title: Charmed (2018 TV series)

text: A reboot of the original "Charmed" series had been announced since October 2013, when it was originally being developed for CBS by "Party of Five" co-creator Christopher Keyser and Sydney Sidner. The CBS reboot's pilot script was going to revolve "around four sisters who discover their destiny – to battle against the forces of evil using their witchcraft." However, CBS ultimately decided not to move forward with the reboot. On January 5, 2017, it was announced that The CW network was developing a new reboot of "Charmed" by "Jane the Virgin" showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman for the 2017–18 television season. Urman had been approached in 2016 by CBS Television Studios (who own the rights to "Charmed") to work on a new reboot of the show. Urman, knowing that "Jane the Virgin" writers Jessica O'Toole and Amy Rardin were fans of the original series, brought them on board with her along with director Brad Silberling. On why she wanted to reboot the series, Urman explained: "The original was so much about female empowerment and sisterhood and strong women taking over the world and I feel like that's what we need right now. It felt like a good time to get back to that and show women kicking ass." On the reason they chose not to revive the series with the original cast, O'Toole explained: "That show wrapped everything up so wonderfully — they all got their happy endings, and there were even glimpses of their future. We felt like it told a complete story." Urman added that they did not want to mess around with the original because it was eight years of mythology. The CW president Mark Pedowitz weighed in on why "Charmed" was better as a reboot than a revival, saying "We wanted to take a different path" with Urman's "great" perspective, calling the original series "a great show for that time and place" only.


title: Charmed (2018 TV series)

text: The CW reboot's original pilot script was going to be a prequel set in 1976 about three witches (Tina, Paige and Annie), who are not related but are brought together to fight evil in a small New England town. O'Toole stated that the prequel would have "explicitly explore[d] the links between the feminist movement and witchcraft." At the time, Pedowitz described the reboot as "a self-contained, self-sustained" and "very standalone show" that would not have any ties to the original series. However, on February 3, 2017, "The Hollywood Reporter" announced that the reboot would be redeveloped and delayed until the 2018–19 television season, as the pilot draft script "didn't come in the way the network had hoped" and that Urman, who had prior commitments with "Jane the Virgin", did not have enough time to fully commit to the reboot for the 2017–18 season. Pedowitz gave an update on the reboot during the Television Critics Association press tour in August 2017, saying that it was still in the redevelopment process and that the network was waiting to see what Urman had come up with for the redeveloped script.


title: Charmed (2018 TV series)

text: On January 25, 2018, The CW officially ordered the "Charmed" reboot to pilot. The redeveloped script was changed to be set in the present day and was described by The CW as "a fierce, funny, feminist reboot" centered on "three sisters in a college town who, after the tragic death of their mother, are stunned to discover they are witches." The description also stated that the reboot would revolve around the sisters "vanquishing supernatural demons" and "tearing down the patriarchy," while "maintaining familial bonds." O'Toole told BuzzFeed News that the reason the redeveloped script was changed to the present day was because of the results of the 2016 United States presidential election. She explained, "Suddenly it didn't feel like it should be a period piece anymore. All of the themes seemed more relevant, and we wanted to reconceptualize some things, and it felt like it really should be set in a contemporary world." The pilot episode was written by O'Toole and Rardin, and was based on a story by Urman. All three women became executive producers for the first season alongside Silberling, Ben Silverman, Howard T. Owens, and Carter Covington. The pilot episode was also directed by Silberling. After the pilot was filmed, Silberling told the "Metro" newspaper that the appeal of the reboot is to be "fun and contemporary" with its timely social observations. On May 11, The CW picked up the pilot and ordered the "Charmed" reboot to series with 13 episodes. On October 8, The CW ordered five additional scripts for the first season, and a month later, The CW ordered an additional nine episodes, bringing the first season total up to 22 episodes. On January 31, 2019, The CW gave the series an early renewal for a second season. According to Lesley Goldberg of "The Hollywood Reporter", "Charmed" was renewed due to strong international sales.


title: Charmed (2018 TV series)

text: On March 25, 2019, it was announced that showrunner Carter Covington would be departing "Charmed" after the first season, with married duo Liz Kruger and Craig Shapiro taking over as showrunners for the second season. Covington was originally brought in as showrunner after "Charmed" was picked up to series, in order to help executive producers Jessica O'Toole and Amy Rardin, neither of whom had run a show before. Following the change in showrunners, media outlets reported that the second season would lean harder into the supernatural storylines, with less focus on the family dynamics that Covington helped make. However, ahead of the second-season premiere, Kruger stated in an interview with TV Insider that the core of the show and "the heart of the story is still about the power of sisterhood and how powerful women can change the world." Shapiro also told TV Insider that they changed the whole tone and visual look of the show to become more "darker, moodier, edgier" and "more cinematic" than the first season. Both Jeffrey Lieber and director Stuart Gillard also joined the second season as additional executive producers. On January 7, 2020, the series was given another early renewal for a third season.


title: Charmed (2018 TV series)

text: The CW renewed "Charmed" for an upcoming fourth season on February 3, 2021. On August 27, 2021, TVLine reported that Lieber, Joey Falco, and Nicki Renna will be taking over as showrunners for the fourth season, while Kruger and Shapiro will remain on the show as executive producers. Falco told TVLine that he and Renna "had a lot of time to think about things we want to see more of on the show", and described the fourth season as "the most fun, sexy, exciting season of "Charmed" yet". Renna commented that they are looking forward to taking "the show to places we've been wanting to, with storylines and emotional arcs that really excite us" and further added that the fourth season will focus more on stories about the sisters. On May 12, 2022, The CW announced that the fourth season will be its final season.


title: Charmed (2018 TV series)

text: Casting details for "Charmed" were first revealed by TVLine on February 7, 2018, with the three sisters bearing the unofficial names of Macy, Mel and Madison Pruitt. It also revealed that all ethnicities were being considered for each of the roles and that one of the sisters would be a lesbian, a major change from the original "Charmed" series where all Halliwell sisters were straight women. TVLine also revealed that casting was underway for the trio's "devilishly handsome" advisor/whitelighter Harry, Macy's "documentary filmmaker-boyfriend" Galvin, Madison's "sensitive loner ex-beau" Brian, and Mel's detective girlfriend Soo Jin. During production, Madison's name was later changed to Maggie, the sisters' family name was changed from Pruitt to Vera, Soo Jin's name was changed to Niko, and Galvin was rewritten as a scientist. Former "Into the Badlands" British actress Madeleine Mantock was cast as the eldest sister Macy, "a practical, driven, and brilliant geneticist". Mantock was cast after "Jane the Virgin" writer Micah Schraft, who she had worked with on another show five years prior, recommended her to the "Charmed" producers. Mantock did a Skype interview with the producers because she was in London at the time. In an interview with "Teen Vogue", Mantock revealed that she wanted to be part of the show after reading "how funny and smart and conscious" the pilot script was, saying "I thought it was a wonderful way to broach important subjects, be they women's issues or political issues, in a way that's also tied into this wonderful magical fantasy that everybody loves."


title: Charmed (2018 TV series)

text: Film actress Melonie Diaz was cast as the middle sister Mel, "a passionate, outspoken activist" and lesbian. Diaz, who was the first sister cast in "Charmed", was chosen after a successful meeting with the producers, which she felt was "an instantaneous connection". Diaz was impressed with their vision for "Charmed", saying "I thought it was a really clever, unique way to kind of modernize this big show." Canadian actress Sarah Jeffery was cast as the youngest sister Maggie, "a bubbly college freshman" and sorority pledge. Jeffery revealed that the producers were at first wary of her auditioning for the show because she was still attached to "Shades of Blue". She auditioned for the show with scenes involving a demon dog and a fight with one of Maggie's sisters. Jeffery was eventually released from "Shades of Blue" so she could do "Charmed". Mantock, Diaz and Jeffery did not do any screen tests together, but the latter two described the trio's instant chemistry as "miraculous". Diaz stated, "We really feel like sisters," while Jeffery added, "We were lucky – it was an immediate connection. We have a sisterly rapport and it's reflected onscreen."


title: Charmed (2018 TV series)

text: The lead actresses are of different ethnic backgrounds: Mantock is Afro-Caribbean, Diaz is Puerto Rican, and Jeffery is African American, English and Indigenous Canadian. The shows creators have stated that the sisters are of mixed ethnic backgrounds, having Latina, African-American and white heritage. Executive producer Jessica O'Toole told BuzzFeed News, "It was always written that way, specifically to have characters who were of color, and with the casting it all kind of came together." O'Toole also added that the decision to make the lead actresses non-white was one of the reasons the producers decided the show would not be based on the Halliwell sisters' children from the original "Charmed" series, who were all white. Executive producer Jennie Snyder Urman explained that "we've had a chance to see three white witches" and working on "Jane the Virgin", which had a predominantly Latino cast, helped her realize the importance of representation and "what it's like to see yourself onscreen and see yourself be the hero of the story". O'Toole said it was also important to represent the LGBTQ community, which was lacking in the original "Charmed" series, explaining: "Representation is important and I think it doesn't feel like the real world to not have that." O'Toole said "it felt very natural" to make one of the sisters gay and that "it didn't even come out of a purpose."


