My main objection is to this framing of the ‘issues between #Ukraine & #Russia’ as somehow not being clear & clearly 🇷🇺’s fault & 🇷🇺’s problem.🇷🇺 needs to get out of 🇺🇦 & stop menacing it’s neighbours.
There can be no bothsidesing - it is wrong & sets terrible precedent. 2/
Equivocating on the problem - #Russia- also sets any negotiations up in completely the wrong way. There is nothing to concede here - we must show we are 100% behind #Ukraine’s concept of victory (all its territory back & viable deterrence of future RU aggression).
3/
We should also not be to concerned about 🇷🇺s feelings of a ‘stab in the back’ or resentment against the West. Instead, we should - as @jnpowell1 suggests later in the piece - focus on containing #Russia to which I would add squeezing & isolating as well as deterring 🇷🇺. 4/
Nothing other than ensuring this victory - all of #Ukraine’s territory back & effective future deterrence - is needed to ‘tempt’ #Russia into the only type of negotiations we should consider.
As for this issue of humiliation …
/5
Rather than worrying over Russians complexes about the past - how dare their oppressive empire have collapsed under the weight of its own inadequacy! - they should be clearly shown that unless they change the future will bring much greater humiliations for #Russia 6/
A future of isolation from the West, from democratic societies & pariah status beckons unless #Russia makes the (huge) changes needed to become a liberal, democratic state & a decent part of international society. We have the power to enforce this if we have the will.
7/
The idea that ‘adding’ a commitment that #Russia will not attack #Ukraine again ‘to the agenda’ of negotiations shows the flaws in the approach outlined here. As Powell notes later in the piece, deterring Russia will require something more ... 8/
Powell recommends #Ukraine become a ‘hedgehog’ that #Russia would not want to attack
-but the only spikes that would have this effect are nuclear ones with devastating conventional capabilities to go with them. UA acquiring these would likely prompt RU to attack pre-emptively 9/
The only real deterrence & the only real security guarantee for #Ukraine that also increased security in the region & across Europe & the West is #NATO membership for 🇺🇦.
- we should be pushing hard for this & strongly lobbying hesitant NATO capitals.
10/
This sets up a more solid basis for deterrence & containment but would, as @jnpowell1 notes, also require a wider rethinking of democratic societies’ approach to international affairs & international organisations - just as I call for in advocating for #NeoIdealism
11/
Whereas Powell sees this as a problem Neo-Idealists see this as an opportunity. We resorted to rule-bound depoliticized institutions that were easily instrumentalists to illiberal purpose because they only had liberal form not substance. It’s time to change that.#NeoIdealism
12/
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Paying this national security premium is actually an investment in our future: it gives us the chance to make our democracies what we claim them to be - and thus to reactivate our soft & transformative power. opencanada.org/is-canada-read…
14/
No longer relying on the cheap shortcuts of (dependencies on) market & fossil fuel on authoritarian regimes should be the spur to transform our own societies to deliver a better future, to revive the hope of progress & share its benefits more fairly.
15/
We can seize this opportunity to change in ways that we have long known we need to: technologically, economically, socially & politically. So while there would be costs for standing firm, standing up for #Ukraine & standing up to #Russia, they are really investments.
16/
I first introduced the idea of #NeoIdealism in a piece for @RUSI_org in April '22 but Its fullest elaboration so far is in my book - 'To #Ukraine With Love'
- published last month & available now on kindle & paperback😎 amazon.com/Ukraine-Love-E…
So why call it Neo-Idealism?
2/25
Some of the Neo-Idealists from #CEE - sometimes explicitly - seek to refresh the hopeful, people-centred politics that flourished in the post-communist transitions of the 1990s but which had wilted more recently, especially after the 2008 financial crisis
3/25
With the great news that #Poland will supply a company of #Leopard2 Main Battle Tanks & the #UK set to provide #Challenger2#MBTs, the spotlight is now trained firmly on Berlin. Will #Germany join the coalition to give #Ukraine the tanks -#Kampfpanzer!- it needs?🧵1/
Happily, that looks increasingly likely.
SPD Chancellor #Scholz' coalition partners the Greens & FDP are insisting that #Germany take part & rumours of a no-confidence vote ultimatum are swirling. @ABaerbock's visit to Kharkiv with @DmytroKuleba & @Makeiev was no coincidence 2/
But, as we know, #Scholz & co have a history of giving reasons not to deliver only for those to evaporate into excuses. @kuleba noted this on Germany's main TV news show - 'first they say no, vigorously defend their decision, only to finally say yes' 3/ politico.eu/article/britis…
While researching for an analytical article (see tweet 4) on #Czechia's presidential elections (1st round this week), I conducted an interview with a leading candidate @danusenerudova to find out more about her positions.
Read the full interview here 1/5 expats.cz/czech-news/art…
@danusenerudova is up against Petr Pavel @general_pavel & oligarch & former PM @AndrejBabis
- While Pavel pledges to restore order, Nerudova has a vision of change.
Either would be far, far better than #Babis who could undermine🇨🇿's intl standing & support for #Ukraine.
2/5
Both Pavel & Nerudova will unify the anti-Babis vote in the second round but both have been criticised.
Pavel, more conservative, for his communist past. Nerudova, more liberal, for a scandal at her university - (+ some say she is lightweight but that may be partly misogyny).
3/5
1. What is Neo-Idealism?
(seeing as many of you have asked)
It’s a new approach to Grand Strategy & International Relations that I think we can see emerging in responses to #Russia’s war & from #Ukraine’s brave resistance.
1st 🧵in a series on #NeoIdealism
1/25
I introduced the idea of #NeoIdealism in a piece for @RUSI_org in April '22. Its fullest elaboration so far is in my book 'To #Ukraine With Love' that came out last month - available on kindle & paperback on all amazon stores 😃
So what is it? 2/25 amazon.co.uk/Ukraine-Love-E…
#NeoIdealism is a morally based approach to the geopolitical pursuit of interests that emphasises all democratic states, including smaller states' rights to self-determination - e.g. in joining spheres of Integration (EU, NATO) & rejecting spheres of influence (🇷🇺 empire)
3/25
No surprises here - the ‘restraint’ school of foreign policy (little more than thoughts & prayers for a world they know little about & care for even less.)
- what does consistently amaze me is their failure to see the interconnection of US security with others & with values 1/3 twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
The strenuous effort that Posen makes to shoehorn every Russian move into something that can be lauded is remarkable- and totally transparent. He nods to his own glaringly wrong assessment of the conflict last summer as ‘stalemated’ -yet it doesn’t deter him from repeating it 2/3
Like Kupchan, Walt, Mearsheimer & other realists, he also entirely fails to understand the human cost to Ukraine & Ukrainians of defeat (not happening) or premature, non-victorious negotiation (what he’s pushing). @noaasm_ well notes the wider costs too, which restrainers ignore