🧵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
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