title: Charmed (2018 TV series)

text: Former "Man in the High Castle" British actor Rupert Evans was cast as Harry, a college professor and the sisters' Whitelighter. Ser'Darius Blain was cast as Galvin, a love interest of Macy's. Blain departed the show at the end of the first season after his character was killed off. Charlie Gillespie was cast as Brian, a love interest of Maggie's who only appeared in the first two episodes of the series. Ellen Tamaki was cast in the first season as Niko, "a detective on the Hilltowne police force" and lesbian who is a love interest of Mel's. Tamaki did not return for the second season. Nick Hargrove was also cast in the first season as Parker, a fraternity president and new love interest of Maggie's. He was initially cast as recurring and was later promoted to the main cast. Hargrove did not return as a regular in the second season but did make several guest appearances during it. Jordan Donica was cast in the second season as Jordan, a mysterious law student and amateur boxer. Former "Shannara Chronicles" British actress Poppy Drayton also joined the second season as Abigael Caine, a powerful half-witch and half-demon. Both Donica and Drayton returned as regulars for the third season.


title: Charmed (2018 TV series)

text: In July 2021, it was announced that Mantock had departed "Charmed", which resulted in her character Macy's death in the third-season finale. Mantock spoke of her departure in a statement to TVLine, saying: "Playing Macy on "Charmed" for the last three seasons has been an immense privilege and I have so enjoyed working with our fantastic producers, creatives, cast and crew. I'm incredibly grateful to The CW and CBS Studios for my time on the show and for being a brilliant support in my difficult decision to leave." Showrunners Liz Kruger and Craig Shapiro also told TVLine that they respect Mantock's decision to move on and that the door would always be "open for a return visit from Macy. . . one way or another!" On September 8, 2021, Australian actress Lucy Barrett was announced as Mantock's replacement as a new Charmed One for the upcoming fourth season. However, details about her character are being kept under wraps, including her name, backstory, powers, and connection to the show's remaining lead characters, Mel and Maggie. Showrunners Jeffrey Lieber, Joey Falco and Nicki Renna described Barrett's character as "an artist" who is "fun, irreverent, impulsive, strong-willed, and will bring a brand-new energy to the Power of Three".


title: Charmed (2018 TV series)

text: "Charmed" is filmed in Vancouver, Canada, where several other CW shows are filmed. Interior scenes for the show are filmed at the Whites Ironwood Studios in Vancouver. The historical J.E. Phillips House, located at 323 Queens Avenue in New Westminster, is used as the exterior for the show's fictional Vera Manor. It pays homage to the original "Charmed"s Halliwell Manor, in that it is a similar-looking red Victorian house. The exterior scenes used for Hilltowne University during the first season were filmed at the University of British Columbia's Point Grey Campus. The pilot episode was filmed from March 19 to April 7, 2018. After the pilot was picked up and "Charmed" was ordered to series, filming for the remainder of the first season resumed on August 13, 2018, and ended on April 26, 2019.


title: Charmed (2018 TV series)

text: The second season began filming on July 24, 2019, and was expected to end on April 16, 2020. However, production was shut down early on March 12, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with only 19 of the ordered 22 episodes completed. The nineteenth episode ended up becoming the second-season finale, with the remaining three episodes filmed as part of the third season when production resumed, as the showrunners wanted to wrap up the storylines as they initially planned. Filming for the third season began on September 30, 2020, under strict COVID-19 protocols and concluded on May 22, 2021. The scenes used as Seattle State College during the third season were filmed at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design. The fourth season began filming on October 14, 2021, and concluded on April 13, 2022.


title: Charmed (2018 TV series)

text: In the United States, "Charmed" premiered on The CW on October 14, 2018. The first season aired on Sundays at 9:00pm, with "Supergirl" as its lead-in at 8:00 pm. The pairing of "Charmed" and "Supergirl" returned the network to original programming on Sunday nights for the first time since the 2008–09 U.S. television season. The CW president Mark Pedowitz explained, "We wanted to have an established show on Sunday night. We wanted name value with "Charmed" on there. We felt that it was two shows that are empowered women. We were making a statement that we were not kidding, that we're not phoning it in on Sunday night, that we were going to compete." Its second season premiered on October 11, 2019. The show's third-season premiere was delayed until January 24, 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The fourth season premiered on March 11, 2022.


title: Charmed (2018 TV series)

text: All complete seasons of "Charmed" are available to stream on Netflix in the U.S. only, as part of The CW's previous output deal with Netflix. Each season is released in full on Netflix eight days after its season finale has aired on The CW. The complete first season of "Charmed" was released on Netflix in May 2019. The first season was also released on region 4 DVD in Australia and New Zealand on September 25, 2019, and on region 1 DVD in the U.S. and Canada on October 1, 2019. It was released on region 2 DVD in the United Kingdom on March 16, 2020. The complete second season was released on Netflix in May 2020, and on region 1 DVD on September 29, 2020. The complete third season of "Charmed" was released on Netflix in July 2021.


title: Charmed (2018 TV series)

text: The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 71% approval rating with an average rating of 6.53/10, based on 31 reviews. The website's consensus reads, ""Charmed"'s updates are as fun as they are surprisingly feminist – and with a sharper focus, it could conjure up an even stronger show than the one that came before it". Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 55 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Charmed (2018 TV series)

text: Shortly after the pilot's announcement in January 2018, Holly Marie Combs, a cast member from the original "Charmed" series, took to Twitter and criticized The CW's decision to reboot the show without any input from the original cast or crew. Combs claimed to have an issue with The CW's "reimagining" of "Charmed" as the network, formerly known as The WB, chose not to renew the show in 2006 for a ninth season. Combs accused The CW of trying to cash in on the "Charmed" name and concept, while "capitalizing" on the original cast and crew's hard work. Combs also took issue with the network's description of a "feminist" reboot, which she felt implied the original series was not, by sarcastically tweeting: "Guess we forgot to do that the first go around. Hmph." Combs then implied that the reboot should have a new title, as she felt that it is a brand new show with no ties to the original "Charmed". She tweeted that television reboots or remakes "usually have storylines so similar to the original that they are legally required to use the same title and buy the rights to that title", further adding, "If it's not similar than ["sic"] it's just another show. A new show with a new title." Another original cast member, Alyssa Milano, told "Entertainment Tonight" that she wished the original cast were involved with the reboot from the beginning of its development at The CW, further adding "I do hope that it reaches the newer generation and impacts that generation the way ours was able to do for its generation."


title: Charmed (2018 TV series)

text: Shannen Doherty was more positive about the reboot to fans on Twitter, stating that it was a testament to the original that a reboot was even being considered. She also added that she was "intrigued by the idea that a new generation might be comforted, inspired like you all were. "Charmed" helped us all in some way." However, Doherty admitted that she did take issue with The CW's description of a "feminist" reboot, by tweeting that their wording was "terrible and a bit offensive," but understood that "everyone makes mistakes". Doherty further voiced her support for the reboot in an interview with "Entertainment Tonight", stating "I think it's great. I think it's awesome...I'm happy to see that a show, that back then was all about strong women who supported and loved each other, is now coming back again in this day and age." Doherty appreciated the reboot for providing a lot of job opportunities for people, wished the cast and crew well, and hoped that fans of the original series would give the reboot a chance. Rose McGowan was also positive towards the reboot and showed her support to the new lead actresses by tweeting "fly girls, fly." McGowan also added that she had no issues with the reboot and wished "everyone the best". McGowan further voiced her support for the reboot on Instagram, posting "I wish nothing but the best for the new female actors whose careers hopefully will be launched by this show into something long and prosperous."


title: Charmed (2018 TV series)

text: News of the reboot was met with a mixed response from fans of the original series. Some fans were positive about the reboot, while others were not impressed about the changes made to the series. Following the reboot announcement, fans took to Twitter and began to share the #StopCharmedReboot hashtag in attempts to prevent The CW from moving forward with the pilot. The CW's president Mark Pedowitz stated that he would like the fans to give the reboot a chance, telling fans that "before you make a decision, watch the series". In an interview with HuffPost in May 2018, Combs spoke up about the reboot again, this time criticizing the show's marketing and the casting of younger actors. She stated that although she appreciates "the jobs and opportunities the "Charmed" reboot has created", she "will never understand what is fierce, funny, or feminist in creating a show that basically says the original actresses are too old to do a job they did 12 years ago". Milano also spoke up about the reboot again to "Us Weekly" in May 2019, stating that she felt the show "ruined any possibility" of a reunion between the four original lead actresses, calling it "disrespectful" and "sad" that they were not involved from the beginning. Milano believed that they "would have come [together] to do something" as they "created that world" first.


title: Charmed (2018 TV series)

text: In the series finale, the main characters end up in another dimension in front of Halliwell Manor, where the original series took place. Curtis Kheel, who was a writer on the original "Charmed" series, tweeted his version of what would have happened the following season: "As an original "Charmed" writer, I can tell [you] what happened next: Piper, Phoebe and Paige vanquished the [three] impostors right after they invaded Halliwell Manor. Then [Combs] blew up the portal to that other universe [and] quipped: 'We wish them well.'" In reference to this tweet, the writers from the 2018 series replied, "Unlike with the OG version of the franchise, we had a strict 'no assholes' hiring policy in the writers' room. We feel mostly sorry for these people, because unlike them we actually like each other and had the "best" time." However, Khleel responded to this with, "My problem with the "Charmed" reboot is that from Day One, it pretended like the original "Charmed" didn't exist, yet it borrowed a ton of ideas from it. We worked very hard on the OG series for many years [and] to disregard that is offensive "and" disrespectful to "us" and our fans."


