Session 12: Offensive Realism

John Mearsheimer in his book “The Tragedy of Great Power Politics” highlights that the primary concern of the states is to survive but due to the absence of an authority that maintains peace in the world, states are forced to help themselves. However, this can be refuted that international organizations such as United Nations and International Court of Justice are present and functioning to prevent wars around the world. But, we have already discussed in the class that these organizations too can be manipulated to work in the interests of powerful participants. For example, Sir quoted that USA finances UN substantially so it can be assumed that UN would be particularly interested in serving the United States of America since they are dependent on them.

Moreover, Mearsheimer says that in the anarchic system that prevails in the international arena, states pursue policies to gain more power and become hegemons because they believe that is the only feasible option to secure themselves from perceived threats. They do this by expanding their military capabilities coupled with economic and geographical expansion. An example of this can be the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Israeli’s committed genocide in Gaza in 2014, killing thousands of women and children on the pretext that Hamas provoked Israel to attack Gaza. A similar example of this can be the Russian annexation of Crimea, internationally recognized Ukrainian territory. In spite of condemnation of this illegal acquisition of territory by the NATO, UN failed to prevent it proving that indeed the states have to help themselves as mentioned earlier.