What is great power competition anyway? 🧵 @CGPC_Surrey

SAVE AMERICAN STUDIES TEACHING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM - Sign the Petition! https://t.co/koannL0JZT via @UKChange

Just no evidence NATO enlargement debate was about military security. It’s about the reason why the Cold War was lost - the economic consequences of defeat. Once E Europe was part of the transatlantic financial system its prosperity would advance too fast for Russia’s comfort.

We illustrate the argument with examples from the last twenty years of Chinese grand strategy. Check it out! (/end)

We isolate three pathways: renewing and redirecting existing infrastructure; building alternatives to existing infrastructure; and developing and deploying new infrastructures at the leading edge of technological development. (4/)

In a system defined by the nuclear defense dilemma, we argue that infrastructure provision represents the least costly and most likely pathway to hegemonic transition. (3/)

For baseball fans, there's actually no Ray Kinsella in it, but the main point we make is that the building of systemic infrastructure creates structural power by generating path dependencies and imposing switching costs. (2/)

New Article Alert! “If You Build It, They Will Come.” Infrastructure, Hegemonic Transition, and Peaceful Change, with Simon Curtis is out in @GSQ_Journal. Thanks to the team there for a really smooth review process.

More on the task of strategic net assessment here

In the week after the DOD axes the Office of Net Assessment, in the UK we're prioritising that kind of deep, critical diagnostic thinking. Job at Oxford in strategic net assessment

Very timely stuff: I would expect a different diagnosis of Europe's challenges than @JDVance presented at Munich, but if the point of that particular intervention was to encourage great European autonomy, that discussion will certainly be prominent.

This is so true. There’s a gigantic credibility gap.

Roll up! Great opportunity to present work on all things Europe - from populist politics to the Western alliance. I'll be giving a keynote entitled 'Sleeping with a stricken elephant' but don't let that particular imagery put you off - get your abstracts in!

Moving to the other place @nickkitchen.bsky.social

As long as he didn’t use the word liberalist he’s fine by me

I was a discussant for an earlier version of this paper back @MYBISA in Glasgow last year, and it's really good to see it out. Trump's particular brand of masculinity and his declinism are clear, what Clara does really nicely is to connect the two.

Hi @guardianmoney I’ve got a consumer case for you. @Airbnb refusing to provide a partial refund because the host refuses to, despite a property not having an advertised tennis court. Apparently this doesn’t count as a ‘significant difference’ and @AirbnbHelp just closed the case

When the great Bob Jervis comes in the post and it used to belong to @PatMcGovern16

Hi @Airbnb, @AirbnbHelp: it’s now over three weeks, three calls and seven ignored chat messages since your last engagement with my support case. Is you approach to customer support to ignore customer problems until they get bored?

Really valuable thread. The main issue I see with SDRs is that the DR bit has to follow from the S bit, and (grand) strategy cannot be limited to defence - GS is ultimately about national goals and how you achieve them, defending against threats is only a part of that.

CGPC co-director Josh Andresen argues that the proliferation of economic sanctions does not undermine their lawfulness, but rather increased state practice will support a customary norm of unilaterally imposed sanctions