title: Charmed (2018 TV series)

text: While the series was praised for its diversity by casting three women of color in the lead roles, it also received backlash from some television critics for being promoted as a Latina-led series when only one of the lead actresses is Latina. Madeleine Mantock, who learned Spanish for the role, said, "I'm open with the writers and trying to be respectful because I'm Afro-Caribbean. I'm not actually Afro-Latina and I want to make that inquiry because Melonie [Diaz] is actually the only person in her real life who is Latina." Sarah Jeffery explained, "I know that we are representing the Latina community. I actually am African-American. I'm not Latina, which is a common misconception." Latina writer Samantha Chavarria of the website "We Are Mitu" felt that this news does "highlight the very real fact that in their effort to promote a reboot, the CW used colorism and exploitation to spark our excitement and interest." Chavarria further criticized the network for not correcting the misinformation about the cast's ethnicities, calling it an "ultimate stab to the wound" and "just plain shady". Another Latino writer, Patrick Gomez of "Entertainment Weekly", was more forgiving of the casting because the actresses were honest and that a search into their ethnicities would have been inappropriate, adding, "I hope people celebrate the fact that an African-American and an Afro-Caribbean woman are being cast as 'Latinas' because Afro-Latina people are not given even a fraction of the visibility they should have in on-camera representations of Latinx people." Princess Weekes of "The Mary Sue" felt that the actresses were not to blame, but also criticized The CW's use of colorism for "the idea that because they are lighter-skinned women with long hair, they can 'pass' for Latina when they are actually black women."


title: John Mearsheimer

text: John Joseph Mearsheimer (; born December 14, 1947) is an American political scientist and international relations scholar, who belongs to the realist school of thought. He is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. He has been described as the most influential realist of his generation.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer is best known for developing the theory of offensive realism, which describes the interaction between great powers as being primarily driven by the rational desire to achieve regional hegemony in an anarchic international system. In accordance with his theory, Mearsheimer believes that China's growing power will likely bring it into conflict with the United States.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: In his 2007 book "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy", Mearsheimer argues that the Israeli lobby wields disproportionate influence over US foreign policy.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer was born in December 1947 in Brooklyn, New York City. When he was eight, he moved with his family to Croton-on-Hudson, a suburb in Westchester County. When he was 17, Mearsheimer enlisted in the US Army. After one year as an enlisted member, he obtained an appointment to the US Military Academy at West Point, which he attended from 1966 to 1970. After graduation, he served for five years as an officer in the US Air Force.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: In 1974, while he was in the Air Force, Mearsheimer earned a master's degree in international relations from the University of Southern California. He entered Cornell University and in 1980 earned a PhD in government, specifically in international relations. From 1978 to 1979, he was a research fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. From 1980 to 1982, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University's Center for International Affairs. During the 1998–1999 academic year, he was the Whitney H. Shepardson Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Since 1982, Mearsheimer has been a member of the faculty of the Department of Political Science Faculty at the University of Chicago. He became an associate professor in 1984 and a full professor in 1987 and was appointed the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor in 1996. From 1989 to 1992, he served as chairman of the department. He also holds a position as a faculty member in the Committee on International Relations graduate program, and he is a co-director of the Program on International Security Policy.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer's books include "Conventional Deterrence" (1983), which won the Edgar S. Furniss Jr. Book Award; "Nuclear Deterrence: Ethics and Strategy" (co-editor, 1985); "Liddell Hart and the Weight of History" (1988); "The Tragedy of Great Power Politics" (2001), which won the Lepgold Book Prize; "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" (2007); and "" (2011). His articles have appeared in academic journals like "International Security" and popular magazines like the "London Review of Books". He has written op-ed pieces for "The New York Times", the "Los Angeles Times", and the "Chicago Tribune".


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer has won several teaching awards. He received the Clark Award for Distinguished Teaching when he was a graduate student at Cornell in 1977, and he won the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at the University of Chicago in 1985. In addition, he was selected as a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar for the 1993–1994 academic year. In that capacity, he gave a series of talks at eight colleges and universities. In 2003, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the recipient of the American Political Science Association's 2020 James Madison Award, which is presented every three years to an American political scientist who has made distinguished scholarly contributions. The Award Committee noted that Mearsheimer is "one of the most cited International Relations scholars in the discipline, but his works are read well beyond the academy as well."


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer's works are widely read and debated by 21st-century students of international relations. A 2017 survey of US international relations faculty ranks him third among "scholars whose work has had the greatest influence on the field of IR in the past 20 years."


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer's first book, "Conventional Deterrence" (1983), addresses the issue of how the decision to start a war depends on the projected outcome of the war, in other words, how the decision makers' beliefs about the outcome of the war affect the success or failure of deterrence. Mearsheimer's basic argument is that deterrence is likely to work when the potential attacker believes that an attack will be costly and is unlikely to succeed. However, if the potential attacker has reason to believe the attack will entail low costs and is likely to succeed, deterrence is likely to break down, which is now widely accepted to be how the principle of deterrence works. Specifically, Mearsheimer argues that the success of deterrence is determined by the strategy available to the potential attacker. He lays out three strategies.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Firstly, an attrition strategy entails a high level of uncertainty about the outcome of war and high costs for the attacker. Secondly, a limited-aims strategy entails fewer risks and lower costs. Thirdly, a "blitzkrieg" strategy provides a way to defeat the enemy rapidly and decisively with relatively low costs. For Mearsheimer, failures in the modern battlefield are caused mostly by the potential attacker's belief that it can successfully implement a "blitzkrieg" strategy in which tanks and other mechanized forces are employed swiftly to cause deep penetration and to disrupt the enemy's rear. The two other strategies are unlikely to lead to deterrence failures because they entail a low probability of success, accompanied by high costs (war of attrition) or limited gains and the possibility of the conflict turning into a war of attrition (limited aims). However, if the attacker has a coherent "blitzkrieg" strategy available, an attack is likely to ensue because its potential benefits outweigh the costs and risks of starting a war.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Besides analyzing cases from World War II and the Arab–Israeli conflict, Mearsheimer's 1983 book extrapolates implications from his theory for the prospects of conventional deterrence in Central Europe during the late Cold War. It argues that a Soviet attack is unlikely because the Soviet military would be unable to successfully implement a "blitzkrieg" strategy. The book argues that the balance of forces, the difficulty of advancing rapidly with mechanized forces through Central Europe, and the formidable NATO forces opposing such a Soviet attack results in low chances for the Soviets to start a conventional war in Europe.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer's second book, "Liddell Hart and the Weight of History" (1988), reassesses the intellectual legacies of the 20th-century British military theorist B. H. Liddell Hart. While acknowledging that his own research had "profited greatly from his stimulating writings" and that Liddell Hart's works should still be considered "essential reading for serious students of strategy and warfare" (p. x), Mearsheimer argues that much of the conventional wisdom on Liddell Hart's contributions to modern military thought was flawed. In particular, the theory of the indirect approach, which Liddell Hart developed in the 1930s, is so vague and tautological that "virtually every military victory can be ascribed to [it]." (p. 87). Moreover, Liddell Hart's limited attempts to operationalize the theory clearly indicated that what he primarily had in mind was to "indirectly" defeat a continental adversary by "break[ing] the morale of the enemy's civilian population, not to destroy his military forces, which of course is what the blitzkrieg is concerned with" (p. 88). The common practice of tracing the intellectual origins of the blitzkrieg strategy to the indirect approach is thus mistaken since there was "no evidence... that Liddell Hart understood the importance of the deep strategic penetration [that distinguishes "blitzkrieg"] "before" World War II" (p. 43). Not surprisingly, Liddell Hart was proven utterly wrong on the fundamental military questions of the interwar period; he dismissed the possibility of a decisive German offensive in the Western front) and fell into disrepute in the immediate aftermath of the war.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer shows that Liddell Hart managed to salvage his intellectual stature by convincing former Wehrmacht generals to credit him with the ideas that led to the development of Germany's blitzkrieg strategy. Eager to restore their own tarnished reputation after the war, retired German generals such as Heinz Guderian allowed Liddell Hart to exaggerate his influence on "blitzkrieg" in their memoirs in exchange for helping them promote an image of themselves as having been military innovators first and foremost rather than Nazi henchmen. In the case of Guderian, Liddell Hart effectively acted as his "literary agent" for the English-speaking world (p. 185). Fritz Bayerlein, who served as General Erwin Rommel's chief of staff in the North African campaign, similarly helped Liddell Hart manipulate the historical record for a false portrayal of Rommel as having been his "pupil" (pp. 193–201). Mearsheimer concludes by emphasizing the importance of a robust intellectual community that can hold "defense intellectuals" accountable: Defense intellectuals need to know that informed judgments will be passed on their views and their overall conduct and that charlatanism will be exposed. Absence of penalties for misbehavior means no brake on the spread of false ideas. Liddell Hart actually was held accountable at one point. The significant ebbing of his influence during and immediately after World War II was, in effect, punishment for offering flawed ideas for how to deal with the Third Reich. What is disturbing about Liddell Hart's case, however, is that eventually he was able to escape from this predicament by rewriting history. The national security community, especially its historians, need to be alert to historical manipulation for selfish reasons (p. 224).Mearsheimer's arguments about Liddell Hart generated varied responses. For example, the founder of the Israel Defense Forces Operational Theory Research Institute, Simon Naveh, concurred in a separate study, which found that "by distorting the actual historical circumstances of the "Blitzkrieg" formation [Liddell Hart] obscured its temporal and cognitive origins... The early-1950s display of the transformed version of "Blitzkrieg" as a historical fact, carrying the joint signature of Liddell Hart and Guderian, lent it an authentic touch and a professional legitimacy that could not be shaken." In contrast, Richard Swain of the US Army Command and General Staff College argued that while "there is a good deal about which Mearsheimer is correct," he likely overstates the extent to which Liddell Hart's historical distortions were consciously self-serving: "To charge Liddell Hart with cleverly creating a deception requires one first to accept that Liddell Hart knew he had been wrong. There is little or no evidence of that."


