"We Are An Incredibly Ruthless Country,” Says Mearsheimer In Blunt Assessment Of US Power

June 7, 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmZiP2DYexM 

American sanctions from 1971 to 2021, 1971 to 2021 murdered 38 million people. 38 million people. The amount of havoc we have wrought on the Middle East in recent years is just stunning. You think about the consequences of the Iraq war. What we do in places like Venezuela, Cuba, Iran. You understand? We're using this tremendous economic leverage we have to basically starve people to make them suffer to inflict great punishment on them so that they'll rise up against their government. you understand that this is what we're doing in Venezuela.

米尔斯海默直言不讳地评价美国实力：“我们是一个极其冷酷无情的国家”

2026年6月7日

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmZiP2DYexM

约翰·米尔斯海默教授对美国实力进行了尖锐的批判，他认为，美国在其自由主义意识形态的表象之下，实际上是一个“极其冷酷无情的国家”。他挑战了美国例外论的观点，并援引门罗主义等历史理论来解释华盛顿如何巩固其在西半球的统治地位。米尔斯海默认为，美国维持其安全和全球影响力并非依靠道德领导力，而是依靠披着自由主义和国际规则外衣的强硬权力政治。

众所周知，美国是一个极其冷酷无情的大国。学校里不会教这些，但这就是世界的运行方式。我们用各种自由主义意识形态粉饰太平，说什么我们多么高尚等等。但是，你们心里清楚，这根本不可能，对吧？

所以，在西半球，我们有门罗主义。门罗主义规定，西半球任何国家都不得与遥远的大国结成军事联盟，也不得邀请遥远的大国在西半球部署军事力量。在座的各位，很多人都记得古巴导弹危机。苏联在古巴部署了导弹，肯尼迪总统明确表示这是绝对不可接受的。这些导弹必须撤走。我们绝不容忍这种行为。这就是门罗主义。

所以，一个“刺猬兽”（hedgeimon）是其所在地区最强大的国家。而像德意志帝国这样的国家，正如我之前所说，它曾是潜在的霸主，但它面临的问题是，在其所在地区还有其他强国，比如法国、英国、俄罗斯等等。我们这里的情况截然不同。现在你问我，为什么你们想成为区域霸主？原因很简单。没有比成为区域霸主更能最大限度保障自身安全、提升生存几率的方法了。你们当中有多少人晚上睡觉时会担心这个半球的其他国家攻击我们？答案是：没有人。你们担心谁？

墨西哥、危地马拉、加拿大。他们会攻击我们吗？不会。而且，我们的东部和西部边境都有鱼类资源。还有比这更好的吗？没有，没有比这更好的了。你们想成为区域霸主？这就是我想对中国人说的。正如我常说的，如果我是习近平的国家安全顾问，我会告诉他，我们想要主宰东亚。我们想把美国人赶出去。我们有门罗主义。他们为什么不能有门罗主义呢？

己所不欲，勿施于人，对吧？他们应该想把美国人赶出去，占领第一岛链，然后是第二岛链。他们应该想称霸东亚。但我们不想让他们得逞。当然，我们想成为地球上唯一的区域霸主。简而言之，我们在1783年获得独立后，通过两项政策实现了区域霸权。其一是“昭昭天命”，我之前解释过，它确实有其战略逻辑。我们横跨大陆，建立了一个超级强大的国家，然后从欧洲引进了大量人口。所有这些带有连字符的欧洲人——我就是其中一些人的后裔——都是在19世纪中期来到这里的。大量的人口涌入，填满了这个国家。然后工业革命爆发，我们需要更多的人来推动工业革命，所以我们引进了更多的人。这不仅使我们成为人口大国，也使我们成为非常富裕的国家。我们主宰了整个西半球。

这就是我对区域霸权的基本概括。

嗯，你的概括非常有趣，也很有说服力。但你是不是忘了什么？我想到两点。第二点，内战。它在我们的历史中扮演什么角色？但首先，回到正题，每当我想到“昭昭天命”时，我总是会想到它之前发生的事情。告诉我我哪里错了，但我认为“昭昭天命”之前是“昭昭”，我想到的是一种信念、一种神话，或者像莱因霍尔德·内伯所说的，是“罪恶”：

美国例外论，以1630年的基督教慈善为榜样。美国例外论在“昭昭天命”之前“昭昭”又扮演什么角色？第二点，内战在这个故事中扮演什么角色，以及它如何帮助我们成为区域霸主？好的，我倒着回答。嗯，就先说内战吧。内战非常引人入胜，因为它的本质是最终促成了一个民族国家的统一。如果追溯到这一切的开端，比如1776年或1783年（随便选一个日期），美国最初是由一系列殖民地组成，后来逐渐演变成一个由松散联盟的州组成的联盟。这一点在《邦联条例》中有所体现。

他们从邦联条例转向宪法，是因为他们想要建立一个更强大的中央政府。

他们想要做更多的事情，将这个国家塑造成一个统一的民族国家。但他们失败了。这主要是因为奴隶制问题。直到内战爆发，这个问题才在很大程度上得到解决，北方最终取得了胜利。

