Thread by @EHunterChristie

(1-13)
Two angles I feel are missing from @scharap's work. (feel free to respond if you will)

1- The deterrence implications of not standing up for key principles of International Law

2- The natural justice case for supporting a nation defending against aggression

https://twitter.com/scharap/status/1553845175704854528

(2-13)
Even if Ukraine's chances of survival looked bleak on 21 January, it was a matter of both deterring *further* adventurism and of moral principle to supply it with what means of defence one could.
Meanwhile, he had a headline to his name saying it won't matter.

(3-13)
As a result, his work is instinctively disliked by many Ukrainians and friends of Ukraine.
But the stances he tends to take are also viewed negatively by many others in Central and Eastern Europe - because they seem to promote insufficient deterrence against Moscow.

(4-13)
My view is that the correct norm of behaviour is this:

One must resist aggression more rather than less, and help a victim of aggression more rather than less, with the only ceiling the freely chosen decision of the victim to fight on.

(5-13)
I also have issues with some of #Charap's other works since January.
On 30 March, in Foreign Affairs, he urged the United States to compromise with Moscow "sooner rather than later". One of his arguments in that piece...

(6-13)
... seemed to be that the United States should save Russia from itself. I quote:
"a long war in Ukraine might push [Russia's] process of decline and marginalization too far, too fast"

(7-13)
So, prior to the war, he seemed to imply that resistance was futile, as Russia would win.
By end March, he was arguing, in the same FA article, both that RUS would probably win anyway, but that if it went badly wrong for RUS, that would be bad too.

(8-13)
What that amounts to is arguing that RUS should never be made to lose, regardless of whether that is possible or not, and regardless of how Russia put itself into trouble to begin with.
This is, de facto, a pro-Russian stance.
I see no other interpretation.

(9-13)
On 1 June #Charap published an article in FA in which he assessed discussions on 'security guarantees' for Ukraine, comparable in his view to pre-1914 guarantees towards Belgium.
While noting the latter were violated in 1914, he presented their Ukrainian equivalent...

(10-13)
...as "the most plausible pathway ... to a sustainable peace for Ukraine".
This was an odd conclusion, as the analogy with Belgium was not exactly reassuring.

(11-13)
The 1 June article was also notable for what it did not contain, namely a solution based not on securing Moscow's agreement, but based on generating such high costs for Russia that it would give up of its own accord.

(12-13)
Closer to the present, I was also struck by the recent #RAND analysis #Charap co-authored on pathways to escalation, which seemed to me to be a quite oriented exercise because, like his previous work, it did not give much room to consider Russia being deterred.

(13-13)
When one understates the extent to which an adversary can be deterred, it leads to recommendations that tend, more strongly than what is optimal, towards more moderate postures and actions.
This, in turn, gives undue leeway to the adversary.
In short, it helps Moscow.