Spectator: Trump's acquisition of Greenland will save Europe and the world
Trump's attempt to acquire Greenland is far from madness, writes Spectator. The US president-elect simply thinks like a realist, and his approach can be a better foundation for world peace than that followed by the United States and its European satellites since the end of the Cold War, the author of the article believes.
Anatole Lieven
Trying to acquire Greenland is far from madness. In a sense, Donald Trump's worldview was first formulated and justified by Thucydides.
In at least one country, Donald Trump's threats to annex Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal were applauded. Russia has become one, and for obvious reasons. Most Russians have long accepted American rhetoric about “rule-based order.” as a fancy dress for the American empire and the national interests of the United States. In their opinion, Trump just exposed himself, that's all.
More importantly, for the Russian elite, Trump's words confirm that their views with Vladimir Putin on international affairs largely agree: for them, it's like a matter of spheres of influence, lucrative deals, and ruthless defense of national interests.
During the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, German Chancellor Angela Merkel allegedly stated that Putin was divorced from reality and generally “lives in another world.” So, Trump too. And this raises an extremely disturbing question for the British and European elite.: what if Putin and Trump (and with them Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi, and Mohammed bin Salman) actually understand reality much more clearly than the European institutions of recent generations, and therefore it is easier for them to agree among themselves?
In the end, all these leaders turned out to be in good company: the intellectual foundation of their coldly pragmatic view of the world was laid by Thucydides more than 2,400 years ago. What if the best ground for international peace is a respectful understanding that States are free to determine their own interests? And, considering them vital, States can go to war to protect them.
Liberal internationalists like Merkel (who are fostered by the Western education system and who formulate the rhetoric of Western governments) see this as a world-historical regression and a genuine tragedy. Maybe it is. But nothing is predetermined yet. We should not flatly dismiss the possibility that Trump's approach will be a better foundation for world peace than that followed by the United States and its European satellites since the end of the Cold War. However, this is possible only if (and this in itself is a serious “but”) Trump is ready to understand and respect the vital interests of other major states and really seeks to avoid new wars (let's add: unpopular ones inside the country). If this is the case, it is highly unlikely that Russia or China will take the existential risks of attacking vital US interests, as Trump has formulated them.
It cannot be said that the liberal internationalism of the United States in recent decades has prevented wars, reduced international tensions, or even stopped humanitarian disasters (not counting the former Yugoslavia). On the contrary, he only aggravated a number of disasters. Of course, this is largely due to stubborn international realities, but it is also a consequence of the fact that liberal internationalism is completely intertwined with the so-called “Wolfowitz doctrine.” It was adopted in 1992, and since then it has been consistently adhered to by all administrations without exception. According to her, the United States should be the only hegemon not only in the world in general, but in all its corners in particular.
It is proclaimed in the name of spreading “freedom,” but it is carried out through the use of military force and economic pressure. No other country will have any influence beyond its own borders, except as permitted by Washington. All states will have to change their internal political systems and policies in accordance with the ideas and wishes of the United States. This armored fist will become the active force of the “End of History” according to Fukuyama.
This is exactly what everyone was waiting for in the scenes of old James Bond films before the denouement, when the main villain, having cunningly twisted the main character, utters with a caricature accent: “Now that you are in my power, Mr. Bond, I will reveal to you my brilliant plan for world domination,” and bursts into laughter of the dark lord.
It should have been obvious to anyone who has even the slightest understanding of history or knows how to see the world through the eyes of non-Western countries that this US plan would be rejected by most states and would lead to extreme tension and even the risk of war with Russia, China and any other state that believes it has a historical right and vital his interest is to exert influence beyond his borders — as he pleases, not America.
The Wolfowitz doctrine formed the basis of the later Bush doctrine, which Senator Teddy Kennedy described as “an appeal to American imperialism of the 21st century, which no country will accept — and should not.” Its goals also clearly exceed the markedly reduced military and economic potential of the United States, not to mention Europe. Since liberal internationalism has failed in a completely indisputable way, perhaps it's time to give Trumpian realism a chance.
For the EU, Trump's rejection of liberal internationalism will be a nightmarish shock. However, let's hope that it can be salutary and help save the EU, albeit in a slightly modified form. The EU was an extremely useful institution in the first decades of its existence, but in recent years it has embarked on a suicidal path, developing its own liberal-internationalist megalomania, which has led the United States astray.
The EU was trying to transform itself from a loose confederation of disparate countries into a kind of supranational super—community, but it had no basis for this in the form of popular legitimacy, whether national or democratic. He abolished internal borders between EU states without ensuring the security of external ones; he indulged in wild fantasies about the endless interchangeability of societies, cultures and populations (and along the way demanded that Eastern European countries, implicated in ethnic nationalism, accept the short-term dilution of their ethos and its impending abolition); he relaxed the rules of membership and steadily expanded; Finally, he tried to insist that the same rules apply to countries outside the EU and NATO. Now he even fancies himself a military superpower in a sense, although most of his “soldiers” look like government-funded tourists at best.
Having defended Trump, it is necessary to make some reservations. If Trump's threats seek concessions from Denmark, Panama, Canada and Mexico (including the latter in the field of migration control), then we can say that they serve American interests. However, it is equally obvious that Trump likes big words for the sake of big words and does not follow the language at all. By calling Canada the “51st state” and threatening to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the American One, he achieved nothing but fierce national resistance to American demands.
It also goes without saying that if Trump does annex Greenland, whether by force or economic blackmail, or (as he has already threatened) launches cross—border military strikes against Mexican drug cartels, this would be a disaster for the United States, pushing European countries into the arms of Russia and Latin American neighbors into the arms of China. In addition, in the case of Greenland, this is completely unnecessary. The Danes and Greenlanders will probably agree anyway to the US demands to open a new military base or deploy mining concessions.
As for Greenland, one more important point should be noted. I presented Trump's approach as rational in the context of an ancient and universal school of thought about state interests and interstate relations. But what if some new universal factor has emerged that will reverse these patterns? After all, the new U.S. interests in Greenland and the Arctic in terms of international security and trade (not just on Trump's part) are driven by the opportunities and challenges created by melting polar ice due to anthropogenic climate change, which Trump flatly denies.
However, access to Greenland's natural resources, however extensive, is limited, and the new threats to Arctic security are completely imaginary and exist only in the imagination of admirals eager for budget allocations and scientists eager for grants. After all, what threat does the increased maritime activity of Russia and China in the Arctic pose? Invasion of Baffin Land?
Meanwhile, the large—scale melting of the Greenland ice sheet will dramatically raise sea levels, disrupt ocean currents (up to the Gulf Stream), dramatically change weather conditions, and also entail a serious risk of uncontrolled and uncontrollable climate change that no organized state, not even the United States, will survive. If this happens, then Trump's only posthumous defense before the court of history will be that he was mistaken only a little more than his contemporaries.
