Talk:John Mearsheimer

Insertion of disputed material
@Manyareasexpert

First of all, can you point to a comparable article that contains inline criticism of the subject’s work in a similar format? IME it’s generally not done.

Now, as for the actual content being inserted…

The main (but not the only issue) is that it’s in pretty major contravention of WP:BLPBALANCE and related guidelines.

(It’s also amusingly cringe to criticize the reigning realist theoretician on the basis of a non-realist framework and then just conclude as the authors did that applying realist analysis makes you a Putin apologist. Like a progressive social psychologist criticizing a cultural anthropologist for not analyzing a pre-industrial society with an intersectional feminist toolkit and that they’re an instrument of the dominant group for using any other framework.)

“An RS publication hosted an opinion piece that said it, so let’s just quote them because RS!” is a pretty common fallacy (there’s prob an essay but I can’t find it rn). Sometimes editors can get away with that sort of thing…but not in BLP. Ever. BLP is sacred ground consecrated by the Policies and Guidelines.

RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 13:29, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Hope I didn't step on your toes by amending some of this disputed material. I won't object if you want to remove it again while a discussion is held about it on the talk page. Burrobert (talk) 13:43, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * What do you mean?We should differentiate between the person and his works. I've added two more articles discussing subject's works on Ukraine war. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 13:48, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * …I think you may be missing the forest for the trees. Have you considered frankly what the overall effect of your edit(s)/restoration might be? Have you read the relevant guidelines? BLP is no joke. For example, one can't call a person convicted of common murder a war criminal if they technically aren't that.
 * You restored content that was quoting a source that had originally been added with the apparent purpose of essentially using said source as a transparent proxy to characterize the subject as a Russian apologist. Apart from the self-evident issues with the authors' process…this is a violation of BLP, pure and simple!
 * One does not simply bring one's POV into BLP. RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 14:02, 11 March 2024 (UTC) RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 14:02, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * More editors to discuss are invited at Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard . ManyAreasExpert (talk) 19:40, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, both sources are behind paywall. Can you copy paste here specific statements that support your edit? Sources themselves seem to be good, but what exactly do they say? In general, including some criticisms is fine. But the whole "Ukrainian" section seems to be out of proportion for this page. My very best wishes (talk) 22:44, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
 * There were 3 sources removed which were in the article for long. Two are It makes no sense to blame the west for the Ukraine war | Financial Times (archive.ph) Rightsizing the Russia Threat: Whatever Putin’s Intentions Are, He Is Hemmed In by Limited Capabilities (archive.ph)I also had a closed look at Anti-Mearsheimer: Putin's Unjust War and His American Apologists (irdiplomacy.ir) criticized for "unreliability" and it is the article by Kaveh L. Afrasiabi - Iranian-American political scientist.There were also 2 journal articles removed from "Links" section: Mearsheimer, Realism, and the Ukraine War (degruyter.com) Offensive ideas: structural realism, classical realism and Putin's war on Ukraine | International Affairs | Oxford Academic (oup.com) ManyAreasExpert (talk) 23:15, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you! 2nd ref: The political scientist John Mearsheimer ... has argued that “there is no evidence in the public record that Putin was contemplating, much less intending to put an end to Ukraine as an independent state and make it part of greater Russia when he sent his troops into Ukraine.”, and so on. But this should be properly summarized. My very best wishes (talk) 23:26, 17 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Here is main problem of this page. It uncritically describes views of the subject at great length, mainly based on his own publications. But it does not provide well sourced criticisms of his views by others, which would be very much appropriate here given the non-orthodox views of the subject (to say this politely). Therefore, I think the recent edit by Manyareasexpert was an improvement, even though one could probably summarize the criticisms in a more neutral fashion. My very best wishes (talk) 13:23, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I have no problem with applying summary style to the whole section. In terms of, that would be measured within the specific field. To my knowledge, realism is, relatively, significantly more orthodox within int'l rel than analogues such as Austrian economics and certain schools of thought within psychology and sociology ( the latter of which, as taught in the US at least, is based on somewhat heterodox theoretical foundations like Comte's positivism and Marxist economics, but I have a significant pro-anthro/anti-socio bias to be honest )…… RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 20:51, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
 * So, @RadioactiveBoulevardier, please suggest how the removed material can be improved to meet BLP. Thanks! ManyAreasExpert (talk) 20:26, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
 * @RadioactiveBoulevardier, you commented Talk:Russo-Ukrainian War that The Mearsheimer removal was because of tone and BLP concerns, not so much the content but how it was presented and that the nature and formatting of the inline wikivoice rebuttal was inappropriate for that article. So, how the removed text can be improved? ManyAreasExpert (talk) 18:42, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
 * One sentence to the effect of "Mearsheimer's views have attracted much controversy/criticism in the press" would do it. The main issue is BLP which should be easy to understand given that it was immediately apparent to others. The tone can probably be sideslipped by using summary style; part of the issue with it is that it was presenting opinion pieces as an academic rebuttal, and IIRC leaning toward a Wikivoice endorsement. My general principle is that if oneself or another editor feels an urge to stick it in, it helps to look and consider whether it's because there's objectively a gap in coverage or because one's POV feels certain info should be in there (this is a significant problem in AmPol and so significant that a WP article about a certain prominent Wikipedian shows hints of it when describing that Wikipedian's work).
