Current public pronouncements on the apparently untrammelled use of power - from absolutely any quarter with skin in the game (any game) - are to be taken with a high degree of circumspection. Newspaper editorials? Academics of repute? Elected politicians? NGOs? Businesses? To a greater or lesser extent they all live in fear of reprisals from a man, his entourage and his outriders who are drunk on power and their ability frighten everybody. Yes, we are all afraid. So, the signal degree of caution being displayed by all the above - who privately would all wish to articulate something much stronger - does not mean the western body politic is in some way calmly acquiescent. The relative acquiescence is that of hostages in a bank raid whose only immediate instinct is to lie quietly on the floor with their heads down, and not move too much.
So what's to be said, on a humble US-hosted blogging site? OK, at the very top there is very great power, formal and increasingly informal. We all knew that. Almost all politicians at the top of their own governmental tree, whatever constitutional form that takes, have such power. Effectively unlimited cash or credit as regards short-term measures they might want to take. An administrative regime, enough of which will take their orders. A monopoly on effective violence domestically, should they choose to flex their muscles. Typically, the power to declare an emergency and to suspend due process, acting by fiat. (Just check out the EU 'constitution': almost every right and freedom a naïve EU citizen might imagine to be sacrosanct, is subject to being suspended or withdrawn on grounds of 'national security'.)
So we all know that a rogue government of any stripe and constitution can shoot its own people out of hand etc etc etc if it wants to. To any but the most innocent, this is not news.
So how come we mostly don't lose sleep over it: what's to stop rogue use of ultimate unilateral power happening? Supposedly, a number of things. (i) since modern times, elections - some kind of rough-and-ready filter on who gets to the top, their temperament and general suitability to wield such powers; (ii) the commonsense of most humans capable of getting to the top - by whatever means - and wishing to stay there, that (ab)use of such powers, however tempting, is best deployed extremely sparingly, in the interests of the longer game; (iii) the fabled 'checks and balances' boasted by many constitutions: although if that means a material delay in any such counterbalance taking effect (as in the UK, to take one example, that if a PM takes emergency powers he must apply to Parliament for ratification after a while), then plenty can have happened in the meantime. (And Johnson, of course, figured he could simply prorogue Parliament!)
We recognise (iii) - and its (short-term) limitations. We think we've understood what went wrong with (i) - and history will not be kind to Biden and his imbecile entourage. But (ii)? Well, (i) having failed, (ii) is that bit more likely to fail, also. But drunk-with-power seems the most likely. Just look at their faces. The passengers in any plane with a drunken pilot have reason to be scared witless.
ND
37 comments:
Look at photos of Beirut from the 1960s.
Look at it now.
Multiply this by a hundred around the world.
That's the "rules-based international order". It has wrought suffering, destruction and death. But because it uses magic words like "freedom", "democracy" and "dictator" -- words that bend reality such that lots of people dying doesn't matter, and evil becomes good -- it's all ok.
Raze it, raze it, even to the foundations thereof.
-- EC
'Western Democracy' has pretty much been exposed as a sham. Anyone who believes that their vote counts for anything significant is a fool.
Who precisely, has been running the American regime for the last four years? It sure hasn't been Biden or Kamala.
Anyone in the UK thinks that their vote counts for anything? Who among us, has been voting for mass immigration? Or for the Net Zero retardery?
The Donalds' first term was an earthquake in political terms. The real powers behind the scenes reckoned they could make him a busted flush by waging lawfare against him, and they almost succeeded.
If it wasn't for the unsuccessful assasination attempts, a second Trump term would have been likely a rerun of the first, with an entenched bureaucrarcy fighting him to a standstill. This time around he's realised it's a them or him situation and has planned accordingly.
" The relative acquiescence is that of hostages in a bank raid whose only immediate instinct is to lie quietly on the floor with their heads down, and not move too much."
Thats not a fitting analogy. Europe's position is of the man who was the favoured son, the prodigal, upon whom was bestowed a trust fund, that would backstop his existence. And over the years he abused this privilege, to live a dissolute and spendthrift life, safe in the knowledge 'The Trust Fund's got this!'
