A new world coming

Whereby I am exasperated by current affairs

I am not sure of this is the right way to start my Substack. So be it, I'll start, with exasperation. I have a different opinion on many things. Different from what I read all around. There, I just see a complete failure to frame news into world views that actually make sense. Some kind of theory of what people, or countries, want. Call it geopolitical theory of mind. Where what we see might make the most sense.

So let’s go into this. Recent example, what Trump's America is doing now, inside and outside the US. I differ with both supporters and detractors. They seem to miss the deeper point of what is going on. I suggest starting with the idea that people, systems, countries, intend to do what they are doing, in order to achieve some effect.

So what is happening now? A new US administration is coveting Russia, selling out Ukraine, either alienating allies (Canada) or ignoring them completely (EU). Internally they hack their own administration to pieces. Why would this be happening?

Supporters will say, the DOGE deconstruction is about saving money, the Russia policy is about bringing peace, Canada, Greenland and Panama kerfuffles are about protecting borders and trade close to home.

Detractors say it's incompetence and vindictiveness. DOGE is carelessly destroying useful programmes, Trump is being had by Putin, and America is having random outbursts due to an erratic president (Canada et al).

But, why, really? Detractors don't see how all of this could make sense. They see bugs, not features. So they blame incompetence. Supporters just believe the panem et circenses show for public consumption. No one asks, why? What for?

A lot of things this administration does make perfect sense if you change your frame. How does all that look like if you assume that:

1. Trump intends to leave all international agreements and bodies, NATO in particular, in the short to medium term. In the long term, the US seeks to be primus inter pares, basically the 800 lb gorilla on the block among great powers. Hence, Canada and Greenland make perfect sense to form a contiguous geographic block. They would probably love to own all of North America right until Panama contiguously, but I do not think Trump wants to own Mexico, so regarding Panama, just the canal will do.

Alienating Canada is not a problem in this worldview. For Trump, Canada is to the US what Ukraine is to Russia - even the economic and demographic size relations are similar. The details are a bit different: Russia wants Ukraine because they want access to Crimea and the Black Sea, possibly they care a little about the resources too, but really, Crimea plus a safe land corridor to access it is what they really want. Trump wants Canada for resources (as they want Ukraine's resources too) and to secure all trade routes around the US.

Corollary: Trump genuinely likes ruthless dictators and invaders like Putin's Russia because he wants to act just like them. Trump is now at the stage with Canada that Putin was in pre-2014 with Ukraine: intimidation. And Trump hopes he can pull it off with Canada w/o a war of course.

2. The US seeks to confront China and sees Russia as a cornerstone in that. It intends to pressure China from two sides at least. Right now, pressuring China just from the sea isn't working. So the new US we see emerging in front of our eyes wants Russia as an ally and is giving them all sorts of goodies in advance to sweeten the deal. Ukraine is on the chopping block similar to the division of Poland between Hitler and Stalin, a gift to Russia to lure it into becoming an US ally against China. Trump isn't selling the US to Russia, Trump is selling Ukraine to Russia, and a few other things too, to get their support.

The EU is economically much more important to the US than Russia but Russia happens to border China, and the EU does not. Trump’s advisors think if they can pull Russia into US orbit, then China is done for. So: the embrace of Russia is not completely insane, besides being immoral. Trump does not intend to give up US interests to Russia. He is trying to give Russia a smothering bear hug, intending in the process to make Russia dependent on the US in a different way. And, as Stalin knew he couldn't really trust Hitler, Putin probably doesn't trust Trump either but he'll take Ukraine first, then we can talk again. In the long run Trump probably sees Russia just as a larger Ukraine: great land, great resources, people dispensable.

3. The EU is unimportant to Trump because Russia borders China and Europe doesn't. In order to not have Europe turn into a problem, Trump prefers a divided Europe. Hence, fostering all the local nationalisms. Brexit was a first great success. Russia and Trump overlap in this desire for similar reasons, and Russia has fostered a divided Europe for a long, long time. Divide et impera.

The logical consequence of this, strategically, is that the EU ought, should, must (?), form a strong alliance with China. That would squeeze Russia between a strong EU and a strong China, with the US being ... far far away. It's the EU's only strategic choice that makes sense - if only for bargaining reasons. But China is also economically much more interesting than Russia. Resources can be bought from anywhere. Markets can not.

4. Internally, DOGE isn't about saving money so much as it is about destroying state capacity where Trump believes it doesn't matter, and replacing apolitical specialists with loyalists. This is more or less the playbook of the Nazis of course, but one can go back to the description of the strategies of British colonialism, say as described in Chinua Achebe's "Things fall apart": replace the local respected authorities with what was previous the underbelly of society - once they have been elevated by you in status, they will become your most loyal supporters. They will die for the new regime because they are nothing without it. Unfortunately, as the defeat of Nazi Germany has shown, this does not work in the long run. Yes, some really smart people supported the Nazis, but in net effect, the Nazis removed or killed or drove into exile way too many good people, and installed way too many incompetent cronies in their administrations. Right up to the top - Goering was never the smartest cookie, for example, while Rommel was ordered to commit suicide, etc. Dedication alone can not replace professionalism.

5. The rest of the internal strategies of the new US administration obviously aims at destroying checks and balances. One can read Tocqueville's "Ancien Regime et la Revolution" to show how the French Monarchy did exactly the same thing before things degenerated to the extent that it ended on the chopping block of the revolution, having done the necessary so that it became possible to replace the government by removing a single head, of state, quite literally.

I am not saying that I like any of these things that I see. Quite to the contrary. I am saying, there is logic to Trump (or rather, his hidden chief ideologues). It is neither all stupidity and incompetence, nor is it the romantic protection of the little man against globalism. It is just the toolkit one would assume a country to use when it is engaging in becoming a very large centralized national power instead of a multifaceted empire, as it was until now (seen globally).

As a result, of course this is then not about strengthening or even preserving the American Empire we had seen develop globally since WWII. Again, believe your eyes. Allies ignored, new allies found. The desire here seems to be to give up the American Empire voluntarily, to contract from a global naval empire to a North American land empire, or rather, just nation. Many empires have done so before - they are not always defeated, often, they give up. Witness the British Empire, given up, albeit from a position of weakness. Perhaps Trump thinks, he'll do better and give up the American Empire from a position of strength. The new US appears to just want to be a somewhat larger nation state, that eventually will retreat to the North American hemisphere. Hence, Canada, Greenland. Perhaps surrounded by tributary vassal states. One could say, Trump wants to make the US more like China or Russia and less like the Roman Empire.

In short, yes the new US administration seems to think a bit like old style colonialists, and 1930’s Germany (avoiding the name that shall not be named): grab land, grab resources, align the whole country as a single force behind the leader ("Fuhrerprinzip") to achieve maximum oomph. It's a logical consequence of nationalism, as in international relations you can either follow nationalist logic (close borders, grab things you need by force) or trade logic (open borders, trade things you need in free competition).

In one point I am stumped: Morals and my mourning of the old order aside, I really don't know why the master minds behind US policy today would be thinking that way. In today's world, raw materials and land don't matter that much. Hong Kong, Singapore, anyone? Compare their successes to the “great” achievements of Russia with all their land and resources, over the last thousand years. Today's economies need markets and talent more than they need land and resources. But that's a story for another day.