 * The biggest sub-issue with the presentation is that a consensus by pundits doesn't not necessarily translate to an academic consensus in the specific field of international relations.
 * Also, you could find other non-BLP articles to stick these things in if you so wish, since it's much less straightforward to contest stuff outside BLP. Albeit that I don't think realism is even discussed in one of the sub-articles yet (although it should be, considering the length of those articles and the thing that Mearsheimer is not the most prominent person to have said such things).
 * Does that help? Cheers, RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 20:41, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
 * This is an extremely inappropriate misuse of WP:BLP. There is no justification in BLP for automatically deleting attributed criticism of the subject's views and demanding that mention be restricted to a single line saying "Subject's views have attracted controversy in the press." Currently there is no indication in the article that anyone disagrees with Mearsheimer on the Ukraine invasion, which in terms of NPOV is a disaster. I don't understand what happened here. GordonGlottal (talk) 22:44, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Have you read the contested insertion? RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 00:00, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Deletion of bibliography
@Hipal you just deleted the entire Article section of the bibliography @Walter Tau wrote. It was an uncritical deletion on the grounds of "poor sources" (per your edit summary). Bibliographies don't actually need citations because they are self-sourced. If you want to weed out the magazine and newspaper articles, go ahead. Many of the entries are scientific articles published in peer-reviewed journals. If you want to introduce reviews of those works, it is standard practice to indent such annotations following the entry itself. Ivan (talk) 21:03, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for starting a discussion.
 * Wikipedia articles are not resumes. Some articles may be noteworthy, but we need some criteria for what we include. --Hipal (talk) 01:57, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * We need some criteria for what we include. Then please go back and the bibliography section rather than deleting the entire section. Neither I nor Walter are John Mearsheimer, therefore the self-promotion section of the policy you referenced in your edit summary does not apply. Mearsheimer is notable for his academic (and other) positions. Unfortunately, the guidelines at BLP actually don't cover bibliographies, but it is established practice to allow even extensive bibliographies for academics even of significantly less notability than the present subject.
 * The difference between a CV and the type of bibliography typically allowed on the English Wikipedia is that a CV usually includes unpublished works (such as presentations at conferences) and unauthored works (such as works edited). There probably isn't even justification to remove newspaper and magazine articles from the bibliography. A number of very inclusive bibliography articles have passed relatively rigorous evaluation to acheive high ratings. Dan Savage bibliography and William Gibson bibliography both reached FA status, and more that reached GA status. There are GA status biographies of living academics with an internal bibliography that features magazine and newspaper articles, such as Brian Josephson or Sean B. Carroll. Or even works edited, such as John B. Cobb or Carlos Mesa. All above examples are bibliographies of living persons. In bibliographies within articles, it is ofte the case that bibliographies will be tagged for being incomplete than for being too comprehensive. Even bibliographies including magazine and newspaper publications. See Atul Gawande for an example that reached GA status. Again an academic, again a BLP.
 * Many biographies with academic bibliographies that include journal articles have reached FA status (i.e. Martin Rundkvist) or GA status (i.e. Elizabeth Warren, Christine Blasey Ford, Elena Kagan, Sunil Kumar Verma, Robert C. Michelson, Emmanuël Sérusiaux, Ikuhiko Hata, Ralph Larkin, Gerald Fischbach, Barbara Rae-Venter, Daire Keogh, Bette Korber, Michael Kremer). Some are more exhaustive than others. If the bibliography grows too long, it is split. That was the case with Noam Chomsky bibliography and filmography, Richard Dawkins bibliography and too many others to list here. All examples cited in this paragraph are biographies of living persons.
 * If you accept my arguments, please self-revert. If you do not, show me concrete evidence from policy pages to justify deleting his entire journal output from the article. If we cannot agree, you can open an RFC. I don't revert-war. Ivan (talk) 04:05, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * You're aware of WP:OSE? Identifying other articles is a waste of time. If you can find discussions about bibliographies, especially RfCs and noticeboard discussions, those would be helpful. You'll find that I've been involved in many of them.
 * You've suggested some initial criteria, weed out the magazine and newspaper articles. That seems a good start. --Hipal (talk) 16:46, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, I am aware of WP:OTHERCONTENT. But since have failed to produce an RFC that clearly backs up your indiscriminate deletion and have now indicated that journal articles should be kept (and therefore that you were overly zealous), I am going to take the persistence of such bibliographies in GA and FA class BLP articles as a sign that an RFC applicable to this case does not exist (BLP, academic bibliography, no WP:COISELF editors). The burden of proof is not on Walter, nor on myself (originally a third party). If you are sincere, please revert your edit as a sign that you intend to respect even a pruned bibliography. Given your recent reversion-heavy approach with several of my recent, unrelated edits, I have no indication yet that further engagement with you would be worth my time. Ivan (talk) 17:48, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The burden of evidence rests with the editor who adds or restores the material. - WP:BLP.
