Is Russia’s War on Ukraine Rational?

To Putin, it was a war of selfdefense aimed at preventing an adverse balance-ofpower shift.

How States Think: The Rationality of Foreign Policy

By John J. Mearsheimer & Sebastian Rosato

Yale University Press, 2023, 304 pages, $24.99 (Hardcover)

Was Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine not rational? Many Western observers see it so when they assess rationality in terms of outcome (success or failure) or morality (violation of international norms).

John Mearsheimer and Sebastian Rosato argue otherwise in this book, based on a different conception of rationality: that policymakers are rational when they make decisions based on credible theories about the workings of the international system, and aggregate the views of key policymakers through a deliberative process, one marked by robust

and uninhibited debate. So

they contend that Russia’s decision was rational: Putin and his advisers thought in terms of straight balanceof-power theory, viewing

the West’s efforts to make Ukraine a bulwark on Russia’s border as an existential threat. This was a war of self-defense aimed at preventing an adverse balance-of-power shift; the decision to invade was also the product of a deliberative process; and states are routinely rational in their foreign policy, they say.

To back their arguments, the authors probe a series of historical cases in which great powers formulated grand strategies and managed crises. Rational decision-makers simply try to figure out the most effective strategy for dealing with other states, and threatening or initiating violence sometimes makes sense. Such is the reality of international politics.