Good news. Have signed a contract w/ Stanford University Press. "Surviving a Hostile World: The Case for Realism." Defending the ancient tradition, the book argues realism is moral, realistic & for everyone. For a generation undergoing climate crisis, economic dislocation & war.
OK my Philip story. Thrilled that mum won the Order of Australia, my parents went to a lunch, attended by the Queen and Prince Philip, to honour recipients.
Philip (to dad): "Are you here to support your wife?"
Dad: "Yes."
Philip (with a twinkle in his eye): "Me too."
By attributing the war primarily to the growth of Athenian power and the fear it caused Sparta, Thucydides proved to be a stooge and conduit of Spartan talking points, denied its agency, and was probably on their payroll.
Until now I had thought that the Biden administration had somewhat recovered from the appalling incompetence of its Afghan withdrawal decision. Until now. 1/4
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.
A broader range, say, than this more bounded prediction:
"The Iraq fight itself is probably going to go very, very fast. The shooting should be over within just a very few days from when it starts."
David Frum, National Review, 24 February 2003.
1-6 inches of snow predicted tomorrow? Can you imagine if any other profession allowed itself a similar range?
"Your plane will depart tomorrow between 1 and 6."
"We've bought you a dress between size 1 and 6."
"Best to limit your daily wine intake to between 1 glass and 6."
Interruptions: Balkan wars, Cyprus, Prague, Budapest, Berlin, Northern Ireland, Basque conflict, Greek civil war. Depending on definitions, Chechnya & Georgia. Read a book.
By ending 77 years of almost uninterrupted peace in Europe, war in Ukraine joins the dawn of the nuclear age and manned spaceflight as a watershed in history. An
@AP
analysis looks at how the world has changed during the war's five months of fighting.
Brian Meredith Porter, 27.05.1939 -29.10.2022.
Dad loved a glass of sunshine.
"So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side."
The Western Roman Empire fell mainly because it failed to convene enough summits with its client states to reaffirm their commitment to a rules-based order.
The poverty of this: that people have value not because human life is intrinsically valuable, but only by whether they can perform productive functions.
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/
Kissinger consults for China. That fact doesn't make him wrong. But it ought to be mentioned each time he dispenses his advice to the state. He is not a dispassionate expert giving sage advice. He is a client with an interest.
If we want NATO to be a defensive alliance, and for "defensive" to mean something more than "we are the good guys", then a declared aim of regime overthrow is not that.
It's a quirk in some recent progressive accounts of nationalism and indigeneity. British culture *must* be portrayed as essentially derivative & therefore artificial. Non-western cultures *must* be portrayed as essentially original, ancient & earthed, therefore authentic. 1/
“England doesn’t have a culture of its own because the foundations of its constituent elements are non-English” is such a midwit take given how common this is for virtually all culture everywhere. Japan was originally influenced by Chinese culture: is Japan culture-less?
If there's one thing I can't stand, it's the evasion of serious argument by attributing all dissenting opinion to enemy propaganda. Some of us fear nuclear escalation risks and not promarily because of Kremlin rhetoric.
Pet dislike: historians making some oversimplified generalisation about contemporary politics and then signing off, "historian here", etc. The self-regarding appeal to their own authority. Embarrassing to serious historians.
Exchange a survivable, continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent for increased popularity, and trade away veto power at the UN for an organisation Britain isn't part of? Soft power, if it exists, rests on hard foundations, unapologetically maintained.
A new book by the recent head of the Foreign Office argues that Britain should barter away its nuclear deterrent in pursuit of 'soft power' goals, & give away our seat at the UN to the EU.
(The reviewer seems to relish his hand in the recent Blob coups against Raab and Johnson)
Critics arguing AUSUK is misguided because it may "provoke" Beijing - given the CCP chooses to be provoked even by proposals for a Covid inquiry, or some territorial claims in the area of the South China Sea, what far-reaching concessions would it take to avoid provocation?
One conceit that this terrible hour should be destroying: the notion that a constitutional republic at home can safely endure a highly militarised foreign policy and decades-long war on terror abroad.
Speaking as someone fixated on the disastrousness of that war, from my recollection the opening airstrikes of 2003 were aimed at B'aath gov buildings, command & control centres etc. Not parks & museums.
It is not universities' duty to make people richer, and the worth of studying goes beyond employment. Measured on that barbaric yardstick, we will just become technical colleges, mere waystations in the economy and handmaidens to an ever more hostile state.
Then send troops to Ukraine now. If you use maximalist words, perform maximalist deeds. If liberty is "on the line", if it is existential, behave like it.
