John Mearsheimer, a prominent theorist of the offensive realism school, has so far produced numerous analyses as a distinctive voice critical of US global policies. These analyses have largely focused on carefully assessing the credibility and effectiveness of Washington’s foreign-policy behavior under Donald Trump. In his latest remarks on the Iran-US war, he put forward a central proposition: the strategy Washington is pursuing to force Tehran to surrender rests less on a genuine capacity to change Iran’s behavior than on the assumption that a combination of economic pressure, military threats and psychological warfare will eventually convince Tehran that continuing its resistance will be more costly than accepting US demands. Mearsheimer questions this assumption and argues that neither economic siege alone is sufficient to force a country to surrender in a major war, nor does a display of military power necessarily carry decisive meaning as long as it cannot be translated into a political victory.
From Inflicting Damage to Forcing Change
The importance of Mearsheimer’s remarks, of course, lies not merely in whether one agrees or disagrees with his assessment of the war. Their main significance lies in the question embedded in his analysis: How wide is the gap between the ability to inflict damage and the ability to force the other side to change its behavior? In discussions of power, these two are sometimes mistakenly treated as one and the same. A country may be able to destroy its adversary’s infrastructure, put its economy under pressure or impose heavy costs on it; but this does not necessarily mean it can change the other side’s political calculations to the same extent.
Mearsheimer is targeting precisely this gap. In his account, the current US strategy rests on two pillars: economic pressure and military threats. On the one hand, Washington is seeking to raise the economic costs of Iran’s isolation and restrictions on its economic ties with the world to a point where Tehran is forced to accept US demands; on the other, the buildup of military forces and equipment in the region is being displayed as the backing for the military threat.
But the more important question is what exactly the military option is supposed to solve. This is where Mearsheimer’s argument becomes significant. He believes previous bombing, despite its intensity and scale, failed to force Iran to accept US demands, and therefore simply increasing the number of warships or troops does not necessarily produce a different outcome. This should not, however, be interpreted as meaning that military operations are ineffective. Even some assessments of the 40-day war have explicitly stated that US attacks inflicted significant damage on Iran’s military capabilities, while at the same time it remained unclear how these operational gains could be translated into a lasting political outcome.
This is precisely where a distinction must be made between military victory, operational success and political victory. Destroying part of a country’s missile or military capabilities is an operational achievement; but if its ultimate result is not a change in the other side’s political calculations, it is still impossible to speak of achieving the objective of the war. In international politics, war is ultimately not waged simply for the sake of fighting; it is waged to create a new political situation. If military means cannot create such a situation, even a highly costly and extensive operation may face serious questions at the strategic level.
In Iran’s case, the issue is more complicated. Mearsheimer emphasizes three factors: the limited historical record of economic siege as an independent tool for forcing a country to surrender, Tehran’s perception of the threat as existential, and Iran’s retaliatory capabilities. Even if some of Mearsheimer’s descriptions are considered exaggerated, the core of his argument is noteworthy: a country that views external pressure as a threat to its survival does not necessarily calculate short-term costs and benefits in the same way as an ordinary economic actor.
This point is crucial in analyzing a strategy of coercion. Sanctions have the greatest persuasive power when the other side believes that changing its behavior can lead to better economic conditions. But if economic pressure is perceived by decision-makers as part of a broader project aimed at fundamentally changing behavior or even altering the political structure, that same pressure may, instead of producing “concessions,” strengthen the incentive to resist and impose greater costs on the other side. This is the paradox Mearsheimer points to: greater pressure does not always mean greater leverage.
Here, the Strait of Hormuz takes on added importance. Hormuz is not merely a geographical point; it is one of the most sensitive nodes in the global energy economy. Therefore, any strategy that pushes Iran to a point where it regards the extensive use of its retaliatory capabilities as the only means of survival could cause the cost of pressuring Iran to extend far beyond its borders.
Mearsheimer specifically warns about the vulnerability of oil infrastructure and desalination plants in the Persian Gulf states, arguing that mutual escalation could turn the crisis from a bilateral war into a regional crisis and then an economic crisis on a global scale, and has already done so to some extent. This concern has gained greater importance at a time when oil markets are already sensitive to military developments in the region and Brent crude has risen above $100 in recent days amid heightened tensions.
