Outgoing President Joe Biden used his farewell speech to offer warnings about an American oligarchy taking over the country. He spent about half a century in public office serving the oligarchs and helping them tighten control over the country, but he’s not wrong (aside from his choice of verb tense).
Despite a lot of hope about Trump reorienting American foreign policy to better reflect the country’s strategic interests, there are two questions that are rarely addressed in these pieces:
- Is Trump going to take on this entrenched American oligarchy? All evidence points to a resounding ‘no.’
- If not, the only interests that matter are those of the oligarchy, and what does it want? Everything.
Until proven otherwise, it’s probably best to view America’s “democratic” transitions of power not as a potential change in underlying strategy but as a useful spectacle that allows for a rebrand.
What does this mean for Europe? There’s a strong argument that it would be in the US national interest to back out of Europe. And the best thing that could happen to Europe would be a Trump-led US withdrawal from the continent, which would force the EU to rethink some of its economic and security policies.
What we are likely witnessing instead is the elevation of putative nationalists like Italian Prime Minister Girogia Meloni and the Alternative for Germany (Afd) party who are able to rebrand Europe’s vassalage and neoliberalism as some sort of victory against the grating virtue signalling of the Davos cabal while continuing to assist the US oligarchs in the plundering of Europe. In a worst case scenario we are likely to see even more authoritarianism in order to continue to transfer wealth from Europeans to US oligarchs.
Europe is now awash with ideas of how to “woo” Trump which is really about appeasing American oligarchy: buy more weapons, buy more LNG and oil, get tougher with China, and Meloni has set an example of selling off Italian assets to US capital.
Why Would Trump Walk Away from a Successful Bust Out Operation?
The problem with believing that Project Ukraine and the accompanying subjugation of Europe is simply the product of some liberal-woke-Green-DEI cabal that had power across the West is that it ignores the deep-seated economic interests of American plutocrats seeking to extract wealth from any part of the world they control. That’s what the permanent state, driven by the US’ numerous buzzing plutocrat-funded think tank hives crafting bills and direct foreign policy — essentially acting as a shadow government. In some cases, the oligarchs are increasingly comfortable cutting out the middle man, as Musk shows.
Maybe I’ve missed it, but while Trump may pursue some modicum of peace in the empire’s numerous conflicts, a redistribution of wealth from the top down is not on tap, and at best there will be a shift in tactics on how to extract wealth from the rest of the world. Gains are to be increased for American plutocrats at the expense of allies and “enemies” alike seems closer to the real meaning of “America First.”
When viewed through the more traditional state strategy lens, that permanent state is often accused of suffering from a competency crisis due to its oversight of an endless parade of failures, but if you view the US as more of a gangster state focused on the short-term return for the bosses/oligarchs, well, they might be more competent than they seem. It also means the overarching strategy is unlikely to change while the oligarchs are running the show.
With that in mind, despite Ukraine’s impending defeat on the battlefield, are the US gangsters going to want to lose the gains of splitting Europe from Russia? What about the bonuses of having a terrorist state in Europe funneling arms elsewhere and willing to do dirty work like trying to blow up the TurkStream Pipeline — which if successful would benefit American energy companies. And in any detente with Russia, will American oligarchs have any interest in abandoning small progress in the Caucasus and Caspian where they are trying to control the flow of resources toward Europe from that direction as well?
In Europe there is no evidence that the old guard or the new faux nationalist political parties arriving on the scene are prepared to take on the US empire. Indeed, even the Alternative for Germany party, which has long been brutally honest about Berlin being a “slave” to the US, just last week adopted a motion to build closer relations between the two countries. That followed the party receiving some love from Elon Musk and incoming Vice President JD Vance. So is the party now willing to accept its servitude because the new slave master is more friendly or does it expect Trump to set Germany free? It’s likely to be disappointed in either case.
Even if the US extricates itself from Ukraine while ensuring that a new iron curtain is drawn between Europe and Russia, that might mean good business for US oligarchs, but also that Europe’s problems will only multiply. Here’s the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) highlighting some of what Europe could be expected to do to remain in Trump’s/the American oligarchs’ good graces:
Europe can propose creative policies – in Trumpian terms, ‘smart deals’ – to cement these shared interests and secure both itself and Ukraine. One is to coordinate the seizure of US$300 billion of Russian central-bank assets frozen in G7 financial systems, and use part of this to buy American weapons for Ukraine. This would boost both Europe’s security and America’s economy…
Yes, we can’t forget: will the Trump administration pass on the NATO racket of getting member states to pony up Trump’s target of 5 percent of GDP to buy (mostly) American-made weapons?
It’s much more than most European nations can afford financially or politically and will likely require more authoritarian measures to funnel that money out of the country. Are the European members of Trump International going to say no to military expenditures that will cripple what remains of social programs in their countries? Or is it more likely they will privatize in the name of cost-cutting and organize fire sales for American takeovers? NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte is already asking European citizens to continue making “sacrifices” in order to buy more weapons. European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, and others are supportive. And Lithuania just became the first EU and NATO country to pledge to meet the 5 percent target starting in 2026.
No matter that all the Western wonder weapons failed in Ukraine, the purchases must go on in the name of defense against the Russian horde.
Where else can Europeans sacrifice more? They must take a tougher line against China, as IISS again points out:
If Russia is America’s problem as well as Europe’s, it follows that China is Europe’s problem as well as America’s. The July 2024 NATO Summit labelled China the ‘decisive enabler’ of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Europe must therefore integrate economics and security into its China policy more effectively. This is overdue for Europe’s own security, but will also assuage US concerns about Europe’s commercial interests in Beijing.
Incoming Secretary of State Marco Rubio is a big time believer in such demands:
We need to find out if @EmmanuelMacron speaks for Europe
After his 6 hour meeting in China he told reporters that Europe should create distance with the U.S. & should not get involved in supporting America over China when it comes to Taiwanhttps://t.co/xoFmUGkumH pic.twitter.com/Ps718bXSyn
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) April 9, 2023
And there’s the issue of enriching American energy companies. Again from IISS:
America, for its part, could also replace Europe’s imports of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG), now at a record high, with American LNG supplies. With Trump expected to lift the Biden administration’s ban on new LNG export terminals, this would create synergies of security and prosperity. Going further, Europe could also encourage the US to sell it more oil.
Trump has been clear about this:
European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, who at least is self aware enough to know who she really serves, was quick to come out with suggestions to do just that following Trump’s election. And all her “tools” will continue to be useful if used in service of a more Trump-aligned EU. She has the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive to make business with certain countries more unattractive while simultaneously making US — especially energy — exports more appealing. Ursula also has the Foreign Subsidies Regulation, International Procurement Instrument, an Anti-Coercion Instrument, and the EU Critical Raw Materials Act at her disposal to use in service of the US empire against whomever it requires. As the IISS and Rubio highlight above, following the successful severance of Europe from Russia the next target is Beijing, and Ursula has increasingly used her tools to, as she calls it, “derisk” from China.
