🧵For over a decade I’ve been watching with growing disbelief as Western capitals de facto abandoned any effort to compete for influence in #Belarus, all but ceding it to Russia’s sphere of domination—without much thought given to the strategic implication of this outcome.1/7 I visited Minsk on two occasions during that time, and each time upon return I tried to ring the bell to wake up European/American policy elites to what was happening. Only a few would listen, and virtually no one would act on it. It was strategic myopia of the first order. 2/7

🧵A few thoughts on the fundamentals the West must acknowledge today if it is to build an effective strategy against the "Axis of Dictatorships" (Russia, China, North Korea and Iran). First, those powers are not "rational actors" in the way our IR theory would stipulate. 1/10 #Russia is a quintessentially revisionist power. Putin is relitigating the end of the Cold War, determined to restore his internal empire in Eastern Europe (Belarus and Ukraine) and assert a sphere of influence in Central Europe. He desperately wants the US out of Europe. 2/10

🧵What matters most in int'l relations: language or content? It seems the answers should be simple, but over the last three decades the alliance seems to have forgotten the basics of hard power politics, and what nation states are about. In a nutshell: national security. 1/10 Enter recent statements by President-Elect Donald Trump about Greenland. Yes, allies should be mindful of each other's sensitivities, but could we please get beyond the verbiage and talk for once about the brass knuckles of national security? About what is at stake there? 2/10

🧵We are entering a period of intense debate about what the end state in #Ukraine should be, what kind of peace deal can/cannot be negotiated by the incoming US administration, and what long-term prospects there might be for negotiating a modus vivendi with Putin's Russia. 1/9 BLUF: I don't believe there is a deal Putin will accept that wouldn't be tantamount to his victory. For 3 years the West offered no strategy beyond escalation management. Until real setbacks make him realize he can't win at an acceptable cost to his power base, he won't stop. 2/9

🧵Over Christmas I've been thinking about the reasons why Western societies have forfeited so much of their erstwhile resilience. The problem is not money or technology, for we have them in spades. And yet we seem no longer able to accept that resilience stipulates risk. 1/10 Resilience is not just about plans and provisions. It's at its core about a deeply held conviction that what we represent is worth defending whatever the risk; that should we fail, we'll not give up but persevere to victory. In our relativized West such binaries are no more.2/10

🧵This will be brief post, as I watch with painful amazement the gyrations of political elites across Europe-leaders, parliamentarians and analysts-try to position themselves in anticipation of the incoming Trump administration. And the picture is not pretty, I must say. 1/10 The post-Cold War decades have produced zero-risk societies across Europe-great at telling their stories about equality, individual rights and the rule of law, but increasingly bad at living by the code they preach when systemic disruptors put them to the test. Why, I ask? 2/10

🧵At a risk of engaging in hyperbole, this is truly an inflection point in European politics. With the vote of no-confidence in the Bundestag coming shortly after the implosion of the French gov't and the UK gov't barely plodding forward, where is Europe's leadership today? 1//10 Never let a crisis go to waste-Washington should remember this old adage. And so should all Europeans who value the transatlantic alliance. It's a time to align US relations with Europe in a way that leverages shared threat perceptions and builds new regional substructures. 2/10

🧵I first visited #Georgia in 1989 during the waning days of the Soviet Union. I came to Tbilisi with a small group of Americans-academics, think tankers and US naval officers. I was impressed by the Georgian people’s love of freedom and their determination to be sovereign. 1/5 Today as I watch the current pro-Moscow’s regime in Tbilisi attempt to extinguish the flame of freedom in Georgia, I have ask this simple question: Where are Western governments while young Georgian men and women risk their lives to defend liberty? What are we prepared to do? 2/5

🧵As I follow the ever-more frantic efforts by our political class to explain away the results of the US election, I wonder why some find it so hard to accept that the sovereign has spoken, and that it is incumbent on everyone to understand why and respect the decision. 1/14 I live in DC-a quintessentially "corporate city" when it comes to American politics. Politics is really the only industry here, with its never-ending merry-go-round of who is in and who is out on a given day. This rarified atmospherics at times goes to people's heads. 2/14

🧵A few thoughts about the enduring verities of the Darwinian self-help environment academics call-somewhat clumsily-the "international system." First, the key word is "national," for at a time when the threat of war increases, rules recede and national priorities resurface.1/10 The nation-state remains the best form of governance yet invented, for a national community tied together by a shared culture and political institutions is the irreducible foundation for people to govern themselves. Simply put: A nation is the precondition for democracy. 2/10

🧵Being stuck at home (I'm recovering from ankle surgery) is a time when you can surf the web and check out what's "out there" in more detail than during a regular workweek. Amidst the usual clips/snippets, I stumbled on an hour-long informal interview with Ronald Reagan.1/ 10 The recording was from the 1970s when Reagan spent a lot of time travelling and speaking across the country, before he decided to run for President. The message was vintage Reagan (small government, strong defense, etc.), but it was how he spoke that made me watch the clip. 2/10

