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Patrick Porter Profile picture
Patrick Porter
@PatPorter76
Prof, Int Security, @unibirmingham. Snr Assoc Fellow @RUSI_org. Adjct Scholar @CatoFP. Snr Research Fellow @RANDEurope. Realism, history, IR. 🇦🇺🇬🇧
Oct 3, 2023 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Questions worth considering. First, the question, so put, "games" the argument. Definitive proof of a non-event is, by definition, impossible. The best we can do is probabilistic inferences from what did happen, and comparisons with earlier eras. Thread 1/ 2/We know there was a dangerous security competition between two superpowers. This involved crises. Such contests & crises historically have led to major wars before (ie wars between leading states, on a large scale: Peloponnesian, French Revolutionary/Napoleonic, world wars).
Mar 9, 2023 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
An emerging debate on the response of the "Global South" to Russia/Ukraine. Instinctive assumption by many that countries outside western orbit are hedging because of anti-western sentiment. I beg to differ. They are hedging primarily because its how they read their interests. 1/ 2/Anti-western sentiment, charges of hypocrisy, what about Palestine, etc etc, are convenient garb in which they clothe their pragmatism. When they want to align their behaviour with western preferences, they sure do, regardless of the west's historical iniquities. 2/
Feb 23, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
It has prevented Russia seizing control of the capital & possibly, as emboldened invaders can do, getting greedier & imposing a crisis on Nato's east from a much stronger position. Regarding costs: you assume that wars involving death/destruction are necessarily futile. But...1/2 2/Sometimes, nations willingly fight wars to protect sovereignty & liberty, at high price. The west is not forcing Ukraine to put up resistance. It is aiding a willing people. Fwiw, I think our interests overlap, though they also may diverge:politico.eu/article/ukrain…
Jan 23, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
China's calculus about Taiwan isn't likely based on whether the US is willing to arm Ukraine & therefore arm Taiwan (which it already does). It is whether the US is willing to fight for Taiwan & whether such a clash is worth risking. One is not a dress-rehearsal for the other. 2/The notion that arming Ukr = preventing war over Taiwan is seductive. It promises zero material trade-offs between theatres (hence "walk & chew gum" frivolity). It promises an easily dissuaded adversary in Asia, even while it signals its intent over Taiwan ever more brazenly.
Jan 4, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Struck that Ukraine "maximalists" quote Churchill often, that "the price of greatness is responsibility." This assumes that foreign policy should be primarily about "greatness", the pursuit of heroic stature. But the primary purpose should be the security of a way of life. 1/ 2/ "Greatness", unbridled, abhors limits and caution. Prudence, by contrast, tries harder to balance caution & risk taking, as a kind of practical wisdom. Conducting foreign/defence policy to make everything think you are great has obvious dangers.
Dec 8, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Blinken's "psychological domino" claim about China watching Ukraine as prologue for Taiwan needs unpicking. First, US strategy wrt Taiwan isn't parallel w/ Ukraine, given it leaves open a deterrent threat that the US would fight for Taiwan, not just help/arm indirectly. 1/ 2/If Ukraine is such a close proxy for US resolve over Taiwan, that would be grounds for fighting directly in Ukraine now. Otherwise, measures short of war in Ukraine are not a commentary on Washington's willingness to go to the mat over Taiwan.
Nov 30, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Good questions. Critical term, as you suggest, is "now" - when (or under what conditions, involving who) could we expect negotiations to achieve peace on acceptable terms to west & Ukraine? A few thoughts: 1/ 2/I'm pessimistic about brokering any kind of agreement soon, other than a duplicitous one that is used, as you say, for Russia to rearm. Aside from other reasons, neither Ukraine nor Russia is interested, and even if Ukraine were, its public opinion is strongly opposed.
Oct 23, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
One problem with the reflexive idea that Ukraine is a barometer for the west's response to an attack on Taiwan is that it neglects capacity. European states like Germany won't & probably can't wage economic war on Russia & China at the same time. 1/ 2/That's not to say Germany should therefore yield to Beijing's economic coercion across the board, eg Hamburg port deal. Rather, containing Russia reduces overall containment capacity. And...
Oct 13, 2022 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
Writing a National Security Strategy? Here's the formula:
1/ Open with a claim that we live in unprecedented, novel, unique, wildly complex times. Say this while knowing that earlier NSS documents also did this. And make sure there's a whiff of patronising your forbears. 2/While claiming everything is a brand new, unheard of Mad Max world, resist the conclusion that this requires major adjustment of commitments or means and ends. Reaffirm that the fundamentals of your nation's strategy are sound and enduring.
Oct 12, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
I sympathise with Jonathan's point on Case Green - the Czechs even without allies were well positioned to put up a hard fight. Only I see it as more fraught. The surrender at Munich robbed Hitler of his immediate pretext to attack Czechoslovakia as a whole in September 1938. Hitler always regretted not getting war a year earlier. Ironically, opponents of the Munich sellout support giving Hitler one thing he wanted.