title: John Mearsheimer

text: In 1990, Mearsheimer published an essay in which he predicted that Europe would revert to a multipolar environment, similar to that of the first half of the 20th century, if American and Soviet forces left after the end of the Cold War. In another article that year in "The Atlantic", he predicted that the multipolar environment would increase nuclear proliferation in Europe, especially in Germany.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: In that essay and in the 1993 "Foreign Affairs" article "The case for a Ukrainian nuclear deterrent", he argues that to reduce the dangers of war, the US should accept the possibility of Germany and Ukraine developing a nuclear arsenal and work to prevent the rise of excessive nationalism. Mearsheimer presents several possible scenarios for a Europe after the departure of American and Russian forces. He states that a Europe with nuclear proliferation was most likely to remain at peace because without a nuclear deterrent, Germany would be likely to once more try to conquer the continent. Mearsheimer argues it to be strategically unwise for Ukraine to surrender its nuclear arsenal (remnants of the Soviet stockpile). However, in 1994 a series of agreements required Ukraine to agree to get rid of its entire former Soviet nuclear stockpile, a process that was complete by 1996.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: When challenged on the former assertion at a lecture given to the International Politics department at the University of Wales in Aberystwyth, he maintained that in spite of European integration and expansion, he still believed that his predictions would come true if the US military left Europe.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Also, in op-ed pieces written in 1998 and 2000 for "The New York Times", Mearsheimer explains why it makes sense for India to pursue nuclear weapons. He argues that India has good strategic reasons to want a nuclear deterrent, especially to balance against China and Pakistan and to guarantee regional stability. He also criticized the American counter-proliferation policy towards India, which he considers to be unrealistic and harmful to American interests in the region.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: In a widely cited 1994 article, "The False Promise of International Institutions," Mearsheimer tackles popular arguments about the ability of institutions to discourage war and promote peace among states. He recognizes that states often find institutions to be useful, but the imperative of relentless security competition under anarchy means that state behavior is primarily a function of the distribution of power in the international system. Institutions, at best, are "merely an intervening variable in the process" (p. 13). Mearsheimer maintains that "institutionalist theories" offered poor alternatives to this grim picture of international politics. In particular, influential neoliberal institutionalist arguments ignore relative-gains concerns as a barrier to cooperation and fail to provide evidence that instances of cooperation, which are commonly attributed to institutions, would not have taken place in their absence. Other theories such as collective security theory and critical theory likewise fell short on logical and empirical grounds.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: In a response article, the prominent neoliberal institutionalist scholars Robert Keohane and Lisa Martin acknowledge that seminal institutionalist works tended to neglect the problem of relative gains but maintain that the debate spawned by realist challenges "has made distributional and bargaining issues more salient than they were in early neoliberal thinking" (p. 45). Mearsheimer charges that "a careful look at Keohane and Martin's response reveals that liberal institutionalism in its latest form is no longer a clear alternative to realism, but has, in fact, been swallowed up by it."


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer is the leading proponent of offensive realism. The structural theory, unlike the classical realism of Hans Morgenthau, places the principal emphasis on security competition among great powers within the anarchy of the international system, not on the human nature of statesmen and diplomats. In contrast to another structural realist theory, the defensive realism of Kenneth Waltz, offensive realism maintains that states are not satisfied with a given amount of power but seek hegemony for security because the anarchic makeup of the international system creates strong incentives for states to seek opportunities to gain power at the expense of competitors. Mearsheimer summarized that view in his 2001 book "The Tragedy of Great Power Politics":


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Given the difficulty of determining how much power is enough for today and tomorrow, great powers recognize that the best way to ensure their security is to achieve hegemony now, thus eliminating any possibility of a challenge by another great power. Only a misguided state would pass up an opportunity to be the hegemon in the system because it thought it already had sufficient power to survive.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: He also dismisses democratic peace theory, which claims that democracies never or rarely go to war with each other.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer does not believe it to be possible for a state to become a global hegemon (see section on Night watchman below). Although that is theoretically possible, there is too much landmass and too many oceans, which he posits as having effective stopping power and acting as giant moats. Instead, he believes that states can achieve only regional hegemony. Furthermore, he argues that regional hegemons attempt to prevent other states from gaining hegemony in their region since peer competitors would be free to roam and thus could interfere in the established regional hegemon's neighborhood. States that have achieved regional hegemony, such as the United States, will act as offshore balancers by interfering in other regions if the great powers in those regions cannot prevent the rise of a hegemon.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: In a 2004 speech, Mearsheimer praised the British historian E. H. Carr for his 1939 book "The Twenty Years' Crisis" and argued that Carr was correct when he claimed that international relations were a struggle of all against all, with states always placing their own interests first. Mearsheimer maintained that Carr's points were still as relevant for 2004 as for 1939 and went on to deplore what he claimed was the dominance of "idealist" thinking about international relations in British academic life.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Night watchman in Mearsheimer's terminology is a "global hegemon", a theoretical impossibility according to "The Tragedy of Great Power Politics". Nevertheless, in 1990, Mearsheimer mentioned the existence of a "watchman". Democracies lived at peace because "America's hegemonic position in NATO ... mitigated the effects of anarchy on the Western democracies and induced cooperation among them ... With the United States serving as a "night watchman" (emphasis added), fears about relative gains among the Western European states were mitigated ..."


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Afterwards, Mearsheimer did not mention the "watchman" for some time. A decade later, he described the "international anarchy" as having not changed with the end of the Cold War, "... and there are few signs that such change is likely any time soon. States remain the principal actors in world politics and there is still no "night watchman" standing above them." Five more years later, Mearsheimer confirmed that "in an anarchic system there is no "night watchman" for state to call when trouble comes knocking at their door."


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Precisely two decades after Mearsheimer had detected the watchman in the world for the last time, he rediscovered the watchman, which exists and keeps Europe at peace. The article "Why Is Europe Peaceful Today?" unambiguously answers, "The reason is simple: the United States is by far the most powerful country in the world and it effectively acts as a "night watchman"."


title: John Mearsheimer

text: In January and early February 1991, Mearsheimer published two op-eds in the "Chicago Tribune" and "The New York Times" and argued that the war to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi forces would be quick and lead to a decisive US victory, with less than 1,000 American casualties. Mearsheimer's argument was based on several points.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Firstly, the Iraqi Army was a Third World military that was unprepared to fight mobile armored battles. Secondly, US armored forces were better equipped and trained. Thirdly, US artillery was also far better than its Iraqi counterpart. Fourthly, US airpower, unfettered by the weak Iraqi air force, should prove devastating against Iraqi ground forces. Fifthly and finally, the forward deployment of Iraqi reserves boded ill for their ability to counter US efforts to penetrate the Iraqi defense line along the Saudi–Kuwaiti border. All of those predictions came true during the course of the war.<ref name="why-john-j-mearsheimer-is-right-about-some-things/8839"></ref>


title: John Mearsheimer

text: In October 1991, Mearsheimer was drawn into a bitter controversy at the University of Chicago regarding Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, then a visiting professor from Germany. Noelle-Neumann was a prominent German pollster and a leading academic on public opinion research, who authored the highly regarded book, "The Spiral of Silence." The debate centered on an article written for "Commentary" magazine by Leo Bogart, "The Pollster and the Nazis," which described Noelle-Neumann's past employment as a writer and editor for the Nazi newspaper "Das Reich" from 1940 to 1942. Noelle-Neumann's response to the article was to claim that "texts written under a dictatorship more than 50 years ago cannot be read as they were in 1937, 1939 or 1941. Severed from the time and place where they were written, they are no longer real, for reality is in part based on time and place."


title: John Mearsheimer

text: As chairman of Chicago's political science department at the time, Mearsheimer sat down with Noelle-Neumann to discuss the article and the allegations. After meeting with her for over three hours, Mearsheimer publicly declared, "I believe that Noelle-Neumann was an anti-Semite," and he spearheaded a campaign to ask her for an apology. He joined other University of Chicago faculty in writing a joint piece for Commentary Magazine that reacted to Noelle-Neumann's reply to the accusation against her. They declared that "by providing rhetorical support for the exclusion of Jews, her words helped make the disreputable reputable, the indecent decent, the uncivilized civilized, and the unthinkable thinkable." Mearsheimer said, "Knowing what we know now about the Holocaust, there is no reason for her not to apologize. To ask somebody who played a contributing role in the greatest crime of the 20th century to say 'I'm sorry' is not unreasonable."


title: John Mearsheimer

text: In March 2006, Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, the former academic dean and professor of international relations at the Harvard Kennedy School, published a working paper and a "London Review of Books" article discussing the power of the “Israel lobby” in shaping US foreign policy. They define the Israel lobby as "a loose coalition of individuals and organizations who actively work to steer US foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction." They state that it is not appropriate to label it a "Jewish lobby" because not all Jews feel a strong attachment to Israel and because some of the individuals and groups who work to foster US support for Israel are not Jewish. According to Mearsheimer and Walt, Christian Zionists also play an important role. Finally, they emphasize that the lobby is not a cabal or a conspiracy but simply a powerful interest group, like the National Rifle Association or the farm lobby. Their core argument is that the policies pushed by the lobby are not in the national interest of the US or ultimately of Israel. Those pieces generated extensive media coverage and led to a wide-ranging and often heated debate, including charges of antisemitism, between supporters and opponents of their argument. The article was subsequently turned into a book, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy."