Civilizational Europe
The EU’s genocide-supporting, anti-free-speech, war-with-russia “center” has been embracing the right kind of “right” for some time. As we highlighted last week, Elon Musk and AfD co-chair Alice Weidel’s X history lesson equating communism with Nazism was right in line with the “rules-based international order’s” longtime efforts to rehabilitate fascists, blame the Russians for WWII, and rewrite history in Ukraine, other former Soviet states, and increasingly in the West itself.
Weidel and Musk also propagated the false claim that Hitler was in fact a communist in a bid to portray privatizations — and presumably sell-offs of European assets to Musk’s billionaire friends — as anti-Hitlerian. Weidel, of all people should know, should know Hitler wasn’t a communist. If he was, one would think that the seed money the AfD received from a reclusive billionaire descendant of prominent Nazis wouldn’t have been availabel as it would have long ago been redistributed by Adolf instead.
This all of course fits in perfectly with a neoliberal EU that has effectively accommodated the right by eliminating effective working-class opposition. That process could now be openly expedited in order to appease the increasing demands of American and European oligarchs who have seen their dream of plundering Russia and Ukraine’s natural resources thwarted.
Perhaps Europe will now lose the pretense of sovereignty and along with it the green veneer and superior-values schtick and embrace what it champions in the former USSR states and has ushered to the altar in the bloc. Researcher Jonas Elvander,, the editor of foreign affairs at the Swedish socialist magazine Flamman and a PhD researcher in history at the European University Institute in Florence, makes the case this is indeed what is happening:
So far, the far right have mostly been sceptical of the EU, but there are no guarantees it will remain so….Since many far-right parties have emerged out of the neoliberal movement, while others are increasingly ready to adopt neoliberal policies in a bargain for power with the centre right, there is little that stops the EU from becoming a vehicle for far-right policies. In many ways we are already seeing the beginnings of such a development today…
The road had already been paved by the Commission’s adoption of a hardline approach to migration and the new Commission portfolio tasked with guarding the “European way of life.”
So it’s more of the same, but with new branding:
“Santa Giorgia” street art in Milan. Source: https://twitter.com/PalomboArtist
One obvious benefit of a marketing rethink from Davos liberalism to a faux nationalism is that it’s challenging to sell and inspire many people to fight for neoliberalism. In the US, the bourgeoisie might fly a Ukrainian flag above their “in this house we believe” yard signs, but they’re not prepared to fight. Nationalism, religion, and defense of a common European heritage are more useful tools in what’s being pitched as a civilizational battle to come.
And that’s a scary place for Europe — or more accurately working class Europeans — to be.
A recent Washington Post op-ed asked whether Europe will soon be dominated by US corporations in the same way that “the United Fruit Co. once subjugated Honduras.”
That assumes it’s not already at the complete mercy of American billionaires — a presumption that Musk’s recent toying with the continent’s politics likely disproves. And while today Musk is purportedly after a fair shake for the AfD, justice in the UK, and helping friends in Italy, who’s to say what his underlying economic interests are or what’s being cooked up by his friends in the bowels of the Blob? Maybe tomorrow Musk and Trump decide they’d like to support Europe against Russia the same way the US has been supporting Ukraine. Or maybe they wait a few years until after they’ve bled the cash cow dry.
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Europe will likely become, in short order, a wholly owned subsidiary of “Trusk Inc” and its affiliates, at a fraction of face value no less. Say what you will about the BRICS, sure they face tremendous obstacles to enacting their vision, but they’re at least putting their gumption and boldness to the test by pursuing multipolarity, not obsequiously acquiescing to servitude demanded by a band of smiling assassins.
Thank you, Thuto and Conor.
As Europe becomes a colony and the likes of Thierry Breton join the imperial civil service, in his case, Bank of America, it’s interesting to observe the likes of the Rothschild and Peugeot families and the families behind Lucien Barriere and Norbert Dentressangle join my Franco-Mauritian oligarch cousins, a long and sad story going back to WW1, and begin to invest in Africa and Asia, using Mauritius as the bridge.
What do these European oligarchs know that the other punters don’t? Last year, just shy of a thousand French citizens / investors got Mauritian nationality or residency. Americans, Britons Germans and Italians are coming, too. The times are a changing.
If Paul Greenwood reads this comment, he may chuckle at my comment that Engel & Volkers has opened three villages down the road from me in Mauritius.
Thanks Colonel.
Based on the buyers snapping up real estate on “Listing Mauritius”, a new tv show here in SA, rich Europeans are planting flags on the island. Maybe they’re recognizing that Europe is a half sunken ship at this point and are jumping ship (with their capital in tow). Pity that ordinary Europeans lack the means to do the same and have to watch helplessly (at this point, I doubt Europe’s inexorable slide towards vassalage can be reversed through the ballot box) as their political elites roll out the red carpet for American oligarchs to rapaciously plunder the old continent.
Thank you, Thuto
Over 15k South Africans live in Mauritius.
For Mauritius, universal health care seems to be no problem.
Thank you, Mikel.
New hospitals, including teaching ones, have opened in recent years, so that no one should be more than 15 minutes by transport from a medical facility.
Plus investment in education from primary to tertiary.
The island is not without problems, but there seems to be a genuine attempt to improve the lives of residents, not just citizens. As the late former PM, Anerood Jugnauth said in Creole, “Mo nemmene developpement devant ou la porte (I have brought development to your door).”
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1BNOk
January 15, 2018
Life Expectancy at Birth for China, India and Mauritius, 2000-2022
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1D2yV
January 30, 2018
Infant Mortality Rate for China, India and Mauritius, 2000-2022
Sorry, the Life Expectancy graph with Mauritius is incorrect. Here is the correct graph:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1D2Ti
January 15, 2018
Life Expectancy at Birth for China, India and Mauritius, 2000-2022
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1Acd7
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for China, India and Mauritius, 1977-2023
(Indexed to 1977)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1Aexj
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for China, India and Mauritius, 1992-2023
(Indexed to 1992)
“Say what you will about the BRICS, sure they face tremendous obstacles to enacting their vision, but they’re at least putting their gumption and boldness to the test by pursuing multipolarity…”
Importantly so, but there is no reason any country in Europe or several countries cannot follow or ever ask to join the BRICS. President Xi appeared to be asking Macron just this in Beijing. I am sure Macron would bring along Spain at the least. France is being cut off from Africa, but BRICS membership would reverse that.
“And that’s a scary place for Europe — or more accurately working class Europeans — to be.”