 * have now indicated that journal articles should be kept No I have not. Please strike the misrepresentation. --Hipal (talk) 01:36, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The burden of evidence rests with the editor who adds or restores the material. Since you have not disputed the factual correctness or neutrality of the bibliography, I do not interpret this qualification in the must be written conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy paragraph as applicable. You have cited multiple broad policies of tangental relevance to bibliographies in biographies of living persons, but have yet to produce clear justification from existing policy to justify your deletion. So I have called for an independent assessment. Ivan (talk) 01:52, 14 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Thanks.
 * I don't believe there is any general consensus on how to determine what to include. High citation counts or emphasis in historical accounts are two ways is a way to get find most if not all of the very best articles to include. --Hipal (talk) 17:01, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm rewriting the bibliography right now. I will post the result to this talk page with citation counts and then we can vote on the inclusion of individual entries in the article with a Pictogram voting keep-light-green.svg after each entry the user believes should be included. The rest will not be included in the John Mearsheimer article. The subject of the article is more prominent than I had realised, so you may have to wait several hours. Ivan (talk) 17:22, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * What, exactly, is the criteria for inclusion you are proposing?
 * I'm always wary when I see citation counts mentioned in these kinds of discussions. Citations counts are not inherently reliable without context, and that context comes from reliable, independent sources. For one thing, citation counts do not exclude unreliable sources, and trivial passing cites are given the same weight as substantial commentary. Further, such counts are often just flat-out wrong, as well. (I've repeatedly found examples which implied a work was cited many years before it was written). Grayfell (talk) 18:46, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The intended section title is "Selected works" or "Selected publications" and I'm only here to rescue a bibliography. Yes, citation counts are usually overestimated. Duplicates are the main cause. I am only including citation counts because Hipal wants them, and since he wants them I will provide my own (reduced) counts for his benefit. Whatever he includes, I will include (I don't expect him to be generous). I am actually writing an annotated bibliography, which I may publish as a standalone article. Basically, every review or significant treatment published in an allowed source, with summary of perspectives and references. If it grows too long, I condense views into camps using  unless an individual review is notable enough to be included separately. Mearsheimer's works have already generated several standalone articles and a few more could probably be written, but they are outside my scope as an editor. Ivan (talk) 19:39, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Forget the citation counts. Thanks, Grayfell! --Hipal (talk) 21:16, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * While I appreciate the intention here, as this is very much part of Wikipedia's mission as an encyclopedia, there is a high risk of original research and editorializing with such things. Ideally we avoid requiring individual editors to be generous or to heavily curate such things, but obviously, this is unavoidable to some extent. Grayfell (talk) 21:59, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Annotated bibliographies are a well-established genre of Wikipedia. But there is a difference between an annotated bibliography on Wikipedia and an annotated bibliography on a website like Oxford Bibliographies. The latter hires researchers specialising in their field to write their entries. Wikipedia has no expert verification system, so it requires the citation of expert sources. See Bibliography of fly fishing for such an example that covers multiple types of annotation. This being a "bibliography of living persons" and with my tendency to adhere to stricter standards of neutrality relative to the project as a whole at least inasfar as BLP and WikiNews/ITN heavy editors are concerned, I will welcome any criticism of individual annotations on NPOV grounds. But like you said, such articles are very much part of Wikipedia's mission as an encyclopedia. I have been editing regularly for just over a decade now, first as an IP then under the username Inatan then under an IP again. My focus on bibliographies and other less controversial topics has resulted in some embarassing lacunae in my understanding of many aspects of the bureaucracy, but I run into other editors with almost no understanding of bibliographies with equal frequency. Not a reference to you, Hipal: I do mean almost understanding. The only reason I have a username at all is because no one seems to think twice when they see an IP. Thank you all for your concern.  Ivan (talk) 00:15, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Hopefully, all involved editors will agree that it doesn't necessarily matter how experienced any one of us is, because we cannot rely solely on any individual editor's personal expertise to decide what is and what is not neutral. To be honest, bringing up your own editing history seems to undermine this point, as do some of your prior confrontational comments. Regardless, this is a biography of a living and controversial person, so this kind of scrutiny should not come as a surprise to any experienced editor. Grayfell (talk) 02:04, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I did not mean for it to come across as an appeal to experience. I noticed policies were being cited without reference to concrete sections and became worried this might be because you thought I was a new editor, unfamiliar with policy. What is helpful to newer editors is lazy to older ones. I have no excuse for my confrontational attitude, and apologise to the human beings behind both of your usernames. The human behind this account was editing multiple very technical articles at the time, which is already enough to make one irritable. As for the bold deletionist approach led to this talk page dispute, I do have have an aplogy. It would have been scrutiny to remove only those sources not published in peer-reviewed journals. This is an encyclopedia. And for scientific purposes, an encyclopedia with a NOR policy is only as good as its bibliography. So it is my duty as an editor with experience in bibliographies to defend the place of a worthy if unpolished bibliography in this article. Ivan (talk) 04:01, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