Cost of an Agreement and the Damage of Surrender
Perhaps the most important part of Mearsheimer’s analysis, however, is not about Iran but about the logic of US policy. If Washington’s goal is to end the war and reach an agreement, it must distinguish between “forcing Iran to surrender” and “forcing Iran to reach an agreement.” These are not the same thing. Surrender is a one-sided relationship in which one side accepts the demands of the other; an agreement, by contrast, is the product of a form of balance in which both sides conclude that maintaining the existing situation will cost more.
In the first case, the goal is to eliminate the other side’s bargaining power; in the second, the goal is to use power to build a sustainable deal. This distinction may be the most important lesson in Mearsheimer’s remarks. If the US is genuinely seeking an agreement with Iran, increasing pressure only makes sense if it can ultimately bring the two sides back to the negotiating table and produce reciprocal concessions. But if pressure is defined as a substitute for diplomacy, a fundamental problem emerges: the greater the costs imposed, the greater Washington’s own political cost of backing down. Under such circumstances, either side may resort to further escalation, rather than finding a way out, in order to justify the costs it has already incurred. This is why, in the logic of prolonged wars, the greatest danger does not always arise from the moment a war begins; sometimes it arises from the inability to bring the war to an end.
Mearsheimer’s analysis also rests on an important premise that should be approached with caution. He speaks of America’s inability to “defeat Iran” and places considerable emphasis on some of Iran’s capabilities. But this does not mean Iran is immune to military and economic pressure. He himself acknowledges that US economic pressure has inflicted extensive damage on Iran’s economy and people’s lives. Therefore, the issue should not be reduced to the simplistic binary that “pressure is ineffective” or “pressure will inevitably lead to surrender.” Pressure can be highly effective and even devastating without necessarily achieving the political objective sought by those who designed it.
This distinction is also important for Iran. The fact that external pressure does not necessarily lead to surrender does not mean economic pressure can be ignored. Quite the opposite: if Iran is facing a strategy of attrition, maintaining its ability to resist requires careful economic management, preserving social cohesion, reducing infrastructure vulnerabilities, diversifying trade and energy routes, and above all, preventing external pressure from turning into an internal crisis.
Condition for Victory Through the Logic of Resistance
Within this framework, perhaps one of the most dangerous strategic mistakes would be to confuse resistance with having no need for domestic reforms. A country seeking to withstand external pressure must, more than ever, keep its economy efficient, its society hopeful and its domestic politics predictable. National power is not limited to missiles, drones and oil; economic resilience, social trust, quality of governance and diplomatic capacity are also components of national power.
For Washington, meanwhile, continuously increasing pressure does not resolve an outstanding question: if war cannot force Iran to surrender and sanctions cannot by themselves change Tehran’s behavior, what comes next? More pressure? A broader attack? A ground war? Or a return to negotiations? Recent reports of an increased US military presence in the region, while diplomatic channels have not entirely disappeared, show precisely that the issue has yet to receive a definitive answer.
In fact, this is where the central contradiction lies: diplomacy is most effective when it is backed by power, but power produces a strategic outcome only when it can ultimately lead to diplomacy. From this perspective, Mearsheimer’s remarks should not be read simply as a defense of Iran or an attack on Trump. The real significance of his analysis lies in recalling a classic principle of international relations: power is not synonymous with the ability to destroy; real power takes shape when an actor can translate its military and economic capabilities into a desired political outcome.
If pressure cannot produce an agreement, it may only produce costs. If a threat cannot change the other side’s calculations, it may simply encourage it to increase the costs of retaliation. And if a war has no political exit, it may evolve from an instrument of foreign policy into an independent strategic problem. Perhaps the most important point in Mearsheimer’s argument is not that “Iran cannot be defeated” or that “America cannot win.” Such statements are too categorical in the middle of a war. The more important proposition is that no power can be certain that simply increasing pressure will eventually force the other side to surrender. In war and politics, the question is not only who can deliver the bigger blow; it is also who can manage the political order that follows after delivering that blow. And that is precisely where the gap between “power” and “victory” becomes apparent.
