🧵Surveying recent commentary on the war in Ukraine or our brewing conflict with China I'm struck by the tenor of "what-about-ism" both in published commentary, social media, etc. The message is clear: the US policy community is not ready for what's brewing over the horizon. 1/5 It's worth asking why, and one possible explanation is the national fatigue after two decades of strategic meandering during GWOT. The normative bent in how we approached national security during that era ("defending the rules-based order") shunned geopolitical reasoning. 2/5

A few years back Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom, a friend and former fellow faculty member at @NavalWarCollege wrote a bestselling book “The Death of Expertise.” Since my return to the US I’ve been thinking about that book, and that Volume Two needs to be written. But different.1/5 The sequel to his bestselling book should be called “The Death of Basic Competence,” for what’s choking America today is the disappearance of basic skills a society needs to run itself-this from my encounters with our bureaucracy, federal, state and local to our service sector2/5

🧵Did you ever think you would live to see the day when our great Western civilization would sell out to corporate interests embedded in a 1.4 billion communist state to leverage labor arbitrage? And where elites would disregard the welfare of the country that made them rich?1/5 What are we made of? Where is the spirit of pride that made Western maritime powers dominate the seas? Why is it possible that people in our great American cities are murdered by thugs while citizens cower in fear? And why out schools produce unemployable young people? 2/5

🧵It’s high time for strategic clarity, so here we go: #Russia breached #Poland’s airspace, sending 19 drones (maybe more) into what is @NATO territory. The US reaction has been ambiguous, with POTUS calling Russia’s breach of the West’s security fence possibly a “mistake.” 1/10 Responses from European allies have also been wanting, with resounding speeches, promises of more help for #Poland etc., but practical assistance that amounts to an AMD battery and a few additional aircraft. Let’s be clear: We have witnessed yet another failure of deterrence.2/10

🧵Yesterday’s Russian drone attack against #Poland (attack, not “intrusion”) put a spotlight on how ineffective and increasingly irrelevant the legacy institutional framing that undergirds @NATO and Europe’s security has become. With each passing hour the cognitive gap grows. 1/9 I watched the statements by @NATO SecGen and #EU’s von der Leyen with an eerie feeling that their resounding rhetoric condemning Russia’s aggression (yet again) bore yet again no connection to the reality of what will--or rather will not—happen going forward. Shadow boxing. 2/9

🧵Following the successful meeting between POTUS @realDonaldTrump and PL President @NawrockiKn there is a potential new opening to redefine regional security architecture of @NATO’s Northeast Corridor (Nordic/Scandinavian/Baltic/Central European region). It’ll require work. 1/6 This will require a new strategic vision and a new level of operational defense cooperation among @NATO allies in the region, leveraging each country’s absolute/relative strength under the alliance umbrella, and meshing it with US high-end capabilities and high-end enablers. 2/6

🧵This post won't be about int'l security affairs, but about what the here and now at home. I recently drove through the American South on my way to Florida. A few observations that are frankly painful: This young Republic feels old, and the once proud middle class looks poor.1/9 America's interstate system is in disrepair. The same goes for our power grid, with power lines hanging from crooked wooden poles even as you drive through suburbs in major cities. Roads are potholed and patched up, here and there; often not. There is trash along the highway. 2/9

🧵How many times is it worth repeating that Putin is not interested in an armistice or a peace deal to end the war in #Ukraine? I have little patience left for the breathless speculation in US and European media about what it may/may not take to get the Russians to the table.1/5 So please get this: As long as Putin sees the West as weak and fractured, afraid to take risks and confront him unflinchingly, he will keep pushing and laughing all the way to the proverbial bank. How about some ethical principles and moral clarity that we profess daily? 2/5

🧵I just listened to another economist bemoan the end of the global free system that the United States has helped to build over eighty years. I'm not a fan of tariffs and the jury is still out as to whether the Trump administration's approach will work. But let's be honest. 1/6 The idea that we have lived in an open global marketplace is bizarre to say the least, considering the amount of regulatory and state intervention we have witnessed over the years. Communist China in particular has been predatory mercantilist in its trade policy for decades. 2/6

🧵The US-EU trade deal has generated a lot of talk on X about how this is a humiliation for the #EU, how it should be a wake up call for Europe, how Europe must assert itself, etc. My take is that if anything it should finally put paid to all the talk about the EU as “Europe.”1/5 The European Union is a treaty-based organization, not a nation-state that can function as a unitary actor in the international system. It has been remarkably successful as a framework for integrating Europe’s markets and providing regulatory structures (sometimes excessive).2/5

