AMERICA DECLINES: EUROPE+ ASCENDANT

We often fail to understand when we are in the middle of a geopolitical revolution. The scale of such occurrences are global, their effects usually gradual and spread over several years if not decades. You live through it but most people don’t see it happening.

You are not most people. You read these articles exactly because you see and feel it happening around you and I do my best to clarify and explain.

This week in Evian les Bains – the place the bottled water comes from, literally on the edge of Lake Geneva on the southern French side, the G7 nations meet. Trump will be there. It’s a fantastic setting and I’ve stayed in the hotel several times, it’s exquisite.

When Trump arrives he will come face to face with what amounts to a new grouping of lesser Great Powers representing both themselves and the European Union. Together they are a formidable force and they are far more united than many realize.

They are tired of pandering to Trump’s bullish behavior and bullying nature. They will make very little effort to contain his moods or care what it is he chooses to say to ire or vex them. He is going to hear the word ‘No’ and a refusal to be pushed around.

Trump is going to face a drubbing in November and he knows it, even his conspiracy theory friends and election denying sychophants, gerrymandering toadies and election riggers worry it may be so bad no deceit can stop it. If it does then expect a new stage of American decline to be triggered along with civil unrest. I don’t think anyone is in the mood to see Trump steal an election.

Either way, win or loose, America is in notable decline, economically, politically, militarily and diplomatically. Its relevance is being diminished by its own actions, and its actions are seen around the world as damaging both to itself and its friends and allies. Yet it seems under this administration, not to care, because it’s about personal gain, lack of accountability and lack of controlling barriers for those in power. The American people are secondary to the regime. Perpetuating the regime is now its primary aim.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine transformed, slowly at first, the Europeans. From a slow moving deep sleep and complacency, they were rudely thrown into the realization they were desperately unprepared for any war, let alone the one thats developed in Ukraine. None of them are ready for that, because it has changed and is changing, so fast there’s been little time to think what it means, let alone compose a plan that deals where do we go from here?

What has happened as we are now into year 5 of this conflict, is that even Putin has recognized that NATO states have for the most part, along with the Europe+ nations like Canada, Australia, the UK and Japan, started to supply such a weight of artillery and drones along with other equipment, that Ukraine wants for very little except Patriot missiles. He said as much on Russia Day last week. In a speech that said in essence, ‘everyone is out to get us and they started it’. Well he would say that wouldn’t he? Russians however don’t believe a word of it.

Europe+ has grown very tired of Trump. He can threaten more tariffs, he can demand more be spent on defence, and few would disagree with him on that now, but they’re not going to be bullied over it – Keir Starmer will have to make that plain even while he does actually need pressing on the subject. It’s for us to in the UK to push him, not Trump.

America may be the primary military power in NATO – nobody can match its capabilities in so many fields. Yet Europe+ has recognized it must stand alone and move towards a position where it must and can. Russia has an advantage at wars end in understanding drone warfare far better than anyone but Ukraine. The pace of drone development will scale back massively once the war is over. Others will catch up in time. But adjusting to the new reality is expensive and difficult. Europe must manage that – ideally with its new military Great Power ally Ukraine, deep in the fold of the EU and ultimately NATO or its eventual replacement.

Europe+ is starting to appreciate that the world needs it as a unified front and that our common values – which are not Trumps or his followers, must be preserved because we have seen they matter. The mattered to Moldovans, Hungarians and Armenians only this year. They still matter to a majority of Americans but their system is being rigged against them and their nation rapidly dragged down a path it could never truly comprehend until now. That path is not where Europe+ can go.

We in Europe – and yes I include the UK, know that we do not have to follow America down the paths it decides to take if they are contrary to our interests or our view of the region America thinks it can change by force. Nothing speaks of greater wisdom as Europe keeping clear of the war on Iran – a watershed moment where America has made one too many disastrous moves this century. It has barely been at peace once in this past 26 years. Almost all of it under Biden and 22 months under Bush2.

The world has seen Trump make a disgusting mockery of democracy, the presidency, and bumble into international affairs like a mad Red Setter. Some think this is a good thing. Many Trump voters like that ‘you can’t control him’. Well you can. You can stop paying attention and not give him the satisfaction of cow-towing to his whims. You can fight him and his support mechanism every way you can. He won’t learn, thats never going to happen. He will just become ineffective.

When you have pathetic people like the once highly principled Marco Rubio, destroying everything he fought for in the senate, when anti-science is a thing, when disease spreads through newly acquired disinterest in medical reality, when your military is stripped of people willing to say no, when the 250th anniversary of your country is boycotted by almost everyone and you have to hold a political rally instead, a celebration of slop, things are bad. There’s no coming back from this trashy and trashing behavior. The world looks on stunned into reluctant belief at the sate of things.

Europe is the First World. War nearly destroyed it. Occupied by the Russians and effectively occupied by the Americans on each side of the iron curtain, that barrier fell. America was happy with our acquiescence in its superiority just as we were with its warm embrace. it did in reality molly coddle us and we let it. Those days are coming to an end. The Old World has woken up and realized it’s regrown, responsible and capable of being itself. The world has grown small, but what we have matters, however multifaceted our beliefs, concepts and ways of doing things. The ‘united we stand, divided we fall’ mantra is being reinforced and re-learned.

Europe faces deep challenges. Americas are Marianas Trench deep. The fact is that Europe is rising even as China’s grasp is almost everywhere else, it can barely manage to cope as American retrenchment and policy drags it down so quickly. At the same time Russia is also on the way down, with nobody able to fathom out how its going to fall – collapse of its vast land empire or some other convulsion as the wars end grows closer? Dangerous times are upon us. Old reliabilities are fragile, we must be strong. Vigilance, clarity and unity are required. I believe we can do it, though it’s never easy.

America unfortunately, must save itself. I’m not sure it’s entirely ready to do so.

The Analyst

militaryanalyst@bsky.social