所以我认为，当我们回顾《独立宣言》中体现的民族主义主题，以及我们想要建立一个民族国家的想法时，内战的发生至关重要。我经常谈到是什么让美国人在19世纪变得伟大，我在之前的回答中也提到过，我谈到了昭昭天命，对吧？我谈到了工业化，谈到了门罗主义，但正如詹妮弗正确指出的那样，我忽略了内战。内战极其重要，因为它在促成南北统一方面发挥了核心作用，尽管这场冲突极其残酷。你们都明白，就区​​域霸权而言，如果南方赢得了战争，如果林肯认输，西半球就会出现两个超级大国，我们也就无法形成区域霸权。

你们或许不会惊讶地听到，英国人其实希望南方获胜，因为他们不希望出现区域霸主。但正如我和詹妮弗私下里经常谈到的那样，这是英国人犯下的一个根本性错误，因为我们在一战和二战中都帮他们摆脱了困境。所以归根结底，英国人其实很幸运，北方赢得了内战，我们成为了区域霸主，我们变得异常强大，而且正如我们之前所说，我们现在有能力拯救英国。

6:026分钟2秒钟 顺便说一句，我没时间详细阐述这个观点，但如果我有时间，如果我们没有在一战末期参战，德国人就会赢得一战。我们在最后一刻扭转了局势。所以，内战的结果至关重要。

嗯，正如莱因霍尔德·内伯提出的“美国例外论”概念。内伯认为，这是否是我们清教徒传统中存在的危险缺陷？或者您如何看待美国例外论？美国例外论有很多不同的定义。大多数人，尤其是大多数美国人，认为美国是一个高尚的国家，是山巅之城，等等。

但对于研究外交政策和现实主义的人来说，很难用这些术语来看待美国。正如我之前所说，我认为我们是一个极其冷酷无情的国家。我们在世界各地造成的谋杀和暴力事件数量令人难以置信。你知道，前几天我看了《柳叶刀》（一份科学期刊）发表的一项研究。他们做了一项研究，已经发表了，你可以在网上找到。这项研究发表于2025年11月。文章分析了1971年至2021年间美国的制裁措施，并探讨了这些制裁的后果。结果发现，我们屠杀了3800万人。

3800万人。近年来，我们在中东造成的破坏令人震惊。想想伊拉克战争的后果，想想我们在委内瑞拉、古巴、伊朗等地所做的事情。你明白吗？我们利用巨大的经济影响力，让人们挨饿受苦，让他们遭受重创，从而迫使他们起来反抗政府。你明白我们在委内瑞拉所做的一切吗？

我们在伊朗所做的一切也是如此。我们正在对伊朗人民施加大规模的惩罚。鉴于这一切，我很难将美国视为一个高尚的国家。呃，我并不认为我们在外交政策方面有多么高尚。有一点我要说，而且我经常这么说，就像我对维克多·欧尔班说的那样：我非常庆幸自己出生在自由主义盛行的美国。我热爱自由主义。事实上，我热爱生活在一个自由民主国家，这是一件美好的事情。呃，但是，呃，我不认为这必然使我们显得与众不同。

"We Are An Incredibly Ruthless Country,” Says Mearsheimer In Blunt Assessment Of US Power

2026年6月7日
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmZiP2DYexM  

Prof. John Mearsheimer delivers a stark critique of American power, arguing that the United States operates as an “incredibly ruthless country” beneath its liberal ideological image. He challenges the idea of American exceptionalism, pointing to historical doctrines like the Monroe Doctrine to explain how Washington secures dominance in its own hemisphere. According to Mearsheimer, the U.S. maintains its safety and global influence not through moral leadership, but through hard-edged power politics masked by ideals of liberalism and international rules.

As you all know, the United States is an incredibly ruthless great power. We don't teach that in school, but that's the way the world works. We gussy it up with all this liberal ideology about how noble we are and so forth. So, but you know better than to believe that, right?

So, in the Western Hemisphere, we have the Monroe Doctrine. And the Monroe Doctrine says that no country in this hemisphere is allowed to form a military alliance with a distant great power. nor is any country in this hemisphere allowed to invite a distant great power to put military forces in the western hemisphere. And many of us in the audience are old enough to remember the Cuban missile crisis. The Soviets put
missiles in Cuba and JFK told them that was categorically unacceptable. Those missiles had to be taken out. We do not tolerate that. That's the Monroe dock.

So a hedgeimon is by far the most powerful state in its region of the world. And the problem that a country like Imperial Germany has which I told you before was a potential hegeimon is that in its region it had other great powers like France, Britain, Russia and so forth and so on. We have a very different situation here. Now you ask me why do you want to be a regional hedgeimon? It's very simple. There is no
way no better way to maximize your security to enhance your chances of survival than to be a regional hedgeimon. How many of you go to bed at night worrying about anybody in this hemisphere attacking us? The answer is nobody does. Who you worry about?

Mexico, Guatemala, Canada. Are they going to attack us? No. And then on our eastern border and our western border, we have fish. Does it get any better than this? No, it doesn't get any better than this. You want to be a regional hedgeimon? This is my point to the Chinese. As I often say, if I were Xi Jinping's national security adviser, I'd tell him that we want to dominate East Asia. We want to drive the Americans out. We have a Monroe doctrine. Why shouldn't they have a Monroe doctrine?

