In the middle of the 18th century, Europe went through what is known today as the Diplomatic Revolution. The Hapsburg Empire, centred around Austria, and which had been allied with Britain against its long-term rival France, swapped sides. The Dutch Republic, a longtime protestant ally of Britain, decided to stand on the sidelines of future conflict. And Prussia, which had taken land off Austria, lined up with its enemy’s new friend, Britain. You might want to draw a diagram – or think of a parallel episode of Game of Thrones.
Such shifting allegiances, a dance of changing interests and forces, has been the norm through human history, from the Greek city states of the classic periods to the pre-Aztec settlements of Mexico that eventually settled into the pre-Conquistador Triple Alliance.
Why then should we have assumed that Francis Fukuyama’s End of History thesis, so laughably inaccurate in economic, social and cultural terms, should also apply to geopolitics in the 21st century. Why assume that the alliances of the later 20th century would continue into the 21st?
Saudi Arabia hosts USA and Russia talks on Ukraine
What really happened this week in Saudi Arabia? In that absolute monarchy effectively ruled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, director of the vicious murder, just five years ago, of the dissident Jamal Khashoggi? In the Saudi state, a neo-feudal and tightly controlled environment, which has increasingly been sharing its allegiance between East and West? To answer that question, it helps to put aside any 20th century assumptions about the international players involved, and their former alliances.
The world’s most militarily powerful nation, President Donald Trump’s United States, and its historic Cold War rival, Vladimir Putin’s Russia, sat down in Saudi Arabia to carve up a separate, independent sovereign state: Ukraine. Kyiv was not represented at the table. (Even the murderous Saudi prince thought it should have been). No other institutions, multilateral or otherwise, had a say in the holding of the talks. The participants also agreed to normalise relations between Moscow and Washington – restricted since the Kremlin invaded Ukraine in 2022 – and floated prospects of extensive business ties. Trump then went on to issue a barrage of lies about the democratically elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
US imperialist ambitions laid bare
This came after the US had demanded a $500bn ‘payback’ from Ukraine for previous military support. A sum to be delivered not just through critical minerals, but through control of ports and infrastructure, and oil and gas. The Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard calculated this as proportionately greater than the infamously disastrous reparations demanded from Germany after the first world war through the Treaty of Versailles. This is the biggest and best-armed gang on the block demanding protection money, on a truly stupendous scale.
It also occurs in the context where Trump has expressed imperial ambitions toward Greenland, Panama, and even large neighbour Canada. Commentators have shifted uncomfortably and suggested this might be simply aiming to “flood the zone” of news with extreme announcements, or a bid to win concessions with sabre-rattling. But increasingly, claims that this is all just a show do not hold up.
US tries to push Europe further right
Vice-President JD Vance, a man inspired by a host of frankly frightening post-liberal, ‘neo-reactionary’, predominantly Catholic thinkers, had also just delivered a swingeing rhetorical attack on European democracy. It suggested the new American regime believes it can dictate to a continent what its values should be: values represented by far-right parties. As a respected Financial Times (FT) commentator said: “What Vance did was to subvert the ideas of freedom, democracy and shared values that have underpinned the western alliance for 80 years.” The vice-president then went on to decline to meet the German leader Olaf Scholtz, but chose to lift the profile of far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) leader Alice Weidel with a clearly warm meeting.
Continuing with this demonstration of far right allegiance, the FT reported that Trump’s special envoy, Richard Grenell, following up on a phone call made by US officials last week, sought to secure the ending of travel restrictions on self-described misogynist, Andrew Tate. Tate is facing charges in Romania of human trafficking, sexual misconduct and money laundering, and starting an organised crime group. Tate and his brother, Tristan, have claimed to be part of the social media ‘manosphere’ forces that helped support the election of Trump. If you are part of the ideological gang, it seems, protection comes free.
America redraws its global allegiances
Where Trump’s America’s allegiance lies is being laid out, clearly, loudly and aggressively. Any nation which thinks it can ride along like in the past, that claims a ‘special relationship’, is living in a fantasy land. And needs to wake up fast. Journalists and government are clearly not keeping up. We might need to reincarnate John le Carré to provide a realistic picture of the morally murky world we are in now. But we cannot wait for novelists.
