TRUMP TEACHES EUROPEANS HOW GEOPOLITICS WORKS

Donald Trump certainly deserves some credit. He is explaining to the public, especially European public opinion, a fundamental axiom in geopolitics: empires always follow a strategy aimed at achieving their vital interests; otherwise, they wouldn't be empires, and they wouldn’t remain as such. So, when interests change, priorities simply shift. He is doing this in a blunt, direct manner, not so much to speak to us Europeans, but to communicate clearly and effectively with his electorate, which is certainly not capable of understanding the “nuances” of international relations. The Donald is signaling that Europe is no longer a strategic priority, meaning that Uncle Sam will no longer concern himself with defending and managing the security of a continent where Americans died in two world wars and spent exorbitant sums to patrol it over the past eighty years. This means: the end of “Mother America,” and for Europe, that the time has come to grow up. As a good salesman, The Donald has offered what his “market” demanded, while hiding what he doesn’t want to hear: resources will simply be shifted from Europe to the Indo-Pacific sector. European mass media, along with the majority of public opinions (and many analysts too), are astonished by the U.S. change of policy towards the old continent, as if the USA had maintained this privileged relationship with us for the last eighty years out of pure altruism. Empires and self-aware nations are not humanitarian foundations; everything they do is aimed at achieving objectives and maintaining privileges. The United States have not changed; they are still the same: only their strategic priorities have shifted. Simply put, Europe is no longer as useful as it once was, because the historical enemy, Russia, has proven to be a giant with clay feet. The end of the enemy means the end of the unlimited protection of the “crown jewel.” Russia has proven not to be a real competitor for maintaining global U.S. hegemony; in fact, it can be quite useful to American interests.

Nations that are part of an empire fall into two broad categories: the “useful” ones, also called “satellites,” which are functional in carrying out the strategies of the hegemon, and the “sacrificable” ones. We Europeans, with Italy at the forefront, are still (for how long?) in the category of useful nations, thus still subject to a certain level of interest from America and therefore protection. Ukraine, unfortunately for itself and its people, has always been a sacrificial ally, purely functional for one goal: to weaken and bring Russia, the last colonial empire remaining in the world, to more moderate terms. The U.S. have never wanted a military defeat for Russia. The delayed and halting military supplies to Kiev, the series of restrictions on the use of weapons granted, and American intelligence support to Putin to thwart the coup attempt by the now-deceased head of Wagner, tell us a lot about the peculiar Washington-Moscow relationship. The Pentagon’s last wish is to risk facing a politically and socially disordered country with the world’s largest nuclear arsenal. A potentially unmanageable situation but, above all, completely unpredictable in its developments. The enemies waiting to feast on the remnants of the Russian bear are many, and almost none of them align with American objectives. For Russia, it is realistically more beneficial to form a strategic partnership with the United States rather than with the Chinese. There is no reason for Moscow to favor the rise of the Middle Kingdom for four reasons. The first is economic: the Russian Federation is rich in raw materials, making it an attractive territory for an energy-hungry empire like China. The second is demographic: the Chinese population stands at 1.4 billion, while Russia has just over 140 million people. The third is historical: Moscow has taken thousands of square kilometers from China during various Sino-Soviet wars. Finally, the last reason is strategic-military: Russia does not border the United States, being separated by an ocean, while with China it shares a border of 4,250 km. It’s always better to have the stronger enemy far from home than at your doorstep. In the event of a conflict with China, Russia would have no chance of victory, aside from the nuclear apocalypse.

U.S. think-tanks know the Russian Empire and its people very well: Russians are willing to give up everything, endure privations unimaginable to other peoples, but they will not accept defeat due to a series of values embedded in their culture and history. If such a thing were to happen, they would decapitate their leader, and not just metaphorically. The Romanov family learned this the hard way: first losing the Russo-Japanese war in 1905 and then losing World War I. Putin and his apparatus are fully aware of this. The problem is that, from a strategic point of view, Russia has already lost the war in Ukraine. In three years of war, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dead soldiers and having to destroy its own economy, what was once considered one of the best armies in the world has not even managed to fully conquer the three Ukrainian regions it had already annexed unilaterally. The much-desired strategic depth, for which the war essentially broke out, has further shrunk: all neighboring states are arming themselves to the teeth and are filled with strong anti-Russian sentiment. Moreover, Putin is risking becoming China’s vassal state, with all that entails. Now, Moscow’s primary goals are twofold: to break away from Beijing to avoid being trapped in a deadly embrace with an existing enemy and to transform, in the eyes of its own people, a clear strategic defeat into a full victory. The time left is really short. Not by coincidence, just over a month after Trump’s inauguration, peace already seems like a done deal. At Trump’s first call, Putin made himself available, probably waiting for it. Trump most probably will accept almost all of Putin’s requests in order to help him and sell this Pyrrhic victory to the Russians: the ousting of Zelensky to symbolically carry out the denazification of Ukraine, informal confirmation of the conquered territories, keeping Ukraine out of NATO. Objectively, from the perspective of pursuing U.S. strategic objectives, these are all sacrificable concessions. Within realistic limits, the White House will accept almost any request to separate the Russians from the Chinese, keep Putin in power, and focus on the Indo-Pacific.

And what will European nations do? I speak of European nations, not the European Community, simply because the latter doesn’t exist as a political project and won’t exist in the near future: it is currently only an economic and legislative union. Politically, the stronger states are seeking to pursue their own interests, while the weaker ones follow suit. Trump’s policy is certainly, metaphorically, an awakening. He has forcibly introduced the concept into political discourse and public opinion that we are part of History. We are not in a bubble, unaffected by the events happening in the world. Now it is up to us to decide whether we want to be part of History, with all its pros and cons, trying to move toward a future that suits who we are, or remain at the mercy of the tides of History, hoping to land on safe shores, but with the risk of arriving in lands that are foreign to us. By being part of the American empire, we have given up part of our sovereignty and decision-making capacity in exchange for economic prosperity and peace guaranteed by the U.S. The time has come to start discussing whether this contract is still valid and whether it is in our best interest to maintain it.