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Andrew A. Michta

@andrewmichta

Feb 23

🧵It's fair to ask why the US has not had many foreign policy successes during the three post-Cold War decades. This in contrast to the Cold War era, when the overall strategy of containment proved effective in leading democracies to victory-notwithstanding occasional detours.1/

Let me suggest a possible explanation. The end of the Cold War was marked by triumphalism that was matched only by our conviction that institutions would always trump culture, that the key to democratization worldwide was effective institution-building. 2/

The argument that "anyone can become like us" eliminated Area Studies as a pathway to tenure in US academia, with cohort after cohort of institutionalists and model-builders graduated from our colleges and universities entering our government, think tanks and our corporations. 3/

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Andrew A. Michta

@andrewmichta

Feb 21

@NATO

🧵We need a larger conversation with our European @NATO allies on how they interact with Russia and especially China going forward when it comes to trade and technology. We need to take a page from the Cold War playbook when it comes to transfers of sensitive technology. 1/

Russia is a neo-imperial revisionist state. Secretary Austin described as China as America’s “pacing threat." We need to work closely with our allies and partners to ensure they do not feed technology and money to our adversary in Asia. 2/

@NATO

I've advocated that @NATO restore COCOM restrictions from the Cold War era. COCOM (The Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls) was established after WWII to control what technology was allowed to be sold to the Soviet bloc. 3/

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Andrew A. Michta

@andrewmichta

Feb 17

@MunSecConf

🧵Moving between speeches, panels and round tables here at @MunSecConf I suddenly had this eerie feeling that perhaps this is what 1938 in Europe must have felt like. We all know that there is a storm brewing outside, but here inside the Bayerischer Hoff all seems normal. 1/

Shaking hands with European and American friends I have worked with over the past three decades, making new acquaintances—it all seems so routine. And yet it all changes suddenly when a Ukrainian parliamentarian pointedly tells the audience we are failing to act fast enough. 2/

Or when a Moldovan speaks of her country hanging by the fingernails, not knowing what comes tomorrow. Or when a Finn, a Balt, or a Pole doesn’t mince words to tell us all the truth about what’s riding on this war. But then the conversation seems to revert back to platitudes.3/

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Andrew A. Michta

@andrewmichta

Feb 17

@MunSecConf

🧵Many insightful discussions yesterday and today at @MunSecConf, with a lot of brain power in the room and good analysis of where European security is today.But it makes me wonder why almost a year into the #UkraineWar democracies still appear to be in denial about the threat.1/

I am waiting for our leaders to speak directly to the people about what is at stake in this war. Putin has framed the war as a civilizational struggle against the U.S., NATO and the collective West. If he were to win, the consequences would reverberate both in Europe & Asia 2/

If #Ukraine were to lose the lesson Beijing would learn would be that the West has no staying power. That we talk the talk but don’t walk the walk. It would raise the risk of a wider war in Europe & the Indo-Pacific, for notwithstanding our wealth, we would be seen as weak . 3/

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Andrew A. Michta

@andrewmichta

Feb 16

🧵The talk of “great power competition” is now so pervasive in the policy community that it is about to become the same cliche as the “end of history” line. It seems to evoke in the analyst community the familiar echo of grand geopolitical games of the 19th & 20th centuries.1/

What’s missing is a clear articulation of what the “win” looks like-the end state that goes beyond the mantra about preserving the rules based order. It also seems to misread the temporal aspect of competition. The centrality of the process and the importance is staying power 2/

Competition is not just about the telos, but also about what it takes to stay in the race. It’s about focus and perseverance. Russians believe they lost because they’re were cheated, but they lost because once the digital revolution happened they couldn’t stay in the race. 3/

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Andrew A. Michta

@andrewmichta

Feb 16

🧵I’m increasingly convinced that #Putin and “Putinism” have been made possible by the accumulation of resentments across the Russian society. #Putinism has emerged from Russians’ inability to accept that they lost the Cold War because the Soviet Union could no longer compete 1/

#Putinism is akin to the Dolchstoßlegende that emerged in Germany after its 1918 loss in Wold War I. It argued that the great German people were never defeated, but betrayed by cowardly politicians-stabbed in the back. That German legend fueled DEU interwar national resentment.2/

Roughly within a decade after WWI the Dolchstoßlegende and the national resentment it fueled gave rise to Hitler and his attempt to re-litigate the outcome in 1918. Only the unequivocal defeat of Germany in 1945 buried the legend, foreclosing the path to empire through war.3/

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