Did Russia Manipulate Mearsheimer? | Ask The Professor

0:03 Hi, this is John Meersheimer, and I'm here once again to answer questions from channel members. The question today comes from someone who has the username Borso, B-O-R-E-S-O-W. And he asks this question: States often try to leverage respected foreign scholars to reinforce their preferred narratives? After your recent visit to Russia, how do you separate genuine insights you heard on the ground from messaging designed to shape Western discourse?

0:50 What criteria help you ensure you're not unintentionally amplifying propaganda while still giving an honest account of what you observed? I think there are really sort of two issues here. The first question is: should I talk to people whose views are considered controversial in the West? Given that I live in the West, should I talk to people who have views that the majority consider to be wrong-headed, dangerous, outrageous, what have you?

1:37 That's issue number one. And then issue number two, what about the question that I'm being manipulated by foreign leaders or foreign elites in rival states when I talk to people in those countries? Now, let me take each of these issues in turn. First of all, with regard to talking to controversial people, I ran into a lot of problems a number of years ago when I went to Hungary and I had a three-hour one-on-one conversation with Viktor Orban, who of course was then the head of Hungary.

2:22 And a number of people felt that I should not have talked to him, uh, that this was wrong. Now, I think this is a ridiculous argument. Uh I'm a scholar, and my job is to talk to people of all sorts and to learn from them. I don't have to agree with people uh to talk with them. And in fact, it's oftentimes better to talk to people you disagree with, sometimes in fundamental ways.

2:58 And I would note that if you were doing a book on Al-Qaeda, would you not talk to Al-Qaeda operatives because you think they're bad guys? Or if you were doing a book on ISIS and you had an opportunity to talk to members of ISIS, would you not do that? Of course you would talk to those members of ISIS or uh those members of Al-Qaeda, right?

3:31 But to go back to the case of Viktor Orban, uh Victor Orban is a very smart man, uh, a very influential individual. Of course, he's no longer the leader in Hungary, but he was at the time I talked to him. And there's no question that there were certain things that he said that I disagreed with. But the purpose of my discussion with him was to learn from him.

3:59 And you can learn from someone like Viktor Orban even if you disagree with him. And I think it's a major mistake when people uh refuse to talk to others because they fundamentally disagree with their worldview. Uh and uh I think that uh one can actually learn a lot uh by pressing someone uh who you disagree with on what he or she thinks about X or Y or Z.

4:32 For example, when I talked to Orbon, uh we talked about the relationship between liberalism and nationalism, or liberalism and democracy. He views himself as an illiberal democrat. I view myself as a liberal democrat, and talking to him about liberalism uh was very fruitful from my point of view. So, anyway, my basic point is that individuals should talk to other individuals who they disagree with, even if in fundamental ways.

5:10 And I think certainly if you're a scholar and you're interested in learning about a particular subject, you're interested in learning about what's going on in European politics, as I am, you would be a fool not to talk to Viktor Orban. Why would you pass up that opportunity? If I had an opportunity to talk to Vladimir Putin, I'd talk to him in a second.

5:35 This is just the sort of thing that scholars do, all for the purposes of figuring out how the world works. You learn from interactions with people you disagree with. And as I said before, sometimes you learn more from people you disagree with than you learn from people who you agree with. Then there's the issue of serving as a propaganda tool for a rival government.

6:03 And obviously the United States uh views Russia as a rival today. And uh if I go to Russia and uh I talk to Sergei Lavrov, or I make the argument that uh the principal cause of the Ukraine war is not Russian imperialism, it's actually NATO expansion into Ukraine. I am making an argument that is an argument that the Russians make.

6:41 As we all know in the West, the argument is that Putin is an imperialist and he's principally responsible for causing the Ukraine war because he was interested in conquering Ukraine and making it part of a greater Russia, and then he was interested in expanding into Eastern Europe. This is the conventional wisdom in the West.

7:01 My argument is uh very different, I think, from having studied the evidence very carefully that there is no evidence to support the conventional wisdom, and all of the available evidence supports the view that it was NATO expansion that in a sense forced Putin's hand and led him to invade Ukraine in February of 2022.

7:34 Now, it just happens that my view dovetails with the Russian view. But my view was not formulated based on interactions with the Russians. It was not designed to curry favor with the Russians. I studied the issue very carefully. I believe the evidence supports my view. I believe I should be a truth-teller.

8:02 In other words, I should seek to tell the truth as I see it. And if people disagree with me, so be it. But it wasn't a case of me trying to kowtow favor with the Russians. It was just me telling the story the way I saw it. And the fact that it agrees with the Russian interpretation of what caused the war in Ukraine is not something I have any control over.

8:32 And I'm not surprised that they're sympathetic to what I have to say. It makes perfect sense from their point of view. But that was not what drove me to make the arguments that I make. And any scholar who writes on any subject understands full well from the get-go that different people will use your arguments in different ways, and you don't have any control over that.

8:57 Your responsibility, I believe, as a scholar is just to call it as you see it. And that's what I did. Now, one final point on this. One might wonder whether or not when I go to Russia, when I talk to people in the Russian elite, and this includes, of course, people like Lavrov, or to go back to the earlier discussion when I talked to people like Viktor Orban, that they are influencing my thinking, that they are manipulating me.

9:30 They're changing their arguments to uh, in very sophisticated ways, cause me to think in uh ways that are sympathetic to their views. I don't think that happens at all. Uh I think in almost all of the cases I've dealt with over the many years I've been in this business, people pretty much tell you what they think.

9:53 Uh certainly true in the academic world, but I've always found that to be true in the policy world. And when you're talking about people like Viktor Orban or Sergei Lavrov, you're talking about people who have uh rich track records of commentary. They have stated their views very clearly on numerous occasions.

10:17 And when you get together and talk to people like that, uh you're talking about what they've said in the past. And what they say when you meet them invariably is a repeat of what they have said in the past. And what you try to do is just probe deeper. But I never have had the sense that people like that or any other of my interlocutors over time have been trying to manipulate me.

10:47 I find that in almost all discussions I have with prominent people and not so prominent people, that people basically tell you what they think and they don't try to manipulate you. But regardless, I would argue that it's very hard to manipulate me, in large part because I figure things out on my own, uh, and it's quite clear that I'm willing to say things that are not part of the conventional wisdom that are likely to get me in trouble, as is clear from my views on the causes of the war in Ukraine.

11:28 So thank you for the question, and uh I look forward to my next opportunity to answer another question from another channel member.