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer was critical of the 2006 Lebanon War. He argued that Israel's strategy was "doomed to fail" because it was based on the "faulty assumption" that Israeli air power could defeat Hezbollah, which was essentially a guerrilla force. The war, he argued, was a disaster for the Lebanese people, as well as a "major setback" for the United States and Israel. He said that the Israel lobby played a key role in enabling Israel's counterproductive response by preventing the US from exercising independent influence.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer was also critical of Israel's offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip that began in December 2008. He argued that it would not eliminate Hamas's capability to fire missiles and rockets at Israel and that it would not cause Hamas to end its fight with Israel. In fact, he argued that relations between Israel and the Palestinians were likely to get worse in the years ahead.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer emphasizes that the only hope for Israel to end its conflict with the Palestinians is to end the occupation and to allow the Palestinians to have their own state in Gaza and the West Bank. Otherwise, Israel will turn itself into an "apartheid state". That would be a disastrous outcome for Israel but also the United States and especially the Palestinians.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer's criticisms of Israel further extended to its possession of nuclear weapons. In remarks made at the International Spy Museum in 2010, Mearsheimer asserted that a nuclear Israel was contrary to US interests and questioned Israel's accountability in the matter. He stated that there was "no accountability for Israel on any issue" because he surmised, "The Israelis can do almost anything and get away with it."


title: John Mearsheimer

text: In April 2010, Mearsheimer delivered the Hisham B. Sharabi Memorial Lecture at the Palestine Center in Washington, DC, which he titled "The Future of Palestine: Righteous Jews vs. the New Afrikaners." He argued that "the two-state solution is now a fantasy" because Israel will incorporate the Gaza Strip and the West Bank into a "Greater Israel", which would become an apartheid state. According to Mearsheimer, such a state would not be politically viable, most American Jews would not support it, and it would eventually become a democratic binational state politically dominated by its Palestinian majority. He suggested that "American Jews who care deeply about Israel" could be divided into three categories: the "new Afrikaners", who will support Israel even if it is an apartheid state; "righteous Jews", who believe that individual rights are universal and apply equally to Jews and Palestinians; and the largest group, which he called the "great ambivalent middle". He concluded that most of the "great ambivalent middle" would not defend an apartheid Israel because "American Jews are among the staunchest defenders of traditional liberal values." Accordingly, the "new Afrikaners" would become increasingly marginalized over time. Mearsheimer stated that he "would classify most of the individuals who head the Israel lobby's major organizations as "'new Afrikaners'" and specifically listed a number of prominent Jews and Jewish organizations, including Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, David Harris of the American Jewish Committee, Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Ronald Lauder of the World Jewish Congress, Morton Klein of the Zionist Organization of America, as well as businessmen such as Sheldon Adelson, Lester Crown, and Mortimer Zuckerman and "media personalities" like Fred Hiatt, Charles Krauthammer, Bret Stephens and Martin Peretz.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: In 2011, John Mearsheimer wrote a back-cover blurb for controversial author Gilad Atzmon's book "The Wandering Who? A Study of Jewish Identity Politics": "Gilad Atzmon has written a fascinating and provocative book on Jewish identity in the modern world. He shows how assimilation and liberalism are making it increasingly difficult for Jews in the Diaspora to maintain a powerful sense of their 'Jewishness.' Panicked Jewish leaders, he argues, have turned to Zionism (blind loyalty to Israel) and scaremongering (the threat of another Holocaust) to keep the tribe united and distinct from the surrounding goyim. As Atzmon's own case demonstrates, this strategy is not working and is causing many Jews great anguish. "The Wandering Who?" should be widely read by Jews and non-Jews alike."


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer's endorsement of Atzmon's book was met with accusations of antisemitism by prominent Jewish writers and intellectuals. Alan Dershowitz wrote an article in response, "Why are John Mearsheimer and Richard Falk Endorsing a Blatantly Anti-Semitic Book?" It stated that the book "argues that Jews seek to control the world."


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer denied the charges of antisemitism in that he had "no reason to amend it or embellish" his blurb and defended his position. Writing in regard to the charge by Goldberg that Atzmon is anti-Semitic and, by implication, so is his positive review of Atzmon's book, Mearsheimer responded: "Atzmon's basic point is that Jews often talk in universalistic terms, but many of them think and act in particularistic terms. One might say they talk like liberals but act like nationalists... It is in this context that he discusses what he calls the 'Holocaust religion,' Zionism, and Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. Again, to be perfectly clear, he has no animus toward Judaism as a religion or with individuals who are Jewish by birth."


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer asserts that China's rise will not be peaceful and that the US will seek to contain China and to prevent it from achieving regional hegemony. Mearsheimer argues that although containing China militarily is possible, economic containment of China is not. Mearsheimer believes that China will attempt to dominate the Indo-Pacific region just as the US set out to dominate the Western Hemisphere. The American motivation for doing so will be to gain a position of overwhelming security and superiority against its neighbors, which the US sees as potential challengers to its status. Additionally, he maintains that the US will attempt to form a balancing coalition that consists primarily of India, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, Vietnam, and Indonesia to counter the growing strength and power projection capabilities of China.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer presented a fuller statement of his views on China's rise in his 2014 updated edition of "The Tragedy of Great Power Politics", arguing that "if China continues its striking economic growth over the next few decades, it is likely to act in accordance with the logic of offensive realism... Specifically, it will try to dominate Asia the way the United States dominates the Western Hemisphere." In accordance with the theory's structural logic, China will pursue regional hegemony not because its domestic politics or ideology inclines it toward aggression but because "domination offers the best way to survive under international anarchy" (p. 368). Mearsheimer stressed that China was simply following America's example in that regard:These ambitious goals make good strategic sense for China (although this is not to say China will necessarily be able to achieve them). Beijing should want a militarily weak and isolated India, Japan, and Russia as its neighbors, just as the United States prefers a militarily weak Canada and Mexico on its borders. What state in its right mind would want other powerful countries located in its region? All Chinese surely remember what happened over the last century when Japan was powerful and China was weak... [They also] surely remember what happened in the hundred years between the First Opium War (1832–42) and the end of World War II (1945), when the United States and the European great powers took advantage of a weak China and not only violated its sovereignty but also imposed unfair treaties on it and exploited it economically. Why should we expect China to act differently than the United States? Are the Chinese more principled than we are? More ethical? Are they less nationalistic? Less concerned about their survival? They are none of these things, of course, which is why China is likely to follow basic realist logic and attempt to become a regional hegemon in Asia (pp. 374-375).


title: John Mearsheimer

text: In a subsequent debate with former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski in "Foreign Policy" magazine, Mearsheimer clarified, "It is unlikely that China will go on a rampage and conquer other Asian countries. Instead, China will want to dictate the boundaries of acceptable behavior to neighboring countries, much the way the United States does in the Americas. An increasingly powerful China is also likely to try to push the United States out of Asia, much the way the United States pushed the European great powers out of the Western Hemisphere." In his response, Brzezinski argued, "How great powers behave is not predetermined... For its part, the Chinese leadership appears much more flexible and sophisticated than many previous aspirants to great power status." Mearsheimer responded that Chinese leaders are indeed prudent and have no incentive to "pick a fight" with the United States at the moment, but "what we are talking about is the situation in 2025 or 2030, when China has the military muscle to take on the United States. What happens then, when China has a much larger gross national product and a much more formidable military than it has today? The history of great powers offers a straightforward answer[.]"


title: John Mearsheimer

text: In a widely debated 2021 "Foreign Affairs" article, Mearsheimer observed that the United States was destined to compete aggressively with China as long as the latter continued to grow into a militarily and economically powerful state in East Asia. However, contrary to realist logic, the United States in the post-Cold War period had "promoted investment in China and welcomed the country into the global trading system, thinking it would become a peace-loving democracy and a responsible stakeholder in a U.S.-led international order" (p. 48). In effect, by pursuing a policy of engagement, the U.S. had facilitated China's dangerous rise to great-power status and hastened the onset of a new Cold War:Nobody can say that engagement wasn't given ample opportunity to work, nor can anyone argue that China emerged as a threat because the United States was not accommodating enough...China's economy experienced unprecedented growth, but the country did not turn into a liberal democracy or a responsible stakeholder. To the contrary, Chinese leaders view liberal values as a threat to their country's stability, and as rulers of rising powers normally do, they are pursuing an increasingly aggressive foreign policy. There is no way around it: engagement was a colossal strategic mistake (pp. 54-55).In a 2015 review of Mearsheimer's arguments on China, the sociologist Amitai Etzioni charged that China and the United States "have very little 'real' reason to confront each other" and that the "main value of Mearsheimer's provocative thesis is that it alerts those of us on both sides of the power divide to redouble our efforts to prevent his dire predictions from coming true." By contrast, Executive Director Tom Switzer of the Sydney-based Centre for Independent Studies opined in May 2020, "Rarely in history has an academic been as intellectually vindicated as John Mearsheimer, [He] accurately foresaw the intense Sino-American security competition that the coronavirus crisis has exposed."


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer wrote a book, "Why Leaders Lie" (Oxford University Press, 2011), which analyzes lying in international politics. He argues that leaders lie to foreign audiences because they think that it is good for their country. For example, he maintains that US President Franklin D. Roosevelt lied about the "Greer" incident in September 1941 because he was deeply committed to getting America into World War II, which he thought was in its national interest.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: His two main findings are that leaders actually do not lie very much to other countries and that democratic leaders are actually more likely than autocrats to lie to their own people. Thus, he starts his book by saying that it is not surprising that Saddam Hussein did not lie about Iraq having no weapons of mass destruction but that George W. Bush and some of his key advisors lied to the American people about the threat from Iraq. Mearsheimer argues that leaders are most likely to lie to their own people in democracies that fight wars of choice in distant places. He says that it is difficult for leaders to lie to other countries because there is not much trust among them, especially when security issues are at stake, and trust is needed for lying to be effective. Mearsheimer states that it is easier for leaders to lie to their own people because there is usually a good deal of trust between them.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer does not consider the moral dimension of international lying, which he views from a utilitarian perspective. He argues that there are five types of international lies.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: He explains the reasons for leaders pursuing each of the different kinds of lies. His central thesis is that leaders lie more frequently to domestic audiences than to leaders of other states. That is because international lying can have negative effects, including "blowback" and "backfiring".


