Trump Redux: The Death of Democracy, or Overblown Hyperbole?

[degrassiknoll]

I believe what we have here is an inflection point.

[Lexi Darling]

[Jwb]

NATO is dead.  And I'm hearing from the pundits that Europe really isn't functionally able to come to Ukraine's defense without American support. The weapons systems that were bought from America rely on American tech firms that provide software updates and everything. So European countries need to not only ramp up their defense spending,  they can't do so by just buying American weapons.  They need to produce their own,  and that takes time.  So that's not looking very reassuring.

In addition to that,  as much as Trump kept saying "you have no cards," the United States is hardly strengthening its strategic position by washing its hands of Europe.  He has to project strength, but this is the move of a dying empire. They say they want to shift the emphasis onto China, but Xi is as likely to see this as a sign of America's lack of resolve to really do much of anything to challenge their long term objectives in Taiwan.

Trump said Zelensky was gambling with WW3, but the only thing that has prevented open conflict from emerging between great powers post-WW2 is a sense of the stakes being so high and the deterrence provided by mutually assured destruction. 

That didn't only apply to the US directly attacking China or Russia or vice versa, it also deterred actions that were percieved as posing too much of a risk of leading to a direct conflict between great powers.  We would fund and arm Ukraine, for example,  but we wouldn't send our own military in to fight Russia directly because it was seen as too much of a risk.

The idea was that through funding Ukraine and sanctioning Russia,  some level of basic deterrence was maintained without making moves that were too provocative and likely to escalate.  I think it's fair to question that assumption now,  retrospectively, as it clearly wasn't enough to prevent the conflict that we're currently trying to deal with. 

That being said, this move goes even further and basically rewards the invasion.  This clearly makes the scenarios that could possibly lead to WW3 much more plausible, not less.

It also makes it more likely that European countries have much less reason to coordinate with the United States in trying to isolate and weaken China.  It strengthens china's hand not only strategically but ideologically.

The assumption that a world order where America being the top world hegemon is in Europe's  inherent best interest has been shattered. There's also less reason to assume that American power is any more of a stabilizing influence than China is.

Watching that meeting,  it was impossible not to get the sense that you're watching history in real time,  in the worst way imaginable.

[Auroras In Ice]

Watching that meeting,  it was impossible not to get the sense that you're watching history in real time,  in the worst way imaginable.

Great points and I agree for the most part.

It's also worth noting the realpolitik of what NATO really is. At its core, NATO has always been an arm of US foreign policy to advance American interests worldwide using a network of vassal states that are held in a protection racket. That's why the US has around 180 military bases in other countries around the globe, but not the other way around. They aren't charity centers for the locals, they exist as a global apparatus of American military power. Sweden and Finland never wanted to join NATO because they recognized what membership really meant, until Putin went beyond his usual saber rattling and joining NATO came from a sense of urgency. Yes, there's also been a higher minded uniting set of common "western" values that was part of the project which served as the PR front which is where most of the public fondness for the organization comes from, but that's basically gone now. With NATO weakening and the western world turning away from the US to build new alliances, the US will probably also weaken, at least temporarily until the realignment with Russia and attempts at potential US expansion happens, if all of these other countries start telling the US to pack up their military bases and get the fuck out. 


