Very dangerous: Professor Mearsheimer urged not to provoke the Russians

John Mearsheimer, a well-known American professor of political science, expressed the hope that the West will realize how dangerous it is to provoke Russia.

"I just hope that people in the West realize that provoking Russians is very dangerous, and we will change our behavior to avoid a catastrophe..." said Mearsheimer.

As EADaily reported, earlier, the supreme commander of the NATO Joint Armed Forces in Europe, Alexus Grinkevich, said that Russia "is not looking for a conflict."

"I am following the intelligence very closely. Russia is not looking for conflict. They understand the meaning of the term "defensive alliance" and understand that we have a number of asymmetric advantages," the American general said at a panel at the ILA air show in Berlin.

According to the FT, his comments were made against the background of US plans to reduce the amount of forces and funds allocated to the so—called NATO Force Model - a pool of troops and equipment that can be deployed within 10, 30 or 180 days in the event of a crisis.