“Freedom is not being able to do whatever you want, but being able not to do what you do not want to do.”
— Kant
The idea of liberty that emerged from the Renaissance and the Enlightenment was, at first, mainly about the individual. By the twentieth century, however, liberalism had been elevated into a set of “universal values,” and the language of freedom was extended from individuals to states. Its opposite was usually described as authoritarianism or dictatorship. In that sense, “freedom” gradually became almost interchangeable with “democracy.”
Yet from the perspectives of sociology and political theory, freedom and democracy are not exactly twins. They can even resemble opposites. Absolute freedom tends toward anarchy, and anarchy cannot sustain democracy. An ideal democracy, meanwhile, inevitably contains the rule of the majority over the minority, which means it cannot be absolute freedom either.
This tension lies at the center of John Mearsheimer’s The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities. In the book, Mearsheimer distinguishes between two forms of liberalism, often rendered as modus vivendi liberalism and progressive liberalism. The terminology can be confusing, but the distinction itself is not difficult to grasp.
Modus vivendi liberalism is liberalism in its most uncompromising form: a minimal state, minimal intervention, and the belief that individuals should be left as free as possible. It is close to the kind of liberalism imagined by free-market economic theory. Progressive liberalism, by contrast, is liberalism with concessions. The concession is made by the individual to the state: it accepts that some degree of state intervention may be necessary to protect individual interests more effectively.
Put more simply, the difference lies in how each understands freedom. The first insists on the individual’s absolute freedom and assumes that people can pursue and defend their own interests. The second argues that there are situations in which individuals cannot secure their own liberty without help from the state, and therefore must transfer part of their freedom to state authority. Mearsheimer describes one as positive liberty and the other as negative liberty. Looking at the contemporary world, his judgment is convincing: in practice, only progressive liberalism really exists today.
Capitalism and the rise of liberal politics
Why did liberal thought begin to rise from the fifteenth century onward, eventually becoming a mainstream doctrine and helping give birth to democratic government? The answer is inseparable from the emergence and growth of capitalism.
Capital needs to generate profit. To do that, it requires trade on the greatest possible scale, which in turn requires the free movement of labor, capital, and goods. Capitalism first encouraged liberal economic theory and the rise of free markets. From there, it pushed further into the political realm, giving shape to the concept of democracy and to democratic institutions.
After the Second World War and during the Cold War, liberalism crossed national borders. It became not merely a domestic political philosophy, but also an outward-facing ideology and political weapon used against communism, nationalism, and authoritarian states.
Freedom is capitalism’s core demand. Liberal states tend to believe that under a free economy, conflicts can be resolved the way business disputes are resolved: through negotiation, not war. Negotiation is assumed to be the lowest-cost form of conflict resolution. On this basis, liberal states led by the United States first made liberalism the core political idea of Europe and North America, and then attempted to export it to the rest of the world, remaking other countries into liberal states.
For this purpose, the United States and NATO have at times even used force to overthrow regimes they regarded as “evil,” hoping to build the liberal order they imagined in their place. Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, and Iran are all discussed in this context. Each military intervention brought enormous military and civilian casualties in the invaded countries, and often left behind prolonged internal disorder and unrest.
The American intention was to create a democratic world through direct war, so that peace and commerce would become easier afterward. The actual result was often the opposite: more turmoil, economic decline in the targeted countries, and shrinking foreign trade. That outcome plainly ran against the original expectation.
Alongside direct military action, the United States has also pursued regime change through infiltration, support for anti-government forces, and so-called color revolutions, seeking to replace sovereign governments with pro-American liberal regimes. Examples include the 1953 coup planned by the United States and Britain that overthrew Iran’s elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh; the 1973 U.S.-backed military coup that removed Chile’s elected president Salvador Allende and brought Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship to power; and the 2014 Maidan Revolution in Ukraine, after which the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown.
The contradiction inside liberal intervention
War and subversion clearly run against the spirit of liberalism. To speak in the name of world peace while bringing disaster to other parts of the world produces a split in America’s own “liberal soul.” This is not merely a division within American political thought; it is a division within America’s national character. For the United States, that is a grave wound.
