But it’s legitimately funny that you guys are taking the actual isolationist foreign policy of the US from 1939-1941 and are trying to say that JJM would somehow be EVEN MORE isolationist than the quite isolationist policy of the US. Realism isn’t isolationism!
If you actually care what Mearscheimer thinks about WW2, he has written extensively about it.
My understanding is that his basic view is that the US should act as a global balancer - not taking over foreign countries but keeping the proper balance - particularly in the Western Hemisphere. Regarding WW2, he absolutely supported US involvement as Germany was threatening to disrupt the proper balance of power in Europe and Japan doing the same in Asia (I think, but could be wrong, that his focus here was more on Europe, but still would have supported action against only Japan if needed).
I also believe that Mearscheimer supported a stronger response pre-war to Germany - I think primarily from the UK and France - not sure if he thought the US should have been more involved pre-1939.
Here is a somewhat decent article about his positions - warning it’s a bit long, so I’m assuming many won’t bother to read it and just continue to say what they think his positions are.
Some relevant quotes:
" Mearsheimer’s intellectually combative nature first disturbed the policy elite in 1988, with the publication of his critical biography, Liddell Hart and the Weight of History . In it, he asserts that the revered British military theorist Sir Basil H. Liddell Hart was wrong on basic strategic questions of the period between the first and second world wars, especially in his opposition to the use of military force against the Third Reich, and was a de facto appeaser even after evidence had surfaced about the systematic murder of Jews."
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““How is offshore balancing different from neo-isolationism?,” I ask him. “Isolationists,” he responds, “believe that there is no place outside of the Western Hemisphere to which it is worth deploying our troops. But offshore balancers believe there are three critical areas that no other hegemon should be allowed to dominate: Europe, the Persian Gulf, and Northeast Asia. Thus,” he goes on, “it was important to fight Nazi Germany and Japan in World War II. American history suits us to be offshore balancers—not isolationists, not the world’s sheriff.””
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The US was sending weapons to USSR, UK and China in 39-41. Hitler of all people ordered the U Boats not to attack US merchant ships because he feared US escalation.
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Were we? Lend Lease wasn’t passed until March 1941. Obviously destroyers for bases happened before that, but did we send significant quantities of weapons before then, excluding the 50 destroyers?
This sounds like some ret-conning because saying the US shouldn’t have gotten involved in WWII is obviously unpalatable. “offshore balancers” sounds like Calvinball for invading whenever you see fit. I still strongly suspect a Mearsheimer alive at the time would have been against US involvement until forced.
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Yeah I acknowledged those are his positions wrt to history and said I think he’s ret-conning. He wasn’t alive at the time, so we don’t know what he actually would have said in 1938. It’s pretty damn easy to come out in favor of a victory after the fact.
There were millions more Nazi apologists and America First isolationists in the US before WWII than after. They said it was Europe’s fault for post WWI reconstruction and provoking Hitler. It was a fairly popular niche position, like Mearsheimer’s is now.
If the US hadn’t gotten involved in WWII, you could just as easily say now there are 4 world orders instead of three - US, East Asia, Eastern Europe/Central Asia (assuming the Russian empire survived), and Western Europe. All the same theories still apply. Superpowers do what they will.
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I have no idea how to dispute that argument so guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
Only thing I’ll note is he supported Iraq War 1 in real time, so not like he never supports US interventions.
Offensive realism/offshore balancing is much more interventionist than the America FIrst isolationism that hamstrung FDR from 1939-1941! I don’t see why Mearsheimer would think that the US was TOO interventionist from 1939-41, that’s crazy.
I think it’s correct to say that FDR’s instincts conform with the offshore balancing framework, but he was hamstrung by the strong isolationism then present in US politics.
Exactly. It’s pretty obvious why Russia picked Ukraine to invade before Estonia, and that is not consistent with an argument for why NATO should have slammed the door in Ukraine’s face.
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When should NATO have admitted Ukraine as a member?
Unfortunately it seems like it had to play out like this to prove that Putin’s ambition in Ukraine had nothing to do with NATO, and everything to do with them being a liberal democracy.
Ukraine wasn’t close to joining NATO, Putin had been given assurances they would never be allowed to join NATO, and yet he still invaded.
Now that the world knows his legitimate security concerns are really just desire for more authoritarian puppet states, the whole game as changed. No one has to stay out of NATO for fear of upsetting Putin. That ship has sailed.
The interesting part of Mersh’s WW2 take is him saying that allying with the Soviets was strategic but immoral, when clearly it was strategic AND moral.
No he wasn’t, at least by anyone that matters.
Are you sure? Ok maybe never was a bad word. But he was given assurances it wasn’t on the horizon any time soon. At least I swear I’ve read that.
General NATO policy is that countries are allowed to join if they meet the conditions. Staying off Putin’s shit list isn’t one of the conditions. They call it the “Open Door Policy”.
The moment they asked for it, basically. They can be admitted to NATO way faster than Russia could ever have positioned troops for a possible invasion. So, unless you believe in infinite deference to any strongman with nukes - - that they should never be aggravated under any circumstances - - it’s pretty clear empirically that admittance to NATO is a stronger deterrent than it is an aggravation.
Sure but I’ve read a bunch of times that NATO has been cool to Ukraine since 2014 to keep Putin happy.
So when was that exactly?