maxbergmann.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

The official attendance in Atlanta today was ~22,000, which I believe is the smallest crowd for soccer in the 9-year history of Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Atlanta United (trash and underperforming this year) is averaging 44,000 per match.

submitted 11 minutes ago • 5 comments

Good start to G7! Carney keeping it together...

submitted 9 hours ago • 3 comments

My latest publication for CSDS… “Enemy in the Crates: The Risks of Pre-deployed Covert Payloads for European Defence” Read here: csds.vub.be/publication/...

submitted 15 hours ago • 0 comments

🚨New publication!🚨 With input from experts across @ecfr.eu, @taszuc.bsky.social, @camillelons.bsky.social, @arturovarvelli.bsky.social & I have explored the foreign policies of Europe's populist parties and how these might play out over coming years. Read the study here ⬇️ ecfr.eu/publication/...

submitted 16 hours ago • 6 comments

It remains completely unclear, at least to me, how deregulation or lower energy prices (not the key input for them) are going to save Germanys core engineering sectors that have long driven productivity and innovation. Moving a lot of it to China isn’t a solution either - obviously.

submitted 13 hours ago • 2 comments

About an hour until parade start time in D.C., and there are plenty of prime viewing spots wide open, particularly toward the beginning of the route.

submitted 2 days ago • 192 comments

Thread!

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

John Hamre: Trump looks at Russia and China as the zoning commission of Atlantic City. He wants a bigger hotel. And he’s going to do what is needed, through threats and charm, to get it. He views allies as sub-contractors, whom he has always cheated and abused youtu.be/5_fkdsGuXv4

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

“Ribera’s team argues it is not possible to force member states to prioritise European goods through state-aid rules” What an admission of weakness and lack of creativity from the Commission. The basic implication then is to leave everything as is and “assess options”.

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

So there was a Deputies Committee meeting… in which the take away for DepSecState (who presumably is chairing these meetings b/c there’s no NSC) is that “NATO is still a solution in search of a problem.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/12/u...

submitted 3 days ago • 8 comments

On the first episode of State of Play, @geopolitics.csis.org experts Victor Cha, @willtodman.bsky.social and @maxbergmann.bsky.social discuss what to expect from the G7 Summit in Canada and what needs to change to make the G7 relevant in the new geopolitical environment. Listen:

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Reassurance!

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

"The G-7 faces a dilemma: it wants to play a larger role in global governance but is not currently well equipped for the part," write Dr. Victor Cha and Dr. John Hamre in Foreign Affairs. Read more on how global governance can survive:

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Interesting article by @eucopresident.consilium.europa.eu, if mostly for the fact that the European Council President rarely writes op-eds. In terms of content, most notably is Costa's argument to put the EU's defence (industrial) efforts into alignment with the European pillar of NATO:

submitted 4 days ago • 3 comments

Europe FTW.

submitted 4 days ago • 2 comments

BYD brings EV price wars to small cars in Europe BYD has launched its cheapest and smallest EV in the UK, as it takes Chinese carmakers’ battle for affordability in Europe into a compact-car segment that has remained stubbornly reliant on the internal combustion engine on.ft.com/4ea9qDN

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

🚨🚨New podcast to follow!!! Great to be part of the inaugural episode of State of Play - a new pod from the @csis.org Geopolotics Department- with @victordcha.bsky.social and hosted by @willtodman.bsky.social!

