Thanks for laying this out clearly. The key point that gets lost in most commentary is that the structure of the US–Russia nuclear relationship has not changed. Regardless of modernization programs, exotic delivery systems, or incremental warhead additions, the strategic balance remains governed by mutual assured destruction. Both states retain survivable second-strike capability across land, sea, and air. That’s the only metric that matters.
The political narrative about “nuclear advantage” or “closing the gap” functions more as domestic signaling and threat inflation than strategic assessment. It’s the same pattern we’ve seen since the 1950s: exaggerated claims of disparity, justification for budget expansion, escalation spiral justified in hindsight.
Meanwhile, the claims about Russia preparing to test are not evidence-based. They’re tempo management, manufacturing urgency to maintain rhetorical and funding momentum in Washington.
If anything, the proliferation of novel Russian systems underscores the opposite of what many pundits claim: they are insurance against US missile defense expansion, not credible first-strike tools that alter the stability equation.
Trump is old enough, and possibly ill enough, to expire or become incapacitated in the near future. His sponsors, however, will continue onward as they have done for decades.
Trump did not attain his current position on his own. THAT is a serious problem.
Yeah. The Democrats have been running on Trump, Trump, Trump now for the last decade, while at the same time offering tepid breadcrumbs or nothing at all to the American people in return. No wonder Zohran Mamdani is crushing it right now in New York city.
The human race has developed a unique and unexplained quality which we call ‘consciousness’ I’ve never been able to shake the suspicion that the human race has developed a separate and equally unexplained propensity for self destruction. The suicide gene.
We're very close to it all coming to an end right now. And over what? A relatively few neurotic power hungry individuals who don't give a damn about the future of the human race?
It is really a mad world professor. The human race could be doing so much more right now instead of building more bombs. If it's over resources, look above - look at the incredible amount of resources (energy and minerals) awaiting the human race in our own solar system. Why are we so intent on destroying ourselves before we venture from this fragile planet called earth? We could do it, if we weren't so intent on destroying ourselves. Or more to the point: the idiots running the planet right now could do it, if they were less myopic in their vision, and less power hungry.
The human race has allowed an incredibly small number of its members to amass control of tremendous wealth and resources— at least on paper.
Those members only have the power that the rest of humanity allows them to control. On their own, they don’t have the time, energy or skills to survive on their own.
Monarchs and plutocrats only have power insofar as they have soldiers willing to die fighting on their behalf, and workers willing to die working on their behalf.
We are governed by depraved, ignorant criminals. As you say, in a nuclear war, everyone dies. (Arguably, vertebrate life in the Northern Hemisphere will cease to exist.) Yet idiot prattle on about "winning," "we-must-have-bigger-ones-than-they-do" and all the other absurdities you demolish. America is quickly becoming a full-on Idiocracy.
Carl Sagan is a great exemplary on this topic — thanks for the link. Professor JM’s darkly humorous note about making the ruble of annihilation jump higher reminds me of Sagan’s scenario - paraphrasing roughly this story - 2 men are standing in a house filled up with gasoline to their chests …and they are arguing that one has 7,000 matches and the other has 5,000 matches! This insanity has been put about by media and pols forever as though it made any sense — and it’s basically a hypnotic operation to keep people in fear and feed the mil industrial complex. Enough already. What Professor JM is doing here needs to be repeated and made to meme so it can deliver a payload of sanity every time.
Professor Mearsheimer, you argue that because both the U.S. and Russia possess assured destruction capabilities, new weapons don’t really change the strategic balance. But that assumes leaders still believe in the logic of MAD as deeply as the strategists who built it. What happens if they don't?
If political leaders — or publics — stop fearing nuclear war the way earlier (and forgive me) your generation did, does MAD still deter anyone? In other words, isn’t the real danger today not a technological arms race, but a psychological one — a world where deterrence survives on paper, but belief in it quietly erodes?
What if the US has options more powerful and destructive than nuclear weapons but without the devastating effects of radiation? There are discussions on the fringes away from mainstream narratives on the US having made major breakthroughs in harnessing such capabilities. One could dismiss such contentions as fantasy but scientific papers on how to harness energy present all around us and in abundance were developed decades ago according to these sources. The only bar was the engineering and technology back then required to put theory to practice, which is now available. Some may recall President Trump towarss the start of this tenure mentioning the US having capabilities hard dorbothers to imagine. A matter also mentioned by one of his scientific advisors days later. This experts believe is what they were alluding to. If true, which I believe it to be, the world is going to see even more turbulent and traumatic times ahead.
