Nikolas Gvosdev

The midterms are here. What do they mean for U.S. foreign policy? The final analysis: 1. Looks like we’re in for a blue wave. RealClearPolitics now projects a Democratic Senate majority at 52 against 48 Republicans and a House majority at 241-194. Those are big numbers, if they bear out. 2. With clear Congressional majorities and a lame duck president, Democrats can force big changes in U.S. foreign policy, right? Not so fast. 3. The President remains in the driver’s seat on foreign policy, with an array of institutional and political advantages over Congress. The legislature can and sometimes does play a role, but it has been particularly supine in recent years. 4. On key policy issues, there will be more continuity than change. Democrats could, for instance, use the War Powers Resolution to force an end to the Iran conflict. They could vote to eliminate Trump’s tariffs on Canada. They could rescind the diesel oil deal with Russia. They could provide military assistance to Ukraine. 5. But holding the majority is only part of the story. The key number is 34, the number of Senate votes needed to sustain a presidential veto. If legislation passes both Houses and Trump vetoes it, he will almost certainly have the Rs necessary to avoid an override. 6. But Congress does control the purse strings, and without appropriations any effort – like the war with Iran – would grind to a halt. So Congress could simply defund the conflict. 7. But it won’t. The perceived political price of withholding funding to the troops is very high. Even 20 years ago, while measures to force a withdrawal from Iraq won majorities on the Senate floor, Congress never defunded the war. And it’s not clear even to war skeptics that simply walking away improves the U.S. position. 8. We may see some measures get through, potentially attached to (seemingly) must-pass legislation. Provisions to block deals with Russia, possibly. Maybe conditions on aid or arms sales to Israel. Possibly export controls on technology sales to China. 9. But overall, the midterms’ effect on policy will be limited. Their implications for politics, on the other hand, will be much greater. 10. When Presidents lose Congressional majorities, they tend to forgo ambitious domestic initiatives – no more Big Beautiful Bills – and turn instead to foreign policy, where they have greater control. That often spurs them to take big swings and grand moves. Pursuing Israeli-Palestinian peace is the classic example. That’s especially true in the final two years of a two-term administration. 11. Democrats will hold oversight hearings and aggressively investigate the administration, which tends to consume significant executive branch time and attention. That could, ironically, encourage POTUS to spend more time on the road pursuing big foreign policy wins (as he would define them). 12. In the meantime, more Republicans will break with Trump on key national security issues. This is already happening - witness opposition to the Russian diesel deal and R senate candidates calling for the Iran war to end. Such dissent raises the political price for the administration’s approach and could, here and there, impel it to alter course. 13. The 2028 presidential campaign effectively begins tomorrow. The President is a lame duck and political leaders will begin jockeying for position. Both parties will witness a battle for their foreign policy souls. Progressives and moderates will jostle on the Democratic side and Republicans will look to craft a post-MAGA approach. 14. Foreign governments, for their part, will look beyond the current White House, preparing for the future. In places, they’ll wait out the administration, stalling deals they don’t like. They’ll renew contacts with would-be future officials. 15. “Maybe it’ll change after the midterms” has been a recent mantra. Here and there, foreign policy might change, but more will stay the same. In the meantime, everyone will increasingly look to the future.

A consistent #geopolitical and #geoeconomic rule of thumb: the United States cannot simultaneously pressure both Iran and Russia. The flurry of talk and leaks about possible new Russia-U.S. energy arrangements leads me to think : 1/ nitter.cf/i/trending/21152218968…

What do Americans actually want from U.S. foreign policy? CFR’s @RebeccaLissner asked that question of nearly 500 Americans around the country this year, and some of the results were surprising. For her analysis and more on the Future of American Strategy initiative, visit: cfr.org/articles/how-do-amer…

The baseline of collective European diplomacy is the sensibility of a sociopathic (I mean this in the clinical sense) toddler: unable to imagine another's standpoint, unwilling to acknowledge it, offended that the world doesn't turn around them.

Some thoughts on the prospects for a settlement of Russia's war against Ukraine. Mainstream thinking about the conflict largely revolves around when the war might end, how to pressure Russia into a ceasefire, and what a possible settlement could look like. We often hear that if the current attempt to advance the peace process fails, another window of opportunity may open in, say, six months. The problem is that we have been hearing this mantra about the "next six months" for almost five years now. My growing conviction is that there will be no lasting settlement of the conflict. A ceasefire may be possible, but it is likely to be partial, fragile and tactical, doing little to bring about sustainable peace. Instead, we should prepare for a prolonged period of deterioration and escalation across multiple fronts. This is not simply about the continuation of the war. It is about a broader, pervasive process of destabilisation, at least over the medium term. Ukraine is facing what could be its worst winter yet, amid mounting domestic pressures. I see little that could fundamentally change this trajectory. Even an unlikely settlement could — and probably would — accelerate domestic political conflicts and fuel instability. A ceasefire would bring elections closer, introducing another potential source of destabilisation. And I struggle to imagine any scenario in which any Ukrainian leadership would agree to Putin's terms for ending the conflict. Whatever agreement might eventually be signed, if one is signed at all, would risk remaining largely unimplemented, as happened with the Minsk agreements. Russia will not emerge stronger either. Financial and budgetary pressures, a struggling economy, increasingly frustrated elites, an unsettled society and unresolved geopolitical tensions — which would not disappear with a ceasefire or settlement and could even intensify — are likely to drive further domestic repression, erode Putin's authority and push elites to focus increasingly on their own survival, whatever the cost. The war has been steadily exhausting the Russian economy, and this process will continue. And this, too, may lead to less predictable and more dangerous geopolitical behaviour. Europe faces potentially pivotal elections in France. It is likely to become more divided, more fragile in its ability to provide financial and military support to Ukraine, and less coherent in its approach. Individual European states are already taking more initiative and gaining greater agency to act independently of Brussels institutions. Meanwhile, existing trends and persistent structural factors point towards an intensifying confrontation with Russia, growing sub-threshold threats, and an increasingly visible and tangible pattern of incidents and hybrid attacks. What appears to be a red line today may become the new normal tomorrow. And these red lines are shifting not only on the Russian side, but in Europe as well. The broader picture is that we have entered a protracted period of destabilisation, erosion of international rules and weakening of international institutions. As those institutions lose their ability to coordinate responses, individual countries are increasingly compelled to act on their own. But this growing fragmentation and lack of coordination will, in turn, further accelerate the deterioration. Any settlement in Ukraine risks being extremely fragile, while confrontation between Russia and Europe is likely to intensify regardless of developments on the Ukrainian track. This new reality may be with us for years, potentially until the accumulated escalation across multiple fronts reaches a peak that finally — and hopefully — forces all sides to sit down and engage in genuine dialogue. Until then, I believe we should prepare for the worst.