In an exclusive interview, John Mearsheimer tells My Take the war will drag on, and any ceasefire will at best lead to ‘a cold peace’ with significant gains for Russia.
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A decisive victory would be one where Russia ended up conquering all of Ukraine. People have argued Russia was determined to make it part of greater Russia. There is no way Russia is going to win a decisive victory. They are not going to conquer all of Ukraine. But Ukraine is going to lose some big chunks of territory. The Russians are going to conquer more than the 23 per cent that they have already conquered. My guess is that they will end up conquering about 43 per cent of Ukraine. They will end up conquering the Crimean peninsula and eight different
oblasts [regions] and that will represent a reasonably large chunk of territory, indeed close to half.
What’s left of Ukraine will be a dysfunctional rump state, which will not be capable of waging a major war against Russia; and it will not satisfy the criteria for joining either the EU or Nato. I think that will be the end result.
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I think China is the big winner in this conflict. The Americans have a vested interest in pivoting full force to East Asia, to contain China. The Americans view China as a more serious threat than Russia. It’s very important to understand that China is a peer competitor to the United States. China is a rising great power and is a threat to the US in ways that Russia is not. So the Americans have a vested interest in not getting bogged down in a war in eastern Europe, more specifically in Ukraine.
Furthermore, they have a vested interest in doing everything they can to make sure that Russia and China are not close allies. What happens as a result of the Ukraine war is that it’s almost impossible for the US to fully pivot in Asia.
The Americans have foolishly driven the Russians into the arms of the Chinese, which is a violation of balance of power politics 101. This is manna from heaven for the Chinese. It tells you, from China’s point of view, that the best outcome would be if the war goes on, and Russia does not lose, and the Americans remain deeply committed and frustrated in Europe so that they can’t concentrate on China and win the Russians away from the Chinese.
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