From Canada, what we saw in the oval office yesterday is extra ominous because we may be looking down the barrel of our own future in Zelensky. I know most Americans think Trump is just trolling or that his threats of Canadian annexation are just some sort of hard-ball negotiation tactic, but that's definitely not the mood up here. It's more than booing the US anthem at sports games or whatever. Other than a small but noisy subset of Canadian Trump cultists (who may be the dumbest fucking people on earth) who want nothing more than for Daddy Trump to save them from the evil totalitarian tyrant that is... Trudeau and the most generic milquetoast liberal party on the planet (lolwut), something has fundamentally and permanently broke in the US/Canada relationship which has been a historic exercise in how soft power between nations can be used in a positive way. Beneath the annoyingly smug Canadian condescension to the US, there was always a deep sense of familial love. That's fucking gone and flipped upside down. IIRC, the same proportion of Canadians who still view the US as an ally (around 30%) now view the US as an enemy state with the remaining ~30% unsure of what to make of the US (I'm probably in the unsure crowd... for now). That's nuts, and I've never seen people as pissed off here as they are now. As for US protection of Canada, that's actually where much of the sense of betrayal comes from since we have no adversaries of our own other than the ones we've taken on by being a staunch ally to the US. Should we have invested more into our own defensive aparatus, yes. There's now a growing power grab from many nations for resources in the arctic as climate change melts everything and makes them accessible and this actually has been an area where we have invested in our own defense. Quietly, but it's been there. Now, our defense investment has to be ramped up to protect ourselves not from Russia or China, but the US. Strange days.

May he burn forever in a hellish pit of shit, but Kissinger was dead right about it being more deadly to be a friend to the US than an enemy.

[SGR]

https://x.com/smubpublius/status/1895626995675120063

[jimmy jazz]

>>>

[Lisnaholic]

Interesting to hear your comments about attitudes in Canada, Auroras. Thanks.

I agree with a lot of Jwb's observations, but I'd really take issue with this statement:-

NATO is dead. 

That's a bit of a USA-centric exaggeration, imo. NATO has 32 member countries, and even if the USA were to leave, that still leaves 31 countries committed to a "one for all and all for one" defense strategy, which works as an extremely powerful deterrent to would-be aggressors.

I don't know much about military capabilities worldwide, so I googled this:

https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.php

They have some weird "Power Index" rating for each country, and of course US and Russia are at the top, but in the global top 20, there are 5 NATO counties (UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain). My conviction: NATO isn't going anywhere, a prediction borne out by this:-
When Russia invaded Ukraine, NATO membership grew, and after the public bullying and victim-shaming displayed by Trump & Vance, there has been an outpouring of Ukraine-supportive statements from NATO and European countries.

[Buck_Mulligan]

Interesting to hear your comments about attitudes in Canada, Auroras. Thanks.

I agree with a lot of Jwb's observations, but I'd really take issue with this statement:-

That's a bit of a USA-centric exaggeration, imo. NATO has 32 member countries, and even if the USA were to leave, that still leaves 31 countries committed to a "one for all and all for one" defense strategy, which works as an extremely powerful deterrent to would-be aggressors.

I don't know much about military capabilities worldwide, so I googled this:

https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.php

They have some weird "Power Index" rating for each country, and of course US and Russia are at the top, but in the global top 20, there are 5 NATO counties (UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain). My conviction: NATO isn't going anywhere, a prediction borne out by this:-
When Russia invaded Ukraine, NATO membership grew, and after the public bullying and victim-shaming displayed by Trump & Vance, there has been an outpouring of Ukraine-supportive statements from NATO and European countries.

I hope you're right about NATO. The General Secretary of NATO, former Dutch PM Mark Rutte, said on Friday that Zelensky needed to repair his relations with Trump. I found that discouraging, as if to blame Zelensky. I believe on Sunday the "Summit" in the UK will discuss taking Russia's $300B in frozen assets and using it to support Ukraine. The sooner the better.

[Buck_Mulligan]

Great points and I agree for the most part.

It's also worth noting the realpolitik of what NATO really is. At its core, NATO has always been an arm of US foreign policy to advance American interests worldwide using a network of vassal states that are held in a protection racket. That's why the US has around 180 military bases in other countries around the globe, but not the other way around. They aren't charity centers for the locals, they exist as a global apparatus of American military power. Sweden and Finland never wanted to join NATO because they recognized what membership really meant, until Putin went beyond his usual saber rattling and joining NATO came from a sense of urgency. Yes, there's also been a higher minded uniting set of common "western" values that was part of the project which served as the PR front which is where most of the public fondness for the organization comes from, but that's basically gone now. With NATO weakening and the western world turning away from the US to build new alliances, the US will probably also weaken, at least temporarily until the realignment with Russia and attempts at potential US expansion happens, if all of these other countries start telling the US to pack up their military bases and get the fuck out. 


