to the
freshwater repository on the TIbetan Plateau, rivers that come from it, etc. → trouble for
neighbors like India and Bangladesh.
B. In line with offensive realism, the US “will go to enormous lengths to prevent China from achieving regional
hegemony” because “the best way to survive in international anarchy is to be the sole regional hegemon”
C. Since time is on China’s side, you might argue that it should signal that it has “benign intentions” and does not
plan to build threatening military forces. However, there’s no way to credibly signal this, because rivals can’t
know China’s current (and definitely not future) intentions. Also, China’s rivals know that time is not on their
side, so they have incentives to provoke crises now, while China is weaker than it will be in the future.
D. The best strategy for the US to employ is one of containment: concentrating on keeping China from using its
military influence to conquer territory and expand its influence in Asia by forming a balancing coalition with as
many of China’s neighbors as possible (an alliance along the lines of NATO.)
1. This is a defensive strategy, but war is still always a possibility.
2. Most neighbors likely to go be on board, because the US is less of a threat than China. However, China
has economic leverage over a lot of them, so they may be forced to bandwagon with China.
3. Three alternatives to containment are not that appealing:
a) Preventative war - unworkable, because China has nukes; even if it didn’t, it would be hard to invade
China without using nukes (serious consequences)
b) Pursuing policies aimed at slowing Chinese economic growth - no practical way of doing so without
also hurting US economy; plus China can find new trade partners easily
c) Rollback (toppling regimes that are friendly to China; fomenting trouble inside of China) - Cold War
record shows that rollback efforts against USSR didn’t do much to help hasten its demise.
E. There is likely to be an intense security competition and potential for war between the US and China.
1. Security competition will feature things like crises, proxy wars, bait-and-bleed techniques, travel
restrictions, governments identifying other country as threat #1 in military strategy documents, etc. Crises
- major disputes with the potential of war.
2. However, economic ties will continue throughout the security competition, and the superpowers will
likely cooperate on a “handful of issues”
3. Disputes in Asia, although small, will be seen as linked to one another, and each side won’t want the
other to prevail in a crisis because of marginal power gains and reputation costs (664).
Chapter 10 (old version): Great Power Politics in the Twenty-first Century
III. Claims that security competition and war between great powers is ending is just wishful thinking; liberal
rhetoric being used to veil realist actions (e.g., Clinton’s position that NATO expansion won’t isolate/ provoke
Russia, because ‘enlightened self-interest’ and ‘shared values’ will guide us all into the 21st century).
IV. Mearsheimer’s critique of realism’s rival theories
A. “Institutions will foster cooperation”: There is no evidence that international institutions can get states to act in
a way that contradicts realism. The UN is the best contestant, and it couldn’t even stop the war in Bosnia,

7
 much less push a great power around. Other institutions like NATO and EU haven’t been able to get states to
act against their strategic interests. Also, powerful states shape institutions to serve their interests, which often
contradict with the effectiveness and longevity of these institutions.
B. “In the age of nukes, offense is futile”: Nuclear weapons do decrease the probability of a great power war, but
it is still a possibility (chapter 4)
C. Democratic peace theory: “Democracies can be more certain of one another’s intentions, which are usually
benign. More democracies → more peace.”
1. Case studies on democracies that almost went to war with one another shows that a) no evidence that
countries had benign intentions; reasons for not fighting were more traditional BoP /realist
2. Backsliding into authoritarianism always possible
D. Constructivism: “Discourse drives international politics; let go of realist discourse → peace”
1. Even if we believe this premise, what makes us think that world leaders will talk in realist terms? And if
they do, how do we know that the discourse that replaces it will be better?
E. Economic interdependence / prosperity theory: If all the great powers are prospering & interdependent, none
has any incentive to start a war, because of the economic implications.
1. Serious economic crisis could undermine the prosperity needed for this theory to work.
2. States usually only fight against 1 or 2 other states, and a very small % of a state’s wealth is tied up in
trade with 1 or 2 other states.
F. “States will join together out of necessity to deal with common threats, like AIDS, global warming”
1. These issues are treated as second-order threats, and if they were to become deadly serious, no reason
to expect cooperation.
V. Ongoing security competitions in Northeast Asia and Europe
A. Security competition in Northeast Asia:
1. US and China could end up in a shooting war over Korea or (more likely) Taiwan
2. Realism a dominant form of thinking in China, and China views US & Japan as potential enemies
3. US should keep forces in NE Asia to pacify the region
B. Security competition in Europe:
1. Security competition and threat of GP war remain facts of life there. If Europe was really “primed for
peace,” NATO would be disbanded, and the ~100k US troops stationed there would be sent home.
2. Predictions that Russia will “eschew the selfish pursuit of power” and sing kumbaya with US/NATO to
also haven’t come to fruition.
a) NATO actions in Balkans reinforced Russians’ realist beliefs / concerns about US / NATO intentions
b) In 1993, Russia abandoned the USSR’s no first use policy and said it would initiate nuclear war if its
territorial integrity was threatened.
3. US withdrawal from Europe likely, because no longer worried about balancing a potential hegemon
C. Contests the notion that the world is really Unipolar. If the US were really a global hegemon, there would be
hardly any security competition in NE Asia / Europe.
VI. Predictions for 2020
A. Path 1: The US will leave EU/NE Asia, because it does not have to contain an emerging peer competitor →
region becomes less stable because states compete amongst one another without an offshore balancer
B. Path 2: The US stays in those regions, because there is a formidable rival → US fights with / has a tense
relationship with this rival
VII. US foreign policy:

8
A. Common arguments to stay in EU/NEA: 1) Idealist “peacekeeper” 2) Preventative involvement (before conflict
spirals into a big war that the US would be involved in anyway.)
B. Mearsheimer argues keeping peace in these regions is not a vital American interest