@Walter Tau, @Hipal, @Grayfell. I have prepared a bibliography for the "Journal articles" section. Citation counts are temporarily included to help you grasp the amount of coverage they received in this field. Here are three representative examples together with the annotations I will provide in the standalone bibliography (but not in the main article), where all his publications will be included per WP:NLIST (not long enough for WP:LSC to apply).

"The credibility of NATO’s defences was analysed and discussed ... Many of the contemporary analyses looked at strategy or numbers, taking a wholesale approach, but failed to address the overall capability based on existing force structures. An example is the analysis given by Dr J Mearsheimer, which provides an example contemporary to the period. It provides a useful perspective on the difficulties inherent in assessing the credibility of defence policy from a purely academic standpoint."
 * Mearsheimer 1979. cite-37
 * Criticised by Dan Gouré and Gordon McCormick the following year, published with a rejoinder by Mearsheimer. Referenced in several later studies on the topic but without extensive discussion: by Robert Mandel, David Blagden, Lauren Kahn and Michael C. Horowitz.
 * Mearsheimer 1982a. cite-98
 * Described by Barry Posen as "a critical discussion of the possible tactical implications of the military reformers' prescriptions for ground warfare" and regarded as important though not convincing by David P. Calleo, it was referenced in the first years after its publication, but its first detailed critique came from Joshua M. Epstein and several others in the context of the replacement of combined arms with maneuver doctrine in the United States Armed Forces around 1989 and in the context of NATO's tactical future after the First Cold War. It has seen occasional treatments in retrospective literature since that time.
 * Mearsheimer 1982b. cite-219
 * Also published as a chapter of Conventional Deterrence in 1983. The context of the article was described in Matthews 1996, as standing in opposition US president Ronald Reagan's strengtening of NATO forces in Europe, supported by Samuel P. Huntington (who had initially reviewed Mearsheimer's article favourably) and others. Also relevant was the debate over whether or not the US nuclear weapons in West Germany were necessary. Positively received by Posen and Evera 1983,  Brauch and Unterseher 1984,  Lübkemeier 1985,  Dean 1986 and to some extent Weinstein 1983,  and Strachan 1985 and Simpson 1985.  Its conclusions were opposed on methodological grounds by Jack Snyder and with alternative models by William Kaufmann, William Mako and Andrew Hamilton.  With the exception of Corcoran 1983,  most concrete opposition did not come until three separate articles published in 1988 by Snyder, by Joshua Epstein and by Eliot A. Cohen, building on an earlier review by Aaron Friedberg. Although the reception that year was not entirely negative,    most papers published in the immediate aftermath of these were critical.  Employed favourably in some retrospective analyses.   That by Barry D. Watts, then director of the Northrop Grumman Analysis Center, relayed Cohen's criticisms. The 2016 review by military Kenton White criticised it for not taking USSR and general WTO airborne capabilities or their OMG concept, while following Cohen in arguing for an alternative view that the WTO might have been able to prepare a "standing start" attack undetected enough for the resulting delay to allow for the WTO to potentially collapse part of the NATO front, which Mearsheimer had argued was not a danger. White followed this up in more detail in 2017. A less detailed critique was published by international relations professor Arash Heydarian Pashakhanlou. The approach of Cohen and Kenton was in turn criticised in the overview of Tecott and Halterman, which defended Mearsheimer while warning about his "over-extrapolation" on the basis of a single scenario, echoing Richard Stoll's 1990 defense of Mearsheimer's article to justify further model-based approaches. But outside the context of the debate and with the passage of time, the article began to see uncritical use,  especially with the successful urban defences of the Russo-Ukrainian War.   More widely read than his previous studies, it is this study along with his 1983 book that propelled him onto the academic scene as an "Optimist" in their debate with the "Pessimists",  which has been termed the "Great Debate" in security circles,  in which moderate Pessimists held a majority.