Marco Rubio:
U.S. is guaranteeing their security, and a fox is guarding their hen house.
Upon further consideration, I wonder if Rubio is suggesting that if Europe were to “step up” then the U.S. could spend less on defense and more on its own social safety net.
Upon even further consideration, I must now beg pardon for my brief episode of temporary insanity.
The question about the US version of a “safety net” is whether or not it is about safety and whether it is a net. Aside from the fact that Americans aren’t even in the same universe as European social democracies, the US version of that net is, to be blunt, too corrupt to function well. The idea is to throw a bunch of money and the first eaters who are the bureaucrats, the hustlers (in the Washington consultancies) who are always ready to eat money almost without limit and then local contractors eat second and, eventually, the poor get something with strings attached.
I think the Trumpists do want to reward the oligarchs as much as the Bidenists and their running dogs but they also, I think, are serious about spending less not to harm the poor (they are harmed either way) but to eliminate government as a determiner of people’s outcomes in life. They want to build towards a libertarian structure and give people more agency in making a living–for example, many regulations, if you follow the Congressional legislative game, are about creating winners in the marketplace by crippling small businesses (farms are a prime example) through regulations and bureaucracy that only big corporate actors can navigate with their armies of lawyers and accountants.
As I’ve said many times, there is no possibility in the USA to create a real social democracy (the Democrats have totally abandoned that project) so the choice is either a totalitarian state (Democrats) or a neo-feudal set of arrangements bringing more power to localities and corporate oligarchs (who are the new nobility) to create more decentralization which Republicans see as more efficient. As for me, I prefer feudalism to some version of 1984 that the so-called left (which is not even remotely leftist) prefers if you follow their arguments to their logical conclusion.
We all live in Texas now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA9LNlsGah8
My daughter worked for several years for a London based mental health services provider (UK cutely refers such organizations as “charities”, but are entirely dependent on council funding). It was a race to the bottom with low-bid tenders providing housing and medical service. There were plenty of well paid administrators and government overseers. It actually seems worse than what the NY State Office of Mental Health and associated nonprofits do here.
WRT mental health, the safety net has many holes cut by enthusiastic neoliberal servants here and there. Social services are in the same neoliberal universe.
The US is guaranteeing nothing of security in Europe; nothing. France is a nuclear power and needs no US security guarantee except possibly from a US gone mad. De Gaulle understood. France is its own and its neighboring partner’s security guarantee.
Europe needs security from the US. USSR/Russia was never a threat to Europe. The non-Russian possessions Russia had, where from warring with the other European empires, the Sweedes, the Austrians, the Ottomans, Germans
For decades now Europe has been one of the most stable places in the world and movement was relatively free. Those times as are coming to an end as the people there find themselves being impoverished by their leaders and perhaps the worse examples are German and the UK. It may mean that before long that protests get more violent and there will be more assassinations such as nearly happened with Slovakia’s Fico. Baerback in Germany said not that long ago that they do not listen to their voters which is not a good brew and the way that an honest election result was squashed in Romania because the EU did not like the result may become more frequent in the future. Add in the banning of candidates and maybe even whole political parties and that is just building up a pressure cooker situation. Trump in his typical ham-fisted way will be accelerating this process but without understanding that he is doing so. As he does not like Europe at all he probably does not even care so long as he can strip mine them. A Trump Europe would thus be a very unstable place to be.
For decades now Europe has been one of the most stable places in the world, if you don’t count Eastern Europe as Europe. If you do (because geography), then there have been all kinds of instabilites in Europe, since the Cold War ended decades ago. Now those instabilites are moving towards western parts, because one can not just put an arbitrary border in the middle of the continent, and expect the problems to stay east of it (especially if that border is constantly moving eastwards). Maybe the Borrells of EU should have kept their garden behind the Iron Curtain, and left jungle alone.
the E.U. was never meant to be for a civil society. it was enginered during WWII, to be a fascist run construct so that capital would be paramount over sovereignty.
someday russia will have had enough, china might, but that tremendous trade surplus that the likes of bill clinton and tony blair made for china, might mean they want it both ways. which will backfire on them.
but its russia that has the muscle, its always been that way. they want to be left alone.
so imagine the looks on the faces of the neo-liberal elite that rule the E.U., when russia sends a signal they have had enough with weapons like this,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUO-Jcw9T_Y
and the elite send a f-35 to counter it, if they can find one that flies that is.
i am sure the elite feverishly beleive in what they are doing.
i am thinking hungary, slovakia, possibly serbia and austria are hoping to see a border that hungary and slovakia can share with russia, which might allow them to get out of all E.U. and nato entanglements.
Sadly the writing has been on the wall for Europe for a while now, as a younger man I would have been something of a europhile trusting their politicians over their corrupt equivalents here in Ireland, be it Haughey, Ahern, the parochial narrow mindedness of Catholic Ireland drove me up the wall and I looked with fondness and longing at Europe. Europe was a byword for investment and development, every new road seemed to have a sign saying paid for by the EU on it and the Irish economic turn around of the 90’s was inspired by European investment because frankly Irish governments because of class interests (wanting to maintain parity between the Irish punt and British pound).
However, the last 15 years or so have been a real eye opener, the treatment of Greece circa 2015 (however poorly they played their hand), the post Iraq war shift from Europe being a third force standing up to or at least not laying down in the face US foreign policy, two referendums in Ireland in which we voted no to Nice and Lisbon treaties only to be told “try again wrong answer”, it was particularly striking how when COVID broke out in Italy, there was no European solidarity, instead it was the Chinese who came to the rescue with support and supplies (however imperfectly), a kind of suicidal selfishness.
The weakness, the corruption, vindictiveness, disgusting proclamations, contempt for democracy and democratic processes (with was the recent shenanigans in Romania and Georgia) vassal state mentality, the total lack of any sobriety regarding Russia-phobia, the a sense of any wider grander vision of a better life, the inevitable shoe horning of us all into a euro digital currency. The list goes on.
The rot is in and shows no sign of abating.
These days dismal as the Irish political class remain I’d take them over their gutless, boot-licking, European equivalent any day of the week.
That’s the point of the current “new right” movements–to bring power closer to the subject populations. In my view, the idea of liberal democracy that existed after WWII in Europe is dying and will die. Europe can either opt for a kind of totalitarian future that punishes wrong-think as is the case the UK and Germany and probably the rest of the EU, or it can move towards a nationalist or localist future that may or may not be more libertarian (less regulation) and lead to what is emerging in the US as a kind of neo-feudalism. It’s clear that we (the West) are going in a very different direction than what was envisaged after WWII. It’s a dog-eat-dog world now as it’s always been–the whole structure of international law is gone, the whole structure of humanitarianism on the international scale is gone–now it has to live on the private and local level where it can be authentic rather than the current hyper-BS international structures (both cultural and legal) where corruption is systemic and cannot be reformed.
