Western retrenchment?

I do happen to think that the west is at a point of over-extension. I think that many of the promises made in the heady decade immediately after the cold war came with a hidden cost – the expectation that “things wouldn’t change much” – but that’s been proven incorrect & and that cost is now coming due. The heady idea that we’re all in a fraternal brotherhood of man & people have universal rights etc might have arisen from 3 major wars in the 20^th century (2 violent, 1 cold), but a fraternal brotherhood demands the rule and law and a degree of partnership from everyone. That partnership is absent in the resurgent & quasi-USSR under its quasi-Imperial leadership – and even here in the liberal west that partnership is sorely lacking, when it comes to helping people escape the debt trap that decades of trickledown economics & ever-greater cuts to public services has entailed.

Sure, the world can retain Western dominance with America as the sole super power – but the prices of that supremacy is much higher taxes to further grow its military, an investment in social & civics classes to improve its society & a move away from the rentier capitalism that has become dominant in the last few decades. Without these changes & a clear commitment to maintaining the world order, we will face an ever-expanding range of military and economic challenges. And I just don’t see that commitment. As the old adage says: anyone can walk on water - its easy to be popular and comfortably victorious – its much tougher to break out of a comfortable routine and address the world as it really is, rather than how you want it to be.

I think that Trump is, in many ways, less of a problem than he appears to be. He is certainly an opportunistic narcissist with mob-boss tendencies & pure contempt for the rule of law – but he is clearly so. Bizarrely he is also less of a problem as the reason he is doing well is that there is a large amount of people in the US who are not happy with the results that elections have given. Rentier capitalism has become entrenched in the western world & provided decades of profit to the owners and a deteriorating service to the public – whilst social problems have proliferated. Drug-related crime is a major problem, jobs have been moved abroad (to many places, Mexico & China among them) causing a dearth of well-paying manual labour; educational establishments are (again) money-making schemes - and give lie to the idea that if 5% of people become ultra-skilled earners, they can support the remaining 95% - wages have stagnated & infrastructure has crumbled.  Corporations have become less obsessed with making profit as a result of good production – but instead are obsessed with making profit via financial jiggery & quality of product has decreased as a result. Government - for decades – have been complicit in this, with criminal penalties now replaced with fines (and a fine simply means that breaking the law is optional - for a price).

So Trump is representing a real segment of society. It’s the losers, the left behind, the unlucky & desperate – all seeking someone to blame. By giving people hope, things can get better.

But their pain is real. And if their issues are not addressed, next time it won’t be Trump, it will be someone else. Someone comforting. Someone capable. Someone systematic. Someone who will ride over the rules.

Someone who can't be got rid of.

NATO

I cannot see how the Baltics can be defended by NATO - and whilst I think that they should get some arms-length protection from NATO members, I simply don't think that they should be members of the alliance. Simply put, in the event that Russia did decide to invade, NATO would not have any means of escalation dominance other than going nuclear. It basically puts all of NATOs credibility on the line in an easily-tested location. I can see the reason why NATO expanded there, but it reeks of western post-cold-war optimism & exuberance. "Sure we can protect you! We've just won the cold war! There's nothing we can't do against a broken, ramshackle starving Russia!"

How times change. Sadly, as Trump demonstrated, I find it almost unimaginable that a crop of nationalist strongmen would be prepared to risk their countries for foreigners; would Trump gamble Miami for Talinn? LePen risk Nante for Riga? Erdogan risk trading Izmir for Vilnius? I find it unlikely. Whilst Poland might be prepared to fight & the EU might want to provide logisitcal aid, if things were unclear on the ground (a rebellion of native Russians claiming that they are being victimised & a popular rebellion against Russian energy supplies during a middle-east energy crisis) then people would be leaping for a diplomatic solution.

I think that the temptation to draw a line on a map & trade away (pretty much) indefensible salient to secure a defensible position would be overwhelming; a Russian offer to make swingeing cuts in their nuclear arsenal, totally & verifiably demilitarise Kalinningrad, return some of the Kuril Islands to Japan, normalise the situation in Ukraine (and provide reconstruction money!) & accept the finlandisation of the Baltics - plus perhaps confirm that they can remain part of the Single Market (perhaps via EFTA?) would be a shovelful of grit in NATOs wheels at a crucial time. "Half a loaf of bread" - the argument would be - "is better than none". And "where there is life, there is hope".

And I think it would win. It would be a massive loss of face for NATO though and call into question every other treaty the western world has signed. If they choke over the Baltics, the chances they'll choke over Taiwan is much greater than expected. How could NATO recover that credibility? "Next time we mean it!" is hardly a successful rallying cry.

I think it would be the permanent end of NATO as a political entiity - at least in its current form. Perhaps a new "Western Alliance" will come about - but it will be permanently in the shadow of NATOs failure to deter.

I think that a successful Russian gambit would require a LePen Presidency in France though. Whilst the UK might be prepared to fight & risk nuclear obblitteration, without a supporting nuclear power (i.e. at least 1 of the US or France) I think it would be unable to act.  So, if Trump & LePen get in (in 2024 & 2027 respectively) then I'd not be surprised if it happened in 2028.