With the exception of Mearsheimer 1979 itself, as his first article, it seems appropriate to exclude most works with similar citation counts from the Selected works section. On the other hand, very few academics publish anything with a citation count that even approaches that of Mearsheimer 1982a. Mearsheimer 1982b deserves a section in a standalone article. Some of these articles, like The False Promise of International Institutions (2017), Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War (2018), The Gathering Storm: China's Challenge to US Power in Asia (2010), Structural Realism (2013), China's Unpeaceful Rise (2014) and Bound to Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order (2019) have received more attention than some of his books, and the older ones deserve standalone articles. One could probably say the same for a number of his magazine articles, such as Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West's Fault (2014) with over 2000 citations.

If the list grows too long, the final version will be split into two columns (similar to Brian Josephson).

Please place next to the entries you would like to see in the Selected works section of this article.


 * Pictogram voting keep-light-green.svg cite-37
 * cite-11
 * Pictogram voting keep-light-green.svg cite-98
 * cite-2
 * Pictogram voting keep-light-green.svg cite-219
 * cite-18
 * Pictogram voting keep-light-green.svg cite-191
 * cite-16
 * Pictogram voting keep-light-green.svg cite-140
 * Pictogram voting keep-light-green.svg cite-99
 * Pictogram voting keep-light-green.svg cite-220
 * cite-37
 * Pictogram voting keep-light-green.svg cite-5378
 * Pictogram voting keep-light-green.svg cite-162
 * Pictogram voting keep-light-green.svg cite-107
 * cite-6
 * cite-5
 * Pictogram voting keep-light-green.svg cite-7079
 * Pictogram voting keep-light-green.svg cite-579
 * cite-14
 * cite-8
 * cite-2
 * cite-23
 * Pictogram voting keep-light-green.svg cite-261
 * Pictogram voting keep-light-green.svg cite-1060
 * Pictogram voting keep-light-green.svg Revised version published as  Spanish translation published as  cite-400
 * cite-12
 * cite-10
 * cite-60
 * cite-33
 * Pictogram voting keep-light-green.svg cite-339
 * Pictogram voting keep-light-green.svg cite-122
 * Pictogram voting keep-light-green.svg cite-1179
 * cite-38
 * Pictogram voting keep-light-green.svg cite-581
 * cite-68
 * Pictogram voting keep-light-green.svg cite-7079
 * Pictogram voting keep-light-green.svg cite-1009
 * cite-22
 * cite-18
 * Pictogram voting keep-light-green.svg cite-71
 * cite-18
 * Pictogram voting keep-light-green.svg cite-71


 * Notes


 * References

Bibliography discussion
Hello. I appreciate the large amount of effort here, and I'm sorry that my response is going to be so brief and likely unsatisfying. Earlier I asked what the inclusion criteria was going to be, and this doesn't really answer that question. I would suggest, therefor, that this proposal may be premature. For now, and very tentatively, I think that only full-length books and any work which is directly cited as an important example via WP:IS in the body of the article should be included here. Ultimately, there should be some indication to readers why a work is selected. Without that context, any choice will be subjective. The standalone bibliography will ultimately also keep this section short, since having dozens of entries in this article based on sources at some other article is both subjective and redundant. For this article's bibliography, including any work in a list without any context (based partly on a citation count that isn't going to be included in the article) is another form of editorializing. Bibliographies suggest to readers that these works are important and worth their time if they wish to understand Mearsheimer, but we are not capable of explaining in these bibliographies why those works are particularly important, nor of providing important context. Grayfell (talk) 06:07, 26 June 2024 (UTC)


 * If only full-length books and any work which is directly cited as an important example via WP:IS (emphasis mine) is a criterion, the list will look very similar to the one I have added to the article. Several entries longer, in fact. I gave three examples above of what an entry looks like with its annotations as it will appear in the standalone bibliography. All but the first of those three are cited as "important" in the sources below. The inclusion criteria  am using are closer to that you described than to citation-counting, but I haven't finished the annotated bibliography yet, so I have given you examples to extrapolate from. "Selected works" sections almost never name selection criteria (possibly never?), but in this case since John Mearsheimer bibliography will be linked in a hatnote at the head of the section, so the reason for selection should be obvious to the reader upon reading the annotations in the standalone article. Including the reasons for inclusion and exclusion at the head of the "Selected works" section would grow that lead so long, it would defeat the purpose of selection. Since you are not comfortable extrapolating, would you be open to (a) going through each entry yourself, or (b) voting to back my selection in the interest of developing a consensus? Ivan (talk) 06:33, 26 June 2024 (UTC)


