{"id":59411,"date":"2026-05-19T07:18:34","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T15:18:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=59411"},"modified":"2026-05-19T07:18:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T15:18:34","slug":"john-mearsheimer-on-putins-incentive-to-escalate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/19\/john-mearsheimer-on-putins-incentive-to-escalate\/","title":{"rendered":"John Mearsheimer on Putin’s Incentive To Escalate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from John’s Substack<\/a>:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

On 18 May 2026, I was on Glenn Diesen\u2019s podcast talking with him mainly about the prospects for escalation in the Ukraine war, but also the Iran war. Regarding Ukraine, it is clear that Ukraine, with help from Europe, is ramping up its drone attacks on Moscow and promising even bigger attacks in the future. The Russians, however, have made it clear that the present situation \u2014 not to mention the promised future \u2014 is untenable and they will escalate if necessary to create deterrence. Given there is virtually no bargaining space between the two sides and there are clear hints from the Russian side that attacking NATO states is a possibility, we should be deeply worried. Glenn and I also talked about the dangers of escalation in the Iran war, where there also appears to be no bargaining space between the rival sides and where a desperate President Trump is constantly threatening to start bombing Iran again. Should he do that, it will have disastrous consequences for the international economy. All of this is to say that the chances for truly dangerous escalation are real in both the Iran and Ukraine wars.<\/p>\n