“The Americans are a real problem”. A conversation with lex Fridman

In an interview with Lex Fridman, American political scientist, professor at the University of Chicago John Mearsheimer comments on the situation of the current world system crisis based on the ideas of offensive realism developed by him since the early 2000s, according to which even great powers interested only in maintaining security are forced to compete and conflict with each other, striving for hegemony (the greatest influence) and plunging the world into a systemic state of anarchy. According to Mearsheimer, this historical trend is not dictated by the will to power inherent in political leaders such as Napoleon Bonaparte or Adolf Hitler, but is coupled with a structural argument, which, in relation to the current crisis, is the wave of NATO expansions (actual — in 1999 and 2004, declared — in 2008), which was actively rejected by Russia. The role of the personality (leader) remains significant today, however, the situation of trust necessary for conducting a direct peacemaking dialogue now also acts as structurally conditioned, primarily negatively — due to numerous cases of deceived trust in the past. At the same time, such a structural moment as the existence in the current conditions of the MAD-world (the world of mutually assured destruction), as before, as in the situation of the 1961 Caribbean crisis, not only provides opportunities for manipulating risks, but also acts as a tangible last limit for self-understanding towards peace.