 * I think you have misunderstood what I am saying. Being cited is not, itself, an indication something is important to understand Mearsheimer as an encyclopedia topic. Wikipedia is a tertiary source. If secondary sources are not saying, in essence, 'to understand Mearsheimer one should read the seven-page article he wrote in International Security in 1990 titled "Back to the Future, Part III: Realism and the Realities of European Security"' than we shouldn't be implying it to readers based on our own understanding of the situation. Grayfell (talk) 20:03, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I could give brief summaries of these articles in the "Select bibliography", but I prefer to include them in the biography itself. Ivan (talk) 20:21, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
 * For the specific case of Back to the Future I-III, I cannot imagine a good article on him without coverage of I, but II and III would receive briefer mentions, in the context of I. Ivan (talk) 20:23, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Coverage of an article is very different from inclusion in a bibliography. The current article doesn't mention any "Back to the Future" article directly. What you can or cannot imagine in the article is essentially WP:OR. That's the problem, here, and that's why none of this belongs as it stands. Grayfell (talk) 20:45, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Are you objecting to the inclusion of Back to the Future? In the select bibliography? You can. Then I will have to find one of the many sources describing it as a notable work and then append it to the entry as a citation. Or could do that. It may be WP:OR as it stands, but once the standalone bibliography is back up it will be WP:BLUE unless someone has different ideas on criteria, and since no policy adequately covers the issue, whatever criteria they come up with will consequently be their own WP:OR unless they launch a successful RFC on "Select bibliography" inclusion criteria. The issue I am running into is a lack of patience. In most fields here on Wikipedia, when an editor encounters an issue with my work they identify it and fix it themselves. If they do not know how, they contact me on the article's or my own talk page. No encyclopedia was ever finished by authors with real-time editorship. Ivan (talk) 21:32, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Reversions
@Hipal. You have given me WP:NOT, WP:POV, WP:BLP, WP:PROMO and WP:SOAP in edit summaries. You have yet to satisfactorily explain any of these have been violated. I requested you take it to the talk page before your last revert. Yes, I know for BLP consensus must be reached first. But again I have to initiate the talk page discussion. I'm interested in improving this article. Ivan (talk) 18:21, 26 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Media appearances

From 2012–2018, Mearsheimer was a regular commentator at PBS NewsHour, commenting on the Iranian nuclear program, the U.S. Intervention in Syria, Operation Timber Sycamore, the legacy of World War I, ISIL, Sanctions against North Korea, Trump–NATO relations and other issues.


 * Iranian nuclear weapons

Mearsheimer argued in debate with Dov Zakheim that "a nuclear-armed Iran would bring stability to the region" because of the deterrent capabilities of nuclear weapons, singling out the United States and Israel as examples of nations they would deter, and using the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the 2011 military intervention in Libya as examples of a wars that could have been prevented. At the same time, he warned of the possibility of Inadvertent Escalation should Iran acquire nuclear weapons, in the event of a conventional war that inadvertently escalates to a nuclear level.

In a debate alongside Stephen Cohen against Derek Chollet, Kori Schake and Reuel Marc Gerecht, he considered the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPoA to be a "fundamental mistake", arguing that the best way to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons would be to "remove the incentive" for their acquisition.

In a 2019 opinion piece for the New York Times, he reiterated his former stances and expressed the view that Iran would "almost certainly" attempt to acquire nuclear wapons. Once acquired, the risk of inadvertent escalation, such as to shut down the flow of oil in the Persian Gulf, would be highst if Iran was in a situation of desperation comparable to that in Japan prior to the Attack on Pearl Harbor or Egypt prior to the Yom Kippur War.

In a 2022 debate hosted by the Center for Russian Studies of Bilkent University and the WWICS, Mearsheimer guessed that Iran would acquire nuclear weapons "within the next ten years", and then cross the threshold to become a nuclear weapon state. Regarding their motivation for acquisition, he used Ukraine as an analogy of a state that could have avoided invasion had they possessed nuclear weapons, alongside previously mentioned examples.