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Blowback occurs if telling international lies helps cause a culture of deceit at home. Backfiring occurs if telling a lie leads to a failed policy. He also emphasizes that there are two other kinds of deception besides lying: "concealment", a leader remaining silent about an important matter, and "spinning", a leader telling a story that emphasizes the positive and downplays or ignores the negative.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: In "The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities" (Yale University Press, 2018) Mearsheimer presents a critique of the geopolitical strategy he refers to as "liberal hegemony". His definition of liberal hegemony includes a three-part designation of it as an extension of Woodrow Wilson's original initiatives to make the world safe by turning its governments into democracies, turning geopolitical economic initiatives towards open markets compatible with democratic governments, and opening up and promoting other democratically liberal international social and culture societies on a global scale of inclusion. Mearsheimer stated in an interview broadcast on CSPAN that liberal hegemony represents a "great delusion" and that much more weight should be associated with nationalism as a policy of enduring geopolitical value than the delusions he associated with liberal hegemony.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: In a related 2019 article, Mearsheimer argued that the US-led liberal international order had been destined to collapse from its inception. Contrary to scholars such as G. John Ikenberry, who trace the origins of the liberal international order to the early Cold War, he asserted that the Cold War liberal order had in fact been a "bounded order", designed to help the United States and its allies compete more effectively against the communist bloc. Although the US-led order became truly international after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the policies that undergird the order tended to precipitate its demise to the point that "[e]ven if Western policymakers had been wiser stewards of that order, they could not have extended its longevity in any meaningful way" (p. 30). In particular, US-led efforts to expand the order's membership by spreading democracy were bound to backfire by provoking nationalist resistance, embroiling the US in disastrous military adventures, and stoking hostility among rival powers such as Russia and China. Liberal internationalist policies also tended to collide with nationalism and economic concerns within the liberal countries themselves, as illustrated by key events such as Brexit and the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency. Finally, the drive to integrate rising powers such as China into the liberal international order effectively "helped China become a great power, thus undercutting unipolarity, which is essential for maintaining a liberal world order" (p. 42).


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer concluded by predicting that the liberal international order would be replaced by three distinct "realist orders" in the near term: "a thin international order", primarily concerned with arms control and managing the global economy, and two bounded orders, led respectively by China and the United States (p. 44).


title: John Mearsheimer

text: His claims about the liberal international order have sparked a lively debate and prompted responses from scholars such as Robert Jervis, Christopher Layne, Jennifer Pitts, Jack Snyder, William C. Wohlforth, and C. William Walldorf. In a critique of "The Great Delusion", Wohlforth writes that the book fails to make good on its core claim: "First, you cannot establish a causal connection between liberalism and imprudent foreign policy by looking at only liberalism and imprudent foreign policy. Because Mearsheimer subjects no other ideology to the same scrutiny to which he subjects liberalism, there is no way to know whether liberalism stands out this regard... Second, you cannot establish that a permissive systemic environment is a necessary condition by looking only at cases that occur in a permissive strategic environment." Wohlforth also argues that "The Great Delusion" is inconsistent with Mearsheimer's "Tragedy of Great Power Politics": "Given that other great powers were destined to come back, and the theory’s stipulation that their preferences (i.e., revisionism) are independent of anything the U.S. does (because nothing the U.S. does can reduce their uncertainty about U.S. intentions, and vice-versa), why would a unipolar U.S. not seek to expand and lock in gains when it had the opportunity to do so?"


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer makes important reference to Laurence Lampert's nihilistic Strauss interpretation in his book "The Great Delusion".


title: John Mearsheimer

text: After the end of the Soviet Union, the newly independent Ukraine had a large arsenal of nuclear weapons on its territory. However, in 1994, Ukraine agreed to give up nuclear arms and become a member of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty; within two years, it had removed all atomic weapons. Almost alone among observers, Mearsheimer was opposed to that decision because he saw that Ukraine without a nuclear deterrent would likely be subjected to aggression by Russia. As early as 1993, he suggested that Ukraine should retain its nuclear weapons as a deterrent.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer had warned in 1993 that a nuclear-free Ukraine would remain exposed to the danger of Russian attempts at reconquest. In 2014, he retrospectively criticized the geopolitical reorientation of the United States under Bill Clinton since 1995 due to its monopolistic and hegemonic orientation. With the intention of weakening the government of Russia, he said, NATO was planned to be extended to Russia's borders. Accordingly, in an article in "Foreign Affairs" in August 2014, he assigned the main blame for the outbreak of the conflict to the United States and its Western allies.Since the mid-1990s, Russian leaders have adamantly opposed NATO enlargement, and in recent years, they have made it clear that they would not stand by while their strategically important neighbor turned into a Western bastion. For Putin, the illegal overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected and pro-Russian president -- which he rightly labeled a “coup” -- was the final straw. He responded by taking Crimea, a peninsula he feared would host a NATO naval base, and working to destabilize Ukraine until it abandoned its efforts to join the West. The narrative that Russia had only been waiting for opportunities to annex Ukraine is seen as erroneous by Mearsheimer.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: The U.S. and European political elites had been caught unprepared by the events "because they attach little importance to the logic of realism in the 21st century and assume that European unity and freedom can be guaranteed by means of liberal principles such as the rule of law, economic interdependence, and democracy."


title: John Mearsheimer

text: The U.S., aware of Russia's rejectionist stance, which is understandable because of Russia's security interests, would have pushed for the eastward expansion of the EU and NATO and supported the democratization of Ukraine. Mearsheimer considers Putin's reaction understandable because Ukraine (as a non-aligned state) is "indispensable" as a buffer for Russia's security needs. Mearsheimer compared NATO expansion into Eastern Europe, led by NATO, and the planned inclusion of Ukraine to the hypothetical scenario of a Chinese military alliance in North America: "Imagine the American outrage if China built an impressive military alliance and tried to include Canada and Mexico."


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer argued that Russia's annexation of the Crimea was fueled by concerns that it would lose access to its Black Sea Fleet naval base at Sevastopol if Ukraine continued to move towards NATO and European integration. Mearsheimer concluded that US policy should shift to recognize Ukraine as a buffer state between NATO and Russia, rather than attempt to absorb Ukraine into NATO.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer's article provoked Michael McFaul and Stephen Sestanovich to publish their response in the November/December 2014 issue of "Foreign Affairs".


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer sees NATO's eastward expansion as a dangerous provocation of Russia. He invokes George F. Kennan as one of the first critical admonishers who warned in 1998 of the danger of war as a result of eastward enlargement. Mearsheimer attributes the political mistakes to the lack of political realism or the great influence of the "liberal hegemony" school of thought in both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. The only sensible way out of the crisis, he said, is to soberly factor in Russia's security interests, like those of any other power. Ukraine, he said, must accept the role of buffer or bridge given to it by its geostrategic situation. Anything else, he said, was abstract and meaningless in terms of Realpolitik. The West's constructive cooperation with Russia is of great importance for solving important existing and upcoming problems and should not be put at risk, he said. Mearsheimer also named the weapons and "advisors" the U.S. is providing to lead Ukraine into a "civil war." In response to the Brookings Institution's 2015 recommendation to provide weapons to Ukraine to increase the cost of an attack to Putin, Mearsheimer replied in "The New York Times" that the strategic importance is so great to Russia that it will continue the conflict at any cost, up to and including the use of nuclear weapons.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul countered in 2014 that Russian foreign policy was not a reaction to the United States, but was based on the internal Russian dynamics.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: In his 25 September 2015 lecture "Why is Ukraine the West's Fault?." Mearsheimer claimed that the West (the US and the EU) was leading Ukraine down the primrose path, that the Western powers were encouraging Ukraine to become part of the West (even though they would be rebuffed), that they were encouraging the Ukraine government to pursue a hardline policy towards Russia, and that "the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked". In the same lecture Mearsheimer declared: "If you really want to wreck Russia, what you should do is to encourage it to try to conquer Ukraine. Putin is much too smart to try that".


