Putin's aim is to restore the Soviet Empire? Rubbish!

 

Tucker Carlson interview with John Mearsheimer - 30 July 2025.

TUCKER: "Where are we in Ukraine right now?"

JOHN: "Well, we're in deep trouble if you mean the United States... The Russians are winning the war and there's no way that Ukraine can rescue the situation. If you look at the balance of power in terms of weaponry and in terms of manpower, the number of soldiers that each side has, the Ukrainians are in a hopeless situation. And furthermore, they're heavily dependent on the West for support. And President Trump has made it clear that he's not going to refill the Biden pipeline once all the weaponry in that pipeline runs out. So the Ukrainians are doomed. 

And if you look at what's happening on the battlefield, it's quite clear that the Ukrainians understand that their defenses are slowly but steadily collapsing.

Now, one might say, well, can't we get a negotiated settlement? Can't we bring this war to an end? And the fact is that neither the Ukrainians nor the West, and here we're talking mainly about the Europeans, is willing to cut a deal that's acceptable to the Russians, so there's no way you're going to have a diplomatic settlement to this war. It's going to be settled on the battlefield and the Russians are going to win an ugly victory and you're going to have a frozen conflict...

Russia has a set of demands. There are three main demands and I'll spell them out in a second, but they are unacceptable to the Ukrainians. They're unacceptable to the West. Donald Trump may find them acceptable, but he's surrounded by people in his administration and, certainly true, in the American foreign policy establishment, who wouldn't accept those demands. 

And the big three demands are, number one: that Ukraine has to be a neutral state. It cannot be a NATO and it cannot have a security guarantee from the United States or from the west more generally. So it has to be neutral.

Second is that Ukraine cannot have a significant offensive military capability. Ukraine has to be demilitarized to the point where it doesn't present a threat to Russia. And then third and maybe most important of all, the Ukrainians and the West have to accept the fact that Russia has annexed Crimea and those four Oblass in eastern 1/5 of Ukraine that they now almost occupy.

So in other words, you're asking Ukraine to give up about 20% of its territory, and the Ukrainians won't do that. And they won't agree not to be in NATO. And they will not agree to disarm in some meaningful way. So there's no way you get a settlement."

TUCKER: "So why wouldn't you want to get out of that with as little destruction as possible?"

JOHN: "Well, you're going to get an armistice in all likelihood. And this is why we say you'll have a a frozen conflict that will present all sorts of problems moving down the road. I have long argued that the Ukrainians should cut a deal now, because what's going to happen is, the Russians are going to end up taking more territory and the Russians have made it clear that any territory they take they'll keep. And furthermore, more Ukrainians are going to die the longer the war goes on. 

So if you believe, like I do and many people do, that Ukraine is losing, the smart thing to do is cut a deal now and minimize your losses, both in terms of territory and people killed on the battlefield.

But you just can't sell that argument. And why why can't you sell that argument? I think it's probably nationalism in the case of the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians view the Russians as existential threat and they're willing to fight and die in huge numbers. They're willing to make incredible sacrifices to do everything they can to win this war and they just won't quit. And in terms of the West, it's easy for the West...

I don't believe the West has a strategic stake in this for one second, but the Russophobia in the West is so powerful at this point in time that, especially among the elites in Europe and in the United States, that getting them to concede that the Russians have won this war, or going to win this war, is just unacceptable... The Russians are not allowed to have legitimate security concerns in the minds of most Western elites."

TUCKER: "Why?"

JOHN: "I don't know. It it befuddles me. If you look at the Russian reaction to NATO expansion into Ukraine, which I believe is the taproot of this war, it's analogous to America's Monroe Doctrine. The United States under no circumstances would allow the Soviet Union to put missiles in Cuba or to locate a naval base at Cen Fueos in Cuba. That was just unacceptable. This is what the Monroe doctrine is all about. We'd never allow China to station military forces in Mexico or in Canada. But yet we think we have the right to move NATO far enough eastward to include Ukraine, and then put NATO assets, including American military assets, in Ukraine. 

And this is not of concern to the Russians, they shouldn't care. They should recognize that Ukraine has the right to do whatever it wants. NATO has the right to expand wherever it wants and Russia has no say in the matter. The Russians of course don't accept this because they have a Monroe doctrine of their own. But we can't get it through our thick skulls that this is foolish thinking on our part and is destined to lead to trouble as it has...

