Geostrategerist. Policy wonk. Political adviser. Author: https://t.co/JcTDdsUVh1. Traveler of antique lands w/the lovely @cmgoodlander. Views my own.
Jun 24 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
For the Mongols or the Manchus to take the capital, the dynasty has to be weak. The question is how to do that. Trying to do it backwards doesn’t work historically.
—Social rot. There is a dispute in Chinese thought between whether one’s parents or the state are the true objective of one’s loyalty, not least because amoral familism is the one countervailing force to the state.
Jun 20 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
If it were -just- Iran, we could probably get away with breaking it and walking away.
But break Iranian power throughout the heartland of the old Caliphate, and the Sunni jihadis have a field day.
Does it matter? You tell me: Obama ended up re-intervening when ISIS expanded.
The game being played here, of course, is that Saudi, UAE, and Qatar - who own our think tanks - are hoping we’ll step in and solve the problem before it gets dicey. So there you have it.
Jun 19 • 19 tweets • 3 min read
The phrases “current account deficit” and “dollar reserve” do not appear in this article, nor does any understanding of their implication for this. You can’t mobilize what you don’t have.
“Just because China beats out the United States in many industrial metrics, that does not guarantee that Beijing will effectively mobilize those resources toward war production…”
Look up comparative shipbuilding rates. Please.
Apr 4 • 14 tweets • 2 min read
Here’s one long form version. TL/DR: A series of administrations had to show impossible results to the national electorate, so they mined the future for the present and the more vulnerable for the less.
Go back to the ‘70s. The US was in a kind of bankruptcy.
The outsized economic growth from implementing low-hanging fruit (highways, electricity and plumbing - the last US household to get indoor plumbing got it about then, adopting various technologies developed in WW2, etc) was slowing.
Mar 1 • 29 tweets • 4 min read
Proponents sense that US hegemony is dysfunctional - I’m not sure they’ve grappled with why, let alone to what degree. Here are some ways the current situation and set of precepts differ from what they should be, using the Cold War as a model:
—There should be an elite consensus on US hegemony; there cannot be a pro-hegemony party and an anti-hegemony one. In the Cold War both parties agreed on policy and famously argued about who could implement it better; no such consensus here.
Feb 3 • 77 tweets • 11 min read
Now the bad news: There’s a key part of the underlying agenda here that is at odds with the rest. It’s dollar dominance.
—The reason Louis XIV’s wars were earthshaking in scope, in a way the wars that immediately followed (Polish Succession, Austrian Succession) seemed not to be, is that Louis XIV’s wars were a macrodecision phase - …
Jan 15 • 18 tweets • 3 min read
Here’s the thing Reaganites, conservatives, Buckleyites, “Boomercons,” National Review types, or whatever need to understand: The thing you want is not the default state of affairs, nor the current one. If you want it, we are going to have to do something to get it back.
Candidly, I actually want most of what this crowd wants - I just know we don’t have it. And the next generation will not be able to help reacquire it -even if it wants to- unless certain conditions are met. People have to survive; that imposes its own requirements.
Dec 10, 2024 • 61 tweets • 10 min read
It occurs to me that at least some people have forgotten what happened last time a decrepit Arab dictatorship fell, or might even be too young to have really followed it, so here’s a rundown on what to expect. We have quite a bit of data on this one. cnn.com/world/live-new…1. The state itself has to be reconstituted pretty much from the ground up, typically incorporating the fighters that helped bring it down where applicable. This takes years and brings out regional differences.
Nov 26, 2024 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
Complicated, but: The F-35 is actually a set of very expensive workarounds for avoiding dealing with what should be a paradigm-shifting problem. Essentially, to make a manned aircraft radar-stealthy, you have to:
—Reduce cockpit visibility (bubble canopies are terrible for stealth; you can deal with this with avionics but that adds cost)
—Add weight (need to replace external pylons with internal ordnance bays results in literal junk-in-the-trunk) and thereby reduce thrust/weight ratio
Nov 15, 2024 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
@ConservaMuse The problem is what the standards are and what they mean, and the corresponding failure to think outside of establishment boxes when the establishment was just rejected at the polls for gross dereliction of duty and malice toward the public it serves.
