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Stephen Wertheim Profile picture
@stephenwertheim
Sep 30, 2020 • 6 tweets • 1 min read • Read on X
CNN right now: the candidates will attempt to create a contrast between them
CNN continues: this time Donald Trump is currently the president, whereas four years ago he was not
CNN: vile smears have never before been heard in American history (Jake Tapper actually said this)
CNN: Trump will attack Biden and how will Biden handle it
CNN: Biden will have responses
CNN: This race is going to come down to Biden versus Trump

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More from @stephenwertheim

Stephen Wertheim Profile picture
Apr 15
The main challenge for U.S. foreign policy today isn't Trump, and it isn't Biden. It is that the longstanding pursuit of global military dominance has run headlong into the problems of overcommitment, overstretch, and domestic discontent.
The United States is overcommitted because over eight decades, and especially after the Cold War, it has issued defense guarantees to dozens of countries, not of all which are truly essential to the security, prosperity, and freedom of the American people and the American polity.
The United States is overstretched because it no longer has the material resources to meet multiple plausible military contingencies at once, especially to wage wars against China and Russia simultaneously.
Read 7 tweets
Stephen Wertheim Profile picture
Mar 6
Years in the making, my history of how the concepts of internationalism and isolationism came to be used in American politics, centering on the 1930s and 1940s, is finally out — just as commentators keep nonsensically warning that “isolationism” is somehow on the march.
Despite the ubiquity of the terms internationalism and isolationism in politics and scholarship alike, no one had comprehensively investigated how these categories came into being, and to what effect.
Here's what I found.

1. Internationalism, a nineteenth century term, long preceded the widespread usage of isolationism. Associated with peace and cooperation, it meant seeking to stay out of, or transform, the system of power politics and war centered in Europe. Image
Read 12 tweets
Stephen Wertheim Profile picture
Jun 18, 2023
For decades, U.S. officials have widely recognized that enlarging NATO, especially to Ukraine, ran at least some risk of putting the United States on a collision course with Russia. Below are some quotations that I didn't have room to include in my piece. nytimes.com/2023/06/16/opi…
This should go without saying, but I share these quotations not to excuse Russia's inexcusable, aggressive invasion of Ukraine, or to treat NATO enlargement as the sole or main cause of anything, but to promote the clear-eyed understanding needed to make decisions going forward.
George Kennan, 1998: "'I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely . . . . Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are." nytimes.com/1998/05/02/opi…
Read 11 tweets
Stephen Wertheim Profile picture
Jun 17, 2023
The argument of my piece is precisely that Russian imperialism was a major reason why Moscow opposed NATO expansion. Russian imperialism and NATO enlargement were mutually reinforcing factors — not the either/or that so many commentators today claim.
Thus I disagree with some former policymakers like Michael McFaul who claim that Russia's invasion of Ukraine has "nothing to do" with NATO. It's not either/or. Enlarging NATO threatened Moscow's claim to an imperial sphere of influence in Ukraine and beyond.
Enlarging NATO also threatened the longstanding Russian desire for a security buffer in Eastern Europe. This strategic rationale went hand in hand with an imperial one, and the two became intertwined.
Read 6 tweets
Stephen Wertheim Profile picture
Oct 17, 2022
Every so often, it becomes fashionable for foreign policy experts to talk up the importance of getting America's own house in order. "We need to break down the silos between foreign policy and domestic policy," they say, no doubt sincerely.
But then reality sets in. As individuals who define themselves as foreign policy experts and work in institutions of foreign policy experts, they are not trained, socialized, or incentivized to act other than as foreign policy experts.
So they continue to do what they do — foreign policy — until the cycle repeats and the next bout of rhetorical silo-breaking begins.
Read 11 tweets
Stephen Wertheim Profile picture
Aug 23, 2022
To Europeans now awake to the danger of Russian aggression, it may seem tempting to double-down on American leadership. From where I sit in Washington, they would be making a mistake to do so. A thread:
Despite the West’s strong support for Ukraine, robust trends are pushing the United States to reduce its commitment to European security just as Europe's security needs are on the rise. These factors do not depend on the possible return of Donald Trump to the White House.
1. The United States cannot fight two wars at once against China and Russia. The Pentagon already abandoned its two-war standard in 2018 precisely as it enshrined great-power competition as its primary focus, because the two-war standard was tenable only against small states.
Read 8 tweets

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