Mearsheimer and Offensive Neorealism

John J Mearsheimer in his book “the tragedy of the great power politics” argues in favor of an IR theory that he himself puts forth in this book, the theory of offensive neorealism. Mearsheimer argues, similar to Waltz, that the International political system is anarchic with no over-arching power having authority over all. He also posits that, each state is a self-interested rational actor in this political system and, will only do what‘s in its best interest.

                This theory though, differs from Waltz’s defensive neorealism in that, it believes that each rational actor in the anarchic system only looks to maximize its power at all times and looks to first become a regional and eventually a global hegemon; whereas defensive realism just believes that each state will do anything and everything necessary for its survival, and will take a reactionary approach to acts occurring In the system. According to both theories, though the main aim of each and every actor is to maximize self-interest, but offensive realism entails a highly aggressive strategy, whereby states should try and act first to neutralize any possible threat, before that possible threat, in actuality starts to threaten the security of the state or its control in the region.

                Numerous examples of the application of offensive Realism can be seen to exist in the real world, e.g. the Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL), which was the US invasion of Iraq for, according to the US, neutralizing Saddam, and according to most, the US taking control of the Iraqi oil fields and securing the energy crisis that the US might have to deal with sometime in the future.

                So even though, offensive realism might look to us like a very rigid theory, which no state would actually believe in, or act upon, the fact that, offensive realism is a reality that in actuality drives most states, remains.