The are of, god of war; a is from , goddess of love and beauty. The contrast, typical of vulgar geopolitical anecdote, is one of the inspirations of the National Security Strategy (NSS) released by the government. According to the document, a declining Europe suffers a “civilizational erasure” resulting from the loss of national identities as a result of mass immigration and the role played by the (EU). The impulse to rupture the transatlantic alliance took on theoretical form.
Europe is “weak”, declared Trump, angered by European diplomatic resistance to the Russian-American plan to capitulate Ukraine. The sentence, in line with the NSS, is neither false nor true. It is based on the abstraction of history.
Europe was reinvented, amidst the ruins of , in order to scare away the ghosts of and . It would be a supranational political bloc (the current EU), and a component of the US-led military alliance. The purpose of the political bloc was to tame European nationalism, especially the Franco-German rivalry, creating a structure of peace. The EU is not a national state, but a legal building and a framework for ongoing negotiations between governments. Hence, the slowness of its decision-making processes.
The US operated as a patron of Europe’s reinvention. NATO, in the words of Hastings Ismay, its first secretary general, was intended to “leave the US in, out and down.” The third imperative aimed to prevent the revival of German militarism. As a consequence, Europe’s largest economy does not have nuclear weapons and does not exercise military leadership.
Europe did not lag behind the US in helping Ukraine. Until Trump’s inauguration, his contribution was concentrated more in financial contributions than in transfers of military equipment, but, in general terms, it was equivalent to the American one. After that, it became practically the only fulcrum of Ukrainian military resistance. The White House’s anti-European fury is largely due to the opposition of the nations of Europe to Trump’s plot to break the back of the invaded country.
However, as the NSS reveals, the split has deeper roots. Trump is not satisfied with the radical expansion of European defense spending, an objective that has already been achieved. The target of its ideological movement is the EU, which it defines as a tool for “exploitation” of the US, and the values intrinsic to European liberal democracies. Putin’s nationalist and reactionary Russia constitutes, in Trump’s eyes, the ideal model for European nations. Ultimately, the NSS represents a pact between Washington and the “European patriotic parties” – that is, the nationalist right and extreme right currents rising in the Old World.
The NSS coagulates a historical rupture. Their goal is to destroy the post-war order built under US leadership, which rests on the transatlantic alliance. In its place, the old order of spheres of influence of the great powers would resurface. The Americas for the USA, Eastern Europe for Russia, the East for – this is the concept that articulates Trump’s global policy.
Mars is not the right metaphor. In the eyes of Xi Jinping and Putin, Trump’s USA appears like a waning moon.
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