Otherwise, tell it like it is: there are real but limited interests at stake, worthy of real but limited actions.
One bad aspect of Zoom life is after a group discussion/paper/exchange, there's no lingering natural afterlife of the event. The follow-on chat, the amble outside to gossip, the drift to beverages. Just the switch off, the sudden 100-to-zero termination to a silent room.
One of the consequences of continuous war is militarised policing, through the importing of methods and arms back to the country waging it, as well as the shift of personnel from one part of the 'security sector' to a very different part.
Catherine the Great's invasions expanded the Russian empire by 200,000 sq.miles.
BBC News: Ukraine war: Johnson says if Putin were a woman he would not have invaded
Warnings and denuncations of an "arms race" in Asia are unserious if they don't also consider the opposite danger, of an uncontested military buildup by a state that wants to dominate. The risks of an arms race are real, but may be more prudently run than the risks of vassalage.
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/
If Taiwan was a pro-US dictatorship, as it once was, the US would still seek to support and arm it, as it did. As a guide to US foreign policy, "regime type" is overrated.
America’s solidarity with the 23 million people of Taiwan is more important today than ever, as the world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy.
Notion of Iraq as primarily intelligence failure gets sequence wrong. Bush & Vulcans early on decided they wanted war, demanded intelligence to support case, & grew nervous when smoking gun absent. Before even NIE. It wasn't a prior analytical failure that drove bad policy.
I'd stand by every word of this. Intel & policy failures around Iraq, with catastrophic consequences, are a cautionary tale. The lesson is not: Western intelligence is always wrong & politicians always mis-use it. The right question is: when/why is intel likely to be politicised?
Cuba had the in-principle right to host Soviet missiles on its soil. The US, understandably enough, stepped in regardless. International politics is about interests & survival, not just appeals to right & wrong.
BREAKING: A passionate message from NATO Chief
@jensstoltenberg
(who is from Norway so knows first hand what it's like to neighbour Russia) to President Vladimir Putin - you have no right to a "sphere of influence" to control your neighbours
Today, the love/hate relationship with twitter has tilted strongly away from love. Seeing a friend (
@MMazarr
) and mentor (John Mearsheimer), both of whom are acutely conscious of the agonies of war, casually defamed as callous & immoral has been disappointing, to put it mildly.
Here’s an idea
@10DowningStreet
pick up the phone to the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the
@bbc
and tell him: if
@BBCScotlandNews
refers to you again as the “Prime Minister of England” you will require the Chairman’s resignation. Have some self-respect.
@Alliance4Unity
There's a certain type of progressive-internationalist who would be horrified at the suggestion that, say, crime is caused by criminals, not by wider conditions, yet who strongly insists that when it comes to wars of aggression, there is only agency, no structure.
Russia's war on Ukraine "is already WW3" in terms of its impact on international order and rules, says Jessica Berlin at
#HSF2023
.
The UN is not "fit for purpose" to manage the new circumstances, she adds, but at the moment, nothing else exists. "It's up to us," she says.
Academics at UCL are being encouraged to “check their privilege” and reconsider the number of courses focusing on “dead white men” if they want to secure a promotion
Turkey threatening invasion of Greek islands and Greece mobilising its entire fleet in the Aegean: yet more of that murky, sub-threshold, grey zone world of competition, dominated by cyber, social media & exquisite tools.
Sweden & Finland applied to join Nato less than a year after the Afghanistan withdrawal. US remains attractive ally in Europe. It's useful to test these claims occasionally.
India, the world's largest democracy is conspicuously hedging on condemnation and sanctions. Turkey, run by an increasingly sinister authoritarian, closed the Black Sea passage to Russian ships. Minority cases, perhaps, but significant ones.
More evidence that the most important cleavage in the contemporary international system is between democracies and autocracies. The free world is backing Ukraine, and tyrants are coming to the aid of Putin.
"Bracing" The New Yorker; "must-read" John Mearsheimer; "tour de force" Jeanne Morefield; "bracing manifesto" Stephen Wertheim; "forensic" Duncan Bell; "incisive" Daniel Larison;"best [non-interventionist] book on US foreign policy since Barry Posen’s Restraint" Colin Dueck.
Blinken: adding Georgia to NATO would deter Russia, as Russia has attacked non-NATO countries but not NATO countries.
1/Perhaps. But a hell of a risk to run. Assuming that continued alliance enlargment up to an adversary's borders will make it more peaceable, not less.
Oh man. Japan in Aug 1945 still had circa 7 million troops, with millions afield from Manchuria to Solomons to Southwest Pacific. Surrender (as opposed to settlement) pre atomic strikes was only a minority view in Big Six. Willingness to fight til "extinction" was formal policy.
