"In the 1930s, Adolf Hitler believed that his great-power rivals would be easy to exploit and isolate because each had little interest in fighting Germany and instead was determined to get someone else to assume the burden. He guessed right."

John Mearsheimer Science See all quotes by John Mearsheimer →

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“Bandwagoning is a strategy for the weak.”

“Great powers must be forever vigilant and never subordinate survival to any other goal, including prosperity.”

“The liberal tradition has its roots in the Enlightenment, that period in the eighteenth-century Europe when intellectuals and political leaders had a powerful sense that reason could be employed to make the world a better place.”

“China, in short has the potential to be considerably more powerful than even the United States.”

“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.”

“When an aggressor comes on the scene, at least one other state will eventually take direct responsibility for checking it.”

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