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Introduction
Dangerous security competition will inevitably re-emerge in post-Cold War Europe and Asia.1 International institutions cannot produce peace. Germany and Japan are likely to pursue nuclear deterrents. America is likely to end its continental commitments in Europe and Asia. The United States (US) should curb China's rise. All great powers act as aggressive power-maximizers despite embracing liberal democracy. America was wrong to invade Iraq and Afghanistan. These statements roughly sum up the conclusions suggested by John Mearsheimer in his numerous articles and books covering a range of subjects on international relations. The provocative nature of Mearsheimer's work has spurred several major debates both within the sub-discipline of international relations (IR) and beyond academia.2 As a consequence of this remarkable ability to inspire important debates, Mearsheimer stands out as one on the most controversial and influential contributors to the contemporary realist tradition. In his earlier writings, Mearsheimer was primarily concerned with strategic studies and produced a number of articles and books on military strategy (Mearsheimer 1983, 1984, 1988, 1989). However, the underpinnings of his most debated arguments are his particular version of structural realism, dubbed 'offensive realism', which is fully developed in the book, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (Mearsheimer 2001c) -- although his theoretical argument is present in earlier works as well (e.g. Mearsheimer 1988: 225, 1995a, 1995b, 1998, 2001b).
In this article, I deal with Mearsheimer's theoretical work with the purpose of appraising his specific contribution to the structural realist strand within the broad realist tradition in the study of international relations.3 This is an important task for two main reasons. First, the accumulation of knowledge is probably the most celebrated scientific ideal and Mearsheimer explicitly builds on and seeks to improve the insights of Kenneth Waltz's structural realism (neorealism) with its focus on the effects of the international anarchic structure. Consequently, it is highly important to evaluate whether Mearsheimer succeeds in this endeavour. Second, Mearsheimer has used his work as a platform for launching strong criticisms against both competing IR theories and as a vehicle for devising foreign policy prescriptions. And because the process of making national security policy is affected by the ideas and theories that shape the central debates of the day, it is important to...