John Mearsheimer Quotes
In the anarchic world of international politics, it is better to be Godzilla than Bambi.
States care about relative wealth, because economic might is the foundation of military might.
The sad fact is that international politics has always been a ruthless and dangerous business, and it is likely to remain that way.
A state's potential power is based on the size of its population and the level of its wealth.
Offensive realism predicts that the United States will send its army across the Atlantic when there is a potential hegemon in Europe that the local great powers cannot contain by themselves.
China, in short has the potential to be considerably more powerful than even the United States.
Great powers must be forever vigilant and never subordinate survival to any other goal, including prosperity.
The ideal situation for any state is to experience sharp economic growth while its rivals' economies grow slowly or hardly at all.
The German air offensives against British cities in World Wars I and II not only failed to coerce the United Kingdom to surrender, but Germany also lost both wars.
I believe that the existing power structures in Europe and Northeast Asia are not sustainable through 2020.
The Soviet Union and its empire disappeared in large part because its smokestack economy could no longer keep up with the technological progress of the world's major economic powers.
When World War II started on September 1, 1939, the German army contained 3.74 million soldiers and 103 divisions.
In an ideal world, where there are only good states, power would be largely irrelevant.
The most dangerous states in the international system are continental powers with large armies.
This self-defeating behavior, so the argument goes, must be the result of warped domestic politics.