 * My defense for inclusion against WP:SOAP. Mearsheimer wrote:
 * Republished in
 * Both articles, published in a peer-reviewed journal and an in-field-acclaimed book respectively, received both praise and detraction from within the field of nuclear deterrence studies. Notable independent sources within that field have commented enough on Mearsheimer's nuclear analyses to make them notable, and that includes academic commentary on his views about the Iranian nuclear program. They have received much more attention from WP:RS-classed media outlets, such as the one that published his opinion piece, the New York Times. I would hesitate to put it in an article on the Iranian nuclear program, but here they are prominent opinions held by a prominent individual whose academic specialty covers this topic. Maybe you are thinking specifically of WP:NOTOPINION? That does not apply when the opinions are those of the article's subject. Ivan (talk) 20:01, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Both articles, published in a peer-reviewed journal and an in-field-acclaimed book respectively, received both praise and detraction from within the field of nuclear deterrence studies. Notable independent sources within that field have commented enough on Mearsheimer's nuclear analyses to make them notable, and that includes academic commentary on his views about the Iranian nuclear program. They have received much more attention from WP:RS-classed media outlets, such as the one that published his opinion piece, the New York Times. I would hesitate to put it in an article on the Iranian nuclear program, but here they are prominent opinions held by a prominent individual whose academic specialty covers this topic. Maybe you are thinking specifically of WP:NOTOPINION? That does not apply when the opinions are those of the article's subject. Ivan (talk) 20:01, 26 June 2024 (UTC)


 * My defense for inlcusion against WP:PROMO. These are debates, in which an individual's stances are . Take the second debate. Watch it and judge for yourself whether or not that debate was the type someone would include to promote themself. Dov Zakheim, Derek Chollet, Kori Schake and Reuel Marc Gerecht are all notable people. The first debate was with PBS News Hour, the second at Open to Debate and the third hosted by Bilkent University and the WWICS. The first two are notable for the individuals featured, whereas the last is more notable for the hosting institutions. But it is the views expressed rather than the debates themselves that are important to the section. Ivan (talk) 20:01, 26 June 2024 (UTC)


 * My edits (general comments)