And now the Trustees have changed. No longer the soft touch elderly parents and relatives, able to be manipulated into coughing up when the latest wodge of bills have dropped on the mat, now its hard nosed executors and solicitors calling the shots. All demanding savings, and cuts to profligacy and changes in behaviour.
Thats Europe's position, not one of the innocent victim of random bad luck, more that they have been rolling the dice for the last 30 years, pushing their luck further and further, and now the odds have turned, and the winning bets have turned to massive losses. .
Europe had a wakeup call 8 years ago when Trump won his first term, and started rattling the cage. But when covid and electoral shenanigans did for him in 2020 they all pretended everything was going to go back to 'normal', them preening themselves on the world stage, while the US picked up the tab. Which was never going to be the case. If it wasn't Trump it eventually would be another US president pulling the rug from under the Europeans.
Europe has no-one to blame but themselves for their position. Yes Trump has done it in a pretty brutal way, but they've had it coming for years, and frankly they need brutal to shake them out of their ways. The softly softly approach has been tried by other US administrations, and look where it got them, nowhere. So brutal it is, and rightly so.
Sobers - while its true that Europe (and the UK) haven't spent much on defence post-USSR, they still wouldn't have needed to if the State Department hadn't spent so much time and money trying to separate Ukraine and Russia - something which involved encouraging people who in any other context would be called neo-Nazis.
Current CIA chief Bill Burns, a fluent Russian-speaker, laid it all out in 2008:
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html
Without the 2014 CIA coup/Glorious and spontaneous Maidan Revolution none of this would have happened. If Europe had any sense (it doesn't) they would apologise for 2014, accept that Russia has legitimate interests in not having NATO missiles on her borders, and allow rump Ukraine into the EU just as soon as they've stopped corruption (i.e. around 2056).
They'd also do well to restart NS2, but there are too many people keeping alive ethnic grievances - in that sense the Baltic States and the State Department are sisters under the skin.
Sobers, essentially I agree with what you write. There's one additional factor, though: for a long time, it quite suited America to have Europe tied to its apron strings - which ultimately wasn't necessarily wise of them. But, as you say, it's been clear enough for years that it had become unsustainable.
My analogy wasn't meant to do duty for the entire context (for the European parts of which, yours is perfect) - just a throwaway line to capture a very limited point: the stunned, bewildered, paralysed, fearful aspect of people's reaction. That goes a lot further than Eu reactions: just read the way almost everyone in the US public space is tiptoeing around right now.
Random mayhem with a chainsaw is a business tactic that may or may not have its merits in a private company, the future of which matters not one jot. Unintended consequences - who cares. But on a great nation's organs of government?
The US actively pressed for no pan-European defence, they didn't want it to muddy the waters with NATO, and they didn't want another large scale military force whose aims might not fit exactly with America's.
It doesn't detract from European nations paying lip service to defence spending, but it meant US soft power maintained influence throughout Europe without worrying another another hard power that could have parity with themselves.
If the US thought it was expensive giving Europe a defensive brolly, then they need only wait until the bills to handle it as a competitor start coming in. Assuming that actually happens of course.
@ND - "Random mayhem with a chainsaw is a business tactic that may or may not have its merits in a private company, the future of which matters not one jot. Unintended consequences - who cares. But on a great nation's organs of government?"
I've confidence Musk will get reined in, Republicans have been discovering their voters are getting grouchy about it, and it's not really been helped with Musk having a tendency to show his ignorance on a subject and then proceeding to call anyone with the temerity to correct him a retard.
He's acting like he did with PayPal, and that got him moved away from where he could do harm. For all his positives, his wealth has insulated him from the kind of things that help move us from adolescence to adult. Take away his money, and personality-wise, he's the annoying guy who always leaves the pub with a flat nose and their teeth in a hanky.
Nothing wrong with the underlying concept of DOGE, but the implementation is that of a child's.
Trump has demonstrated that his primary (perhaps only) concern is to secure American national interests, and he is willing to use all the means at his disposal to do that.