From Canada, what we saw in the oval office yesterday is extra ominous because we may be looking down the barrel of our own future in Zelensky. I know most Americans think Trump is just trolling or that his threats of Canadian annexation are just some sort of hard-ball negotiation tactic, but that's definitely not the mood up here. It's more than booing the US anthem at sports games or whatever. Other than a small but noisy subset of Canadian Trump cultists (who may be the dumbest fucking people on earth) who want nothing more than for Daddy Trump to save them from the evil totalitarian tyrant that is... Trudeau and the most generic milquetoast liberal party on the planet (lolwut), something has fundamentally and permanently broke in the US/Canada relationship which has been a historic exercise in how soft power between nations can be used in a positive way. Beneath the annoyingly smug Canadian condescension to the US, there was always a deep sense of familial love. That's fucking gone and flipped upside down. IIRC, the same proportion of Canadians who still view the US as an ally (around 30%) now view the US as an enemy state with the remaining ~30% unsure of what to make of the US (I'm probably in the unsure crowd... for now). That's nuts, and I've never seen people as pissed off here as they are now. As for US protection of Canada, that's actually where much of the sense of betrayal comes from since we have no adversaries of our own other than the ones we've taken on by being a staunch ally to the US. Should we have invested more into our own defensive aparatus, yes. There's now a growing power grab from many nations for resources in the arctic as climate change melts everything and makes them accessible and this actually has been an area where we have invested in our own defense. Quietly, but it's been there. Now, our defense investment has to be ramped up to protect ourselves not from Russia or China, but the US. Strange days.

May he burn forever in a hellish pit of shit, but Kissinger was dead right about it being more deadly to be a friend to the US than an enemy.

Good post!
I think you're a little wide of the mark with the US and NATO. The EU countries that joined did so voluntarily because they perceived it in their national interest. No one forced them to. As for US expansion, Trump aside, I don't see that happening, and even under Trump I think it unlikely. 20 or more years ago The Philippines kicked the US out of Subic Bay. Ten years later, after they had seen Chinese expansion, they invited the US back. If the great power theory holds it's the people of Latam and Canada who should be fearful. I get the unease up north.

[Lisnaholic]

I hope you're right about NATO. The General Secretary of NATO, former Dutch PM Mark Rutte, said on Friday that Zelensky needed to repair his relations with Trump. I found that discouraging, as if to blame Zelensky. I believe on Sunday the "Summit" in the UK will discuss taking Russia's $300B in frozen assets and using it to support Ukraine. The sooner the better.

Yeah, hopefully that remark from Mark Rutte is just to promote the best way forward, with the US, Ukraine and NATO "marching, more or less in line."

I suspect US involvement will be reducing a lot under Trump. Maybe it's lack of imagination on my part, but I doubt that the US will pull out of NATO entirely, and even less will NATO countries tell America to "pack up their bases and gtfo".

Also not gonna happen, imo, is any action about the US acquiring Canada or Greenland. Here's a map of NATO showing that even Trump has 31 reasons to leave those countries alone:-



Any talk of Canada becoming the 51st state is just BS from a senile old blowhard.

[Auroras In Ice]

Good post!
I think you're a little wide of the mark with the US and NATO. The EU countries that joined did so voluntarily because they perceived it in their national interest. No one forced them to.

