🧵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

🧵I watched various and sundry EU meetings that have generated solemn commitments to finally spend money on defense. While I commend the newly-found commitment, I have to ask if those countries still have the fight in them. To an extent this is also a question about the US. 1/5 It’s nations, not armies, that go to war. Resilience in war comes from national cohesion—a deeply felt sense of obligation to the fellow-citizen and the nation. While European nations on @NATO’s Eastern frontier are still cohesive, the largest European states no longer are. 2/5

🧵In this political environment where the Trump administration has insisted that @NATO allies increase decisively their defense spending, we are likely to witness a further shift of the center of gravity within the alliance to the countries of the Northeastern Corridor. 1/10 The Northeastern Corridor countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Baltic states and Poland constitute the most cohesive region in @NATO when it comes to overall threat perceptions and shared interests in deterring and if need be, defeating Russia's aggression against them. 2/10

🧵As I watch the Trump administration's efforts to end the war in Ukraine and save lives, it appears that the negotiation is part of a larger US policy redesign to improve US-Russia relations, which stipulates that Moscow can be brought into a larger great power agreement. 1/10 If that's indeed the case. i.e., if beyond the ongoing deal-making there is a larger strategy, we may be witnessing another attempt at a "reset" with Russia, only this time when there is a full-scale war raging in Europe, a war in MENA, and clouds gathering over the Pacific. 2/10

🧵I wonder why we seem to have lost our way. I spent some 20 years of my professional career in academia. As a college professor, I watched up close how our educational system was being gutted. This is not about being on the left or on the right of the political spectrum. 1/10 There is no mirror big enough for the woke left to look into to understand why we are so broken. I watched this up close. I had students in my intro to IR who never read The Federalist Papers, but who could talk of "Western guilt" and the US as being the embodiment of evil. 2/10

🧵I've noticed that in discussions in DC about the war in #Ukraine, there is virtually no recognition that ending that war now is not the same as ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Most of the debate is conducted by US analysts who lack in-depth knowledge of the region. 1/4 I'd like to remind those experts of what happened when Russia seized Crimea in 2014, then again invaded Ukraine in 2022: That trauma consolidated Ukrainian national identity in direct opposition to Russia. I worked with Ukrainian military and government officials and saw it. 2/4

🧵Commentary on the war in #Ukraine I've seen of late by so-called "realists" is borderline preening, while #Ukraine is being cut off from US assistance. With each passing day, a peace deal to end the war- short of Ukraine's de facto capitulation-seems less and less likely. 1/10 Such "realist" comments on the war have been couched in an air of inevitability, as though wars were simply about a calculus of population numbers, landmass and mobilized resources. But history is replete with cases when smaller powers managed to defeat a bigger adversary. 2/10

🧵Much has been written of late about the end of America's primacy (some by commentators in Europe who seem to exude Schadenfreude rooted in deeply seated anti-Americanism), citing the rise of #China and the inability of the Joint Force to fight two major theater campaigns. 1/10 I'll set aside for now why our military was reformatted for GWOT, or the rationale for contracting the force pursued by several US presidents since 1991. But I will submit that most of the responsibility for the West's relative weakness today doesn't rest with the US. 2/10

🧵I’ve been following various analyses in US and European sources trying to gauge the goals of the new US policy towards Russia. Since the word “reset” now dominates the conversation I will use it in this post, though I would argue it doesn’t capture the state of affairs. 1/12 The most obvious explanation is the “Kissinger-in-reverse,” i.e., the Trump administration trying to disaggregate the Sino-Russian alliance, or at least put some daylight between Moscow and Beijing. If that’s the case, it won’t work-different times, different circumstances. 2/12

🧵A couple of brief observations at the end of a long day here in DC. When I taught at @NavalWarCollege I would tell my students that it's nations, not armies or navies, that go to war. It's about national cohesion that forms the basis of national strength and resilience. 1/6 I'd tell them that mobilized democracies are unbeatable, that no dictatorship can muster the level of commitment that free people can bring to bear when rallied around a common cause. There is no enemy soldier or sailor out there that can outmatch a free citizen volunteer. 2/6

🧵Europe is still reeling from the aftershocks of the US-UKR clash at the White House with leaders meeting with President @ZelenskyyUa to shore up support for #Ukraine. But the larger question that needs to be answered is what has been happening in US relations with Russia.1 /11 The ongoing sea change in Washington's relations with Moscow is the actual context for Ukraine's unfolding drama. The Trump administration has effectively ended Russia's int'l isolation imposed after the second invasion of Ukraine. This is in itself is a major win for Putin. 2/11

🧵I have waited to comment on the disastrous White House meeting because I wanted to reflect on it. There is too much commentary out there already pushing partisan lines. So, let's get the basics out: 1. #Ukraine is fighting a desperate fight against a much stronger invader. 1/10 2. President @ZelenskyyUa has been under tremendous pressure after three years of war. But it doesn't excuse his performance at the White House-it should have never happened. Arguments among allies must always happen in private, not in front of television news cameras. 2/10

🧵This will be a brief post about how I see the current discussion about the state of transatlantic relations. To all who profess the "end of American primacy," the "rise of sovereign Europe," the "Chinese century," etc. etc.-please sit down and breathe. It's simply tiresome. 1/5 Such grand pronouncements may get you clicks on social media, but they have precious little to offer when it comes to analysis. Contrary to the title of a once popular book, the world is not a "grand chessboard." States are not master players pursuing strategic game plans. 2/5

🧵I've been receiving comments and emails challenging my criticism of various European voices-both public officials and analysts-that in light of the deepening stresses in Europe's relationship with the US it should go it alone when it comes to national security and defense. 1/6 Let me explain why I believe this is the time for people who, like me, remain committed to transatlantic relations not to get caught up in the rhetoric of the day but to redouble our efforts to shore up @NATO and the transatlantic link. This is about our mutual security. 2/6

🧵Most of the commentary I see from European analysts about the US-led negotiation to end the war in #Ukraine falls into two broad categories: 1. Outrage that European leaders haven't been included in the process; 2. Speculation on what the end state in Ukraine will look like.1/9 Much less time is being spent on the third and key question: 3. What will be the enforcement mechanism once the deal has been reached, who will enforce the armistice and for how long? At its core it is the question about who will take the risk and pay for the implementation. 2/9

🧵Let’s understand where we are: If #Ukraine is abandoned, what’s left of the security architecture in Europe will unravel in short order. And the consequences will be felt in other theaters, including the Indo-Pacific. The likelihood of a general war in Europe will increase. 1/5 No matter how we spin it, any deal that ratifies Russia’s territorial gains in #Ukraine and forecloses Kyiv’s path to membership in @NATO will be a systemic win for Putin—one where Russia defeated not only Ukraine but the West. Our defeat will reverberate in other theaters. 2/5

🧵May I say a few word to my European friends who now berate the US for allegedly “cozying up to Russia” and “abandoning Europe”? I’m sorry, but what was NordStream 1/2 about? What was the “Minsk process” after Russia invaded Georgia and seized Crimea? Where were you then? 1/5 Putin invaded Georgia and still NordStream 1 was completed. Putin annexed Crimea and then NordStream 2 was nonetheless started. He butchered Syrians in 2015 and there was virtually no reaction from European capitals. And then after 2022 recall all the “red lines” you debated?2/5