Thread by @AndrewPRLevi

Ukraine & The New World Order

A long 🧵. To read with a strong cup of tea to hand.

Let’s think of President A & President B. I’m not naming any individuals, you understand.

President A thinks “America” (first) & “European (& Asian) free-rider weaklings” & “beautiful deals”./1.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, of course. For President A it looks like this:

- the strong do deals, the weak suffer what they must

- who is strong, in style & nuclear warheads?

- Putin & Xi

- who is strong economically? /2.

- of the first lot Xi. There’s also the EU & Japan. But they have “weak” leaders, & no nukes. (Well, France & UK have nukes, but they’re really American, even the French ones (don’t tell anyone I told you that))

- so, I’ll do a deal with Putin & Xi /3.

- Putin’s easy, & I like the white supremacist vibe, which resonates with my base. I give him the whole USSR & Warsaw Pact back, plus Finland, because he wants a birthday present. I keep western Europe. /4.

They’re terrified now, so they’ll increase defence spending to 5% of GDP & on top of that pay the US for a major conventional & nuclear presence on their territory. Plus they’ll give the US highly advantageous trade terms. /5.

Putin’s economic weakness will be fixed by pillaging the (relatively) prosperous central & eastern European countries. Most of that will go to him personally & about 100 cronies. He’ll probably wreck the whole region. I could care less. /6.

- Xi’s harder. He wants to rule the world & he might just be able to achieve that, eventually. So I give him much of Asia/ Pacific. But not Japan, not Australasia. (See western Europe). We divide up Africa. /7.

In return, I demand advantageous trade terms with China, which he’ll give me, at least to start with. He’s a smart guy: he reckons he’ll only grow in strength, I (& the US) will only weaken. He can turn the tables later. I could care less. I won’t be around. /8.

And anyway, if the US population is so degenerate as to become losers in the world, they deserve what they get.

- obviously, I’ll insist on complete control of the Americas. And I’ll make damn sure I get it. (For Canada, see western Europe). /9.

President B says, “that stuff from President A is batsh*t crazy. It’s ugly. But even if it weren’t (he obviously likes it) it’s just the onanistic fantasy of a Hitler fanboy: it won’t work”.

Why not?

-You can’t trust Putin or Xi. Or their possible successors. /10.

-Multipolarity is a myth. In a world with such powerful technologies, including intercontinental missiles, you can’t hide behind a wall to be safe. /11.

Short of some fantasy of world government - &, even if it were a real possibility, that ain’t going to win you a US election - you have to have control, with overwhelming force available to you should you need it. /12.

The alternative to control isn’t “multipolarity” or world government. It’s chaos, in a nuclear armed world with other massive global challenges. The Cold War gave an illusion of bipolarity. In reality it was unipolar with USSR contained (dangerous crises along the way) by US./13.

-Now that the US represents “only” about a quarter of the global economy rather than half, & “only” about half of defence expenditure rather than three quarters, achieving (or, given we’re talking about the US) maintaining that control & overwhelming force is harder. /14.

And we’re seeing, in real time, Putin & others recalculating & probing the limits, on that basis.

-So, says President B, I need an assessment of how, assuming you guys conclude it can reliably be achieved, we maintain control. /15.

- Sir, say the advisors, the basics are much as they used to be. We need control of at least half the world’s economy. And we need such overwhelming force available to us that whoever might try to step outside our “rules based order” will quickly be put back in their box. /16.

-For that, we obviously need hugely powerful weaponry, armed forces & military bases around the world. We need to control all the most advanced technologies. /17.

As we no longer have any prospect of our own economy being large enough on its own, we must massively enhance & tighten our US-led alliances with those who, with us, can form a geopolitical force with gigantic economic, technological & military power. /18.

That’s primarily the EU/NATO countries and some key Asia/ Pacific countries. (Of course there’s Africa &, very importantly also, the Americas, but let’s skip that here, for now). /19.

- In terms of territorial control, focusing now on the current Russia crisis and the Euro-Atlantic end of this global mission, we at least need western Eurasia. How much? In 1945 we decided, for various pragmatic reasons, western Europe would be enough. /20.

We may have miscalculated (although we survived). After 1989/90 we took the opportunity to put that right. /21.