Some may question whether the United States even has a “national character” in the traditional sense. Following Mearsheimer’s framework, and in my own understanding, the United States has been trying since its founding to create a nation organized around the idea of “freedom.” Freedom is its cultural core and its national instinct.
But its conduct in the world has moved it further and further away from freedom: away from the absolute liberty of its own people, and away from the freedom of sovereign states to live peacefully according to their own choices. This deviation helps explain why America’s liberal project has repeatedly failed. The pattern can be seen in Vietnam, Korea, the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe.
It has also deepened the division between America’s two major parties and contributed to the turbulence of American politics in recent years. The United States appears increasingly inclined to distance itself from progressive liberalism. Hillary Clinton’s two presidential defeats are one sign of this. Both Barack Obama and Donald Trump, in different ways, tried to move America away from the role of “guardian of freedom” and to pull it out of military quagmires. That impulse brought them votes.
Liberalism, realism, and nationalism
Mearsheimer identifies three major political paradigms in contemporary international relations: liberalism, realism, and nationalism.
Liberalism, represented above all by the United States, seeks universal liberal rules for the whole world. It assumes that almost everything can be solved through negotiation, even though liberal powers often resort to war in order to build what they see as the foundation of freedom.
Realism argues that everything depends on power. A country’s interests can be defended only through strength, and military force is an indispensable instrument.
Nationalism builds politics around national culture. It seeks to create a stable and durable political structure within a shared cultural world.
Mearsheimer’s important claim is that, among these three, nationalism has the greatest influence on states. This has often been underestimated. America’s failures in the Middle East, in his view, are largely the result of ignoring or misunderstanding nationalism.
At present, the United States has three major strategic regions in the world: the Western Hemisphere including Western Europe, the Middle East, and Northeast Asia. The Western Hemisphere is America’s sphere of influence and its strategic base, so it cannot afford to lose control there. The Middle East is a major oil-producing region and is therefore also crucial. Northeast Asia contains China, Russia, and Japan, three major powers that could each challenge American global hegemony, so the United States remains constantly alert there.
Liberalism produces hegemonic ambitions, and hegemony can exist only in a unipolar world. This is why the United States seeks to contain the rise of China, Russia, and Japan. But the reality today is that America is finding it increasingly difficult to preserve a unipolar order. The emergence of a multipolar world now seems almost inevitable. As that happens, the universal liberal value system will also be broken apart. The best choice for the United States, therefore, is to shift from liberalism toward realism.
Mearsheimer sees Trump’s political direction as an example of this shift: the United States begins to act according to interest alone, rather than trying to remake the entire world in liberalism’s image.
Freedom cannot mean doing whatever one wants
The United States has tried to impose its version of freedom on the whole world. But Kant’s words are relevant here: freedom is not doing whatever one wants; it is being able not to do what one does not want to do.
By that measure, liberalism cannot mean that America may do whatever it wants. It must also mean that independent sovereign states may refuse to do what they do not want to do. The world should therefore be plural: multipolar, multicultural, and made up of many nations.
Mearsheimer argues that liberalism can coexist with nationalism. But whenever liberalism and nationalism collide, liberalism is the one that loses. Perhaps the United States has already begun to recognize this.
On reading The Great Delusion
The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities is logically clear, rigorously argued, and richly documented. It is one of the more valuable recent works on international relations, and anyone interested in the subject should read it.
That said, it is not an easy book. Although the main text is under 300 pages, it requires a strong background in sociology, history, economics, and even philosophy. Mearsheimer’s writing is precise and serious, which also means that some of the pleasure of reading is sacrificed.
The book has eight chapters. The eighth, titled “The Case for Restraint,” is essentially a prescription for American political strategy. What must be restrained, in Mearsheimer’s view, is liberalism itself. This final chapter also restates the book’s central argument in a more accessible way, without the same density of formal argumentation, making it the easiest chapter to read.
For readers who struggle with the book, it may be useful to begin with Chapter Eight. Once its argument is clear, returning to the beginning may make the whole structure easier to understand. One final point is worth emphasizing: the notes take up roughly one third of the book, and they are also worth reading carefully.