 * The article already over-relies on Mearsheimer as a primary source for his own positions. This is a subtle form of editorializing, since he has countless opinions, and it shouldn't be up to editors to pick-and-choose which are important and which are not. This should instead be supported by reliable, independent sources. Primary sources can be used, if necessary, to briefly summarize his positions, but only if necessary, and I don't see any indication that it's necessary here. It is always better to cite independent secondary sources for this. Any quotations should be emphasized by reliable, independent sources, not editors, because for editors to select quotes risks cherry-picking, and is a form of subtle editorializing. Likewise, media appearances are not automatically significant enough to mention. More leeway is typically given form primary sources here, but without context the focus should be on brevity, to avoid subtly promotional name-dropping. Grayfell (talk) 19:57, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for replying. I can work with. Mearsheimer does indeed have countless published opinions. If I compiled them all, the page would be too long to load. I normally write articles by expanding and then summarising. The Iran section could probably be condensed to a single paragraph, for example. But it is very difficult to do that when your edits disappear within seconds of their addition to the article.
 * @Hipal I have a proposal. If @Grayfell is willing to ensure the quality of the final result of my edits (which could take a week or a month), could you not revert any more?
 * The independent sources criterion I can generally follow once I reach the summarising stage. I will still need to make use of primary sources to fill in gaps, though I can relegate most primary sources to a supporting role, and I think I can reword most of the quotations and condense them. A lot of commentary in independent sources focuses on only a part of the argument, so it is impossible to rely only on independent sources. Ivan (talk) 20:18, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
 * You should develop the article in a WP:SANDBOX and post a proposal here, on the talk page, instead of edit warring. I'm not interested in being an intermediary here, nor do I think that would be appropriate. I will offer my evaluation and work to build consensus, same as any other article.
 * I am reluctant to accept the claim that it isn't possible to rely only on independent sources. If reliable, independent sources only focuses on part of an argument, that helpfully informs us which parts of the argument are worth mentioning in this article. Since we agree that not every opinion is going to belong in this article, we must also accept that not every opinion needs to be contextualized by an editor's interpretation of any particular primary source. Grayfell (talk) 20:33, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Because it is a WP:BLP, the sandbox version will likely be deleted with justification. I had no recourse but to seek a third opinion. If you are not interested, that is fine. I made no interpretations, edited with a WP:NPOV to the best of my ability, refrained from edit warring. I have always stuck to 1RR on this page. With the justifications given here, there is cause to present an alternate, summarised version including independent sources. But none of this is inclusion-breaking, and so long as there is an editor willing to improve the article (myself), there are no grounds for exclusion. There are no actual violations of policy, only improvements possible. Given my commitment to carry out those improvements, any reversion is WP:HASTY. All I need is for another editor to agree to the inclusion of the content I have added so I can work on it. Without consensus for inclusion, @Hipal will delete it before I can improve it. Ivan (talk) 21:11, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Independent sources are almost always required to avoid NOT and POV problems. Identify reliable, independent sources first, then build upon them. --Hipal (talk) 16:06, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Please state concretely and with quotations from the policy pages which additions you believe violated which WP:NOT and WP:POV clauses. I am well aware of the recommendations in WP:IS (an essay, not a policy, but it has been used in the argumentation on this page). But even that essay notes The core policy What Wikipedia is not requires that it be possible to verify a subject in independent sources, or else the subject may not have a separate article in Wikipedia. There is no requirement that every article currently contain citations to such sources, although it is highly desirable. It is my intent to add such sources for claim, but I am a systematic editor. First one step, then another. I will eventually get to removing from the article all of the author's theories and views not covered by WP:RS, and probably more. Reverting my otherwise-unproblematic edits within seconds of their posting is an extreme example of WP:HASTY, and causing me much delay. To quote another essay, WP:USESPS, If you are supporting a direct quotation, the original document is the best source because the original document will be free of any errors or misquotations introduced by subsequent sources. That way I can verify quotation accuracy in the independent sources introduced, to avoid transmitting cherry-picked quotes in the WP:RS themselves, thus adhering to WP:NPOV. That is why I am starting with self-published (in  of these cases and primary but WP:RS-published in the rest) sources. Not because my end goal is WP:SYNTH. For every inclusion, I know of a WP:IS that can back the claim up, but my edits will be extensive and I don't want to accidentally skip steps. When rewriting an article that is a WP:BLP, a sandbox draft is inappropriate. Ivan (talk) 16:51, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Because it is a WP:BLP, the sandbox version will likely be deleted with justification. What?? Linking to WP:SANDBOX was a mistake on my part. I meant your personal sandbox. See Help:My sandbox. If you are planning on adding anything to your sandbox (or anywhere else) that would violate BLP, you shouldn't be adding it to this article, either, and we would be having a very different conversation. Your sandbox is specifically designed to be a place to develop content for articles.
 * The article already suffers from too many primary sources. If you want to change consensus, start with reliable, independent, secondary sources and demonstrate much, much more restraint with primary sources. Grayfell (talk) 19:54, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Иованъ, you've been told multiple times now how to address the problems. If you're going to continue to ignore those instructions, then you'll not gain consensus for any changes that require them. --Hipal (talk) 20:17, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
 * @Grayfell No, I do not plan to violate WP:BLP, but for obvious reasons there tends to be a low tolerance for a BLP article in one's sandbox (and new BLP articles are strongly encouraged to be written in Draftspace), and WP:BLP is one of the policies cited for the reversions here, though which part has not been explained. If @Hipal will agree not to revert anything in my rewrite within reason (such as violating WP:G10) while I am still actively improving the draft, then I will create a draft article in my userspace. As I have said, I plan (and always have planned) on adding WP:IS for every addition, but when I write articles on scholars I usually begin with primary sources if there is no biography available and  move on to secondary sources, which has a tendency to shrink the article ~fourfold to tenfold. Do I have your permission to go ahead with a userspace draft, @Hipal? Ivan (talk) 20:52, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
 * In my experience, you'll be wasting everyone's time. Wikipedia is collaborative and consensus-based, and you appear to be trying to avoid both (eg John Mearsheimer bibliography). --Hipal (talk) 16:45, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
 * WP:AGF, please? I am in agreement with the need for the final version to be WP:IS-based. I just have a different writing order. I will go ahead with the sandbox creation. Ivan (talk) 17:13, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Night Watchman
I'm re-reading Tragedy of Great Power Politics for an article I'm working on, and I am troubled by the phrase here that Mearsheimer considered global hegemony a "theoretical impossibility". He described "global hegemony" as "not feasible except in the unlikely event that a state achieves nuclear superiority over its rivals." (Tragedy, 2001, p. 140). Thus "theoretical impossibility" seems flat out wrong...theoretically possible but practically infeasible seems much more accurate. Also, more of a pet peeve here but I really would prefer that the intro emphasize that Kenneth Waltz's neorealism/defensive realism (1979) was the original and Mearsheimer's theory is a modification of his...the whole offensive realism concept boils down to the difference between security-seeking (Waltz) and power-seeking (Mearsheimer) behavior being incentivized by the international system, and as well written as Tragedy is, most of the theretical foundation is a restatement or development (?) of Waltz. Implying that Waltz and Mearsheimer started at the same place and went down different paths obfuscates the intellectual history of neorealism. Defenestrator12 (talk) 05:50, 17 July 2024 (UTC)