- Now Putin is - unprecedentedly in the entire history of nuclear weapons - threatening us with nuclear war if we intervene, with conventional weapons, to defend our position in western Eurasia against an actual (not theoretical) war of aggression invasion by USSR/ Russia. /22.

(Yes, Ukraine is indeed part of the US position, even though it isn’t in the EU/NATO).

-On the one hand, we can’t let that stand. On the other hand, will he actually launch nukes at us?

Here’s what we do … /23.

Recommendations to President B:

-If we thought Putin would stop at Ukraine, we’d have to make a choice: accept that, or nonetheless try to prevent him. If we thought he’d stop at the Baltic States: same question. Or the whole former Warsaw Pact: same question. /24.

- But the question only arises if we don’t think we have the strength to stop him. Or that stopping him doesn’t matter.

-We do have the strength. And it does matter. /25.

Were we in a weaker position, we’d have to fall back on some variant of President A’s plans for the Euro-Atlantic. And pray. But we’re not. /26.

- The problem is the nuclear threat (obvious reasons) & domestic politics (high gas/ fuel prices, economic pain, many body bags). How do we achieve our objectives while reliably avoiding those outcomes? /27.

- First: massive assistance to Ukraine, much or most of it covert/ deniable, below a threshold our intelligence (which needs to be superb) tells us would trigger Putin to go nuclear. /28.

That threshold will be affected by secretly shaping Putin’s perceptions of the devastating retaliation the US would inflict for any Russian nuclear adventure. He has to believe it. We have to make sure he does. /29.

- Second: disruption of Putin’s political (mafia) power structure, & his command & control. Again, all covert, with agents in place, technical means etc. /30.

In particular, we need (a) both to ensure as far as possible any nuclear command would be disobeyed, & Putin becomes convinced even if he managed to launch a first strike his nuclear command system was so compromised he couldn’t be confident of being able to launch a second; /31.

& (b) his inner circle turns against him, &/or he believes they’re doing so, making him unable to function, isolating himself in his bunker, not knowing whether he’s really still in charge. /32.

A more extreme (and difficult) version of this is regime decapitation. The risks of chaos leading to an inadvertent nuclear order & the execution of it are real & need to be a key factor in carrying out this part of the operation. /33.

- Third: Cold War levels of NATO reinforcement, right the way to the Russian border (Norway & Latvia, Finland (although they’re not currently in NATO)), & points south (borders of Belarus, Ukraine …). /34.

Putin needs to know we’ll take out Kaliningrad in an instant if he tries any nuclear games there.

-Fourth: either our operation ejects Russia from Ukraine now, or later. Now is far preferable. If later, we’ll inflict unbearable pain on Russian forces. /35.

Putin won’t care. Unless it threatens his survival. We’re working on that separately/ additionally (see above). Also, if later, it will be horrific beyond anything seen in Europe in over 75 years, for Ukraine. /36.

But: we’ll only strike directly if we’re sufficiently convinced Putin cannot or will not carry out his nuclear threat (see above). Humanitarian assistance to Ukraine & refugees from Ukraine. /37.

- Fifth: massive economic sanctions & seizures, personally on Putin & his agents, & - painfully, but necessarily – destabilising the Russian economy & life as whole. To protect ourselves we may need large govt intervention & deficit spending to regulate energy supply/prices. /38.

- Sixth: revolution in Russia. Putin’s paranoid? Good for him. Just because you’re paranoid … etc.

Careful handling required, of course. But we need good options for this. /39.

- Seventh: while using China as far as possible to get at Putin (may not have much success there) make clear to them dire consequences of interfering in our operations. And the disaster they would experience if they tried to attack Taiwan. /40.

Xi is nowhere near as geopolitically, militarily, economically, or domestically strong as he likes to pretend. He’ll be paying attention to our message. /41.

- Eighth: aftermath. We need urgently to consider what Russia & its constituent parts need to look like in future, to help make the world safe - for us, our allies, & others. And whether its nuclear weapons should be disposed of, for good. /42.

We need to do rapid work on this now & consider our hierarchy of objectives & scenarios for achieving them.

Discussion scheduled for tomorrow morning in the Oval Office, President B. Briefing papers with you this noon. /43.

Important note for Twitter readers: this is from the imaginary desk of the imaginary National Security Advisor of imaginary President B.

Oh, & in case you were wondering, Putin knows all this already. Which doesn’t mean he can necessarily do anything much about it. /44. End