Alexander Clarkson  Profile picture
Oct 16, 2021 8 tweets 3 min read Read on X
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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More from @APHClarkson

Dec 12
The first time there have been no checkpoints or physical border checks between Vienna and Varna since the Ottoman Empire
In grand historical terms you could see the EU as a supra-national absorption mechanism integrating the legacies of the Habsburg, Bourbon, Ottoman and Jagiellionian empires
And of course with the Baltic now being an EU/NATO lake one shouldn't forget the Baltic world shaped by the Vasa dynasty.
Read 7 tweets
Sep 30
The extent to which so much analysis assumes that the IDF would just repeat the 2006 playbook as if it had not learned as much as Hezbollah from that conflict is baffling.

It's likely the Israelis have a pretty good overview of what faces them in Southern Lebanon.
Israelis are more likely to win in purely military terms against Hezbollah and Hamas than many blinded by myth-making surrounding both organisations assume

But if the Israelis get sucked into Lebanon in a lasting way and this drags on they'll tank Israel's economy in the process
Hezbollah's greatest weakness right now is how predictable its responses have become. Rather than seeking diplomatic room for maneuver, a Hezbollah leadership trapped by its own resistance mythology keeps doubling down on futile attacks that expose it further to Israeli attrition
Read 4 tweets
Sep 22
Internal instability within the regime will build up over months and years in ways that factions who can attract or buy the loyalty of armed formations are most likely to take advantage of.

The liberal opposition is likely to be irrelevant to this intra-elite struggle for power
I suspect if and when Putin falls, a lot of people in the EU and US will be shocked with how quickly many Russian emigres who now present themselves as liberal will be willing to align with promising armed factions out of desperation to gain some power in Russian politics
And none of this happening anytime soon. Barring Putin's unexpected death, we're probably at least a decade away from any prospect of regime fall or transition in Russia even if the Russian army is defeated in Ukraine.
Read 4 tweets
May 27
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…
Image
Read 5 tweets
Mar 22
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.
Read 6 tweets
Feb 17
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
Read 4 tweets

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