He sought to avoid any new wars during his first term in office, and is now trying to end wars that might cause problems or long-term commitments for the United States. He clearly doesn’t want America to be involved in any conflict that doesn’t directly affect its interests.
That means pressuring America’s allies to take care of their own problems rather than relying on America. The Soviet Union was a global threat that the United States had to confront, but today’s Russia is only a regional threat. Therefore, Trump expects European nations to take the lead in containing it. No doubt he will put pressure on Japan and South Korea to do the same with China, and his Gaza proposal was probably intended to force the Arab states to take responsibility for security in their region.
This implies a rejection of the Cold War concept of “the West”, in which America and Western Europe are expected to always stand together. From now on, the alliance will be more conditional, and the United States will treat European nations as rivals when their interests don’t coincide with its own.
It also implies a rejection of any aspects of the global order that don’t serve American interests. But with Russia, China and others already trying to carve out new world orders of their own, it was always going to be a period of instability. That could be a threat to the United States, or an opportunity for it to impose new global norms that better suit its own interests.
The confrontation with Zelensky was almost certainly intended to pressure him into making peace on terms that suit America, by showing that he couldn’t take American support for granted. The US would also need to put pressure on the Russians, although this has to be done in private because Putin cannot go to Washington and Trump cannot go to Moscow without the risk of being seen as the weaker party.
But Trump will drive a hard bargain with Ukraine to show the world that America will only support other nations when it is beneficial to America to do so.
So, it’s back to the amoral pursuit of national interests without any pretences, i.e., the historical norm.
The idea that politicians and career bureaucrats were keeping the world at peace is total bullshit.
They can't run a piss up in a brewery within their own country (see Ursula von der Leyen or Jean-Claude Junker for example) never mind play 4D chess across the world.
That's what's annoyed them - instead of cosy meetings where they all partake in group think, Trump has taken the rules and pissed all over them. Now they have to play catch-up and that requires brainpower which they are severely lacking.
"a throwaway line to capture a very limited point: the stunned, bewildered, paralysed, fearful aspect of people's reaction."
That sort of reaction is exactly whats needed. One that makes you examine the very fundamentals of your inner being. A reaction that needs to be driven by a very real visceral fear - we cannot defend ourselves and there's no 7th Cavalry (or 2nd Armoured division) coming this time. Maybe that fear will drive Europe to do the things necessary - end the Net Zero nonsense, reindustrialise, stop imagining large proportions of their working age population can be paid to do nothing, stop destroying their culture, history and heritage on the altar of DEI, and stop importing millions of people who hate the very existence of the West (and get rid of some of those already here).
But I'm not holding my breath.
"Random mayhem with a chainsaw is a business tactic that may or may not have its merits in a private company, the future of which matters not one jot. Unintended consequences - who cares. But on a great nation's organs of government?"
Most of the reasons the West is in the trouble it is are the organs of government. They are no longer organs that sustain us, they are organs that actively work against us. We'd be better off without them. For example, take the NHS (please!). Can you honestly say that the UK would be worse off if a Milei or Musk took a chainsaw to it and razed it to the ground? That whatever arose from the ashes would be worse than what we have?
Spot on. What about our 'independent' nuclear deterrent. How would we keep F 35 in air without software updates, What about the Chinooks without software. Etc Etc
I well remember how the world came together in 1953, united against the Chinese invasion of Tibet, and we formed huge armies to restore it to self-rule ;-)
Trump on Zelensky saying the end of the war is very far away:
This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy, and America will not put up with it for much longer! It is what I was saying, this guy doesn’t want there to be Peace as long as he has America’s backing and, Europe, in the meeting they had with Zelenskyy, stated flatly that they cannot do the job without the U.S. – Probably not a great statement to have been made in terms of a show of strength against Russia. What are they thinking?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPtImg9oYyc
Even in its present state, I think our life expectancy compares with the US which spends twice as much.
But when in France I don't object to paying a bit to see a doctor. There's no doubt some people waste a huge amount of NHS time. Serious druggies for example - both when the fifth overdose this year puts them in a hospital bed, and when they use mental health services.
