Inaugurating my new applied history essay series at @WarOnTheRocks with an examination of the tragic fall of Crete in 1941, and its lessons for contemporary Asia watchers and defense planners--particularly vis-a-vis Taiwan.

warontherocks.com/2024/05/britai… I argue that the Cretan campaign of 1941 remains illuminating with regard to the contemporary defense of Taiwan for three main reasons. (2/5)

Interesting that Putin mentioned WWI & the 1917 revolution.

As Thucydides continuously reminds us throughout his History of the Peloponnesian War, drawn-out conflicts have a tendency to breed stasis, i.e. internal factionalism and disarray. (1/12)

theguardian.com/world/2023/jun… While the exhilaration of victory & memory of shared sacrifices might act as a stimulant to national unity or consolidation during a long war,the general brutalization of society,especially if paired with the trauma of defeat,can also gravely accentuate centrifugal pressures.2/12

Just finished listening to this 6-part BBC series, initially broadcast during the twilight of the USSR.Can't recommend it enough to those who,like me,have found themselves eager to learn more about the history of Russian imperialism. A few thoughts (1/12) bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p… In the past, Putin has claimed that his favorite historical leader is Peter the Great--whose bronze statue looms over his ceremonial desk at the Kremlin.See, for example, this 2019 FT interview, which is more broadly worth revisiting 3 years later (2/12) ft.com/content/878d23…

An interesting piece on how immigration to the 🇺🇸 inquiries from Chinese high-net-worth individuals and middle-class professionals have surged 10-fold in the space of a year. A short 🧵 on the need to think more about immigration in grand strategy (1/11) wsj.com/articles/china… The most educated citizens of the 🇺🇸’s most serious rivals are desperate to leave their sclerotic & dystopian societies—and the 🇺🇸,with its high wages,deep & liquid capital market,world-class universities & reliable legal system remains by far the most popular destination.(2/11)

In my latest for @EngelsbergIdeas I argue that immigration & naturalization policies have always been at the heart of great power competition & that 🇺🇸 policymakers urgently need to begin taking a far more strategically informed approach to this issue 1/9 engelsbergideas.com/essays/battlin… Ranging from Ancient Rome to the Cold War,the essay argues that rather than viewing these issues solely through the shrunken aperture of rancorous domestic politics,the 🇺🇸 must devise an immigration policy which helps sustain its technological,intellectual & economic primacy.2/9

I’ve noticed that this notion—that US grand strategy toward the PRC should not be grounded or articulated in terms of democratic values—has been gaining traction in some quarters. A 🧵 on why I think this particular argument is both unrealistic and unsound (1/24)

https://twitter.com/ElbridgeColby/status/1402684658446385159

First of all,I think it’s important to specify,in all fairness and without erecting strawmen,what the Admin’s values-based foreign policy is *not*.Contra the arguments made by some of its critics,it is not a “maximalist ideological crusade” or messianistic “zealotry” (2/24)

A few words on this much-discussed (but IMHO problematic) piece in FP. First of all, I share some of the author's frustration. Trotting out the same passages of Thucydides when commenting on Sino-US rivalry has become something of a tired trope, not (1/25 foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/28/oh-… ...so dissimilar to those analysts & scholars (you know the ones) who begin every article or chapter with the same quotes from Clausewitz & aphorisms from Sun Tzu. It can be even more tiresome when it serves as a fig-leaf for a lack of regional expertise, or to project..(2/25)

As tensions rise along the Himalayas, re-upping some past examinations of the Sino-Indian security dynamic, all of which involved extensive field work (1/10) First of all, a discussion in @SurvivalEditors of *the* major issue at the crux of the Sino-Indian border issue-Tibet & the PRC’s desire to exert control over every aspect of the Tibetan issue-& of how this may continue to drive tensions going forward: tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…