Thanks for your response Chris.
I wonder about the New Right*, certainly in Ireland (I wouldn’t presume to speculate about anywhere else) the dynamics are off, I think Plutoniumkun has speculated on British secret service interference or plants (see the EXCELLENT article he authored here about the Dublin riots circa November 2023), it did strike me as suspicious how some of the figures of the so-called New-Right in Ireland emerged, who was funding them, early on (circa late 90’s-early 10’s) it seemed mostly American Catholic money pushing social conservativism (via the Iona Institute), such as the man behind Domino Pizza) the recent wave emerged at suspicious timing, particularly in and around when Brexit negotiations were at their most tense with the border being the hot button issue.
The New right in Europe is tied into aristocracy sentiment about an idealise past that doesn’t exist here to the same degree, instead whatever counts as the new right here, seems to be mostly -quite unhinged- people who got sucked into Qanon conspiracy guff during the covid lockdowns (and are their own worst advertisement), it has little or no actual political thinking or vision behind it other than an empty-headed anti-immigrant sentiment, that speaks of “military aged men” and all that rubbish, they performed exceptionally poorly in the recent election here and in general ours was one of the few elections where the established parties weren’t kicked out of office or suffered any kind of severe reprimand, which is especially odd given that they were colloquially referred at times as the “chaos government”.
In other words I think a lot of the new right stuff here is a kind of outside influenced “new right” thinking, that’s less to do with anything on the ground here, other than tapping into a broader sentiment of dissatisfaction people seem weirdly unwilling to vote out when they could do so easily.
Geopolitically Ireland is somewhat stuck given that about a 1/4 of the island is under British rule, if we go to much against the prevailing anglo/centric political tide we run a genuine risk of all kinds of interference going all the way up to invasion, which may seem fanciful now, but given the UK’s state of decline, if Ireland decided to tack a more radical pro-BRICs line (which would be my “third option” preference) I wouldn’t exactly put it passed them (in due course), which is why I see the matter of a united Ireland being something of a existential priority, as the nature of Ireland’s rocky coastline makes it a very difficult country to invade, which is why the apprentice boys confiscating the city keys of Derry when the city elders wanted to surrender to James II’s army was such a consequential matter.
*for example if we took the original left/right divide of the National Assembly the new right would surely be on the left? as in, they’d be in opposition to the status quo.
I tend to agree with most points and would add the following observations:
1. Eastern European countries and their desire to exact a pound of flesh from Russia were and are being used as America’s Trojan horse in the EU, planting revanchist seeds and changing the balance within;
2. Corruption in the EU, particularly within Eastern Europe, was an instrument to ensure compliance and control, when necessary. Particularly relevant in regards to Bulgaria and Romania, but not only. The likes of Ursula VdL and the European People’s Party were and are enablers, but also willing participants in corruption;
3. EU elites, with some exceptions, have ran the scenarios and have decided that it’s better and more profitable for them to be part of the action rather than to resist. Accordingly, whar we are seeing is a competition between them and hungry up-and-coming “alternatives” in the far-right for being entrusted as America’s comparators.
In short, expansion of the EU, while necessary, was mishandled spectacularly by the WU establishment, no doubt due to combination of stupidity and short-term gains (greed). That allowed the US to use Eastern European members to nudge the EU to where it wanted it, and that process was rather fast in geopolitical time. I would use the “New Europe vs. Old Europe” in the run-up to the Iraq War as a time stamp for when that process began in earnest. So 20 years, which is indeed fast. In hindsight, the EU should have taken that remark seriously as a warning, rather than as knee-jerk reaction.
Good observation. Yes, I agree–but the mood among the EU elite is that they want to be part of a bloc to ensure “stability” (authoritarian/totalitarian rule) by making sure that TINA triumphs, as it has, in Europe. The Eurocrats want to be part of a new Roman Empire, as Europeans have fantasized since the fall of the Western Empire–many attempts were made to revive it starting with the Goths and going right up to the Holy Roman Empire. Now, it is Washington that is the new Rome, as they see it. And Washington wants, desperately, to be the new Rome just witness the architecture of Washington.
Well that helps explain the following:
https://x.com/andst7/status/1875612496410898636
Wonderful!
Executive Order on Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture
Issued on: December 21, 2020
In the District of Columbia, classical architecture shall be the preferred and default architecture for Federal public buildings…
https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-promoting-beautiful-federal-civic-architecture/
Looks like late-stage Rome to me, with Vulgarians in charge. Besides, the Eastern Roman Empire should be the one to learn from because it survived for much longer.
The Third Rome, fwiw, seems to have paid more attentiom to the Second, compared to the Westerners who seem to assume that the First was the only Rome…
Kudos for this article. This view is a starting place for a new vision of the West and the Trumpian vision for a new world-order under Washington’s aegis. It allows for a kind of decentralization and a movement away from international structures (they’ve already moved away from international law) and globalization and movement towards a more feudal arrangements where US corporate oligarchs replace national welfare states in the EU and become a variety of feudal statelets under the virtual Emperor that is the collective ruling class located in Washington/Wall Street/City of London/Hollywood/Silicon Valley emerging alliance. This is where we are all going in the West. Democracy as we once envisioned it will fade away.
Chris, maybe I am misinterpreting, but I see Connor’s article not as a “starting place for a new vision” but as a warning that another variety of dystopia is forming. I don’t welcome either a 1984-style top-down tyranny or a feudal-style oligarchy, the latter of which carries the illusion of localization, but is no more “local” than a corporate or mafia-like franchise.
I think your reference to “mafia” is correct and insightful. That’s precisely my preference–btw, I know something about the Italian mafia as a governing organization–it’s not that bad when you compare it to the current Washington gov’t.
As I’ve said before, there is zero chance that a liberal social-democracy can be returned to the USA.
Thanks for the reminder, it’s true we have the choice of not accepting such dystopian outcomes as totalitarianism or feudalism. I think it is true we already have both elements in our society, but because they exist does not mean we have an obligation to submit to them in any way.
It also must be admitted neither totalitarianism nor feudalism have a very big constituency, and therefore do not have a great chance of success here in the West. As the old adage says, “you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all of the time.” People won’t accept those outcomes — tell me who wants to be someone else’s serf?
Instead, I think it’s safe to say the plots of those seeking such extreme outcomes have a much better chance of falling flat on their faces, even without intervention, than ever becoming the “new world order.”
Feudalism: a social order so wonderful that my ancestors sailed across the Atlantic in the early 18th century in order to get out from under it.
