Thread by @andrewmichta

🧵My last week in Europe this summer. Still one trip and one conference, but I'm slowly beginning to pack up. And my overarching impression is that the security environment on the Old Continent has been deteriorating faster than folks in major capitals here seem to realize. 1/10

There are credible media reports that this fall Putin will mobilize half a million men for the Russian army. If confirmed, this move aligns with Moscow increasing pressure on @NATO's eastern flank, possibly direct hostile action to test the alliance. China continues to arm. 2/10

#Iran's resistance to the US bombing campaign has been strengthened by the "MOU" that effectively gave Tehran the time it urgently needed to restock missiles, drones, and munitions. It also allowed it to digest the lessons learned from the early days of the war and adapt. 3/10

North Korean soldiers who survived the battlefield in #Ukraine are back, assigned to training duties to pass their experience onto the North Korean military. The modernization of their missile technology continues apace. The risk level on the Korean Peninsula has increased.4/10

Most importantly, Europe's democracies (and the US) lack the resilience to adapt quickly to a major kinetic conflict should it erupt. Political divisions run deep, mistrust towards elites is growing, and radical politics draw ever more adherents. Nations remain demobilized. 5/10

The United States has thus far been able to manage multiple crises and pursue discrete military campaigns because it has been able to sequence them, thereby leveraging our constrained military resources to deal with them on a case-by-case basis. But things are changing fast. 6/10

The United States and its allies in key theaters are confronted by the Axis of Dictatorships (China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea). Sequencing is becoming ever more problematic, as a "crisis of simultaneity" is ever more likely to strain our resources to the breaking point.7/10

After 20 years of appeasement towards Russia, Europe is finally waking up to the threat. After twenty 20 years of the so-called Global War on Terror that reformatted the US military for out-of-area warfare, the US Army is coming back to large-scale combat operations (LSCO). 8/10

For Europe, the burning question is this: Does it still have the time necessary to restore deterrence and, should it fail, defeat Russia, especially when supported by China and the other members of the Axis? Or has Europe's lack of urgency after 2022 effectively disabled it? 9/10

The temporal dimension of warfare is unforgiving. Europe, especially Germany and other countries not on the eastern flank, will need a decade to rebuild their armed forces, their DIB, and rearm. The enemy gets a vote on when. Simply put: Has Europe run out of time already? 10/End