John Mearsheimer

“I believe it is no accident that the world is populated with nation-states.”

“Great power wars are very costly and dangerous, causing massive loss of life and worldwide turmoil, and possibly spreading to involve other countries.”

“Nuclear weapons are an excellent deterrent against aggression, and India lives in a dangerous neighborhood. Since gaining independence in 1947, it has fought three wars with Pakistan and has come close to war with Pakistan three other times.”

“The best way for any state to deter a rival from using its nuclear arsenal for political gain is to have its own nuclear retaliatory force. This basic fact of life in the nuclear age explains why the United States has no intention of giving up its nuclear weapons, even if it deploys a sophisticated national missile defense system.”

“Normally the world's most powerful political ideology, nationalism had limited influence in the Soviet Union because it was at odds with communism. Chinese nationalism, however, has been gathering steam since the early 1990s.”

“The unpleasant truth is that some borders are untenable and preserving them causes conflict, not peace.”

“When the United States worked to contain the Soviet Union during the Cold War, we went to enormous lengths to get as many countries on the planet as possible on our side of the ledger, balancing with us against the Soviet Union.”

“Nuclear weapons are considered the ultimate deterrent for good reason: Adversaries are unlikely to threaten the existence of a nuclear-armed state, especially one with a deterrent that can survive a first-strike attack, because that is the one circumstance in which a state is likely to use its nuclear weapons.”

“If you take the long view, Australia has never been able to sit on the fence when there was a threat in East Asia.”

“As the Cold War came to a close, Soviet leaders preferred that U.S. forces remain in Europe and NATO stay intact, an arrangement they thought would keep a reunified Germany pacified. But they and their Russian successors did not want NATO to grow any larger and assumed that Western diplomats understood their concerns.”

“Since Lithuania is a NATO member, the United States would almost certainly come to its defense if Russia attacked the country.”

“I hate authority.”

“Daily life is essentially a struggle for power.”

“I hate sleeping in the woods.”

“The teaching of honest national history is especially important, since the teaching of false, chauvinist history is the main vehicle for spreading hypernationalism.”

“When you hear Americans talk about American exceptionalism, American exceptionalism is American nationalism at play.”

“If anything, the historical record demonstrates that great powers can inflict enormous punishment on their adversaries - with blockades, sanctions, sieges and bombing campaigns - and yet the pain rarely causes target states to surrender.”

“Obama is principally responsible for getting the United States involved in Syria - although we didn't use military force there, we have played a key role in the effort to overthrow Bashar al-Assad, which has failed and has created a disastrous situation.”

“No sensible Iranian leader is going to wage his country's survival on who gets elected president of the United States.”

“In fact, as soon as it declared independence, Ukraine should have been quietly encouraged to fashion its own nuclear deterrent.”