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Frank Visser, graduated as a psychologist of culture and religion, founded IntegralWorld in 1997. He worked as production manager for various publishing houses and as service manager for various internet companies and lives in Amsterdam. Books: Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion (SUNY, 2003), and The Corona Conspiracy: Combatting Disinformation about the Coronavirus (Kindle, 2020).

John Mearsheimer and the Ukraine War

Realism or Russian Echo?

Frank Visser / ChatGPT

Few Western academics have attracted as much controversy during the Ukraine war as John Mearsheimer, the University of Chicago political scientist and leading theorist of “offensive realism.” His argument is simple but provocative: the war is primarily the fault of the West. By expanding NATO and encouraging Ukraine's drift toward the European Union, the United States and its allies left Moscow no choice but to act. Russia's invasion, in this view, was a tragic but predictable consequence of great-power politics.

This framing has made Mearsheimer a lightning rod in debates about the war. Critics accuse him of spreading Russian talking points, even if unintentionally. Why does his analysis sound so similar to Kremlin propaganda? The answer lies in the intersection of his theoretical commitments and Moscow's own narrative.

The Realist Lens

Mearsheimer's intellectual framework rests on a few pillars:

• Great powers dominate international politics. They act ruthlessly to secure their borders and spheres of influence.
• The security dilemma is inescapable. Moves by one state to enhance its security (such as NATO enlargement) appear threatening to others.
• Small states lack autonomy. Countries like Ukraine are pawns in a larger struggle between superpowers.

From this vantage point, the West made a fatal error by promising NATO membership to Ukraine in 2008, supporting the Maidan uprising in 2014, and arming Kyiv after Russia annexed Crimea. Moscow's invasion in 2022, Mearsheimer insists, was not ideological but defensive—a response to the intolerable encroachment of NATO.

Overlap with Kremlin Talking Points

The problem is that this account closely mirrors the story Russia tells the world:

• NATO is the aggressor. Russia is the victim of Western encirclement.
• The 2014 Maidan was a Western-backed coup. Ukraine's sovereignty is an illusion.
• Russia acted defensively. The invasion was forced upon Moscow.

Of course, there are differences. Mearsheimer does not deny Russia's brutality, nor does he parrot Putin's talk of Ukraine as a “fake nation.” But the overlap is undeniable. Both shift responsibility away from Moscow and onto the West. Both deny Ukrainians much agency in their own history. Both present the war as a reaction to NATO, not a choice driven by Russian imperial ambition.

This rhetorical convergence is why Mearsheimer's lectures are widely circulated on Russian state media. His academic authority lends legitimacy to the Kremlin's line, even if he insists his intent is explanatory, not apologetic.

Scholarly Critiques

Other historians and political analysts push back sharply against this framing. They argue that:

• Ukrainian agency matters. Ukrainians were not manipulated into resisting Russia; they chose democracy, European integration, and independence. To portray them as pawns echoes imperial logic.
• Ideology drives Moscow. Putin has repeatedly denied Ukraine's right to exist, casting the invasion as a mission to “reunite the Russian world.” This goes far beyond NATO fears.
• History is selective. Russia had been interfering in Ukraine well before NATO membership was ever on the table. Energy coercion, disinformation, and territorial designs were longstanding.
• Theory distorts reality. By forcing events into the mold of structural realism, Mearsheimer sidelines nationalism, values, and the moral stakes of the conflict.
• The policy outcome is appeasement. His prescription—halting NATO support, freezing Ukraine's Western ties, and conceding Russia's sphere of influence—would mean sacrificing Ukraine's sovereignty for a supposed balance of power.

As historian Timothy Snyder put it, Mearsheimer reduces Ukrainians to “objects of other people's history,” while the war is in fact about their struggle to assert their subjecthood.

The Ukrainian View

For Ukrainians themselves, Mearsheimer's arguments strike a raw nerve. Intellectuals and officials have reacted with anger, seeing his theory as a dangerous denial of their reality:

• Philosopher Volodymyr Yermolenko argues that Mearsheimer ignores Russia's imperial mindset, which has sought to erase Ukraine for centuries.
• Historian Yaroslav Hrytsak has said Mearsheimer “speaks of Ukraine as if Ukrainians do not exist.”
• Former foreign minister Pavlo Klimkin warned that “realism without values means giving us up to slaughter.”

To many in Kyiv, his insistence that the West is to blame amounts to victim-blaming. Ukrainians did not invade Russian territory, annex Russian land, or massacre Russian civilians. Yet Mearsheimer places the bulk of responsibility on NATO policies rather than on Moscow's decision to wage a war of aggression.

Realism or Russian Echo?

Mearsheimer insists he is simply following the logic of realism: explaining rather than justifying. But explanation is never neutral. By consistently downplaying Russia's imperial ideology and denying Ukrainian agency, his framing produces outcomes indistinguishable from Kremlin propaganda: blame the West, treat Ukraine as expendable, and accept Russian domination of its neighbors.

For critics, this is not realism but reductionism—a theory that mistakes abstractions for reality and ends up excusing aggression. For Ukrainians, it is more dangerous still: an academic gloss on their erasure.

Conclusion

John Mearsheimer's arguments on the Ukraine war expose the limits of structural realism when confronted with the lived reality of nations struggling for independence. By privileging great-power rivalry over sovereignty, and security dilemmas over moral responsibility, he tells a story that resonates in Moscow more than in Kyiv. His analysis may be grounded in theory, but its consequences echo as propaganda.

In the end, the war in Ukraine is not just about NATO expansion or balance-of-power politics. It is about the survival of a nation—something Mearsheimer's framework cannot fully grasp, but which Ukrainians themselves know all too well.