We have convinced ourselves, both the Europeans and the Americans, that Russia is a mortal threat to dominate all of Europe. This is a ridiculous argument... The Russians have had a very difficult time conquering the eastern 15th of Ukraine. Just think about that. 

Over three plus years, they have been unable to conquer all the territory in those four oblasts that they've enexed. Please tell me how this army is going to overrun all of Ukraine, then overrun Eastern Europe, and then overrun Western Europe. This is a laughable argument... 

I don't think Putin is going to even try to conquer the western half, much less Poland and Romania and the rest... I mean, the idea that a country like Russia is going to, you know, invade and occupy and run the politics of countries in Eastern Europe is a remarkably foolish idea. And again, they don't even have the military capability to do that."

TUCKER: But that is the idea. And when you talk to Europeans about it, as I often do, they say that Putin's aim is to restore the Soviet Empire. And he said that and you know, just listen to what he says. He wants he pines for the Soviet era and he wants to restore it."

JOHN: "He's never said that. In fact, he said that, you know, he can understand why someone in his or her heart pines for the Soviet Union, but in his or her head it makes absolutely no sense. He said that the idea that you can recreate the Soviet Union, number one, and then two, recreate the Soviet Empire is a pipe dream...

You know, most people don't realize this, but the Soviets and then the Russians were perfectly content to see the United States remain in Europe and for NATO to remain intact after the Cold War because the Soviets/Russians understood that we served as a pacifier. What they didn't want, and they made this very clear, was NATO expansion. 

And of course what we did starting in 1994 was to expand NATO eastward again to move the pacifier from over just Western Europe to over all of Europe. And that is what that is what has produced the catastrophe in Ukraine. By the time NATO gets to the Baltics and then we start talking openly, as the Biden administration did, just openly, like at press conferences, about moving NATO into Ukraine, it's very obvious that that's going to trigger a conflict with Russia at some point...

The first big tranch is 1999. That's Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. 99. Then 2004 is when the Baltic states come in. 2008 is when the critical decision is made. April 2008 to bring Ukraine into NATO. Okay. 

But to get to the heart of your question, what's very interesting is if you go back and look at many of the planning documents... about NATO expansion, people recognize at the time that Ukraine is a special case and it will be a huge source of trouble if we move NATO into Ukraine. So you can get away with Poland. You can even get away with the Baltic states, but Ukraine is a different matter. And it's very important to understand that we understood that from the get-go. 

So the question then becomes what you're asking is why did we do it, right? What's going on here? Why didn't we just back off? And I think the answer is we thought we could shove it down their throat.

You want to understand, they opposed the 99 expansion, the first tranch. We just shoved it down their throat. Yeah. What's Boris Yelson going to do about it? That's right. That's exactly right. What's he going to do about it? 

And then, 2004, Putin's in control now. We shove it down their face, down their throat again. So in 2008, immediately after NATO says at the Bucharest, April 2008 NATO Bucharest summit, immediately after he says that NATO says that Ukraine will be brought into NATO, Putin makes it manifestly clear that this is unacceptable, that this is an existential threat, and that Russia will not let it happen. 

And by the way, at that April 2008 NATO summit, they said they were not only going to bring Ukraine into NATO, they're going to bring Georgia into NATO. That's April 2008. A war breaks out in Georgia in August of 2008 over this very issue.

So, you would expect us to back off at that point, but we don't back off. In fact, we double down. And then when the crisis first starts, this is in 2014, February 22nd, 2014. That's when the crisis starts. That's when the Russians take Crimea. This is when you understand or should understand the Russians mean business. 

Do we back off? Do we try to accommodate the Russians in any way? Absolutely not. We plow forward and then of course we get the war in 2022. And you ask yourself, why did we do this? And by the way, if you look at the process, the decision-making process after Joe Biden moves into the White House in January 2021, January 2021, and then 13 months later, the war breaks out, Biden makes no effort whatsoever to accommodate the Russians.

So again, the question is why? What's going on here? Yes, we're just going to shove it down their throat. We think we're Godzilla. We think it's still the unipolar moment...

One fundamental difference between Biden and Trump is that Biden was fully committed to the war and wanted to do everything he could to make sure the United States stayed in the game, and continued to support Ukraine no matter what. Trump definitely wanted to end the war. He's been unsuccessful. He really doesn't know what he's doing. He doesn't know how to end the war, but he does want to end it."

"The Palestinian Genocide and How the West Has Been Deceived Into Supporting It" follows...