I am increasingly concerned about the prospect of a disastrous war. Creative diplomacy, in addition to strong deterrence measures, is going to be necessary to avoid it.
The Biden administration and NATO allies are right to engage on the regional security issues that were tabled this week.
But if we can get a tangible drawdown of Russian forces in return, the Allies should also be up front about NATO's actual policy on Ukraine's NATO membership.
"while Ukraine is free to pursue membership, the alliance is not offering it membership at present. That is a factually accurate statement."
This is hardly a major concession...
I look forward to a respectful and substantive discussion on twitter! (hahahaha)
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it's important to note two analytical disagreements. 1) They say Putin could be bluffing. No one knows for sure, but given the gravity of the military build-up and the USG concern about Russian plans, I think we should assume he's not bluffing. 3/13
Have to agree with @KofmanMichael here. Moscow is being rather clear that it is interested in something very concrete. And way beyond what Western capitals could deliver even if they wanted to do so.
So since I've garnered a number of new followers this weekend, I thought I'd follow up on the substance of the discussion around my @POLITICOMag article. A thread. politico.com/news/magazine/…
Folks (particularly those hyperventilating) should recognize that this is a question about means, not ends. Everyone wants to avoid a major war in Europe, right?
If so, the question is how. Some believe that if we only whack the Russians upside the head (or threaten to do so) either via sanctions, military assistance to UA, etc., enough, then they'll reverse course, send everyone home and apologize for the trouble.
If that’s true, choices become very stark very quickly. Threatening consequences is important, but I haven’t seen anyone make a convincing case that the West is prepared to do what it takes to force #Russia to back down. So coercion alone is not going to be enough.
And a bunch of other folks not on twitter including two from Ukraine, two from Moldova, etc. This was a unique endeavor where we set out to find common ground among representatives of countries that do not get along well, to put it mildly. 2/
We agreed on a proposal that everyone could live with —even if no one was completely satisfied. The idea was to revise the regional order particularly as it concerns the "in-between states" so as to boost security, facilitate prosperity, and better deal w/conflicts 3/