The entire pitch for Brexit in 2016 was that the sovereignty gains in leaving the EU would make the UK more economically prosperous and more politically stable than the EU.
That's the Leave Campaign's benchmark for establishing success or failure.
The way greater sovereignty from the EU became inextricably linked in the Leave Campaign's pitch with greater prosperity in comparison to the EU is one of the reasons why Soft Brexit as a balanced compromise to ensure UK stability became squeezed out of contention after 2016
Also interesting to look back at the Vote Leave manifesto and see what is still highlighted now and what isn't mentioned. A new European institutional architecture assumes a lot about the UK's power and leverage over the EU as well as about EU weakness voteleavetakecontrol.org/briefing_newde…
Basically an excerpt from the Cummings blog
Kind of awesome in how wrong this bit gets everything
Classic Dom.
I guess he never did the Europe and the Wider World paper while building his anti-establishment credentials at Exeter College, Oxford
It is interesting though how justifications of the specific Brexit pathway taken now by Cummings, Gove, Frost and Johnson are increasingly detached from the Brexit outcomes that were presented as just in reach during the referendum campaign in 2016
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A general who took care of his troops, was popular among soldiers and officers while proving competent in handling military operations is one of the most senior figures to get purged.
Putinism's approach to squeezing the army resembles Baathist regimes under Hafez or Saddam
In the emerging Russo-Baathist regime, the greatest mistake a general can make is being honest in the hope of saving the troops under his command rferl.org/a/russia-gener…
If the US is unable to provide aid to Ukraine and does not seem a reliable partner for other European states its concerns will be ignored by Ukraine and other European states
Quincyite Restrainers and MAGA isolationists are ultimate cakeists in assuming the US can withdraw commitments from allies while still keeping influence the US developed through massive involvement in key global regions.
Instead DC will moan on the sidelines as others ignore it.
The Ukrainian leadership is made up of a lot of experienced people who know how DC will react to certain actions yet they're starting to do them anyway.
The French leadership knows how sketchy Biden is over talk of troops on the ground anywhere yet Paris is shifting anyway.
Panels at the Munich Security Conference invariably spend a lot of time wringing hands over the so-called Global South while spending as little time as possible paying attention to the details of relentless conflicts and regional power rivalries in the Global South
A bit of time at MSC focused on wars in Sudan, Abiy's moves, state cohesion in the Sahel or growing risks of state vs state war between DRC and Rwanda rather than vague strategic platitudes might show EU and US policymakers actually care about events in the "Global South"
When Russian PMCs, Romanian mercs, Chinese brokers and Ukrainian special forces are showing up in wars across Africa alongside French, UAE, Turkish, Italian and Portuguese usual suspects then maybe it's time MSC noticed how much events in different global regions are intertwined
A potential trap in focusing entirely on narratives of settler colonialism in assessing imperial power structures and migration that can go back centuries is how quickly they can get absorbed into Far Right demands for expulsion of minorities in Europe, India or Africa
The assumption that narratives of settler colonialism will only target West Europeans or North Americans looks ropey if one considers how various nativist movements in Europe, Africa and India can also end up targeting the migration and political legacies of Muslim empires.
Taken one step further, within the framework of Far Right worldviews that see migrants as part of a wider conspiracy to displace "native" populations in Europe, what may begin as a Left wing decolonial agenda can quickly get hijacked to be used against Muslim and other migrants.
The problem for those in the West pitching ceasefire and talks with Putin over Ukraine has always been one of trust. His speech on 24 February 2022 indicated that he believes he is pursuing a divine historical mission in ways that mean his word in any compromise cannot be trusted
At best a ceasefire puts Ukraine in a permanent no war/no peace situation rather than stable outcomes.
Even in those terms, there is specific territory Ukraine would still need to gain now for it to sustain such a long term India/Pakistan dynamic punctuated by surges in fighting
It may be that in 2024 the Ukraine/Russia dynamic ends up in a no war/no peace scenario. But to maintain a sustainable equilibrium between both sides that avoids future escalation Ukraine will still need to regain the heart of its pre-2022 economic infrastructure along the river.
One of the ironies of Ukraine's accession into the EU is going to be that once in EUCO, EP and the Commission the interests of Ukrainian governments will on the general direction of EU integration align more with Paris than with Warsaw.
It is Poland that in its suspicion of Berlin and Paris keeps pushing for a deeper US role in European security while Ukraine having dealt with Trump's lunacies and Biden's reluctance to provide key systems would be much happier to be part of a Gaullist EU with strategic autonomy
If through EU accession and European integration the Ukrainian state can sit within a security and defence structure much better able to protect itself without US assistance then every Ukrainian politician will be relieved to never have to go to DC with a begging bowl again