And while, as I often say when it comes to Iran, or Russia, or Saudi Arabia, we must distinguish between a regime and its people; we must acknowledge that the actions of governments – and governments themselves – can change. It has to be said that in the US, while there is already resistance to Trump, with sources calling out, for example, Vance’s words in Munich, there is no reason to think this will not be the pattern for the next four years – or, all too likely, more.
Governments have to prepare for a world in which the US, Russia – and maybe China, which has been a significant contributor to Moscow’s war effort against its neighbour – are lined up together: right wing autocracies looking to dictate to their neighbours and the world.
A cautious UK response
So, in post-Brexit Britain, what is happening? One of the few of the military establishment to lift their head above the parapet has been former deputy supreme allied commander Sir Richard Shirreff, who warned that America “can no longer be trusted as an ally”, even if this was combined with a predictable call for more defence spending.
Sir Keir Starmer looks stuck in the 20th century, still seeking to ‘warn’ President Trump against Vladimir Putin, still asking for and accepting crumbs from the table of the US president’s attention, and suggesting that he could be a “bridge” between Washington and European capitals. Yet we know that rolling over and playing meek before a bully is seldom a successful tactic.
The need for an alternative power nexus
Commentators are suggesting that this US reversal is leaving Europe “alone”, which is a particularly Euro-centric, 20th-century, perspective. There are almost 200 countries in the world today, and while the US-China-Russia nexus has overwhelming military dominance, those are not the only forces at play in the world.
Other countries have moral sway – say, Barbados and Tuvalu on the climate emergency. Some have the power of being admired and respected – say, Finland for its democracy, its education system and its social justice, or Bhutan for its focus on human happiness. African nations have the power and energy of youthful populations, of talents ready to be unleashed and advanced.
In the 20th century Cold War, countries were pushed to choose between two sides, for all that the Non-Aligned Movement tried to carve out another way. Now, if nations and peoples want to uphold the hard-won, globally agreed international norms of human rights and the rule of law. If they do not want to return to 19th-century models of ‘might is right’ in which any state could decide to just take its neighbour’s land and resources, nations around the world are going to have to form their own ‘side’ again.
If they want to support the essential global action on the climate emergency (something Global South states are already speaking up about in this new Trump-infused world), or are determined to defend the natural world on which all human life depends (a task at which our species is currently failing), then the majority of the world’s nations that are not in the authoritarian militarism mould, are going to have to get together.
The rise of the UN General Assembly
The United Nations General Assembly has already become a more significant body (as the Security Council became mired in veto-stasis), and is only going to be enhanced further as a force for positive action if the US, China and Russia line up. It has to be a major vehicle if we are to uphold a norms-based order, protect the small against the big, the poor against the rich, the democrats against the autocrats. And it helps make the argument against knee-jerk reactions in the UK to push defence spending to war-like heights. (Even though there is certainly going to have to be an investment in disentangling our military from reliance on US technology and resources).
Even pre-Trump, this was an argument I was making when the government started the Strategic Defence Review: it makes no sense to consider only defence spending, when our security depends on so many other areas of government activity, from diplomacy to official development assistance, civil defence to food security.
Fresh perspectives are needed for UK and international security
It is not just the Green Party saying we need to look at security with new eyes. Interestingly, a report out last year from three very mainstream and high level former civil service figures came to many of the same conclusions. The UK needs to work with other middle-ranking powers to defend and enhance a rule-based international order, and that we “deliver most when we work strategically to combine [our range of] assets and expertise behind a unified mission with strong political direction”.
It is now even more obvious too, that our nuclear weapons, over which we have no control independent of the US, are a massive cost and a dangerous choice.
Not replacing Trident could free up considerable resources to reinforce a military that, it is generally agreed, does not have the capacity to deliver what the government is offering on peacekeeping in Ukraine. But that requires realism, too: the armed forces are not achieving existing recruitment targets. With an ageing population in poor health right across the age spectrums, any idea of significant military expansion – when so many other aspects of our society also need staffing – does not stack up.
There is an important role here for the media. Reporting every day on the latest extreme Trump or Elon Musk pronouncement, making it the centre of global discourse, and only counting in the reactions of the usual suspect states, is not good enough. There is a whole world of real news out there – from the hideous attacks of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo driven by the UK-backed regime in Rwanda, to the multiple threats of drought and hunger around the world.
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