The US President and his cohort of complicit acolytes are changing the geo-strategic order into an ugly game among barbarians.
This article was first published on 14 February on David Gow’s substack at https://davidgow.substack.com/p/trumps-brutal-truth
By David Gow
The US and Europe are selling the Ukrainians down the river three years after Russia began its war of attrition against its neighbour. President Trump’s call with his Russian counterpart and the crass comments of Pentagon chief Hegseth are a brutal signal that the American imperium believes it – and hence other big powers – can trample the principle of territorial integrity under foot.
That principle has underpinned national sovereignty and/or statehood since the Peace of Westphalen of 1648. It’s a cornerstone of the rule of law but that’s already a goner domestically in the US now that Trump has pardoned 1500 or more Far Right armed thugs who stormed Congress on January 6 seeking to eradicate leading politicians, including his own then vice-president. And Trump has fatally undermined it internationally too.
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By effectively rewarding Putin in advance of peace talks for his annexation not only of Crimea but also potentially the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk and probably more Trump is signalling that, once more, might is right. The International Criminal Court that the US does not recognise is rendered toothless. The Baltic states and others among Russia’s neighbours could be next in line. So, too, could Taiwan.
The “world’s greatest negotiator” in the grotesquely sycophantic words of Pete Hegseth, US defense secretary with the Mad Men-style slicked back hair and cut-away Italian collars, has, however, played more of a weak hand as Boris Pritorius, German defence minister, and countless other Europeans have argued. He has a “piece of paper” – like Chamberlain – on which is written “peace”. Aka appeasement.
Trump has now gone even further by dangling the prospect of renewed membership of the G8 and the lifting of sanctions before his pal Vlad while demanding Ukraine hand over billions of dollars in critical rare earth metals – and threatening the EU with retaliation for daring to impose VAT on US goods sold here in Europe. In other words, however you dress it up, he’s behaving like a Russian asset and doing Putin’s dirty work by destabilising America’s “closest ally.” Acts worthy of impeachment but that can be ruled out given a Supine Court and Congress.
Of course, Trump and others had already signalled their determination and readiness to turn sovereign nations into non-countries by threatening to make Canada the 51st federal state and to dismember Denmark by seizing Greenland. Most egregious of all is his proposal to take over/own – whether in US hands or in a consortium of states – Gaza and reconstruct it as if it were a gigantic piece of Atlantic City real estate.
The Palestinians, in his apparent game-plan, would be treated even more as second-order people and robbed of their statehood before they’ve even got it. The West Bank would be handed over lock stock and barrel as Judea and Samaria to Israel as reward for its genocidal war before the Jewish state and Saudi Arabia carve up the Middle East. The era of dictatorial rule across the globe is back a century later when people of my generation thought it had perished in 1945. “We won’t be fooled again” eh?
Rabbits in the headlamps
For Europe, used to relative peace and prosperity under the US defence umbrella for over 75 years, this is both a humiliation and a wake-up call. The EU may not even get a seat at the table when/if Trump and Putin stage their mooted Yalta 2.0 to decide the geostrategic structure of Europe. The continent’s future may be decided without any (sizeable/meaningful) European input if the thuggish duo get their way. The US President now suggests Ukraine’s Zelensky or ANOther from Kyiv may be at the peace talks but that’s not a solid guarantee that the sacrifice of so many lives has earned them the right to have a say in deciding their country’s future.
What’s more, this week’s démarche confirms what has been clear for some considerable time: Trump and the new US tech-industrial/financial/AI-military complex insist that Europe must provide and finance its own security/defence. Nato may survive as a shell but its days are numbered. And the despised/despicable EU can foot the bill for Ukraine from now on. ‘President Trump will not allow anyone to turn Uncle Sam into Uncle Sucker.” (Hegseth).
Sadly, shockingly, the European, including British, response to these bully-boy tactics has been abject, with Mark Rutte, long-time Dutchy premier turned Nato general-secretary, conceding that Trump/Hegseth do have a point. Worse, some European leaders, led as usual by Orban and the so-called Patriots for Europe at their rally in Madrid this week, are praising Trump and openly support Putin.
Understandably, another European/British response is to move more swiftly to raise defence spending towards the (arbitrary) 5% target set by Trump – as if, given other spending constraints (health/welfare), it were attainable. What’s more, some would resurrect Churchill’s idea of a European army, this time including the UK. These and other ideas must certainly be on the agenda given we have at least four more years of Trumpery – and maybe eight.
In this convulsive period, it’s clear to me that, towards the end of my life, I am being forced to rethink ideas, not values, I’ve held for many years, notably since 1989, and Europe has got to rethink its own place in the world. It certainly cannot be that of a Trumpian vassal state. And it must disprove the adage that it cannot survive without America’s security blanket.
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