Special Relationship?

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It seems like the transatlantic geopolitical zeitgeist at the moment centres on the metaphorical toss of an electoral coin, so close is the race for the next President of The United States. A round-robin email from my old mate Jeff this morning linked us out to a Guardian piece on Trump's Madison Square rally yesterday, which by all accounts, in any sane country, should have seen him arrested and banged up for incitement and race-hatred. But oh, no, not in the USA, where freedom of speech is paramount, so long as you're white and wealthy. The implications of this freedom to publicly abuse large swathes of the American population, his political opponents and just about anyone else who springs to his ever-diminishing mind, are legion and serious.

This madman's psychotic ramblings should not merely be dismissed as such, though: pretty much half the US electorate takes this guy seriously, despite his track record of grift and sleaze, his incoherence and childish tantrum-throwing. And the prospect of this dangerous individual yet again becoming the most powerful person in the world is frankly terrifying, with implications that fan out across the globe, including for us here in [almost in the UK, anyway] Europe. Trump is inherently isolationist and anti-NATO. He admires 'strong man' politics and supports Vladimir Putin: he is even alleged to have passed favourable comment about Adolf Hitler in the past. In short, he sees no 'special relationship' with Britain, let alone Europe in general, and seeks none.

Without the US, NATO will be moribund: a worthless, toothless talking shop of unenforcible ideals, leaving Britain and the wider continent of Europe under the shadow of Russia's ambition. In the FT Weekend magazine this week, Simon Kuper writes [if Trump is elected] 'The 80-year-old Pax Americana in Europe might expire next month [leaving] a 25 per cent chance of Europe facing its worst military threat since 1945.' Alarmist? Maybe, maybe not; but we're certainly revisiting stony historical ground here. Reading the two articles, I was minded to check back on a book I got in 1988: "Europe Without America?" by the then European Editor of The Guardian, John Palmer:

Talking about the Soviet Union, just post Second World War in chapter five, "Dawn in the East", Palmer posits that Stalin's realpolitik had moved the USSR from a Leninist, internationalist, revolutionary socialist base to '...a new doctrine of 'Socialism in one country'...'. Continuing with '...they were content to leave whole sectors of the economy in private hands.They actually preferred [other satellite] governments of pliant non-Communist Social Democrats, peasants, and even far-right parties to governments based on the popular anti-Fascist resistance forces.' This all has strong and disturbing echoes right now in 2024. According to Kuper's piece , 'Poland is building an army bigger than Britain's or France's to protect itself...' in advance of this looming continental instability and the threat of an effectively Trump-enabled Russia's ambitions. 'Worrying' doesn't even come close...


Comments

  1. Anonymous29 October 2024 at 07:03

    Despit the LOON Trump we still have NATO. The power in the US is in manufacturing and NATO is a superb sales platform; look at the long awaited F35 its construction is multi-national thus its adoption and after sales are locked in!
    You also (or is it John Palmer) underestimate the City and our "aristocrats" blood links to the septics. After the culling of our young "officer class" in WW1 it was a cattle sale of nubiles into the "gentry" plus VV wealthy septics married off a daughter with LOTS of loot to prop-up the "gentry's" crumbling estates who's skivvies had learned NOT to be indentured.
    Just like the attitude of EVERY ambitious Brit the fawning to the Establishment is ingraned with their mother's milk; they ALL want to be lord fauntleroy.
    Worry not because we ARE the permanent launch pad, I include "our" submarine nukes cos the targetting HAS to be agreed withthe USA, for the atomic weapons that HAVE ensured peace in most of Europe since WWII! You've only got to look at Ukraine to see what another petty little man (with a practiced killer walk Ha-Ha-Ha) will do IF we let him. Oh we DID let him murder at will in London and Winchester and play games with our "systems"! Where are the "grown-ups" when we need them???
    ATB
    Joe

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