Discussions About Theories of International Relations Such as Realism

I’m not asking you to be an expert. I’m asking you to not be the equivalent of someone who says that Milton Friedman makes a lot of sense so you don’t need to know anything about what the Keynesians say.

I’m not saying that people don’t need to know about various IR theories. I’m saying I don’t know much about the various IR theories, including Mearsheimer’s offensive realism. I don’t have an opinion about IR beyond generally thinking that Mearsheimer’s post cold war analysis makes a lot more sense than Fukuyama’s. But that’s probably not fair to Fukuyama because I never read his rebuttal to Mearsheimer, if he had one.

Back atcha bub

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This is your warning, no name calling.

I’m saying it would make you a better person and make this thread more interesting if you had the intellectual curiosity to learn more about IR. The same advice is valid for almost everyone else in this thread.

These are your warnings @boredsocial and @anon59375068, you’re clearly just trying to provoke/troll each other.

Well I never claimed any expertise, at all. Including in offensive realism! You’re trying to shoehorn me into the “offensive realist” label and then scold me for not carefully reviewing all the other IR schools of thought.

A post was merged into an existing topic: About Moderation (Don’t Take the Bait)

No, I’m trying to encourage you to learn more so that you can make an informed decision on whether the “offensive realist” label is right for you. (This is a partly selfish motive, as I think that doing so would make this thread less repetitive and better.)

How did you even glom onto Mearsheimer as your go-to expert for IR? Is his book the only IR book you have read?

i’m only doing it for your amusement

Right! I never said that “offensive realist” is the right label for me. YOU insisted on that:

Look if you want write about the other theories of IR and how they might relate to Ukraine I’ll happily read it. If you just want to shoehorn me into John’s pet theory and scold me for not reading about other IR theories, well, that sounds less fun. And since the answer to your question is in the quoted post, I have to question if you’re even reading what I’m writing here.

Lmfao

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Asking if you agree with offensive realism is not the same as insisting you are an offensive realist. Wouldn’t you want me to ask if you are an offensive realist before calling you one?

Do you think the idea of Keeed learning more is laughable?

giphy

I’m not sure how you could read my answer to your question here

and think that I think that I’m an offensive realist. It’d be like reading one of Milton Friedman’s books aimed at a popular audience and saying that makes me a Chicago-school economist. Utterly ridiculous and insulting to the people who devote their professional lives to the study of these subjects.

It sounds like having read a book and watched some videos of a prominent offensive realist, you’ve found it satisfactory for explaining everything you need to know about international relations so you don’t need to know any other viewpoints (except what you may encounter through Mearsheimer’s critique of them). Is this an accurate description of how you think about IR?

No. I find Mearsheimer’s arguments compelling but I am certainly open to other points of view. And as I said reading only a single viewpoint is unfair to those other points of view because you’re just getting one side, unrebutted.

Is it fair to say that you haven’t been seeking out those other points of view to learn about them and would prefer that someone present them to you here?

Sure.