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Mearsheimer reiterated his belief that NATO and the EU were largely to blame for the war in Ukraine. In an interview with "The New Yorker", Mearsheimer stated: "I think all the trouble in this case really started in April 2008, at the NATO Summit in Bucharest, where afterward NATO issued a statement that said Ukraine and Georgia would become part of NATO. The Russians made it unequivocally clear at the time that they viewed this as an existential threat, and they drew a line in the sand. Nevertheless, what has happened with the passage of time is that we have moved forward to include Ukraine in the West to make Ukraine a Western bulwark on Russia’s border... NATO expansion is the heart of the strategy, but it includes E.U. expansion as well, and it includes turning Ukraine into a pro-American liberal democracy, and, from a Russian perspective, this is an existential threat." According to this view, Ukraine's political leeway is determined by how it manages to strike a balance between Western orientation and consideration for Russian security interests. Mearsheimer does not deny Russia's aggression in this regard, but his criticism is directed at EU and NATO. "Given the West’s talk about eventual NATO membership and association agreements with the EU, how were politicians in Ukraine to resist the appeal of eventual inclusion? But if they succumb to that temptation they put themselves at risk of Russia’s wrath."


title: John Mearsheimer

text: In a subsequent interview in November 2022 to the same journalist of "The New Yorker", Mearsheimer argued that since the beginning of the conflict Russia has not been interested in the occupation of Ukraine, but only in the annexation of its south-eastern territories (the "oblasts" of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Donetsk). The main proof of this would be the fact that if Putin had really intended to occupy the entire territory of Ukraine, he would not have used an army consisting of only 190,000 soldiers. The bombings on Kyev had and have the sole purpose of inducing the Ukrainian government and its western allies to accept the recognition of the annexation to Russia of the four aforementioned territories.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: In an interview with CSPAN in late March 2022, Mearsheimer has stated that he considers American involvement with the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine to be secondary in terms of geopolitical priorities to immediate concerns which he associates with the containment of threats to geopolitical stability being caused by contemporary Chinese geopolitics, which Mearsheimer considers as a more immediate threat to geopolitical concerns in the United States. Mearsheimer debated the Russian invasion with Radoslaw Sikorski in May 2022. Sikorski has taken a position on the Russian invasion of Ukraine identifying Putin as a culprit in conducting the invasion of Ukraine against the position of Mearsheimer that Putin is pursuing a realist geopolitical plan to secure Russian national interests in the presence of perceived threats from an expanding NATO.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: In 2022, the Security Service of Ukraine placed Mearsheimer on a list of public figures whom it alleges promote Russian propaganda.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: In 2013, Mearsheimer and Walt published "Leaving theory behind: Why simplistic hypothesis testing is bad for International Relations." They point out that in recent years, scholars of international relations have devoted less effort to creating and refining theories or using them to guide empirical research. Instead is a focus on what they call a simplistic hypothesis testing, which emphasizes discovering well-verified empirical regularities. They state that to be a mistake because insufficient attention to theory leads to misspecified empirical models or misleading measures of key concepts. They also point out that because of the poor quality data in international relations, it is less likely that the efforts will produce cumulative knowledge. It will lead to only a short-term gain and will make scholarship less useful to concerned citizens and policymakers.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Theories give a scholar an overarching framework of the myriad realms of activity. Theories are like maps and aim to simplify a complex reality, but unlike maps, theories provide a causal story by saying that one or more factors can explain a particular phenomenon. Theories attempt to simplify assumptions about the most relevant factors in the aim to explain how the world works. Some grand theories like realism or liberalism claim to explain broad patterns of state behavior, and middle-range theories focus on more narrowly defined phenomena like coercion, deterrence, and economic sanctions.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: They list eight reasons why theories are important. The problems that arise from inadequate attention to theory is that it impossible to construct good models or interpret statistical findings correctly. By privileging hypothesis testing, that is overlooked. It might make sense to pay more attention to hypothesis testing if it produced much useful knowledge about international relations, but Mearsheimer and Walt claim that it is not the case and that the simplistic hypothesis test is inherently flawed. One of the consequences omitted variable bias, which is often treated as a methodological issue, but it should be treated as a theoretical matter. Selection bias is also a problem that arise from inadequate attention to theory. To examine that more clearly, the authors point out James Fearson's critique of Paul Huth and Bruce Russett's analyses of extended deterrence. Mearsheimer and Walt also point out that contemporary international relations scholarship faces challenging measurement issues because of inadequate attention to theory and cause misleading measures. A few examples are given to support their claim, including Dan Reiter and Allan Stam's "Democracies at War".


title: John Mearsheimer

text: Mearsheimer and Walt state that it is a sophisticated study but contains questionable measures of key concepts and that the measure to test their idea do not capture the theories core concepts. Poor data, the absence of explanation, and the lack of cumulation are other problems that arise from inadequate attention to theory by focusing too much on simplistic hypothesis testing.


title: John Mearsheimer

text: In 2019, Mearsheimer said his preferred candidate in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary was Bernie Sanders. He has said that economic inequality in the United States was the greatest problem faced by the nation.


title: NASCAR

text: The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and his son, Jim France, has been the CEO since August 2018. The company is headquartered in Daytona Beach, Florida. Each year, NASCAR sanctions over 1,500 races at over 100 tracks in 48 US states as well as in Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Europe.


title: NASCAR

text: In the 1920s and 1930s, Daytona Beach supplanted France and Belgium as the preferred location for world land speed records. After a historic race between Ransom Olds and Alexander Winton in 1903, 15 records were set on what became the Daytona Beach Road Course between 1905 and 1935. Daytona Beach had become synonymous with fast cars in 1936. Drivers raced on a course, consisting of a stretch of beach as one straightaway, and a narrow blacktop beachfront highway, State Road A1A, as the other. The two straights were connected by two tight, deeply rutted and sand covered turns at each end.


title: NASCAR

text: Stock car racing in the United States has its origins in bootlegging during Prohibition, when drivers ran bootleg whiskey made primarily in the Appalachian region of the United States. Bootleggers needed to distribute their illicit products, and they typically used small, fast vehicles to better evade the police. Many of the drivers would modify their cars for speed and handling, as well as increased cargo capacity.


title: NASCAR

text: The repeal of Prohibition in 1933 dried up some of their business, but by then the people of the American South had developed a taste for moonshine, and a number of the drivers continued "runnin' shine", this time evading the "revenuers" who were attempting to tax their operations. The cars continued to improve, and by the late 1940s, races featuring these cars were being run for pride and profit. These races were popular entertainment in the rural Southern United States, and they are most closely associated with the Wilkes County region of North Carolina. Most races in those days were of modified cars. Street vehicles were lightened and reinforced.


title: NASCAR

text: Mechanic William France Sr., moved to Daytona Beach, Florida, from Washington, D.C., in 1935 to escape the Great Depression. He was familiar with the history of the area from the land speed record attempts. France entered the 1936 Daytona event, finishing fifth. He took over running the course in 1938. He promoted a few races before World War II.


title: NASCAR

text: France had the notion that people would enjoy watching stock cars race. Drivers were frequently victimized by unscrupulous promoters who would leave events with all the money before drivers were paid. On December 14, 1947, France began talks with other influential racers and promoters at the Ebony Bar at the Streamline Hotel in Daytona Beach, Florida, that ended with the formation of NASCAR on February 21, 1948.


title: NASCAR

text: The first Commissioner of NASCAR was Erwin "Cannonball" Baker, a former stock car, motorcycle, and open-wheel racer who competed in the Indianapolis 500 and set over one hundred land speed records. Baker earned most of his fame for his transcontinental speed runs and would prove a car's worth by driving it from New York to Los Angeles. After his death, the famous transcontinental race the 'Cannonball Run' and the film that was inspired by it were both named in his honor.


title: NASCAR

text: Baker is enshrined in the Automotive Hall of Fame, the Motorcycle Hall of Fame, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame. This level of honor and success in each diverse racing association earned Baker the title of "King of the Road".


title: NASCAR

text: In the early 1950s, the United States Navy stationed Bill France Jr., at the Moffett Federal Airfield in northern California. His father asked him to look up Bob Barkhimer in San Jose, California. Barkhimer was a star of midget car racing from the World War II era, and later ran about 22 different speedways as the head of the California Stock Car Racing Association. Young Bill developed a relationship with Bob Barkhimer and his partner, Margo Burke. He went to events with them, stayed weekends with them and generally became very familiar with racing on the west coast. "Barky", as he was called by his friends, journeyed to Daytona Beach and met with Bill France Sr. In the spring of 1954, NASCAR became a stock car sanctioning body on the Pacific Coast under Barky.


title: NASCAR

text: Wendell Scott was the first African-American to win a race in the Grand National Series, NASCAR's highest level. He was posthumously inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, North Carolina, January 30, 2015.


title: NASCAR

text: On March 8, 1936, a collection of drivers gathered at Daytona Beach, Florida. The drivers brought coupes, hardtops, convertibles, and sports cars to compete in an event to determine the fastest cars, and best drivers. Throughout the race, the heavier cars got bogged down in the sand, while the lightweight Fords navigated the ruts of the course, eventually claiming the top 6 finishes for the race. Of the 27 cars that started the event, only 10 managed to survive the ordeal, as officials halted the event short of the scheduled distance. Driver Milt Marion was declared the winner, and a young Bill France placed 5th at the end of the day.


title: NASCAR

text: By early 1947, Bill France saw the potential for a unified series of racing competitors. France announced the foundation of the "National Championship Stock Car Circuit", otherwise known as NCSCC. France approached the American Automobile Association, or AAA, in hopes of obtaining financial backing for the venture. When the AAA declined support of the venture, France proceeded to announce a set of rules and awards for the NCSCC. France declared that the winner of the 1947 NCSCC season would receive $1000.00 and a trophy. The season would begin in January 1947 at the Daytona Beach track, and conclude in Jacksonville the following December. Nearly 40 events were logged during the season, and attendance often exceeded the venue's capacity. The competitors were paid as promised, and by the end of the season, driver Fonty Flock was declared the season champion after winning 7 events of the 24 that he entered. Bill France delivered the $1000 and 4-foot high trophy to Flock at the end of the season, along with $3000 in prize money to other drivers who competed throughout the season.


title: NASCAR

text: At the end of the 1947 season, Bill France announced that there would be a series of meetings held at the Streamline Hotel in Florida, beginning on December 14, 1947. At 1:00 pm, France called to order the 35 men who represented the NCSCC on the top floor of the hotel. The meeting was the first of four seminars in which France would outline his vision of an organized group of race car drivers. The name originally chosen for the series was National Stock Car Racing Association; when it was pointed out that that name was already in use by a rival sanctioning body, "National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing", proposed by mechanic Red Vogt, was selected as the organization's name.