Japan was militarily defeated, though. It was only our unprecedented demand for total unconditional surrender that put us in position to choose between invading or nuking the home islands. Their navy was sunk, their air force was destroyed, their manpower was decimated, they’d
Some people who invoke "rules-based order" not long ago advocated unilateral airstrikes without UNSC resolutions, the ignoring of WTO rulings or extraordinary rendition. Just say it: the order rests first on power, & therefore the privilege of the incumbent state & its allies.
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.
NATO Summits: relentless, glutinous self-praise, evasion of critical choices and dicking Ukraine around with a dalliance of open-ended, non-commital assurances. The road that helped lead here.
4/Marinate the whole thing in rather foggy, amorphous references to the "order" created in 1945, and suggest or imply that it only started unravelling five minutes ago. Keep it circular & pious: we "lead" because we are strong, proof of our strength is in our leadership.
A nice letter to receive on a Friday afternoon. Home Office kicking me out of the country in the next few weeks without any prior warning. I’ve only lived here since I was 8 & half way through my 22 years in the Army.
Wouldn’t mind a holiday to Fiji anyway!
Nonsense. The merits of a movement are not determined by the support of parties over which they have no control. The Soviet Union voiced its support for civil rights in the U.S. That doesn't make civil rights marchers useful idiots. Btw history doesn't take sides.
If the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism is claiming you’re on the right side of history, it means you’re a useful idiot on the wrong side of history.
Electrifying or not, he was wrong on Afghanistan for years. Britain recognised the cause was hopeless years ago, is not willing to commit further sacrifices for it, and no amount of soaring rhetoric in the Commons changes that. Chaos on departure is providing an alibi.
It's worth amplifying this statement. If it's insincere or will be violated, all the better for the world to know it, to increase chances of hedging countries cutting trade & withdrawing patronage if Putin uses a nuclear weapon.
Russian Ambassador to the United Kingdom Andrey Kelin told CNN on Wednesday that Russia will not use nuclear weapons in its war against Ukraine.
“Russia is not going to use nukes. It is out of the question,” Kelin told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.
The Soviet Union bled heavily to defeat fascism, true. But it was also an industrial war. US lend-lease aid was critical to converting sacrifices into victory. As Kruschev himself wrote, "If the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war."
I see a fence, a requirement that only ticket holders can attend, a police presence, a security detail for celebrities and licensing for it to go ahead. Borderless concert-going free spirits benefit from the order of enforced boundaries every second. Have a great party!
"In Riyadh, the Saudi ruler kept Blinken waiting several hours for a meeting presumed to happen in the evening but which the crown prince only showed up for the next morning."
Years of assurances that the U.S. exerts influence and "shapes outcomes" and brings order via presence in key regions. But when allies behave in ways Washington prefers them not to, avoid confrontation with alibi that they are sovereign. So what's the point of being there?
WHITE HOUSE: "[Israel] is a sovereign nation. They plan their military operations and they conduct their military operations and they make the choices. It's not like we give them a homework assignment and they have to then turn in their plan to us for grading."
Great power competition hinges on unsexy material questions: things like shipyard capacity, storage & supply of energy & raw materials, maintenance of facilities like reservoires, state of the industrial base. More attention on that, less on showy summits & declarations, needed.
AUKUS submarines: A burden too big for overloaded U.S. shipyards
1/ A senior U.S. Navy official has expressed concern that assisting Australia in acquiring nuclear-powered submarines may be too much of a burden for America's overstretched shipyards.
I prefer Thucydides, who distinguished between unreasoning panic & rational, measured fear. Whose Pericles both nerved Athens when in a blind panic, yet who "brought them back to a sense of their dangers." There is no place for "be not afraid" in the nuclear age.
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 🧵
Re-reading this Vanity Fair offering from February 2002. It is as fawning, as moist and as power-worshipping as the cover suggests. And a useful summary of how easily polite society went along.
We are told by proponents that the use of a nuke would be futile, atrocious and self-defeating, turning Russia into an international pariah. Yet we are also told that its nuclear use *must* be met by a conventional war, lest unthinkable consequences flow. This is incoherent. 3/
Again, there is much much more to the history of British diplomacy & power projection than colonial empire. And bluntly, the colonies are not an important part of British identity or mainstream conceptions of British greatness. If anything, it is often forgotten.
“I argue that there is a catastrophic gap between what British people think its empire did to the world and what the world knows its empire did to the world.”
🖊️
@Sathnam
Vance called the country I'm proud to call home an "Islamist" state. Denouncing radical forms of Islam is one thing. Branding the country a theocracy on a par with Iran is another. This suggests he's a reckless demagogue given to inciting the crowd, not a prudent realist. Beware.