@ConservaMuse —The “standard” SecDef is an ex-senator, governor, or CEO who can wrangle DoD. That person is so compromised by the defense industry that any reform or innovation agenda will be DOA.
Nov 6, 2024 • 83 tweets • 17 min read
Looong personal politics post. Recommended mostly for those who have followed my work and want to know how I migrated from NeverTrump to giving Trump a go. And the answer, simply put, is that, as people like to say, “I didn’t leave; my party left me.” It was probably inevitable.
Those who have known me long enough know I was once a vocal NeverTrumper - @cmgoodlander and I donated to Cruz and Kasich in 2016, helped out Bill Weld in 2020, and donated time as well as cash to RDS in 2024.
Oct 11, 2024 • 38 tweets • 5 min read
I talk about this a lot, so once more:
A Possible US Grand Strategy According To Martin
(This is intended to be as realistic as possible, but some amount of “strategic reach” and problem-solving on the fly is obviously required)
***China***
—Make China the top priority
—Shift the carriers to the Western Pacific, except for one group which I’ll get to
—Do the same with the Air Force
Aug 23, 2024 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
It would help, candidly, if all sides of this debate would look at a map.
The US has 9 functional carriers (11, but only 9 carrier air wings for them). A tempo with 3 deployed, 3 readying, and 3 refitting is about as rigorous as we can go (and there are already problems there).
So 3 carriers get to be at sea. If you put them -all- in the South and East China Seas, you would have a fighting chance at deterring an attack on Taiwan….
Aug 16, 2024 • 32 tweets • 4 min read
There’s a folkways difference here as well. The financialization of the US economy traded a culture that ran on networks for one that just didn’t.
As I’ve noted from time to time, the financialization of the US economy in the ‘80s brought Wall Street to the Rust Belt and in so doing brought New Amsterdam as a culture onto a collision course with Greater Quakerdom.
Jan 1, 2024 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
You have to figure: If you assume they’ll go in a US/Taiwanese election year (reasonable, but it’s noteworthy the -Pentagon- used to assume it), there are a lot of reasons this one beats 2028: …
—Xi isn’t as old as he will be in 2028
—The US president won’t be as old and infirm in 2028 as he is now
—The Ukraine, Israel, and Red Sea crises may be wrapped up by 2028
—The US/Western munitions stockpile will likely be better in 2028
Nov 19, 2023 • 19 tweets • 3 min read
This has been rattling around in my head, particularly apropos of 7+ years of jeremiads about “true conservatism” (NB: I used to do this - you live and learn). It’s actually a question of images.
When someone refers to “conservatives,” what image pops into your mind? There are probably lots, but I want to zero in on a pair of contrasting ones here.
Feb 14, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Setting aside the gender issue (given the need to compare apples to apples over time & pay gaps & gender roles in the ‘80s, it may make sense to do it this way), this is the crux of America’s economic problems: middle class life is measurably diminished.
The thread touches on this but doesn’t quite say it explicitly: lifestyle and social conventions matter. Yes, you could in theory live according to ‘80s living standards…but society wouldn’t support it and in many cases the components aren’t available at any price.
Jan 19, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Spare a thought for poor Germany. If you’re them, you had a plan and it almost worked, but now it’s unraveling:
—You would solve the historic European balance of power problem associated with German unity, -and- the fear of another Hitler, by demilitarizing post-reunification
—You would instead solve your defense problem by persuading the US to extend its Cold War security guarantee to Europe in perpetuity, even with the Cold War gone
Oct 22, 2022 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
There have been a few curveballs like this - essentially, of US adversaries overcoming obstacles thought to be insurmountable through some unexpected action. Our policy makers formed their mindsets and worldviews in an era of unchecked US power - we don’t always see it coming.
Here are a few other curveballs that have been thrown:
Oct 21, 2022 • 17 tweets • 3 min read
I’ve been thinking about this. The problem is not simply that foreign policy experts are bad at their jobs - it’s that there shouldn’t be experts for this.
Time was, a foreign policy expert might be someone like George Kennan - an overeducated person who knew a lot about the world and, ideally, a relevant area of the world who could be relied upon for analysis and insight.
