John Mearsheimer is a prominent political scientist and scholar within the so-called realist school of thought. For years he warned USA not to even think about inviting Ukraine into NATO. His prophesies were fulfilled, as we have seen, and for that he has been “punished”, as it were, banished from mainstream media. Like so many other critics of US foreign policy, he has become a Substack fugitive.

Interestingly, he was the author of a rather curious book published in 2011: Why Leaders Lie. According to Wikipedia, the book maintains:

….that leaders do not lie much to other countries, and that democratic leaders are actually more likely to lie to their own people than autocrats…. Mearsheimer argues that leaders are most likely to lie to their own people in democracies that fight wars of choice in distant places. The author says that it is difficult for leaders to lie to other countries because there is not much trust among them, especially when security issues are at stake, and you need trust for lying to be effective. He concludes that it is easier for leaders to lie to their own people because there is usually a good deal of trust between them.

Mearsheimer suggests that most political lies fall into one of five categories: inter-state lies, fear-mongering, strategic cover-ups, nationalist myths, and liberal lies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Leaders_Lie, as on 5 July 2023

In his article in Substack of 23 June this year (Substack invites you to subscribe, but allows you to “continue reading” if you don’t want to), Mearsheimer paints a very gloomy picture of the outcome of the Ukraine war. Unlike Jeffrey Sacks, another prominent statesman now banned from mainstream media, he more or less discounts the possibility of a peace accord. Ever. I must say I deeply hope he is wrong, but his arguments are compelling, and he certainly was right about his pre-war warnings.

The article is interesting also due to the very numerous references he cites.