Regarding Speaker's visit to Taiwan: the playbook is written. If the visit does *not* precipitate a crisis/standoff of some kind, proponents will declare it proves "strength" & Churchillian steel works. If it does, they'll aunch a moral attack on critics for excusing aggression.
When one attempts to invest foreign policy actions involving real but limited western interests with first-order significance. Bleeding Russia in Ukraine is to protect Nato's flank. It is not a universal, first-order mission. If it is, make the case for direction intervention.
'I cannot think of a moment which more encapsulated the West’s utter impotence than those fulsome and painless ovations which surrounded Zelesnky's speech to the House of Commons'
✍️ Rod Liddle
Nato membership ‘vital’ for independent Scotland, insists Sturgeon
Squaring this circle into clear, concise policy that doesn’t contradict itself, will be tough/impossible.
I give serious powers like India more credit than to assume another country's premier deferring to its ritual customs is going to shape its foreign policy. Soft power may be a thing (count me a skeptic), but its not low cost spectacle.
New Zealand's government plays it both ways. On Islam, its premier dons the headscarf and calls for solidarity & respect. But when it comes to a megalith power that systematically persecutes Muslims, respect is due to their oppressors. Rough thing, politics.
New Zealand's Trade Minister has stoked frustration in Canberra after suggesting Australia show more "respect" to China. Some Australian MPs and officials are very irritated, to put it mildly. But few are speaking publicly (at least for now)
Estonian PM Kaya Kallas defines victory as breaking up Russia into smaller states
- The US should clearly define victory given that this was to a great extent a war of choice by sabotaging peace agreements and making ambiguous statements of weakening Russia, regime change etc.
Ok, prediction: an all-out war in the ME is not at hand. The calibrated, signalled nature of Iran's overnight attack, deliberately giving Israel & its allies every chance to suppress it, suggests desire to retaliate without going to brink. Risky brinksmanship yes, gloves off no.
One tempting conclusion from the war in Ukraine is for the US to stall its shift of relative focus to Asia. But the war demonstrates the ability - actual & latent- of European allies to balance against Russia, which will likely emerge depleted. China remains foremost priority.
Samantha Power elevated to the National Security Council, is the most significant news. After all, military humanism and regime change deserves a few more tries.
A central message of Biden's presidency is now in trouble- that inept populism has yielded to expert-informed competence, and that America is now in safe technocratic hands. In domestic politics, Republicans will make merry with this.
The objection that people should never mourn those they've never met is obtuse. Societies & nations are made up of bonds with many we don't personally know. How atomised and desolate to lose sight of this.
I'm delighted to be appointed senior academic advisor to the
@RANDEurope
-led Global Strategic Partnership, advising research for
@MOD_DCDC
. It will be a real privilege to help bring the cutting-edge of security research from around the world to bear for 🇬🇧.
The chant "From the river to the sea" inherently demands the extirpation of Israel, no matter how many times some scold that it really just means decaf caffe latte. I'm against banning such things, so that we can judge for ourselves, but let's recognise it for what it is.
Its not just that this comment is ahistorical. Its that it is made by the President of the CFR. And it suggests the fp establishment's intellectual incapacity for responding to the present moment. Rather than noting dilemmas of policy, seeking refuge in risible nostalgia.
International order for 4 centuries has been based on non-interference in the internal affairs of others and respect for sovereignty. Russia has violated this norm by seizing Crimea and by interfering in the 2016 US election. We must deal w Putin’s Russia as the rogue state it is
News Flash: Norman Angell didn't say economic interdependence/conditions made major war impossible. He said it made it futile, unlikely, and unsustainable. He wasn't an idiot. Do read him before the customary nod on the way through to reading recent literature in depth.
Volodymyr Zelensky a tragic hero in the exact sense: trying and failing to prevent calamity, and inadvertently perhaps through misjudgement, helping to bring it closer. Yet though he could take flight, he stays and faces his fate, demanding ammunition, not a ride.
Indeed. The smarter edge of the debate will be over whether Ukraine's & NATO's security is best served by a clear defeat of Russia, withdrawing with little to show, versus a compromise agreement that enables pullback. First risks more escalation, second risks a re-run later.
@PatPorter76
Craziness. Look how Russia views the Libyan no fly zone. As it is Russia will begin to suffer as much as NK. We need to explore ways out of this now
The enthusiasm to applaud angry, vacuous speeches typifies much of what is wrong with Britain's foreign policy debate. Uninterested in detail, seeking an emotional fix, demanding a "global role" without paying for it.