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

I’m just fully realizing that the whole of downtown DC is being shutdown all weekend for a Trump birthday-commandeered ego parade that’s only going to be 8 blocks long. 8 blocks! $40 million+. Days of disruption. I honor the U.S. Army’s 250th … but this was not the way to do it.

submitted 5 days ago • 2 comments

It was great to sit down with @maxbergmann.bsky.social @csis.org and Neil Melvin @rusi.bsky.social to discuss transatlantic security after Trump's first 150 or so days.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

The UK-Spain agreement on Gibraltar is diplomacy at its best: respecting both countries' legal red lines while delivering concrete, practical benefits for Gibraltarians and the many Spaniards who commute into the territory and contribute to its economy.

submitted 5 days ago • 4 comments

One common misperception is that clean tech is all about solar or wind and we’ve lost that so we’d better give up. Germany still has some of the latter. And if you look at the wider ecosystem - including machines, various turbines, parts for nuclear centrifuges - Germany is in far better shape.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Permitting for green power and grids is still ‘too bureaucratic, too slow’

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Big deal this. For years I have heard continuous speculative chatter that Germany would turn back to Russian gas. European solidarity would break down, etc, etc. I thought it nonsense. There was no going back. And this ban on Nord Stream confirms that. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/10/w...

submitted 6 days ago • 4 comments

This is what every great catch makes you say but I really feel like this is maybe the best catch of this kind that I've ever seen.

submitted 6 days ago • 99 comments

60 days into Trump’s 90 day tariff reprieve, we have: - No Japan deal - No South Korea Deal - No EU deal - A UK deal that has not yet led to a lowering of tariffs - A tit-for-tat mess with China asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Trad...

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Sorry to see this. Ageing Italy especially needs to get better at integrating its migrant population, and a faster path to citizenship would have helped that. www.ft.com/content/434e...

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

👀

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

"Poland’s electorate remains sharply divided, and its branches of government will be too," writes @erep.csis.org on the results of Poland's recent election. Read more on the implications of Karol Nawrocki taking office:

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Zelensky announced today that more than 20,000 American anti-drone missiles, which had been approved as aid for Ukraine by the Biden administration, were never delivered and instead, these missiles were sent to the Middle East. Trump is not delivering even what Congress has already approved!

submitted 8 days ago • 5 comments

In Russia, the number of working-age men who die is usually three times greater than the number of working-age women who die. Russia's war has changed this. Among those aged 20 to 35, the ratio is now 1:4-1:5.

submitted 8 days ago • 11 comments

On a new episode of Russian Roulette, @erep.csis.org experts @maxbergmann.bsky.social and @msnegova.bsky.social discuss the evolution of the Ukrainian economy since February 2022. Listen here:

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

Huge new report out for us on Russia's war economy from @msnegovaya.bsky.social, @nicholasfenton.bsky.social, Tina Dolbaia and me. Maria breaks down the conclusions, in short, Russia can sustain the war unfortunately.

submitted 9 days ago • 7 comments

Big addition to our program!

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

Where different BDA assessments seem to converge. Destroyed: 7 Tu-95MS, 4 Tu-22M3, 1 An-12. Damaged: 1 Tu-95MS, 2 Tu-22M3 , 2 A-50s (probably non-operational). Additionally attacked & possibly damaged: 4 Tu-22M3 (status unclear), and 1 Tu-95MS.

submitted 10 days ago • 9 comments

Couldn't agree more with this @adamtooze.bsky.social banger. "The scandal is not that European defence budgets have not already doubled. The scandal is that Europe spends so much and gets so little for it." The European defense enterprise is a total mess. www.ft.com/content/f450...

submitted 10 days ago • 11 comments

If the future is electric, China is building a big advantage quickly.

submitted 14 days ago • 8 comments

Post of the day.

submitted 11 days ago • 23 comments

BFD this.

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

NEW: @eribakova.bsky.social returned to Russian Roulette to discuss the evolution of the Ukrainian economy since February 2022. Tune in for her conversation with Max and Maria, below! 🎙️ @maxbergmann.bsky.social & @msnegovaya.bsky.social www.csis.org/podcasts/rus...

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

The Implications of Poland’s Presidential Election by our very own Donatienne Ruy www.csis.org/analysis/imp...

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

When folks say that the US is slow to build much-needed transmission lines to take advantage of new sources of very cheap renewable electricity, they do not exaggerate. In 2024 the US was completing 30-50 miles per month! All of it low voltage.

submitted 13 days ago • 2 comments