Wll, they brought feudalism with them, alongside diseases, guns, slaves, horses, beer, and hamburgers.
Excellent post.
The United States plays an extremely important role in the cultural imaginary for both Western Europe and Japan. Following the loss of empire, those nations rely on their special relationship to the United States to prolong their sense of civilizational superiority. In other words, by being “allied with” (read: vassalized by) the United States, they get to continue to imagine themselves as part of the imperial center vis-à-vis the rest of the world.
One should not underestimate the importance of the fantastic fiction of the West in maintaining divisions amongst the working classes around the globe.
US Capital’s bust-out operation in Europe may be gaining momentum due to the increasing value of the dollar and the general weakness of Euro businesses and corporations. Invest Europe publishes economic info “…on fundraising, investment and divestment from more than 1,750 private equity and venture capital firms in Europe.” According to their data Euro PE activity is down appreciably since 2022.
The FT reported last week that the “total value of large private equity deals in Europe increased at twice the rate of the rest of world in 2024.” While they mentioned a huge deal by Chicago PE firm Thoma Bravo they didn’t break down the total. However, in an accompanying chart the buyout total from ’23 to ’24 increased from $75B to around $135B…most of this was clearly not Euro PE firms. The piece merely says that it was US PE targeting Euro firms.
“In Europe there is no evidence that the old guard or the new faux nationalist political parties arriving on the scene are prepared to take on the US empire. Indeed, even the Alternative for Germany party, which has long been brutally honest about Berlin being a “slave” to the US, just last week adopted a motion to build closer relations between the two countries. That followed the party receiving some love from Elon Musk and incoming Vice President JD Vance. So is the party now willing to accept its servitude because the new slave master is more friendly or does it expect Trump to set Germany free? It’s likely to be disappointed in either case.”
This isn’t unique to Europe. You see this in Canada with the People’s Party and certain sects of the more mainstream conservative parties like Danielle Smith. You also see this in South America with Javier Milei. The “nationalist” facade perpetuating the same neoliberal policy, to even more of an extreme, directly in the interest of US oligarchs. I’m in Canada and see plenty of people fooled by this even if they are more moderate in their beliefs.
Serious question: when the BZM (Bezos/Zuckerberg/Musk) triplet of oligarch have all the money between them (add others as necessary), I assume they’ll turn on each other: who wins?
Jokerstein: when the BZM (Bezos/Zuckerberg/Musk) triplet of oligarch have all the money between them (add others as necessary), I assume they’ll turn on each other
Your model of the world is wrong.
The trio you name are just a few of the oligarchs out there globally. Yeah, they top the list of the most wealthy. But the three of them absolutely do not have such primacy that they’ll ever have “all the money between them,” given that their wealth is to a greater extent notional ‘paper’ wealth — especially Musk — than other oligarchs even inside the US who possess more real-world worth and have, besides, the strategic intelligence to not continually shove themselves in the proles’ faces.
Forex (off the top of my head) —
[1] Charles Koch’s Koch Industries, based in Wichita, Kansas, remains one of the largest privately held companies in the United States with annual revenues exceeding $125 billion. Koch is in everything — agriculture, energy, baby food, chemicals, architectural, deep tech venture capital (Koch Disruptive Ventures is a real player in the VC world), nuclear, whatever. And the point is, it’s all real-world wealth.
[2] Everyone forgets old Larry Ellison of Oracle. As of January 2025, he’s still out there and has grown his net worth to approximately $205.6 billion, making him the fourth richest person in the world
[3] Bill Gates‘ net worth is estimated to be around $106 billion. But he’s sunk a large part of that into buying up land and while he’s donated a significant portion of his fortune to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation he has some effective control of anything the Gates Foundation has invested in.
And so on.
How you should picture these figures and their relative position is more as resembling, say, the great financial families of Renaissance Italy — the Medicis, the Viscontis, the Sforzas, the Orsinis, and others — in their different city-states, each having primacy in different commercial sectors and geographical areas.
If you’ve ever read Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination, a proto-cyberpunk SF novel from the 1950s, the book pictured a future Earth dominated by oligarchs who have sectoral primacy and ***who’ll form alliances amongst themselves against any single one of them that threatens enough of the others.***
That’s not a bad model.
Thank you for the clarification.
Having worked in wealth management, which I hope to return to and in warmer climes soon, and business banking, I agree with you and can think of European oligarchs who have real world wealth.
“The strategic intelligence to not continually shove themselves in the proles’ faces”. This is partly what has helped to protect the British aristocracy. Many who should be in the Sunday Times rich list are happy not to be, as the French saying goes.
More examples as those from Michaelmas:
Those who own the power electricity distribution grids.
Those who own good distribution hubs (Amazon)
Those who own internet search and get all users data so they own advertising (google)
Landlords (at scale): Blackrock et al.
He’s donated a significant portion of his fortune, to himself.
Europe already exists in a kind of vassalage to the United States, furthered by Biden’s push to make the EU more dependent on our gas. But while early returns on Trump’s bullying may augur fairly well early for his posturing, I wonder whether pretending that we’ll be involved in no new wars–premise a lot of younger Trump voters seem to buy into–while waging economic warfare on. . . absolutely everyone (?) ends up isolating us, creating a ferocious backlash. A lot of good minds, meanwhile, are going to be put to combatting our tariff strategy (ad hoc though it may be); Trump is hardly going to win all of these battles. American consumers may yet be cursing him wildly down the road. . .
A great analysis by Conor Gallagher. It sums up well the point in time we are at now. But the power of the oligarchs is not unlimited and I wonder whether there aren´t developments that might portend a different future. Specifically what is happening in the US. It seems to me that the US has great, great problems that don´t necessarily fit into the usual matrix of judging things. There’s a competency crisis, a monumental health crisis and a mental crisis resulting in or resulting from a creeping economic crisis. De-
industrialization has onto now been masked by that enormous privilege the Dollar.
Whatever you might think of Musk, Trump, RFK and people like Tucker: at least they understand that there’s a problem and they seem to be ready to implement tremendous changes. It is to early to say but what if the posting by Trump of a podcast by Jeffrey Sachs is a sign of things to come? What if there’s American Glasnost after all (Kennedy asassination a.s.o.) and and an international thaw in order to better take care of the problems of the US herself?
The US’s grip on Germany relies not on overt coercion but on her domination of the information sphere . I could imagine the impending (if it happens) turn inwards of the US coupled with a loosening of the “manufacture of consent” within the US having the effect of inducing changes in Germany (pars pro toto for all of Europe) that sweep away the old transatlantic elites?
I have seen it happen in Eastern Europe when Gorbachev tried to reform the USSR and unintentionally brought the whole enchillada crashing down. I could imagine something similar happening again. If indeed Trump and Musk manage to bring down the old elites in Western Europe there’s no guarantee that the chaos they unleash will be profitable for them.
