Andrew A. Michta

🧵I don't get rattled often, but today I've had enough when I watched online two credentialled American apologists for #Russia's imperialism repeating yet again that we caused the war in Ukraine because we declared in 2008 that we would consider bringing Ukraine into @NATO. 1/10

I ask this: What planet do these people live on to argue with a straight face that a nation brutally attacked by its neighbor, and fighting for its very survival must explain itself to them and convince them that it has the right to live free? Are they simply this callous? 2/10

Would they be just as self-righteous if the discussion was about our country? Would they then claim that as Americans we have no right to make sovereign choices because a great power "out there" disagrees? By this logic the 13 American colonies should have never rebelled. 3/10

I'm even more bewildered when I hear those credentialled experts pontificate on how much territory Ukraine must transfer to Russia in exchange for a nebulous "peace deal." Indeed, it's easy to give away somebody else's land. Would they be as glib if it was our territory? 4/10

I'm a member of academia, but I would never presume that the Darwinian ecosystem we call "international relations" has much in common with a graduate school seminar or a lecture, or that international politics fits neatly into an IR theoretical framework I once developed. 5/10

For twenty years the West appeased Putin's aggression, whether because countries preferred to do lucrative business with Russia rather than standing up for principle (Nord Stream 1 and 2 are just two examples of this pattern), or we simply could not face up to aggression. 6/10

Then when President Biden finally said no, there was no strategy, no vision of victory, no resolve to punish aggression-only "escalation management" while Ukraine bled year after year. Remember Chancellor Scholz's "Ukraine can't lose, Russia can't win" dictum? What was that? 7/10

Today as Putin yanks our chain and calls it "negotiations," while he demands that Ukraine surrender, we continue to deceive ourselves that Russian imperialism can be bargained with, deflected or (yes, once again) appeased at an acceptable cost, including abandoning Ukraine. 8/10

I can't speak for our political class but I lose my patience when our credentialled experts repeat Russian talking points and blame the West instead of the tyrant who started this war that killed a million people, but whom we treat like a man one can bargain with in good

Time to look in the mirror and remember what democracies used to stand for. It's indecent to blame the victim for the brutality of the aggressor. We talk incessantly about "universal rights," but maybe we should stop being so self-absorbed and see what we are becoming. 10/End

🧵Over Christmas I had an opportunity to catch up with friends across Europe, and those conversations convinced me even more that unless there is a fundamental rethinking inside the European Union, the continent will slide into geopolitical irrelevance-and we'll all lose. 1/13

It is time EU elites stop talking about "Europe" and the EU as interchangeable concepts. There can be no such thing as a "federalized Europe," as there is no European nation. Indeed, you can construct a centralized mega-state, but it would be a democratic polity in name only.2/13

The EU can be centralized assuming the new Union Treaty abolishes the veto, shifts to majority voting and also pushes through the notion that EU directives (AKA the "EU law") supersede national constitutions.  But if this happens smaller states will lose their sovereignty. 3/13

Belonging to a trading and regulatory treaty-based organization like the EU doesn't offer the prerequisites to building a federal state. Europe is a collection of nation-states with divergent histories and distinctly different cultures. This is its strength, not weakness. 4/13

In such a centralized majoritarian structure, the largest countries, i.e., Germany and France, would call the shots, while smaller players would have no choice but to obey.  Again, such a structure may be created, but should it become reality it won't be a democratic entity. 5/13

I'm dismayed that the EU elites and its bureaucracy are disconnected from the electorates of their member-states.  It's odd that countries are being pushed to subsume fundamental decisions on economic policy or immigration to an ideologically driven centralization project. 6/13

Those elites push policies that have crippled the EU's competitiveness (the "green transformation" compelled Europeans to pay 3-to-4 times as much for industrial energy as3the US or China; EU immigration policy threatens to explode Europe's historical nations from within. 7/12

Show me one democratically governed country that would allow its government with such a sorry record to continue in office. Show me a nation that would submit to such a "no-alternatives" ideology as has been imposed by the bureaucracy on EU member-states again and again. 8/13

To argue that the EU can become a credible security actor defies the most basic understanding of state-on-state warfare. If you seriously believe that, say Spanish soldiers will lay their lives to defend Estonia or Latvia, I can sell you the Brooklyn Bridge at a discount.9/13

I write this not to belittle Europe. As someone who has worked all my professional life to strengthen transatlantic relations and support Western democracies, it pains me that when US-European relations are under stress, European elites seem to be doubling down on that path.10/13

It's understandable that the #NSS2025 issued by the Trump administration rattled people across Europe, but it should not have come as a surprise for there was ample warning that US priorities were shifting. Now more than ever Europe should refocus on @NATO and rearmament. 11/13

The Trump admin is trying for a reset with Moscow. Like many before, it's misreading #Russia. It'll learn that a "deal" is not possible for Putin wants a surrender-he wants to push the US out of Europe. Until Washington understands this, cooler heads must prevail in Europe. 12/13

BLUF: The US is not abandoning Europe, but it must face the storm brewing in the Pacific. This is not the time to insist on failed policies but rather to reinvest in hard power, do everything possible to preserve transatlantic ties and @NATO. Time to think strategically. 13/End