Oct 5, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
David's three fair points:
-a risk of further nuclear use, if Russia is emboldened by non-military response to use;
-esp. if response by other major states is to shrug;
-by using nuclear weapons at all, Russia reveals itself to be potentially undeterrable even v Nato territory. There is some risk of further use - but in both scenarios. On balance, further use -in Ukraine and perhaps beyond- more likely if the west goes to war v Russia. Further use more likely to look threatening, not just abhorrent, to non-allies too.
Oct 5, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
You make nuclear war even more likely, in the here and now or soon, by attacking Russia. That's the simple point these domino arguments barely address. And that is what we must take seriously if we are considering making threats to do so. 1/ Moreover, the reductio doesn't follow. It doesn't require US or others to give in to blackmail in all other circumstances. If Russia considers in future eg a land grab against a Nato country, there are things we can do, forces to deploy, to signal they will have hell to pay. 2/
Oct 4, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Citations please, for first claim. It'll need to be several names to count as "they." Define "win." Define "weak", given realists also emphasise a particular strength. Let's see what you've got. I'll help with one. Barry Posen argued that both sides should make concessions around neutrality to prevent war, & did expect Russia to be too strong, but has recommended a compromise settlement, not simply "let it win." He now writes of lessons to be drawn in defensive warfare.
Oct 4, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Elon Musk in some ways is the messenger that destroys, or harms, the message. Many are already instinctively irked by him as an oligarch gadfly, a brilliant entrepreneur who visits issues. 1/ He conceives some of his peace proposals poorly: it's one thing to tell Ukrainians Crimea is gone as stolen property, & expendable or postpone-able in the cause of averting world war, quite another to insist it is rightfully Russian property anyway. 2/
Oct 3, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Fair. First, I'm struggling to see where this truly makes a difference in terms of reactive emulation. China Taiwan is closest candidate, but would Beijing and its overt appetite for conquest need any encouragement from a precedent that is in some ways still highly dissimilar? The precedent created by an actual direct military intervention that leads to catastrophe might be very different: if US & Nato were nuked, its appetite for further interventions to enforce rules & order would be reduced. Potentially more encouraging to other aggressors.
Oct 3, 2022 • 19 tweets • 4 min read
Haven't yet heard a compelling case as to why, for the west, Putin's use of tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine turns Ukraine from its status now - a cause worth a proxy war - with limited some risk into a major war with significantly elevated risk of the worst outcome. 1/ Make no mistake, that is what Petraeus et al are proposing: retaliating by eg. writing down Russia's Black Sea fleet, and/or striking any conventional target in theatre, it is raising the risk of an all-out struggle. 2/
Sep 12, 2022 • 21 tweets • 4 min read
Ukraine's David is giving Russia's Goliath a real hard kicking and making swift, dramatic advances. Amongst other things, this has sparked an uptick (on this medium) of big claims about Kyiv's breakthrough discrediting realism. Not all of this chat is worthy of response, but a 🧵 Fwiw, as someone in support of a proxy war effort, the latest turn in the tide is welcome news. It is also dangerous. The west has an interest - real, not unlimited - in blunting Russia's invasion, and thus buffering Nato's eastern flank, without going to the brink.
Jun 15, 2022 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
On why some academic IR folks hate realism: it may be true that most hatreds are methodological. But there is a non-trivial strain of critique, if not hatred, that is normative. Some folks oppose it for being, as they see it, retrograde and offensive. 🧵 For instance, there is a recent line of argument from @spectermatt, buttressed by @adam_tooze, that traces realism's roots to a dark, German-American geopolitics of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Jun 15, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Worth discussing! How does that account, then, for the vigorous intramural debates between realists, explicitly contesting what the competition for security under anarchy should shove states to do? @MMazarr's distinction between a general pessimist intellectual tradition & a soc-sci theory is a start, but as @WCWohlforth argues, there are a range of decent efforts to forge a predictive theory while accounting for anomalies. Eg the debate about the nuclear revolution.
May 24, 2022 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
I half agree, half disagree. Agree it's prudent that amongst concessions of any settlement not to cede pre-Feb 2022 territory. Too much of a gain & a platform for further predation. Humiliation is already priced in, given losses. Agree one aim is to keep Russia out. But... 2/...the demand for absolute, humiliating defeat needs to offer a credible view of how that successfully happens at acceptable cost. Without any bargaining, even from strength - & Ukraine's position currently is that terminating the war must involve both fighting & negotiation.
May 17, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
It's true that many believed Saddam had a WMD programme to some uncertain degree. It didn't follow that it was sufficiently threatening to warrant revolutionary war. 1/ 2/ In October '02, after all, North Korea, also designated rogue partner in Axis of Evil, revealed its own more advanced nuclear programme. The US responded with sanctions & multilateral talks. And more intrusive inspections up to Feb '03 were turning up very little.