Well, this is what the UK has become before President Trump’s Inauguration and I have great hopes that, from his experiences, he will have sympathy with political canddates who have their elections stolen, as is happening in Roumania, and a former Labour Party Leader and Shadow Chancellor who are formally being investigated by the Metropolitan Police for attending a peaceful pro-Palestinian laying flowers in memory of children in Gaza who have been killed by the Zionist genocidaires with the full support of the Starmer, Scholz and Biden governments: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clykrvp1g83o
My father, uncles and paternal grandfather fought a war to prevent squalid police operations like this happening, not just in the UK but throughout Europe. What was the point of all those decent British lives being sacrificed to fight a genocidal Fascist regime if we allow this sort of thing to occur on the streets of London within a short walk from the Mother of Parliaments?
Thank you and well said.
In my case, my paternal grandfather, his brother and their cousins. From two decades later, my father and his best friend / my godfather also served God, Queen and Country*.
There were complaints about Starmer being a micromanager and an authoritarian as chief prosecutor. There were also complaints about his expenses and regular fraternisation with US war machine officials in the US.
Some of this came to light in 2015 when Starmer applied to be a Labour candidate. After a few setbacks, Ed Miliband was, ahem, prevailed upon to parachute him into a safe seat, Holborn in London.
*It was recently speculated that Starmer’s son, Toby, would join the IOF, not serve God, King and Country.
I don’t understand the obsession with Musk. He is, after all, improving the West’s technological base: solar, electric cars/robots, starlink, reusable rockets, and AI not based on simply stealing others’ content. There are plenty of rich shitheads who only exist to exploit and extract, whose values other than self-enrichment are flags in the wind, who benefit from pillaging other countries, so why Musk? In my mind, using him as example brings into question to rest of the argument.
Obsession with Musk comes from people thinking that he is all about improving the West’s technological base, and not yet another “rich shithead” with better PR (which doesn’t sound that hard to do, once you look at Zuckerberg, Bezos, Gates, and other regular “rich shitheads”). For example, Musk realized that Trump is going to win before others (which wasn’t that hard to do), and jumped on the bandwagon first. Zuckerberg’s attempt to catch up looks pathetic, as expected, because his PR team sucks.
There’s very little that Facebook does that is actually technically innovative. Its Llama series of LLMs is one exception.
There’s very little that Amazon does that is actually technically innovative. Kindles?
Gates never did anything technically innovative. He just copied and other people did the work. He’s good at spotting trends though.
I don’t consider new ways of extracting money from people to be “innovative”.
Musk does do innovative things: no one has made a rocket that lands before. His attempts at self driving electric cars and robots are technically innovative.
Perhaps Musk joined a bandwagon you don’t like, but that doesn’t make him a good example of a rich person who only extracts wealth.
I expect the reason he’s pro-Trump is that the Biden administration’s use of raw administrative power was getting annoying to him (continual lawfare from the SEC, the FAA getting in the way of launching his rockets, the idea only a few US corporations would be allowed to work on AI, the interference in Twitter and free speech). It’s not going to be a bed of roses with Trump though. Trump wants to sanction China and that’s where the best battery tech is.
Those that point at a false prophet are not the ones that have an obsession, but those that praise the “Messiah”. You need to write “innovative” a few more times, in order to make it more true.
You are arguing I don’t have a point, yet not providing any evidence. I provide evidence, and you pooh-pooh it. I get that you hate Musk. Whatever he did to you to create such hatred doesn’t invalidate my argument that he is a poor example of an extractive oligarch which weakens this piece. I rest my case.
I am arguing that your “obsession” comment is pointed in the wrong direction. People thinking that this one billionaire is special are obsessed, not those thinking that they are all same crap.
I don’t hate Musk. He is not special. I hate all billionaires. No discrimination there. If you don’t understand why would anyone hate billionaires, then sorry for bothering you.
I distinguish between billionaires who exploit everyone else or the environment and billionaires that built a company that does (in my current updatable estimation) mostly good things.
Likewise, if someone is born a king, but does good, then he’s good person. Most don’t. Some do. If you just dismiss them all as bad, then it’s more likely it will be a self-fulfilling prophesy.
If you don’t like the system that creates this inequality, then work to dismantle it.
You are right. I don’t like the system that creates this inequality, and have been fighting against it for a lifetime. I guess you are rich, because you are batting for the other team.
Nope, nor am I batting for them.
I guess you don’t need to be batting for them any more, now that the future of civilzation is assured
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VfYjPzj1Xw&t=17s
He said it. Now everything will be fine and dandy. It’s a big club, and we will all be in it.
Believe it or not, this is not the 3rd Reich.
Even the ADL recognizes this.
Belive it or not, ADL is part of the new & improved 4th Reich. An attack dog for those that do not stay in line, and guard for those that are part of the gang. It has all melded into one big and inclusive blob that Musk is a proud member of, with a small hat for special occasions. Slava Musk!
RE: Macron
LOL
He’s dumb … but he ain’t stupid. This is the man who saw public sector workers cut power in protest to his attempts to increase the retirement age. The French aren’t like Americans as many a farmer’s blockade and egg-pelted politician can attest. Macron is trying to pivot before his own (political) head gets served on a plate by JLM/LePen.
The next four years will see increased political unrest in the EU/EZ. What happened in Romania will repeat elsewhere. Any Euro-sceptic politician should be building a playbook to deal with “attempts to overturn election results”. Friends in the armed forces help and such politicians need to harp loudly that the VDLs of the world are not just preaching subservience, but are traitors to both national and European sovereignty.
There is no such thing as European sovereignty. There is only national sovereignty. The European Union began as a Common Market for its member states which has evolved over time to become an election rigging organisation dominated by unelected (and unelectable) eurocrats who desire all the powers of an federal state, including the right to tax, impose regulations, fix national elections, and to initiate and make wars with the barest of pretensions of democratic responsibility to override national interests gifted by the least acute but most highly paid “parliament” than any elected assembly in the EU’s member states.
> There is no such thing as European sovereignty.
:) … Touché
I should have qualified “to the degree that such (sovereignty) is claimed by union/zone leadership”.
You have swallowed a syllable in the subtitle Civizational Europe, Connor.
In the shadow of all this may be a new period of mergers and cooperation among European arms manufacturers might begin.
“After a collaboration between the German tank manufacturer KMW and Leonardo failed, the Italian major Leonardo quickly turned its attention to Rheinmetall. As the blog Recht & Politik writes, the Federal Cartel Office has now given the green light for a joint venture: “The Federal Cartel Office today approved the establishment of a joint venture between Rheinmetall AG, Düsseldorf, and Leonardo S.p.A., Rome (Italy). The joint venture, Leonardo Rheinmetall Military Vehicles (LRMV), is to be based in Rome.”