The tangible evidence that the White House structure was to be the dance-ballet studio for Obama was clear before the Obama take over of the Morphology of the White house. Competing empires took note. Everyone agree?
The PRC CCP saw the opportunity to refresh its networks functioning inside the USA and explore mutual strategies with the Putin controlled Kremlin and his network functioning inside the WEST.
As soon as the duo determined that OBAMA was OK to work with his marxist fellow spirits, plans + funding for the expansion of the territory of both structures were gamed.
The PRC CCP pushed in a new dancer actor ( Xi ) that the WEST was unfamiliar with.
Therefore since 2008, major active funding for the renewal of the extirpation of Ukraine came from Putin-Zi. The main component that I focus on is the two states clearly understood that success with the coming "Benedict Arnold" Obama betrayal of the WEST would open huge opportunities to "damage" the components of the WEST.
AD rem: In 2014 the Potus Obama betrayed the WEST. The op-ed world refuses to research, document + expose the NAZI-like GRU, FSB networks funded inside Ukraine from 2008, ready to ignite in Ukraine the very second it was convenient for Obama to sell out NATO.
The constant sell that the two, Xi/Putin had no LONG PLAN is false + a fantasy. The dual funding of the two is still unexposed by the WEST. 12 years later, the sell still persists. Ukraine's Crimea fell to Putin by "Magic: is the current explanation in 2025: still!
The cult of militarism: The essays are deeply critical of not only government policy but of cultural phenomena—films, television, media, memorials, public holidays—that romanticize war and insulate civilian populations from reckoning with its consequences. He is acerbic in responding to what he sees as a “love affair with the military at any cost.”
How about all the jerking and noise during those Air Force One interviews! It reminds one of an old WW2 movie, with Ron Reagan or Ron Randell or Bob Mitchum shouting in the cockpit of a wounded bomber. Such realism! Such veri-tay!
Thanks for laying this out clearly. The key point that gets lost in most commentary is that the structure of the US–Russia nuclear relationship has not changed. Regardless of modernization programs, exotic delivery systems, or incremental warhead additions, the strategic balance remains governed by mutual assured destruction. Both states retain survivable second-strike capability across land, sea, and air. That’s the only metric that matters.
The political narrative about “nuclear advantage” or “closing the gap” functions more as domestic signaling and threat inflation than strategic assessment. It’s the same pattern we’ve seen since the 1950s: exaggerated claims of disparity, justification for budget expansion, escalation spiral justified in hindsight.
Meanwhile, the claims about Russia preparing to test are not evidence-based. They’re tempo management, manufacturing urgency to maintain rhetorical and funding momentum in Washington.
If anything, the proliferation of novel Russian systems underscores the opposite of what many pundits claim: they are insurance against US missile defense expansion, not credible first-strike tools that alter the stability equation.
Thanks for all your insights JOHN.
Trump is old enough, and possibly ill enough, to expire or become incapacitated in the near future. His sponsors, however, will continue onward as they have done for decades.
Trump did not attain his current position on his own. THAT is a serious problem.
Yeah. The Democrats have been running on Trump, Trump, Trump now for the last decade, while at the same time offering tepid breadcrumbs or nothing at all to the American people in return. No wonder Zohran Mamdani is crushing it right now in New York city.
The human race has developed a unique and unexplained quality which we call ‘consciousness’ I’ve never been able to shake the suspicion that the human race has developed a separate and equally unexplained propensity for self destruction. The suicide gene.
We're very close to it all coming to an end right now. And over what? A relatively few neurotic power hungry individuals who don't give a damn about the future of the human race?
It is really a mad world professor. The human race could be doing so much more right now instead of building more bombs. If it's over resources, look above - look at the incredible amount of resources (energy and minerals) awaiting the human race in our own solar system. Why are we so intent on destroying ourselves before we venture from this fragile planet called earth? We could do it, if we weren't so intent on destroying ourselves. Or more to the point: the idiots running the planet right now could do it, if they were less myopic in their vision, and less power hungry.
The human race has allowed an incredibly small number of its members to amass control of tremendous wealth and resources— at least on paper.
Those members only have the power that the rest of humanity allows them to control. On their own, they don’t have the time, energy or skills to survive on their own.
Monarchs and plutocrats only have power insofar as they have soldiers willing to die fighting on their behalf, and workers willing to die working on their behalf.
