For Whom the Bell Tolls: A Note on John J. Mearsheimer’s Article on the Collapse of the Liberal International Order

... would begin to crumble a few years into the 2000s. Mearsheimer makes an important clarification to explain the attitude of realist thinkers to the concept of the “liberal” world order. “One might think that NATO expansion, U.S. efforts to turn China into a liberal democracy, and the Bush Doctrine are all evidence of untethered realism that unipolarity made possible. This conclusion would be wrong, however. It is clear from the discourse in policymaking circles and within the foreign policy establishment that these policies were motivated by liberal theories and that the United ...