John Joseph Mearsheimer (; born December 14, 1947) is an American political scientist and international relations scholar, who belongs to the realist school of thought. He is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. He has been described as the most influential realist of his generation. Mearsheimer is best known for developing the theory of offensive realism, which describes the interaction between great powers as being primarily driven by the rational desire to achieve regional hegemony in an anarchic international system. In accordance with his theory, Mearsheimer believes that China's growing power will likely bring it into conflict with the United States. In his 2007 book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, Mearsheimer argues that the Israeli lobby wields disproportionate influence over U.S. foreign policy. Early life Mearsheimer was born in December 1947 in Brooklyn, New York City. When he was eight, he moved with his family to Croton-on-Hudson, a suburb in Westchester County. When he was 17, Mearsheimer enlisted in the U.S. Army. After one year as an enlisted member, he obtained an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, which he attended from 1966 to 1970. After graduation, he served for five years as an officer in the U.S. Air Force. In 1974, while he was in the Air Force, Mearsheimer earned a master's degree in international relations from the University of Southern California. He entered Cornell University and in 1980 earned a PhD in government, specifically in international relations. From 1978 to 1979, he was a research fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. From 1980 to 1982, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University's Center for International Affairs. During the 1998–1999 academic year, he was the Whitney H. Shepardson Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Career Since 1982, Mearsheimer has been a member of the faculty of the Department of Political Science Faculty at the University of Chicago. He became an associate professor in 1984 and a full professor in 1987 and was appointed the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor in 1996. From 1989 to 1992, he served as chairman of the department. He also holds a position as a faculty member in the Committee on International Relations graduate program, and he is a co-director of the Program on International Security Policy. Mearsheimer's books include Conventional Deterrence (1983), which won the