Truth Social is worth a read for unfiltered Donald:
"We should spend less time worrying about Putin, and more time worrying about migrant rape gangs, drug lords, murderers, and people from mental institutions entering our Country - So that we don’t end up like Europe!"
Maybe he has a point.
But our elites like cheap labour and high rents, and don't live in places where the downside impacts them, unless they're very unlucky.
Why should the American middle- and working-classes continue to pay for the security of countries that lock people up for silently praying near (not even outside) abortion clinics? That send the police round to people who are rude about politicians on twitter? That send the security services to investigate a party that has 21% support, but wants less immigration so it must be Nazi?
Why should they be paying to defend Ukraine, when both partners have to work just to make ends meet?
There's no good answer to these questions, which is why, until recently, they were never asked by the Right-Thinking People.
-- EC
A good post Mr Drew. We now have the 'give it up Z, it's all over' faction. Led by the Yanks who have their own budget problems at home. To do much against Russia would involve a big push with more long range weapons and planes to really put pressure on Russia. But we - and the US - pussy footed around wasting blood and treasure for unstated reasons.
The financial cost of supplying Ukraine is (was) fairly small. The US manufacturing and admin cost is recycled back home, the only value given to Ukraine is ironmongery and opportunity cost . In order to push back Russia now would involve more materiel and probably boots on the ground or planes in the air. Think body bags back home. As it is European providers have nothing like the capability to produce missiles, planes and shells and bullets in the quantities needed.
No good crying over spilled milk. Tough luck Z old boy. BTW Wolfgang Munchau has a good piece on the realpolitik on UnHerd. As for Starmer, a busy fool playing at politics. All hat and no cattle - not that Sunak or Johnson would be any better..
Stepping back from the fray we might look at why America is in deep financial trouble along with most of the West. Message - you can't fight a war from a services economy. Not just because the hands are lily white, the very structure can't support it.
That Munchau piece is good. As he says, if Starlink and US satellite access is cut, Ukraine are up the Swanee sans paddle.
Starmer is strutting his brief hour upon the stage.
Academics of note?
Same from Kabul in the 1970s - mini-skirted girls browsing record stores.
Then Saudi unleashed Wahabbi in the world, in return for supplying the USA with oil.
And the rest is history.
If you don't think that Europe is being colonised by Islam, I suggest you read this by Ayaan Ali Hirsi (three parts) - and she should know
https://courage.media/2025/01/11/hate-and-the-islamic-onslaught-on-british-values/
USA? It was Obama's third term, wasn't it?
What are you smoking? I’ll have some, it’s obviously quality stuff.
https://cepr.org/sites/default/files/styles/flexible_wysiwyg/public/2024-01/baldwin17janfig1_0.png?itok=TJ4eMpqv
The US will have no problem manufacturing anything it desires. And as the chart helpfully breaks down, not all manufacturing is created equally. Christmas tree fairy lights are manufactured, but they sure ain’t solid state phased array radar emitters. Value add is what counts.
The global arms business is utterly — completely — dominated by US companies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry#List_of_major_weapon_manufacturers No-one else even comes close.
One fairly predictable nugget can be gleaned from your comment, though. Anonymous replies are always done by incredibly thick people.
If Europe "goes it alone" in active opposition to the US
a) it'll almost certainly lose
b) no one will want to fight save maybe some Poles. I'd tell my kids to go to jail first. That girl on the BBC sign-in page can go.
c) what of Five-Eyes etc? Will the US have to defend Menwith Hill
and Croughton? I just can't see a major rift with the US. If they gave us a tenth of Russia's sanctions it's goodbye City of London.
Comment at Guidos
"Starmer also needs to explain the maths on this: Why do 440+ million EU citizens need the help of a 'US Security Backstop' to defend themselves from 144 million Russians?"
I'm not a great fan of Trump. But given the choice of Trump or the vixen - La Clinton - I'd have voted for Trump.
Given the choice of Trump or the vegetable - Biden - I'd have voted for Trump.
Given the choice of Trump or the vacancy - Kamala - I'd have voted for Trump.
It's democracy - you vote for the lesser evil. And with Trump there is even the chance he'll do some good. Certainly he is hated by all the right people.