🧵There is a race among European capitals as to which country will take the point as the lead in relations with the United States. In Europe's capitals one hears plenty of talk about the unified EU, but the Trump administration sees it differently, preferring bilateralism. 1/10 Paris, London and most recently Berlin have registered their desire to take that spot, each country's leader having visited the White House with a message of cooperation and underscoring how important transatlantic relations are, both when it comes to the economy and defense.2/10

🧵A quick follow-on comment on the story in the @WSJ about @Harvard being the premier educational institution for communist China's party elites. The problem is deeper than US schools simply getting foreign student tuition. It is about how ideologically blinded we've become. 1/10 National security is the irreducible function of the state-without it democracies cannot make independent political and economic choices. For a democracy, ensuring that no policy choice endangers national security must be the guiding principle for every aspect of governance. 2/10

🧵Watching the West stumble from one crisis to the next, I think democratic governance has been hollowed by our inept elites, possibly beyond repair. I see this both as a byproduct of globalization and what has been happening deep inside our nations and our communities. 1/10 This hollowing out of Western democracy is not about electoral processes or counting votes. It’s about the elites believing less and less they actually owe something to their fellow citizens by virtue of being part of a larger community. This core national bond is cracking. 2/10

🧵A few observations from this European trip. BLUF: Our European allies—at least some of the largest ones—do not fully appreciate that we are in an economic war with China. As I wrote here, how Europe rolls on China will define transatlantic relations. 1/8 politico.eu/article/europe… When I hear that some key allies will not decouple from the PRC, but may actually strengthen those economic relations, I’ve got to ask: What do you want your future to be? Are you ready to decouple from the US and throw your lot with the Chinese Communist Party as your future?2/8

🧵I am still digesting my drive through America's Southwest. There is a sense of sadness and hope when I think about what I saw and the conversations I had. I'm heading to North Carolina in about a week. And with each trip I will try to understand better what is happening. 1/10 I spent the last 7 years in Germany (overall about 12 years living and working there for the US gov't), moving across Europe, speaking at various conferences and meetings. Taken together with my 1.5 years back in DC, I have a profound sense of sadness when I see this change. 2/10

🧵I must ask this simple question: Why is Western Europe-especially Germany-so hasty to decouple from the United States. In Munich after the speech at the Munich Security Conference by VP Vance, I heard immediately comments from politicos about how the US abandoned Europe. 1/13 Soon after, the incoming DEU Chancellor Friedrich Merz called on Europe to become "independent" of the United States. And since then, I've heard similar comments from my friends in Western Europe, both private citizens and those who are involved in governments and politics. 2/13

🧵Heading back to DC after my travel in the Southwest. I’m both disheartened and encouraged by what I saw and experienced. First the heart-breaking part: small town America is dying—because industry and with it good paying jobs have been offshored to China and elsewhere. 1/10 Small-town America is unraveling because the fentanyl drug epidemic is decimating communities; because chemically-laden “industrial food” people consume causes not only the current obesity epidemic but also sickness, while our health care delivery continues to fail them. 2/10

🧵At a recent dinner conversation in DC one of the participants confidently opined about the politics of our “flyover country.” I told him I reject such arrogance towards our fellow citizens, and that America is much more than the too coastal corridors and their major cities. 1/7 I’ve decided to prioritize events and speaking invitations from places outside the two coasts, and will take every opportunity to go. Over the past several days I’ve been travelling by car across several Southwestern states close to the Mexican border, stopping in small towns.2/7

🧵As I survey the debris-laden landscape we call the transatlantic alliance, I increasingly conclude that the inability to negotiate our differences owes much the ideological divergence of how our respective elites view themselves and each other— how they want them to act. 1/11 In Europe, what’s lacking is a clear acknowledgement that Europeans and Americans are different—we share our commitment to democratic processes but our assumptions about how they should work and what end-states they should generate and where the elites fit in often diverge. 2/11

🧵I usually write about foreign affairs but lately I have been thinking about the state of the West. It's sobering to contemplate where we find ourselves just 30 yrs since the end of the Cold War. Historians will marvel how much power the US has wasted in just one generation.1/8 It seems uncanny that the great victory in the Cold War would be forfeited in just one generation, and that the foundations of American power and prosperity that previous generations bequeathed to us would be wantonly cast aside in pursuit of profit unconstrained by principle.2/8

🧵I've seen many headlines of late declaring the end of @NATO. I think it's time to restate what I've tried to convey over the past three months: Let's step back, breathe, and stop playing into the hands of those who-both in the US and Europe-would like to end our alliance. 1/12 It's time to stop hyperventilating and finger-pointing, for ultimately what matters is not what European allies did/didn't do in the past, or what Donald Trump and others have/haven't said. What matters is the future of transatlantic relations, i.e., of Western democracies. 2/12