I wouldn't disagree with that, but I also didn't say they were forced nor does it negate the point that NATO functions like a protection racket that primarily advanced US interests. Both can be true. In Trump's first term, he made a big stink to shake down member countries if they weren't paying up the 2% GDP thing (https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/25/politics/trump-nato-financial-payments/index.html). Obama did similar things, just far less brashly and not in public. No other country in NATO does this because everyone knows who is really steering that ship lol. Aligned interests between NATO and member countries is a given, but it's still sort of signing a deal with the devil. I was living in Sweden for around a decade up to 2023 when it was more or less decided to join NATO. I know the reasoning there well. The hesitancy up to that point was first and foremost that the country had avoided direct conflict and war for nearly 200 years (if you overlook a few things lol) and saw no need to change what they were doing until Putin started going haywire, but another factor was not wanting to end up in the pocket of the US. I supported Sweden joining NATO too because the threat from Russia was clear, but I also have no illusions about what the tradeoff would be.

It may still be a controversial take, but when we think of "the west" what we're really talking about in contemporary terms is post-WW2 American hegemony and most of the transnational institutions that western nations have used to maintain the global order only really function and exist with the US at the helm because there's no other enforcement mechanism of global order beyond American power. Look at how irrelevant the ICJ became once the US decided to ignore its warrants. Netanyahu will never see the inside of the cell, and I doubt Putin's warrant will ever be honoured either because Trump will probably ever allow that. How often is otherwise universal consensus at the UN undermined by US vetoes and contrary votes? Pretty often. The point being that these global institutions function only if they align with American interests. The second Washington decides not to play ball, they are mostly paralyzed. On the other hand, if the US leaves these institutions it also weakens itself because it no longer has a pile of other nations dancing to their tune. The US as a superpower hasn't just relied on hard power military force, but it's also come from a lot of soft power woven into foreign policy by creating global institutions that advance its interests. It's becoming clear that this soft power is no longer valued by the US power structure and is regressing towards belligerent hard power. As for US expansion, maybe not under Trump (though I think it's foolish to discount the possibility based on...??) but judging from how policies have been handed down admin to admin, the Dems will probably adopt the same positions in a few years lol. Kamala running on making the US military more lethal was an eyebrow raiser...

I'm way off on a tangent now lol, but China specializes in soft power which is why they've been doing nothing but sitting back and watching this all unfold. As allies peel away from the US, I predict China will be swooping in to make deals and pull them into their fold. Already happening here (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-donald-trump-canada-china-economic-ties/). Hopefully the EU can mobilize a formidable power structure as an alternative, or maybe the global south which we've all been standing on the backs of will rise up. Who knows. Crazy stuff going on, and I think people should be cautious about being lulled into thinking things will go on as they have. Borders never seem to stay put, and it seems unwise to think they will now just because we're so used to things as they've been. Hope I'm wrong.

[Auroras In Ice]

Also not gonna happen, imo, is any action about the US acquiring Canada or Greenland. Here's a map of NATO showing that even Trump has 31 reasons to leave those countries alone:-

Any talk of Canada becoming the 51st state is just BS from a senile old blowhard.

NATO will not rise up against the US. You may be able to dismiss this all, but those of us being threatened don't have that luxury and our own leaders are taking things very very seriously. In Canada, this threat is not being approached through appealing to NATO for help with security, we're beginning to approach the EU.

Edit: Should also note that, according to Trudeau caught on hot mic, the plan to annex Canada is very real and will be through economic coercion rather than militarily. That said, if that's attempted it will get violent because Canadians will resist.

[Lisnaholic]

Crazy stuff going on, and I think people should be cautious about being lulled into thinking things will go on as they have. Borders never seem to stay put, and it seems unwise to think they will now just because we're so used to things as they've been. Hope I'm wrong.

^ Well, you've totally nailed my attitude, Auroras

I agree with the points you've made in your two posts, especially the bit about the US applying "economic coercion" rather than military intervention with regard to Canada. So I should revise backwards my dismissal of Trump's threats: if you and Trudeau take them seriously, I'm sure you two are in a way better position to judge than I am.

...nor does it negate the point that NATO functions like a protection racket that primarily advanced US interests. Both can be true. In Trump's first term, he made a big stink to shake down member countries if they weren't paying up the 2% GDP thing (https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/25/politics/trump-nato-financial-payments/index.html). Obama did similar things, just far less brashly and not in public. No other country in NATO does this because everyone knows who is really steering that ship lol.