Mind you I still fear that the "right people" will get him shot. Their patsy didn't miss by much last time.
French spyplane doing the Black Sea this morning, Waddington Rivet Joint on Kaliningrad run.
And a USAF Global Hawk doing Latvia and Finland.
"May you live in interesting times"
To give the rules-based international order its due, it has managed to create a situation where there are more slaves than at any previous time in history (see: foreign domestic workers in Arab countries), and has got the age of marriage down to single digits in Iraq, something the evil Saddam never allowed. The borderless world has also been a bonanza for human traffickers. So there is that.
And yes, Europe will not exist as a cultural entity in two generations if current trends continue. It will be Islamic. Again, thanks to the rules-based American-led international order, which nearly destroyed two millenia of Christianity in the middle east and now looks set to do the same in Europe.
-- EC
Which is it better to be - a manufacturing based country or a services based one. Obviously the US is a big enough market for both. But consider a manufacturing country 50 years back. The government spends little on mass education - sends the kids out to the coal mines and factories at 15. Cream off the cleverer chavs and send the rich to the private sector. Good scheme. Scum and cream always rise.
Services is a bit different. Spend about the same or less on education in real terms, make the chav kids pay for anything better and tax the private sector. Close the coal mines and factories and substitute rat hole estates, zero hours contracts and low level Deliveroo type jobs at the bottom end. At the upper end we still have the elites coming from the private sector and the new service based lawyers and accountants and consultants amazingly they pay not much tax. Inevitably crime rises - more cost and revenue goes down. Result misery.
Now we bang the drum for more military expenditure - and some think military kit is 'high tech' and will improve industry. I did spend a bit of time there on this side of the pond and mostly it is pretty average technically - not truly leading edge at all. So not much spillover into advanced consumer products. Millimeter radar is ok for missiles and peepshows. If you want useful advanced electronics and software go look at Apple and Samsung or knock up a small satellite from bits bought on eBay.
Guardian comments are a laugh - "Trump is a Russian asset" and everyone agrees.
The US made a YUGE error in turning Russia towards China. I think it's too late to cuddle up now.
Pity. Americans are much more generous people than Chinese. In every sense.
Everyone is crowing on how the US tariffs will bounce back on their own people. Economics says that this is the case. However, I think that if DOGE can reduce federal spending enough, the lower taxes can offset any increased costs from the tariffs. At the same time, it'll stimulate domestic production and lead to more jobs and money thus creating a virtuous circle.
Meanwhile we'll continue to sell houses to each other in the UK circle jerk economy.
@Matt - problem with DOGE is that their savings keep getting shown up (https://gizmodo.com/doge-just-keeps-deleting-its-savings-2000571008)
There are also a lot of potential issues around security too. I suspect when this all settles down, many years from now, DOGE is going to be regarded rather negatively.
Zuckerberg's well worn mantra of "move fast and break things" may work for Tech companies (although having watched one company apply it and proceed to bleed millions, not always for them), but for Governments?
This "five wins you did last week" stuff is pretty crap. Our company did that and had to rehire some unglamorous but important people afterwards. Lovely jubbly, redundancy payments then get rehired!
Perfect is the enemy of the good. Any savings are better than no savings. The idea that there isn't massive fraud because of auditing is hilarious. See the EU or US DoD for why this is the case.
"So how come we mostly don't lose sleep over it: what's to stop rogue use of ultimate unilateral power happening? "
Easy. We've got too bloody comfortable, and too many happy to rely on the state for as much as possible. Trouble, is when one such as Keir "L'État, c'est moi" Starmer turns up and the state then turns on all of us, there's a problem.
If you want the full measure of both HOW vile this man is, and HOW dangerous he is, I suggest you read this detailed look at Two Tier. He's a nightmare.
https://georgelawrence.substack.com/p/keir-starmer-the-image-of-a-charmless
Maidan. One can only recall the wondrous Baroness Ashton of Upholland (High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and First Vice President of the European Commission, and Ruritania" heading for Kiev to stir things up,
Oddly, no-one ever ever voted for Ashton, yet there she was, storing up trouble for all of us down the road.
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