What's good for the goose is good for the gander, right? They should want to push the island uh the Americans out, be on the first island chain, then the second island chain. They should want to dominate East Asia. But we don't want them to do that. Of course, we want to be the only regional hegeimon on the planet. And just very quickly, after we got our independence in 1783, we achieved regional hegemony with two policies. One is manifest destiny which I explained to you before had a real
strategic logic to it. We marched across the continent. We created this super powerful state and then we imported all these people from Europe. All these hyphenated Europeans who came in right I'm a descendant of some of them came in the middle of the 19th century. Huge numbers of people came to fill up the country. Then the industrial revolution hits and we bring in more people because we need workers to make the industrial revolution go. And that makes us not only a big country in terms of population, makes us a very wealthy country. And we dominate the hemisphere.

That's my basic wrap on regional hegemony.

Well, your basic rap um is very interesting and very compelling. But aren't you forgetting I guess I think of a couple of things. Number two, the Civil War. Where does that fit into our story? But number one, backing up, whenever I think of manifest destiny, I always think of something that comes before. Tell me why I'm wrong, but I think of manif before manifest destiny, I think of the belief, the myth, or as Reinhold Neber would say, the sin of

American exceptionalism model for Christ Christian charity from 1630. Where does American exceptionalism fit into this with manif before manifest destiny? And second, where does how does the civil war fit into this story and us becoming a regional hedgeimon?

Okay, I I'll answer them in reverse order. uh just on the civil war. Uh civil war is very fascinating because what is really going on there is that you finally have this nation state coming together to form one whole. If you go back to when this all started in 1776 or 1783, pick your date, right? The United States was a series of colonies and then it became a group of loosely allied states. This is reflected in the articles of confederation and they went from the articles of confederation to the constitution because they wanted to create a more powerful central state.

They wanted to do more uh to mold this country into a unified nation state. But they failed. And it was mainly because of the slavery issue. And it wasn't until the civil war where that issue was in large part settled and the north won.

So I think that when you go back to the theme of nationalism that you see reflected in the declaration of independence and the fact that we were interested in creating a nation state, what happened in the civil war was of enormous importance. When I often talk about what made the Americans great in the 19th century, and I did this before in my previous answer, uh I talked about manifest destiny, right? I talked about industrialization, talked about the Monroe Doctrine, but as Jennifer correctly pointed out, I left out the civil war and the civil war is of enormous importance because it plays a central role as horrible as that conflict was in bringing the north and south together. You all understand just on the point of regional hegemony that had the south won the war, had Lincoln conceded, we would have had two great powers in the Western Hemisphere and we would not have had regional hegemony.

And you will not be surprised to hear that the British actually wanted the South to win because the British did not want a regional hegeimon. But as Jennifer and I have often talked about in private conversation, this was a fundamental mistake on the part of the British because we pulled their chestnuts out of the fire in World War I and then again in World War II. So in  the final analysis, the British were actually lucky that the North won the Civil War, that we became a regional hedgeimon, that we became remarkably powerful, and as we've talked about, we're in a position to rescue Britain.

And by the way, I don't have time to make this argument, but if I did, if we hadn't come in at the end of World War I, the Germans would have won World WarI. We tipped it at the last moment. So, it really mattered what happened in the Civil War.

And um as Reinhold Neber brings up this concept of American exceptionalism. Is it is it this dangerous defect in our Puritan heritage accord that Neber argues or how do you see it? American exceptionalism. You can define American exceptionalism in a lot of different ways. And the way most people, most Americans define it is that America is a noble country. It's the city on the hill. Uh and so forth and so on. 

And for somebody who studies foreign policy and does realism, uh it's hard to see the United States in those terms. Uh as I said to you before, I I think that we are an incredibly ruthless country. Uh the amount of murder and maym that we've created around the world is just unbelievable. You know, I was looking at a study the other day put out by Lancet, which is a scientific journal. Uh and they did a study, this was put out, you can see it on the internet. It was put out in November of 2025. And uh what the article did was it looked at sanctions, American sanctions from 1971 to 2021, 1971 to 2021. and it asked what were the consequences of those sanctions and we murdered 38 million people. 

38 million people. The amount of havoc we have wrought on the Middle East in recent years is just stunning. You think about the consequences of the Iraq war. What we do in places like Venezuela, Cuba, Iran. You understand? We're using this tremendous economic leverage we have to basically starve people to make them suffer to inflict great punishment on them so that they'll rise up against their government. you understand that this is what we're doing in Venezuela.

This is what we're doing in in Iran. We're inflicting massive punishment on these people. Given all that, I find it very difficult to talk about the United States as a noble country. Uh I just don't think that we are exceptionally virtuous when it comes to foreign policy. The one thing I will say, and I often say this, this is what I said to Victor Orban. I thank my lucky stars. I was born in liberal America. I love
liberalism. In fact, I love the fact that I live in a liberal democracy and that's a wonderful thing. Uh but uh I don't think that necessarily makes us exceptional.