(German)
https://www.rechtundpolitik.com/wirtschaft/bundeskartellamt/bundeskartellamt-gibt-gemeinschaftsunternehmen-von-rheinmetall-und-leonardo-frei/
I assume the low of public resistance has not yet reached its nadir. In 10-15 years many of the now crucial organisers will be dead or retired. And I don’t see a new generation to be grown up by then.
The only difference to pre-Trump and now, due to his style and in general how we know the GOP from the past, is how destruction is less sugar-coated by media since some outlets have to keep some appearance of distance.
p.s. The interesting thing about this:
While media are more honest in the info of some headlines – e.g. suggesting that Grennland, LNG etc. are operations to control Europe – you would not have read such words during the DEMs period – the conclusions drawn remain the same. Cognitive dissonance at its best.
The problem here is a sudden collapse of EU. EU is not a country, nor is nothing of the propaganda it sells. It is a transnational organization like OSCE, NATO, IOC and the like, so, as a engineering structure, it can’t survive tensions far stronger that it was thought to support. In fact, it currently overreaches with mechanisms like EEA and the like. A collapse doesn’t mean a complete disintegration one day to the next, it will start with irreparable cracks like some countries omitting this or that or disengaging of that another, or ignoring entirely these or those rules. It happened indeed, for instance with Schengen agreement, it could be reinstated because of the context and its being one single failure, but simultaneous failures I’m afraid will be far harder to fix.
The final nail will be the sinking of EU funds. It’s the actual glue, as it was the CPSU for the USSR. Once this breaks up, the whole of the EU will be absorbed by the BRI, this time one day for the next, and the US could do nothing at all. In fact, the US is fuelling this outcome, like the “Timber!” if the Marx Bros.
This is incorrect.
The EU has its own legal system and judiciary, which sits above member states.
It is a free trade zone when no EU member state has enough weight economically to negotiate trade deals and get any concessions on terms with large economies. The EU can bicker. The UK found out post-Brexit that it was a terms-taker with the US and China.
Most but not all EU members are members of the Eurozone, which as we explained repeatedly and long form with respect to Greece in the 2015 bailout crisis, cannot be exited without triggering a financial system collapse.
As bad as the EU is, the cost of states leaving it is untenably high, witness polling in the UK shifting more and more towards a return to the EU after considerable costs due to having to impose a hard border and losing a lot of financial services operations to the EU (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_re-accession_of_the_United_Kingdom_to_the_European_Union). And the UK at least had its own currency and something of a motive in having a common law legal system that did not mesh well with the civil law system of the ECJ.
Curious if there’s a good critical (ie not rose colored one way or the other) asessmemt of the post USSR institution building/transition in various ex Soviet states, especially Ukraine (but general enough to apply broadly, including to EU, potentially), with focus on the 1990-2010 period.
Of course, unlike EU, unless the whole thing implodes at once, there was no USSR to go back to once Yeltsin took Russia out….
I’m sorry about my awful English. I am talking about collapse. Norway, an EEA (not EU) member is talking about severing energy undersea cables with the EU and UK because of pricing politics (we will see if this happens or not, but they are talking about it). The Schengen agreement was somewhat suspended (and restored, as I said), it’s about these things what I am talking about, this country or a group of countries “suspending” or “temporarily suspending” this or that, of course not core matters, but enough to make a growing mess, of course the EU is a jurisdiction, and has a court, but courts take time and some kind of political agreement or disagreement or fait accompli can happen before the court has its say. This is simply mounting pressure, and this kind of pressure simply cannot happen in a state. The EU has a court, but hasn’t a police and enforcing laws depends a lot of the mental sanity of governments, which is not expected to become better (on the contrary, we can expect it to worsen). In fact, UK did leave the EU, with the only PM thinking it was a fantastic idea being Boris, and of course it’s a disaster (Greece didn’t even try). Finally, if you cut this or that and need to comply with I don’t know how much % the NATO and other parasytic structures, the EU funds obviously will sink.
It is not needed this going to the end. At some point the cracks will be that obvious that this way will have to change dramatically. And since the US is syphoning resources from the EU, the only source that can replenish is China. For instance, just now, China wants to buy the car factories going to close. I don’t think those Chinese cars, if ever made in Germany, are going to be sold in the US.
I try to explain better. The EU is far more fragile than the US, and will not be able to resist the growing pressure. At the end, the result cannot be other, unless more deep changes happen in the US, which seem to be even more unlikely.
And of course I can be wrong.
Thanks for the further detail. Schengen was suspended but affects movement of people, not trade. Trade is the stronger glue here. If the UK rejoins the EU to some degree, they are likely to prioritize getting back in the free trade zone over free movement of people. With respect to trade, small economies would find it very hard to go it alone. They will have integrated themselves into the EU to a fair degree. Norway may be an exception due to its energy reserves.
Recall what triggered the Maidan coup. Yanukovich wanted to sign a free trade deal with the EU. Ukraine was already in a preferential, IIRC a tariff-free deal with Russia. Having a free trade deal with the EU would mean EU goods could go tariff free into Russia but not the reverse. Putin said to Yanukovich, “You can do what you want but we aren’t paying for it” as in the Russian deal would be off or substantially renegotiated if Yanukovich went ahead. Yanukovich put a pause on the EU deal to try to renegotiate to not tank his deal with Russia. The coup followed swiftly after that.
This illustrates that exiting a preferential trade deal with a big economic area in which you have integrated your production has high costs. And Ukraine as you know is the biggest country in Europe ex Russia, with a lot of natural resources, and thus way more able to go it alone than any small EU state.
The issue still remains the Eurozone. That is a roach motel. The non-Eurozone members would find it much less painful to leave than EU members.
The one thing that I think could spring a member state out of the roach motel would be if a France or Germany started ignoring the fiscal rules and then made it a stated policy to no longer comply, and refused to pay the fines. Brussels and Frankfort would be in a dilemma. Imho, Italy would be ruined if it tried this tactic but I think one of the big two might be able to get away with it. The RN in France has moved away from its anti-euro policy and LFI doesn’t really talk about it anymore except to say that they’re confirmed Europeans and support the union. AfD is nowhere near the levers of power so moot point; I don’t know where BSW stand on it. Just my 2 euro cents…
Germany believes in the fiscal rules. They subscribe to ordoliberalism, which is an even stronger form of neoliberalism.
And regarding fiscal rules, you miss who the real enforcer is. France is not a currency issuer. The EU is. So France does have to be mindful of deficits.
