“The Persian Gulf war of 1991 and the Kosovo war in 1999 also hardened India's determination to possess nuclear weapons. The United States easily beat Iraq and Serbia by exploiting its enormous advantage in conventional arms. Had either foe possessed nuclear weapons, the United States might not have gone to war.”

American political scientist and international relations scholar

John Joseph Mearsheimer is an American political scientist and scholar of international relations, and a professor at the University of Chicago. He is known for his work on great power politics and the theory of offensive realism. His writing and teaching focus on how states compete for power in an anarchic international system. He has become widely associated with realist thinking in international affairs, especially questions of security, rivalry, and the behavior of major powers.