Podcasts · John Mearsheimer - Offensive Realism

Trump's Three-War Trap | Episode 13

21 Oct 2026 · 1 h 23 min · S1 E13

Become a member to submit questions for future videos. Click Join: https://www.youtube.com/@johnmearsheimer/join ———————————————————— PODCASTS Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0Ahf67i2DOoXDmi2HA6Vcj Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id6810828298 ———————————————————— DESCRIPTION President Trump bears responsibility for three ongoing wars: 1) the Ukraine war, which he inherited from Joe Biden but now owns; 2) the Iran war, which he launched together with Israel on 28 February 2026; and 3) the war between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia, which he encouraged the Saudis to initiate on 13 July 2026. Each of these wars carries a significant risk of dangerous escalation, and together they threaten to inflict serious damage on the international economy. To make matters worse, Trump has no strategy for ending these wars on terms favorable to the United States, much less achieving lasting peace. Even after the fighting stops, all three wars may well turn into frozen conflicts. ———————————————————— CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro 0:29 Trump and his wars 1:57 Year one: Ukraine, the 12-day war and Venezuela 4:50 Why Ukraine is now Trump's war 6:30 Wars two and three: Iran and the Saudi–Houthi war 8:48 Why these wars are disasters 13:19 The great-power backdrop 15:29 The Iran war: where we are now 21:31 Iran: the danger of escalation 27:10 Iran: the economic damage 29:09 Iran: no way to win 31:21 Iran: a frozen conflict and the nuclear question 35:07 Iran: Russia and China 36:39 The Saudi–Houthi war: how it started 40:08 Saudi–Houthi: horizontal and vertical escalation 42:48 Saudi–Houthi: the economic stakes 45:09 Saudi–Houthi: the Saudis can't win 46:24 Saudi–Houthi: a frozen conflict 49:45 Will Saudi Arabia go nuclear? 51:22 The Ukraine war: where we are now 54:17 Ukraine: escalation in the air war 59:02 The Karaganov argument 1:04:48 Ukraine: the international economy 1:06:45 Ukraine: no winning strategy 1:07:52 Ukraine: the frozen conflict 1:10:54 Great-power politics across all three wars 1:16:23 Summing up: three losing wars 1:19:25 An LBJ/Nixon fate for Trump? 1:20:29 Why Gaza isn't on the list ———————————————————— MUSIC "The Ice Giants" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Music modified (edited/remixed) from the original.