Trump’s designs on Greenland as a Humiliation Ritual and the need to discard US-imposed so-called “liberal democracy”

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“Nothing Ever Happens” had a tremendous run, but like all good things it too had to come to an end at some point.

This specific point was reached around a month ago when Team Trump decided to kick its foreign policy ambitions into overdrive (some might say “Turbo”) by kidnapping Venezuela Jefe Nicolas Maduro and his wife, then immediately laying claim to ownership of the whole of Greenland, threatening to regime change Cuba and Colombia, and now threatening to strike Iran yet again. Things are indeed ‘happening’.

It was only a few short years ago when the mood in the USA was one of serious concern as to whether it could keep itself together as the media-driven psy-op that flooded the country (and which many of us foreigners followed closely) painted a picture of an America on the verge of civil strife, one that was in danger of falling behind China. “American decline” was the theme that was repeatedly forced down our throats.

Long-time readers of this Substack are aware that I took a contrarian view, insisting that not only was the USA not in decline on the global stage, but that it was setting itself up for a coming period where it would reassert itself in order to fend off perceived challenges from the world’s two main revisionist powers: China and Russia. Part of my thesis was that the USA would become increasingly extractive with respect to its own allies in order to maintain its dominant global position. I called this theory “Turbo America”, and I developed it over the course of roughly four essays that you can read on this site. Here is the original for those who have never read it:

Geopolitica

Turbo-America

Niccolo Soldo

·

April 21, 2022

“Don’t get me into a shooting war with the Russians”, Obama told his CIA Chief during the Syrian Civil War.

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Suffice it to say that my contrarian take has now been totally vindicated. My take was dismissed at the time, and was often mocked too. I will not get credit for making the best call out of anyone who writes in this sphere, nor have I ever expected that I would get any. Those are the brakes. What I was certain of was that this is how events would play out.

Description is not prescription, a concept that many people seem to have trouble grasping. Since I wrote Turbo America, I have been repeatedly accused of being pro-US Empire. Nothing could be further from the truth. At the same time, other detractors have lumped me in with types who promote BRICS or Russia’s Dugin and his “Eurasianism” worldview, and so on. Again, these types are also off-base. My core concern is my country, and by extension due to its small size, Europe.

The Liberal-Democratic Order

I do not believe that there is a “West” today. The West as a concept cannot exist with a Europe that is totally dominated by an outside force. We can speak of a desire to liberate the West, but for all intents and purposes the West is dead (unless you argue that it has moved across the Atlantic Ocean and now resides in the USA). Despite having all the trappings of national sovereignty, Europe is little more than a collection of national and regional branches of USA Inc. It is less a continent of states and more a collection of vassals. There can be no course correction without accepting this as being the actual truth.

The fact of the matter is that Europe was partitioned between two spheres of influence when the Axis was defeated in WW2. The collapse of the Soviet Union permitted the USA to extend its own sphere of influence right up to and inside of the former USSR. Devoid of a competing factor on the continent, the USA was also able to deepen its domination by tightening the rules of the so-called “rules-based order”, meaning liberal democracy, in its ever-changing definitions. This has led to a rise in the Americanization of the continent, and especially its political class, one that has internalized so-called ‘American values’ even if they are alien to the various cultural traditions found in Europe. The ruling class in Europe can be described as “Hyper-American” despite technically not being American whatsoever.

The rapid transformation of the continent (best exemplified by the huge changes in demography that have occurred over the past few decades) is a direct outgrowth of this vassalage. Theoretically, European leaders can pursue their own goals, but in reality they cannot deviate too far from the liberal-democratic orthodoxy that rules on both sides of the ocean. Some Americans will insist that Europe’s ills are self-inflicted, yet many of these ills are a direct consequence of this Lord-Vassal relationship, and especially because of the system of governance that has been put into place. The Americans insist on liberal democracy, so they get liberal democrats of various stripes to perform their duties as national and regional branch managers of USA Inc. The Americans also have a myriad of ways to put their thumb on the scale to ensure that the system remains in place and that challengers are punished by their local satraps. (This deserves a treatment all its own).

There can be no equal partnership in any US-European relation. One must rule over the other, and Europe right now is definitely the Sick Man of the World. So ‘sick’ is it that the Americans, Russians, and Chinese all agree that Europe is little more than an American protectorate, which is why Moscow sees no reason to speak to Europeans regarding the war in Ukraine, viewing the Americans as the only counterparty that matters.

Europe’s ruling elites may get publicly upset by this state of affairs, but privately they are content with their subservient position because it both permits them to grandstand and allows them to avoid doing any real, actual work. After all, you can always go work in Silicon Valley for the DoggyDiapers App after you serve your country as its Prime Minister. The Beys are happy to reward their satraps, and the rewards can be lucrative. All you have to do is trade in your soul and the dignity of your people and your country.

There is no need to tell you that I am not exactly thrilled with the current state of affairs regarding Europe and its subservient position that places it firmly beneath the USA. There are a lot of us who think this way, even if we may differ politically. What unites us is that we have soured on the USA and its role on the global stage. It would be much easier to swallow the medicine given to us if it actually did benefit us, but I cannot for the life of me see how blowing up Nordstream or boxing Russia into a corner, or taking out Gaddafi and re-opening the migrant spigot (with assists from the UK’s Cameron and France’s Sarkozy) were good for us.

Europeans like myself realize that the world has changed a lot over the decades, and that no individual European country can compete with the USA, China…or even Russia. Our countries have to cooperate in order to do so, pooling our resources for the sake of economies of scale. There is no other way to pursue our interests. There is an internal paradox in this, in that to try to maintain the highest level of sovereignty possible for each country, all must from time to time give some of that sovereignty away in order to cooperate with one another. Thankfully, this is now understood, which is why almost all Continental European right wingers agree that the EU must be seized and re-purposed, rather than dissolved. There are no illusions that Europe and Europeans are united in any way, or are a monolith of any sort.

On this side of the political aisle, it has been the extremism of liberal-democratic rule that has most estranged us from the USA, as we recognize that the system that they put in place to govern our countries serves their interests first and foremost, and that it easily adopts political, cultural, and social trends from them, the Metropole. As the definition of “democracy” has continuously shifted over the past few decades, our vision(s) for our countries have been rendered off-side and therefore “undemocratic”. This has left us to participate in a system that is stacked against us, with the realization that this same system that has been imposed on us must be blown up for actual change to occur and to cement itself in place. The problem with this is that it puts you in the crosshairs of local elites, and even worse, with the US State Department, should your opposition garner too much attention.

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