We are governed by depraved, ignorant criminals. As you say, in a nuclear war, everyone dies. (Arguably, vertebrate life in the Northern Hemisphere will cease to exist.) Yet idiot prattle on about "winning," "we-must-have-bigger-ones-than-they-do" and all the other absurdities you demolish. America is quickly becoming a full-on Idiocracy.
Celebrity physicist Albert Einstein used his platform to decry American racism.
When Carl Sagan Warned the World About Nuclear Winter
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/when-carl-sagan-warned-world-about-nuclear-winter-180967198/ The popular scientist took to the presses to paint a dire picture of what nuclear war might look like.
Carl Sagan is a great exemplary on this topic — thanks for the link. Professor JM’s darkly humorous note about making the ruble of annihilation jump higher reminds me of Sagan’s scenario - paraphrasing roughly this story - 2 men are standing in a house filled up with gasoline to their chests …and they are arguing that one has 7,000 matches and the other has 5,000 matches! This insanity has been put about by media and pols forever as though it made any sense — and it’s basically a hypnotic operation to keep people in fear and feed the mil industrial complex. Enough already. What Professor JM is doing here needs to be repeated and made to meme so it can deliver a payload of sanity every time.
We have to draw the line with Trump playing nuclear games .
Professor Mearsheimer, you argue that because both the U.S. and Russia possess assured destruction capabilities, new weapons don’t really change the strategic balance. But that assumes leaders still believe in the logic of MAD as deeply as the strategists who built it. What happens if they don't?
If political leaders — or publics — stop fearing nuclear war the way earlier (and forgive me) your generation did, does MAD still deter anyone? In other words, isn’t the real danger today not a technological arms race, but a psychological one — a world where deterrence survives on paper, but belief in it quietly erodes?
What if the US has options more powerful and destructive than nuclear weapons but without the devastating effects of radiation? There are discussions on the fringes away from mainstream narratives on the US having made major breakthroughs in harnessing such capabilities. One could dismiss such contentions as fantasy but scientific papers on how to harness energy present all around us and in abundance were developed decades ago according to these sources. The only bar was the engineering and technology back then required to put theory to practice, which is now available. Some may recall President Trump towarss the start of this tenure mentioning the US having capabilities hard dorbothers to imagine. A matter also mentioned by one of his scientific advisors days later. This experts believe is what they were alluding to. If true, which I believe it to be, the world is going to see even more turbulent and traumatic times ahead.
duh!
Thanks for your great work!
We've shared this link on 'The Stacks'
https://askeptic.substack.com/p/the-stacks
The tangible evidence that the White House structure was to be the dance-ballet studio for Obama was clear before the Obama take over of the Morphology of the White house. Competing empires took note. Everyone agree?
The PRC CCP saw the opportunity to refresh its networks functioning inside the USA and explore mutual strategies with the Putin controlled Kremlin and his network functioning inside the WEST.
As soon as the duo determined that OBAMA was OK to work with his marxist fellow spirits, plans + funding for the expansion of the territory of both structures were gamed.
The PRC CCP pushed in a new dancer actor ( Xi ) that the WEST was unfamiliar with.
Therefore since 2008, major active funding for the renewal of the extirpation of Ukraine came from Putin-Zi. The main component that I focus on is the two states clearly understood that success with the coming "Benedict Arnold" Obama betrayal of the WEST would open huge opportunities to "damage" the components of the WEST.
AD rem: In 2014 the Potus Obama betrayed the WEST. The op-ed world refuses to research, document + expose the NAZI-like GRU, FSB networks funded inside Ukraine from 2008, ready to ignite in Ukraine the very second it was convenient for Obama to sell out NATO.
The constant sell that the two, Xi/Putin had no LONG PLAN is false + a fantasy. The dual funding of the two is still unexposed by the WEST. 12 years later, the sell still persists. Ukraine's Crimea fell to Putin by "Magic: is the current explanation in 2025: still!
The cult of militarism: The essays are deeply critical of not only government policy but of cultural phenomena—films, television, media, memorials, public holidays—that romanticize war and insulate civilian populations from reckoning with its consequences. He is acerbic in responding to what he sees as a “love affair with the military at any cost.”
https://griobhtha1.substack.com/p/citizen-complicity-in-war-and-war
My Tomahoax cartoon: https://substack.com/@nemopix/note/c-173107900
During a war, news should be given out for instruction rather than information.
Joseph Goebbels....even he knew!
How about all the jerking and noise during those Air Force One interviews! It reminds one of an old WW2 movie, with Ron Reagan or Ron Randell or Bob Mitchum shouting in the cockpit of a wounded bomber. Such realism! Such veri-tay!