---
title: "The Realism of War and Mearsheimer | Mika Aaltola | Negotiator 170"
titleOriginal: "Sodan realismi Mearsheimer | Mika Aaltola | Neuvottelija 170"
episodeNumber: "170"
guest: "Mika Aaltola"
datePublished: 2023-01-15
duration: "54:30"
youtube: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7JClr3pHnQ"
originalLanguage: "fi"
topics: ["geopolitics"]
subtitleMethod: "none"
provenance: "Owner page assembled from YouTube metadata and the neuvottelija.fi episode record. No chapter marks are published here: the publisher's list holds only two marks, at 0:00 and 0:80, and the second one's own text quotes a timestamp of 54:31 — it is a split of the show-note text rather than a chapter list, so republishing it would assert timestamps that do not hold. No transcript is published either — the channel has no English caption track for this episode and the Finnish one is YouTube's automatic track. The episode is a running assessment recorded a year into the war; several of the forecasts in it have since been settled by events, and the long-form write-up in the Neuvottelija AI editions says which."
fiCanonical: "https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/249-sodan-realismi-mearsheimer-mika-aaltola-neuvottelija-170"
canonical: https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep170-sodan-realismi-ja-mearsheimer-mika-aaltola/
---
# The Realism of War and Mearsheimer | Mika Aaltola | Negotiator 170

English subtitles are not available on this page. This is an episode summary, not a curated transcript.

## Summary

Mika Aaltola, director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, goes through the first year of the war in Ukraine in diary form and marks where his own forecasts held and where they missed. The spine of the conversation is structural realism and Mearsheimer's sphere-of-influence thinking, which from a small state's vantage point is bleak and, historically, a poor predictor of stability. Aaltola also opens up the dynamics of Finland's NATO process, how Washington's signals should be read, and why public opinion turned before the political leadership did. He treats Russia's strategic culture as a durable structure and expects the war to end in a frozen conflict rather than a peace treaty.

## A forecast audit, not a commentary

The framing that makes this episode worth keeping is that Aaltola scores himself: he goes back through what he said during the first year and separates the calls that held from the ones that did not. That is a rarer thing in foreign-policy commentary than the commentary itself, and it is what the diary structure is for.

## Why realism reads badly from Helsinki

Mearsheimer's version of realism treats spheres of influence as the stable arrangement. Aaltola's objection is partly empirical — the historical record does not show that stability — and partly positional: a small state on the boundary of a sphere is the thing being arranged, not a party to the arrangement.

## Opinion ahead of leadership

On NATO, Aaltola's reading is that the Finnish public moved first and the political leadership caught up. It is worth stating plainly because the opposite story — leaders bringing a reluctant public along — is the one usually told about accession.


## Watch

The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: [Sodan realismi Mearsheimer | Mika Aaltola | Neuvottelija 170](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7JClr3pHnQ).
A Finnish edition of this episode is published at [www.neuvottelija.fi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/249-sodan-realismi-mearsheimer-mika-aaltola-neuvottelija-170).

## In depth

The Neuvottelija AI editions carry a long-form write-up of this episode:
[English](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep170-sodan-realismi-ja-mearsheimer-mika-aaltola/) · [suomeksi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep170-sodan-realismi-ja-mearsheimer-mika-aaltola/).

## Explore the ideas in depth

- [Negotiation Strategy, Leverage and Power: Reading the Counterparty You Actually Have](https://www.neuvottelija.com/guides/negotiation-strategy-leverage-and-power/): A negotiation guide from the co-author of Neuvotteluvalta — the sources of leverage, BATNA and anchoring in practice, using information asymmetry, breaking deadlocks, and what to do when the counterparty negotiates on power rather than consensus. Grounded in Neuvottelija conversations and two decades of negotiation writing.

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Cite as: Sami Miettinen, Neuvottelija — The Realism of War and Mearsheimer | Mika Aaltola | Negotiator 170, https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep170-sodan-realismi-ja-mearsheimer-mika-aaltola/, 2023-01-15. For quotes include episode 170 and timestamp.