title: NASCAR

text: NASCAR was founded by William France, Sr. on February 21, 1948 with the help of several other drivers of the time. The original plans for NASCAR included three distinct divisions: Modified, Roadster, and Strictly Stock. The Modified and Roadster classes were seen as more attractive to fans. It turned out that NASCAR fans wanted nothing to do with the roadsters, which fans perceived as a Northeast or Midwest series. The roadster division was quickly abandoned, while the modified division now operates as the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour. The Strictly Stock division was put on hold as American automobile manufacturers were unable to produce family sedans quickly enough to keep up with post-World War II demand. The 1948 schedule featured 52 Modified dirt track races. The sanctioning body hosted its first event at Daytona Beach on February 15, 1948. Red Byron beat Marshall Teague in the Modified division race. Byron won the 1948 national championship. Things had changed dramatically by 1949, and the Strictly Stock division was able to debut with a exhibition in February near Miami.


title: NASCAR

text: The first NASCAR "Strictly Stock" race ever was held at Charlotte Speedway, although this is not the same track as the Charlotte Motor Speedway that is a fixture on current NASCAR schedule. The race was held on June 19, 1949 and won by driver Jim Roper when Glenn Dunaway was disqualified after the discovery of his altered rear springs. Initially, the cars were known as the "Strictly Stock Division" and raced with virtually no modifications on the factory models. This division was renamed the "Grand National" division beginning in the 1950 season. Over a period of more than a decade, modifications for both safety and performance were allowed, and by the mid-1960s, the vehicles were purpose-built race cars with a stock-appearing body.


title: NASCAR

text: Early in NASCAR's history, foreign manufacturers had shown interest in entering the series; the British car manufacturer, MG, found a few of its vehicles entered, with some placing. For example, on August 16, 1963 in the International 200, Smokey Cook drove an MG to a 17th-place finish.


title: NASCAR

text: The first NASCAR competition held outside of the U.S. was in Canada, where on July 1, 1952, Buddy Shuman won a 200-lap race on a half-mile (800 m) dirt track in Stamford Park, Ontario, near Niagara Falls.


title: NASCAR

text: The NASCAR Cup Series (NCS) is the sport's highest level of professional competition. It is consequently the most popular and most profitable NASCAR series. Since 2001, the Cup Series season has consisted of 36 races over 10 months. Writers and fans often use "Cup" to refer to the NCS and the ambiguous use of "NASCAR" as a synonym for the series is common. The 2021 NCS Champion is Kyle Larson. The record for most championships is 7, held by three drivers: Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, and Jimmie Johnson. Johnson has the record for most consecutive with five consecutive Cup Series drivers' championships from 2006 to 2010. Previously, the most consecutive championships had been three in a row by Cale Yarborough in the late 1970s, the only other time when a driver has won three or more NASCAR Cup Series championships in a row.


title: NASCAR

text: The Cup Series had its first title sponsor in 1972. R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, which had been banned from television advertising, found a popular and demographically suitable consumer base in NASCAR fans and engaged NASCAR as a promotional outlet. As a result of that sponsorship, the Grand National Series became known as the Winston Cup Series starting in 1971, with a new points system and some significant cash benefits to compete for championship points. In 1972, the season was shortened from 48 races (including two on dirt tracks) to 31. 1972 is often acknowledged as the beginning of NASCAR's "modern era". The next competitive level, called Late Model Sportsman, gained the "Grand National" title passed down from the top division and soon found a sponsor in Busch Beer.


title: NASCAR

text: In 2004, Nextel Communications took over sponsorship of the premier series, and formally renamed it the Nextel Cup Series. A new championship points system, the "Chase for the Nextel Cup," (renamed "Chase for the Sprint Cup" in 2008) was also developed, which reset the point standings with ten races to go, making only drivers in the top ten or within 400 points of the leader eligible to win the championship. In 2007, NASCAR announced it was expanding "The Chase" from ten to twelve drivers, eliminating the 400-point cutoff, and giving a ten-point bonus to the top twelve drivers for each of the races they have won out of the first 26. Wins throughout the season would also be awarded five more points than in previous seasons. In 2008, the premier series title name became the Sprint Cup Series, as part of the merger between Nextel and Sprint.


title: NASCAR

text: In 2011, NASCAR announced a number of major rules changes, the most significant being abandoning the points system. The winner of a race now receives 43 points, with one-point decrements for each subsequent position (42 for second, 41 for third, and so on). The winner also receives 3 bonus points, and single bonus points are awarded to all drivers who lead a lap, plus the driver who leads the most laps. Another significant change involves the qualifying process for the Chase. The number of qualifying drivers will remain at 12, but only the top 10 will qualify solely on regular-season points. The remaining two Chase drivers will be the two drivers in the next 10 of the point standings (11th through 20th) with the most race wins in the regular season.


title: NASCAR

text: In 2014, NASCAR announced another revamp to the Chase format, expanding the Chase pool to 16 drivers, and eliminating four drivers after every three races, leaving four drivers to compete for the championship at the season finale at Homestead. In addition, wins were given an increased emphasis, with the 16 drivers with the most wins (15 if the points leader is winless; points leader will receive an automatic berth) gaining a spot in the chase. If there are fewer than 16 winners, the remaining spots will be filled based on the conventional points system.


title: NASCAR

text: Monster Energy became the title sponsor in 2017, which changed the series' name to Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. With Monster Energy's title sponsorship, NASCAR also abandoned "The Chase" name and now refers to the last 10 races simply as "the playoffs" similar to most other sports.


title: NASCAR

text: After the 2019 season, NASCAR declined an offer from Monster Energy to remain the title sponsor of the top series. On December 5, NASCAR revealed their new sponsorship model. Instead of a singular title sponsor, four "premier partners" (Coca-Cola, Xfinity, Busch Beer and GEICO) would be closely affiliated with the top series, which was simply renamed the NASCAR Cup Series.


title: NASCAR

text: The NASCAR Xfinity Series is the second-highest level of professional competition in NASCAR. The most recent series champion is Ty Gibbs in 2022.


title: NASCAR

text: The modern incarnation of this series began in 1982, with sponsorship by Anheuser-Busch Brewing's Budweiser brand. In 1984 it was renamed to the Busch Grand National Series, then later just the Busch Series. The Anheuser-Busch sponsorship expired at the end of 2007, being replaced by Nationwide Insurance from 2008 to 2014, and the series is now sponsored by Comcast through its Xfinity brand.


title: NASCAR

text: The season usually has fewer races than the Cup Series, and the prize money is significantly lower. However, over the last several years, a number of Cup Series drivers have run both the Xfinity and Cup Series events each weekend, using the Xfinity race as a warm-up to the Cup event at the same facility. Furthermore, several drivers not only participated in both Cup and Busch/Nationwide/Xfinity events on the same weekend but also began to compete in both series on a full-time basis. Kevin Harvick was the first Cup series driver to compete full-time in the Busch Series and win a title, actually doing so twice; in 2001, he did this for Richard Childress Racing but only did so out of necessity as Dale Earnhardt's death forced him into the Cup series ahead of RCR's intended schedule for him. His win in 2006, where he raced three separate cars for RCR and his own race team, was the first of five consecutive titles in NBS/NNS that were won by Cup series regulars.


title: NASCAR

text: The practice received criticism because it was thought to give the Cup Series teams an unfair advantage, and that the presence of the Cup Series drivers squeezes out Nationwide Series competitors who would otherwise be able to qualify. These dual-series drivers have been labeled "Buschwhackers", a play on words which combines the original series sponsor's name with the notion of being bushwhacked. In May 2007, NNS director Joe Balash confirmed that NASCAR was exploring options to deal with the Buschwhacker controversy. One of the most often-cited proposals was for Cup Series drivers participating in the Nationwide Series to receive no points for their participation in a Nationwide race. In 2007, NASCAR chairman Brian France indicated that all options, except an outright ban of Cup competitors, were still being considered. On January 11, 2011, "NASCAR.com" reported that beginning with the 2011 season, drivers would be allowed to compete for the championship in only one of NASCAR's three national series in a given season, although they could continue to run in multiple series. This change was officially confirmed by France in a press conference less than two weeks later, and has remained in the NASCAR rules ever since.


title: NASCAR

text: Beginning in 2010, the Nationwide cars adapted somewhat to the current "Car of Tomorrow" (or COT) design used by Cup cars, with different bodies from the Cup Series.


title: NASCAR

text: In 2016, the Chase format was extended to both the Xfinity and Truck Series. Instead of the four-round, 10-race format used in the Cup Series, the Chase in each of the two supporting series consists of three rounds and seven races in all, with each preliminary round consisting of three races. The Xfinity Series Chase involves 12 drivers instead of the 16 participating in the Cup Series Chase. Four drivers are eliminated at the end of each preliminary round of the Chase in the Xfinity Series, which also mirrors the Cup Series Chase. This means that four drivers are eligible for the series title entering the final race, as in the Cup Series. Similar to Cup, starting in 2017 "The Chase" moniker was dropped and the final seven races are now referred to as the Xfinity Playoffs.


title: NASCAR

text: Even with restrictions limiting points earnings to one national series, Cup drivers were still running and winning a vast majority of Xfinity series races through 2015. Starting with the 2015 season finale, NASCAR began to add additional restrictions in regards to Cup drivers running Xfinity races. Beginning in the 2020 season, Cup drivers with more than three years of experience in the top series were limited to five races per season. Furthermore, those same drivers are ineligible to run the regular season finale, NXS playoff races, or Dash 4 Cash races.


title: NASCAR

text: The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series features modified pickup trucks. It is one of the three national divisions of NASCAR, together with the Xfinity and Cup Series. The most recent series champion is Zane Smith in 2022.