🧵As I consider the situation in #Ukraine I believe it’s time to revisit the fundamentals of statecraft. In my career in academia, JPME, think tanks and gov’t I’ve adhered to political realism when analyzing national security and world affairs. I will continue to do so. 1/9 But realism is not appeasement. It’s not about rationalizing one’s lack of courage to confront naked aggression. Or to articulate a vision of victory and persevere. It’s not about conceding that a thug has a point worth entertaining and accommodating as “understandable.” 2/9

🧵A few comments on the key task of restoring US deterrence going forward. Deterrence rests on two irreducible factors: capability and credibility. To put it differently, it's about having the means to strike if a redline is crossed, and also the willpower to do so. 1/9 Over the past 4 years we have witnessed multiple cases when deterrence failed: the second Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Hamas attack on America's closest ally in the Middle East, Iran's attacks on Israel, and most recently, North Korean troops entering the war in Ukraine. 2/9

🧵This is a post mainly for my followers from Europe, but it also applies to others outside the United States: Please understand how potentially transformative Donald Trump's landslide victory is. Set your biases aside--whether from the left or the right--and consider this.1/9 Analysts often engage in hyperbole about inflection points in history. But the election of Donald J. Trump as 47th President is really a moment when the trajectory America and the world have travelled for close to a quarter of a millennium has been fundamentally altered. 2/9

🧵A few thoughts on US foreign policy as we enter the home stretch of the presidential election. Regardless of which candidate wins, the threats will remain. The incoming US administration will face a world more dangerous and fractured than at any time since the end of WWII. 1/9 Unlike in the aftermath of that war, when the United States commanded an absolute and relative economic and military advantage over every other major power in the world (and until 1949 a nuclear monopoly), today it must confront daunting challenges, both economic and military.2/9

🧵A brief posting on why we continue to get #Russia wrong: An often-repeated fallacy in DC when it comes to Russia (and academics reinforce it) is that Russia's pressure against the West is really about their security; pushing this alleged Western threat away from its borders.1/6 Not to put too fine a point on it: Anyone who argues that today the West constitutes a credible military threat to Russia should have his/her head examined. It is odd that when it comes to Russia our elites seem unable (unwilling?) to recognize the drivers of RUS expansionism.2/6

🧵I have written repeatedly about the devastating impact of offshoring and deindustrialization on America’s absolute and relative power position in the world. I stand by that diagnosis. But of late I’ve been asking why our relative decline has accelerated in recent years. 1/10 We’ve had three catastrophic failures of deterrence since 2022: Russia’s second invasion of #Ukraine; Hamas attacking Israel, America’s closest ally in the Middle East; and then Iran launching direct massive attacks on Israel. Ask yourself: What has accelerated this process. 2/10

🧵The #EU seems fixated on moving forward to build EU command structures and forces that are in effect going to take away from Europe’s ability to properly resource @NATO’s regional plans. Pushing yet again for Europe’s so called “strategic autonomy” is simply a bad idea. 1/7 @NATO allies are already struggling to man/equip the forces they pledged as part of the capabilities commitments tied to the regional plans they signed onto at the Vilnius summit. Building additional military structures in the EU, instead do resourcing @NATO makes no sense. 2/7

🧵A few thoughts on a discussion about deterrence I had last week. Over the past 3 years we have witnessed three instances when deterrence failed: first, Russia's second invasion of Ukraine in 2022; then Hamas attacking Israel; then Iran attacking Israel. The question is why? 1/7 Deterrence works when two things obtain: 1. you have the requisite capabilities to inflict devastating pain on the enemy, and 2. you have demonstrated that you have the will to do so. Clearly, the US has the requisite capabilities, but do we still have the will to act? 2/7

🧵On this day in 1939, exactly 85 years ago, Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Some two weeks later Soviet Russia also attacked it from the East. The Poles fought bravely but were overwhelmed. France and Britain, Poland’s allies, declared war on Germany but did nothing to assist. 1/6 The German/Russian invasion of Poland started World War II-a war that cost millions upon millions of lives, leveled cities, caused untold suffering and when it was all said and done left Germany occupied and divided and all of Eastern Europe enslaved under Soviet communism. 2/6

🧵I have written repeatedly about the threat the "Axis of Dictatorships" (Russia, China, Iran and North Korea) poses to the United States and its allies in multiple theaters. I'm back from Europe some 11 months now and I worry about the lack of urgency in DC on this issue. 1/6 I submit that the world is today more volatile than at any point since the end of the Cold War. The ongoing realignment by smaller powers we see today is laying the foundations for what are likely to become wartime coalitions. The old verities of power politics are back. 2/6