I'd disagree with the bold,though. NATO is a group of allies, and it seems fair enough to me that the ally paying the most should badger anyone not pulling their weight. That's a dynamic that, to my mind, isn't so far removed from friends in a pub saying, "Isn't it your turn to buy the drinks?"

Surely a protection racket is something very different ? That's when someone uninvited contributes nothing, but just extorts money with the threat of violence. Does the US contribute nothing to NATO? Does it demand that a percentage of NATO funds be paid direct to the USA? Does it threaten to carry out acts of terrorism against NATO countries if they don't pay? The answers to those three questions would have to be "Yes" for me to accept the idea that "NATO functions like a protection racket". 

[Jwb]

@Auroras In Ice @Lisnaholic

I don't disagree with Ori's assertion that NATO has largely been a tool of American foreign policy.  It's been the standard view ,  especially on the left, that as you said all the talk about spreading democracy and western liberal values was just propaganda that was used to prop up American hegemony.  That view was especially common during the Bush years when it was associated with the war in Iraq.  But there are a couple things to say about that.

Whether the motive behind NATO was to promote democracy and western values,  it was defacto the foundation of the security arrangement that undergirded the so called "free world." I use the quotes because I realize that even that concept of a free world is also a propaganda term that's basically a relic of the cold war.

All the same,  the so called free world is  indeed more free and more democratic and also much more prosperous than Russia or the Soviet Union. So whether it was designed to promote democracy or not, it was certainly designed to protect Europe.  Or more specifically, to contain the USSR/Russia and keep them weak. And that was in America's interests as well as the interests of it's allies in Europe. 

That's how a powerful alliance is really supposed to work.  Like you said, it's not a charity. You want it to be based on shared interests and pragmatic security concerns, that's what makes it more likely to be a stable and sustainable, and to outlast any potential change in the leadership of the member states. That was true of NATO up until now. There's been times when our interests did diverge,  such as during the war in Iraq.  But that doesn't undermine the basic premise of the alliance,  in the same way that having diverging interests and views concerning Russia does.

What did seem to undermine that premise somewhat was the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war.  Like you said,  it doesn't seem like there was the same sense of urgency in Europe  about non NATO countries joining NATO until Russia invaded Ukraine. 

I would say that was simply a brutal reminder of why NATO existed in the first place,  which was easy to lose sight of when the regime it was designed to contain collapsed and then post 9-11 America's attention turned to the middle east and the war on terror,  it's not particularly surprising that people wouldn't feel so enthusiastic about it in Europe at that point. 

I'd be interested to hear what tore or other Europeans or Brits think about the European attitude towards NATO over the years, cause it's not like I have much direct reference to that memory. I was more aware of the American conversation,  but even in America there were critics of US empire on the left who regarded NATO basically as a counterproductive relic of the cold war that had lost its original mandate when the Soviet Union collapsed, yet persisted anyway because the true purpose was to pursue and protect the strategic interests of the United States.

But Russia itself shattered the illusion that it is less belligerent than the Soviet Union was, and as such it provided the strongest possible counter argument to the idea that NATO had become obsolete. 

Now, with the 2nd Trump admin, it's not so much obsolete as it is in shambles.  And yeah Lisna I honestly stand by what I said.  It's an American centric view because as Ori pointed out,  NATO has always been a US centric alliance.  Not that whatever new arrangement that emerges between Europe and Canada couldn't still call itself NATO.  But it certainly wouldn't be the same alliance that it has been historically.

Especially since without the US on side,  you not only lose military cornerstone of the alliance,  you then potentially have to treat the most powerful country in the world as a potential hostile threat that you have to manage. That's a twighlight zone version of NATO if I ever heard of one.

