The new world

Greetings, I have been considering this post for a week or so now ever since the US national security strategy became public. For those who arent aware, the national security strategy is published once per presidency and is generally a pretty boring document.

In years gone by it has essentially contained the same notions tweaked or reworded to suit a particular presidents style. This one however was different, radically different, so radically different that it threatens to finalise the reshaping of our world.

It functionally abandons the principle of mutual defence and strengthening ties with allied nations that has been the pillar of US foreign policy for 80 years. It embraces great power politics, framing the US as free to do whatever it wishes within its sphere of influence and only interfere elsewhere when its interests are at play.

By extension this would also imply that Russia and China have their spheres of influence and are free to do as they wish within their zones of control.

The document outlines quite clearly an aim to encourage the dismantling of the EU, the embrace of nationalism by european nations and at the same time a strategic independence from the US by repudiating the north atlantic treaty organisation as a permanent institution.

Now since we all know that Europe's freedom relies on mutual defence, if not by America then at least by each other, the US is in effect outlining a world where Europe belongs to Russia, Asia belongs to China and the Americas belong to the US.

Indeed in the case of the Americas the new national security strategy outlines a new era for the Monroe doctrine. One more akin to the 60s and 70s when the US reserved the right to interfere in central and south America whenevef and wherever it wanted.

This time its more explicitly imperialist however, in the 60s and 70s the notion was to stop communism from reaching the western hemisphere, this time its exclusively about trade and resource rights.

So in light of this realignment, as a european, my personal view is quite simple; Fuck America. However that does present us with a problem and its a problem with three clear solutions.

Europe is rearming its true, but that process will take years and is heavily reliant on US technology, much of our infrastructure is controlled by US firms, everything from our credit cards to communications platforms to Web servers and so on.

The US could functionally cripple europe without ever firing a shot, and seems to be aligning itself ever more with the resource rich Russian Federation, so much so that Kremlin representatives declared the new national security strategy a triumph for Russia as it aligned with their interests.

So with that being said lets present option one; Embracing the bear. We are collectively richer, collectively more numerous, much closer geographically and we share more cultural and historical ties than Russia does with the US.

Whilst I dont love the idea, it does make sense strategically and unfortunately we are now living in a strategic world with zero room for sentiment. Facing Russia as an existential threat is bad, facing the US as an existential threat is horrific, facing both is apocalyptic.

Option two; The dragons destiny.

Its no secret that China is on the verge of becoming the foremost power of our age, within 20 years they will catch up with the US entirely and within 40 they will out class them in every meaningful arena. Indeed it is this very fact which has spurred Americas embrace of imperialism.

China is not just a potential threat to the US, she is an inevitable threat to the US. Even if war broke out today, whilst the US chances would be better today than in 20 years, it would still be by far the bloodiest conflict in US history.

In recent years ive begun to see China in a different light than most western military officers. Ask yourself what does China want?, it doesnt want global domination, it wants an equality of power with the US globally and to topple the US as the worlds dominant economy.

Its bases abroad arent there to project power they are there to counter already existing US bases and to expose the vulnerability of global US military presence. It wants Taiwan, which is unsurprising given that the island of Taiwan or Formosa as it was originally called, was part of China for hundreds of years prior to colonial powers occupying it.

I think most of us would be fine with Poland retaking Kaliningrad despite its near century of Russian rule, therefore we shouldnt really be opposed to the notion of China reclaiming Taiwan.

Note that i am saying all this from a position of strategic indifference, analysing our options dispassionately.

Personally I wouldnt object to closer ties with China, I think they are the best of the bad three at the moment and it comes with the added bonuses of being future proof and causing Trumps plan to totally backfire in the worst way possible for the US.

The final option, option three; Pax Europa

This would be my ideal solution but it has immense hurdles, arguable the most hurdles of the three.

I am at times critical of the EU but thats not because I don't believe in it, its because im angry its failed to live up to its promise and is continually sabotaged from within by selfish leaders of selfish countries.

I believe whole heartedly in the concept of ever closer union, I believe that a federalised european nation is both possible and desirable, I believe in fact that its necessary for the modern age if we are to survive as a european culture and not be picked off by the circling vultures.

To achieve this however would require not just reform of the EU itself but reform of all our national governments, it would take a commitment to unpause the process which has been frozen since the early 90s.

It would require the UK rejoining, Germany stepping up to the plate in a leadership role, France finally solving her identity crisis and the UK punting its brexiteers into the north Sea.

It would require force integration, united funding structures, united manufacturing and logistics, resource consolidation and above all a change of thinking from, i am a German to I am a european from Germany. It would require someone born in London to be as angry about the bombing of Warsaw or Riga as they would if it was Luton or Watford.

Whichever path we choose, the clock is ticking, and regardless of how long Trump is president, the fact is that the US can no longer be trusted to exert such extreme control over us. For those of you who may be unaware, many US services are now subject to US national security laws.

Meaning that if they consider you an enemy or threat, they can cancel your cards, block your social media and deny you any digital service that is run by a US based company.

Thanks for reading.