And look at what happened to Greece and the other PIIGS back in the day. They relied on ECB intervention to keep their government funding costs from blowing out completely. France is already depicted by some as verging on a financial crisis. Breaking fiscal rules would lead to monster increase in funding costs and the ECB would to nothing to contain them.
I think you know that my point is that these two are too big to fail. I know who holds the pursestrings and they’re already putting virtual pressure on France because they see popular pressure in the Assembly to rescind the pensions “reform”. My conjecture was that this would be the a way to get Brussels to revise the fiscal rules, and yes it would be chaotic and might (probably) not work. I think a negotiated departure from the Euro would be worse because the thumbscrews would be applied within a nanosecond once the word got out.
Lordie, you are really out of your depth.
There is no way for any Eurozone member to leave without triggering a banking crisis. We covered it AT LENGTH in the 2015 Greece crisis.
And as to formally relaxing fiscal rules, Germany and the other northern block states will oppose it.
France is effectively being given a waiver (as Greece was repeatedly back in the day) because its government is trying to pass a budget that will comply. You can read ad nauseum about the Macron government trying to get neoliberal “reforms” accepted and Parliament balking.
French bond yields are now 80 bp. over Germany’s.
The EU hammer did not come down until Greece defied the Troika by passing a illegal referendum (illegal under Greek law) on a bailout AFTER THE BAILOUT HAD EXPIRED. This = a defiant stunt + Greece not getting debt rollover $ it needed.
The ECB brought the Greek banking system to its knees. Greece capitulated in less than 3 weeks. It accepted a bailout scheme that was worse than the one on offer when Syriza took office.
The EU does have its own legal system and judiciary the sole purpose of which is to deal problems covered by the EU aquis and only sits above member states which, by virtue of EU membership, have sacrificed (or loaned) aspects of their sovereignty to the various institutions of the EU by incorporating the aquis in their national law. Many argue that the EJC has engaged in a systematic process of mission creep over the years by attempting to extend the aquis by ruling on matters of national law, and especially so since the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty.
Although I agree with you on the technical problems of creating an alternative currency in the case of Greece in 2015, in the event of a repeat of the 2008 crash with a profoundly enfeebled German economy, rather than saving the financial system, many EU member states may well choose to save their people and their national integrity by using the emergency to allow the use of alternative currencies or to create new local currencies of their own along with new state owned national and regional retail banks.
The one thing about human beings is that we can put up with the completely Godawful if we have some hope of a better future. Also, it is not unlikely that various governments as well as private thinkers have begun to work out, or already have worked out, viable ways to replace the euro in the event of a repeat of 2008 or further overreach by the EU and its constituent parts to make the economic transition as painless as possible.
Public opinion usually lags behnd events and the Brexit experience has been less than satifactory, but the fundamental truth of Brexit remains. The Brits joined a trading system and saw that trading system evolving into a quasi fe(de)ral state demanding military power, the right to tax the economic activities of corporate bodies and citizens of member states, and to take on all the powers of a real state. Just by looking at the positions of the various national economies within the EU, the poor quality of the EU leadership and its capacity to create and develop new “tools” to pressure member countries into doing things against their own interests, it is unlikely that the Brits would choose to rejoin a failing and flailing EU for any supposed economic advantages it offers and, given that so many Commonwealth countries belong to or have applied for full membership of BRICS, that would seem to be the most appropriate option for the UK given its diminished role in the real world.
As far as I remember, within the texts regulating Euro´s introduction there were no paragraphs dedicated to how to reverse the process. It was intended and built as a one-way street.
However if money wells dry up and only some rump-EU can survive instead of this wanna-be supercontinent they will skip any existing assumption of how-to and abandon what is not worth it.
I see a very long period of darkness for this place. Wealth can be burnt much faster than acquired (a lesson I learned from reading Mrs. Sackville-West´s wise novel “Family History” which to me offered – in hindsight – some profound geopolitical connotations applicable to Europe and the West today, packaged as the history of a British industrialist´s family.)
BRICS is a defence organization. UK cannot belong to a organization whose countries are trying to defend from it (and the global West, of course). The countries of BRICS share very few things in common, and their interests are too diverging, simply think about India and China or Brazil (too many eggs in the US basket) and Venezuela, vetoed by Lula himself.
BRICS simply are trying to defend themselves from Western retaliations and prevent attacks on them one by one. Nothing more, nothing less.
The EU is a good idea, but you cannot make anything independent being a vassal.
HUH??? Read the Kazan Declaration. There is absolutely nothing about military cooperation in there.
Please don’t Make Shit Uo. You are accumulating troll points.
How bad I explain… but I thought it is pretty clear from the context.
*Economic* defense, of course, not military one. If I am saying how much they diverge one another, I think is obvious it is impossible to build a military structure. Not even Russia and China have a military pact, they who are the main architects of all this.
BRICS is an “economical defense organization”, or a nice try to it, please choose the best words in English for this concept. Explicitly trying to avoid the weaponisation of USD, not even to substitute it. A defensive, not aggresive organization. There is no way this organization can go anything far than that.
Please read the Kazan Declaration. There is no economic defense there either. The Declaration reaffirms the role of the IMF as bailouter-in-chief as well as the role of other Western enforcers like the World Bank. It only has pretty weak commitments to getting out of the dollar sanctions regime, mainly new transaction infrastructure to improve the efficiency of bi-lateral trade.
More generally, most of the key players, such as India, and representative next tier ones like Thailand, want to preserve economic relations with the West as well as China and Russia, the big targets of Collective West hostility.
I can’t explain properly. I’ll make a last try.
Then, what is exactly the role of BRICS? It isn’t an organisation to substitute anything, not the IMF, not even ASEAN, or Mercosul, or whatever, nor it is going to interfere with these regional organizations. Nor serves to drive specific individual countries interests, it isn’t even a wide forum. As we can see, there are countries that were interested in joining in, like Argelia or Saudi Arabia, and that has been freezed meanwhile, in both cases for different reasons. Venezuela has been vetoed de jure and de facto, by Brazil. It underlines BRICS has a very narrow margin to work.
In my understanding, they are to work as an organization to avoid or minimize economical attacks on them, and to avoid using risky mechanisms of economical relations. I understand this as “defensive”, since it cannot be “aggresive” and it’s obvious to me none of its members would go in such a thing. I think point 10 of Kazan declaration is in agreement with this.
If I’m wrong, then I don’t understand anything.
I suggest you read the Kazan Declaration. Lots of grand aspirations but very little of substance to make them happen.
I posted on this very issue with the headline Wanting More for BRICS Than BRICS Wants for Itself. People who support the BRICS goal of multi-polarity (and we count ourselves among them) for the most part seem unwilling to recognize that BRICS is far from prepared, at least at this juncture, to take sufficiently concerted action to achieve that aim.