[Auroras In Ice]

I agree with the points you've made in your two posts, especially the bit about the US applying "economic coercion" rather than military intervention with regard to Canada. So I should revise backwards my dismissal of Trump's threats: if you and Trudeau take them seriously, I'm sure you two are in a way better position to judge than I am.

It's not "me and Trudeau", it's the entire country hence why we've had an absolutely massive and rapid political inversion since Trump took office again and plenty of international recognition of the threat with a lot of interaction with allies to figure out ways to shore up defense against US threats. We have a big election coming up, and this is the top issue across the entire political spectrum from left to right. Our next PM will likely be chosen on the basis of who will be most aggressively defiant and even hostile to the leader of our closest ally. That's fucked up. Even if this amounts to little in terms of Trump's intended outcome, the very threat of annexation from a US president is not a trivial thing and is a significantly coercive tactic against a fiercely loyal ally. Not to mention, Canada/US relations are already permanently damaged from this. When you handwave away the 51st state thing which you may very well turn out to be right on, you are trivializing a huge amount of damage that has already been done to this relationship.


Just to be clear for the Americans here, Canadians still love the American people (myself included) and I don't think that will change any time soon. The conflicts here are above our heads.

I'd disagree with the bold,though. NATO is a group of allies, and it seems fair enough to me that the ally paying the most should badger anyone not pulling their weight. That's a dynamic that, to my mind, isn't so far removed from friends in a pub saying, "Isn't it your turn to buy the drinks?"

Surely a protection racket is something very different ? That's when someone uninvited contributes nothing, but just extorts money with the threat of violence. Does the US contribute nothing to NATO? Does it demand that a percentage of NATO funds be paid direct to the USA? Does it threaten to carry out acts of terrorism against NATO countries if they don't pay? The answers to those three questions would have to be "Yes" for me to accept the idea that "NATO functions like a protection racket". 

I don't know about your conception of protection racket, and to be blunt I'm not particularly interested in pedantically dissecting that phrase very much. When the mafia runs a protection racket they offer a client, like some store operating in their territory, protection from other actors like another gang that will harm the store. As long as that store does what the mafia tells them to do and pays up, the mafia protects them from the other gang. If they don't comply with whatever the mafia tells it to do or pay up, that protection is withheld leaving the store vulnerable. That's a protection racket.

NATO was founded as an alliance to counter Soviet imperialism and expansion to protect vulnerable regional states, primarily using American force. Superpower and all. Even with the Soviet Union gone, the nuclear threat from Russia remains, Putin wants to expand, and US might is still the primary and perhaps only viable deterrent against Russian aggression to surrounding nations. Without US power, NATO is dickless. NATO's mission has expanded beyond containing Russian aggression alone, but it is the genesis of the alliance. Common values and aligned interests among members, yes that's also part of it, but this is also a mechanism of how the US has held onto its hegemony and maintained the global order.

Tying back to the broader point, NATO is mostly clawless without US power backing it. Even if all member states ramped up their contributions massively, they would not collectively match the deterrent force of the US nuclear arsenal alone. America is the big swinging dick here, whether we like it or not. Period. How that power is used within the NATO framework depends heavily on the character of US leadership, which has become increasingly erratic and unstable. The threat of US withdrawing protection from member states (or leaving NATO entirely) leaving them vulnerable to other external threats, like Russia, is how it functions like a protection racket and treating it as such is exactly how Trump has always approached the alliance (https://www.thenation.com/article/world/trump-end-nato-mafia/). The thing is, Trump is only saying the quiet part out loud and being ridiculously heavy handed in how he approaches it. That part is an aberration (or a Twilight Zone version as @Jwb rightly said), but at a deeper fundamental level Trump's not actually wrong about how the power dynamic of NATO works in reality. I don't like it. I'd rather it not be the case, but it is. Maybe most importantly, if it hasn't been how things worked... then it is now.

@Jwb - I've been puttering away at this reply since well before you posted last, but I think we're mostly aligned in our perspectives on this.