Despite its shocking incompatibility with the “rules-based international order” established by 150 years of treaties rooted in just war theory and natural law, Mearsheimer’s view is popular because it claims to be brutally honest about “harder, darker constraints of an anarchic world,” which follow from a few postulates about sovereign states and their leaders’ motives.
But in fact, the spell it casts on thinking about foreign policy is deeply misleading for three main reasons, ranging from more to less obvious.
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