The liberal tradition has its roots in the Enlightenment, that period in the eighteenth-century Europe when intellectuals and political leaders had a… - John Mearsheimer

We have a huge amount of evidence that it was nato expansion and the more general policy of making Ukraine a western bulwark on Russia’s border that motivated him to attack on February 24th... For Putin to have said time after time that nato, that Ukraine in nato, was an existential threat to Russia, when in fact it wasn’t, and this was all done to disguise the real motive, which was to incorporate Ukraine into a greater Russia for the purposes of satisfying his imperial ambitions is an argument that is just not supported by the historical record. Putin was very clear, as were all his lieutenants, that their great fear was that Ukraine was becoming a Western bulwark on Russia’s borders. For them, that was an existential threat. It was simply unacceptable.

In the anarchic world of international politics, it is better to be Godzilla than Bambi.

Specifically, the presence of oceans on much of the earth's surface makes it impossible for any state to achieve global hegemony.