The Internationalism

Internationalism No. 73, March 2025 Page 16 Three years of war in Ukraine. Perhaps with a truce in sight, albeit in the heated climate of the European shock over the Atlantic crisis and the American about-face. Trump wants to make a deal with Putin without regard for Kyiv and the EU; doubts are spreading as to whether America can be trusted anymore. Friedrich Merz, the next head of the German government, has been heard uttering words that would previously have been unthinkable for an Atlanticist like him: We must become independent from the United States; Berlin must agree with London and Paris on the nuclear protection of Europe. It is uncertain whether NATO, in its present form, will be suitable for this “epochal break”, or whether new European structures will be needed. Perhaps the objective is a Europeanised NATO, a centre of gravity in the Old Continent that can contain or compensate for American oscillations and the unpredictable behaviour of its bull...

Internationalism No. 73, March 2025 Page 3 From the series European news On February 3rd, the new president of the European Council, António Costa, organised his first summit of the heads of State and government. It was an informal meeting dedicated to defence, with the aim of reaching a consensus on a synthesis that will be included in the new White Paper in April, and that will provide a basis for possible decisions at the official European Council in June. In the current context, however, it was also about “sending a signal to the president of the United States that the Europeans are prepared to increase military spending” [Handelsblatt, February 3rd]. British “reset” One unusual feature of the summit was the presence of Keir Starmer. For the first time since Brexit, a British prime minister was present at a meeting of the European Council. According to Le Monde, this could signal “the start of concrete negotiations on the topic of defence, against t...

Internationalism No. 73, March 2025 Page 2 In the past we used to say that anything that is exaggerated is irrelevant, and this was especially true for the hard facts of international politics. Now, with the rise of television and social media democracy and their misdeeds, one must accept that they inherently favour provocation and exaggeration as a communication style. This combines with the technical capability of the world wide web to give an immediate and universal audience to every narcissistic impulse to draw attention to oneself through provocative theatrical shows. If “the medium is the message” — as Marshall McLuhan argued about television, which transformed communication into the town square of a “global village” then we must consider how the combination of television with social media transforms interventions, impromptu or not, into global political facts. These interventions are carried out through a process of disintermediation — bypassing the fil...

Internationalism No. 33, November 2021 Page 3 From the series European News In a lawsuit brought by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, the Constitutional Tribunal, which is composed of judges chosen by the government, ruled that fundamental parts of the EU Treaty are incompatible with the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. This ruling thus denies the primacy of European law over national law, undermining both the political assumption of continental integration and the supranational character of the EU . Vectors of Polish history We can shed light on this event if we consider the four field vectors that cross Poland: its traditional ethnic-religious nationalism, its marked Atlantic tropism, the objective attraction exerted by the European force field, and the looming threat of Russia. The general picture is global collisions: China’s irruption and the crisis in the world order have put pressure on Warsaw to define its st...

Internationalism No. 33, November 2021 Page 2 Fog of war is a military expression referring to the difficulty, during the course of battle, of knowing and calculating all factors at play as they unfold and interact. This image can be extended to the military-strategic and also to the political dimension of power relations: today a rearmaments race, regular parades of war devices, new alliances, political warnings and mutual ambiguities in Asia signal the agitated beginning of a long crescendo of tensions. A number of questions can help us understand the new characteristics of this contention. Should NATO extend its strategic aim to the confrontation with China? Jens Stoltenberg, the Alliance’s secretary general and a Norwegian — a fact which expresses an Atlanticism closely aligned with American positions — thinks so. He tells the Financial Times that China, even though it cannot be defined exclusively as an adversary , is having an impact on European ...

From the series News from the Silk Road According to The Washington Post , through the federal budget the White House has opened negotiations with the Senate that include long-term competition with China. The figures — $6 trillion, including infrastructure and family welfare plans — will vary in the negotiations, and will be centred on three directives. One demand is common to various proposals of expenditure: they must have a positive impact on the American productivity vis-à-vis China on the open fronts of industrial, energy and technological restructuring, or on the efficiency of welfare systems. In the case of welfare, the competition is also vis-à-vis Europe. Another calculation, attributed to Biden’s administration and the Democrats, is the enlargement of the electoral coalition in view of the next mid-term elections. Finally, there is a need to direct military expenditure, within the framework of a greater increase in the other items of discretionary expenditure, not absorb...

From the series European News Climate policy is now openly the object of the imperialist contention. The EU, driven by the German acceleration, has set itself targets that impose a fast pace on continental industry: climate neutrality by 2050 and, as an intermediate step, a 55% reduction in emissions by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. In July, the Commission presented the Fit for 55 package, which details in legislative proposals the objectives of the Green Deal formulated in 2019. A decisive decade The EU plan is initiating a major fight between the powers, the political forces and the large groups. It has set a thirty-year agenda, but the next decade will be crucial, said the Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The reform will require a qualified majority in the Council and in the EU Parliament, a process that will probably take two years. The Financial Times reports that France, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Latvia, Ireland and Bulgaria have already raised concerns about the...

In crises and wars there are events which leave their mark on history because of how they make a decisive impact on the power contention, or because of how, almost like a chemical precipitate, they suddenly make deep trends that have been at work for some time coalesce. This is the case of the defeat of the United States and NATO in Afghanistan, which is taking the shape of a real watershed in the cycle of Atlantic decline. For the moment, through various comments in the international press, it is possible to consider its consequences on three levels: America’s position as a power and the connection with its internal crisis; the repercussions on Atlantic relations and Europe’s dilemmas regarding its strategic autonomy; and the relationship between the Afghan crisis and power relations in Asia, especially as regards India’s role in the Indo-Pacific strategy. Repercussions in the United States Richard Haass is the president of the CFR, the Council on Foreign Relations; despite having ...

The dialectic between economic weapons and weapons of war in the crisis in the world order requires specific reflection where concerns European imperialism. Dealing with monetary weapons in their book War by Other Means , Jennifer Harris and Robert Blackwill place great emphasis on the strategic success of the European monetary federation: Through forging the eurozone, Germany has also realized its century-long quest for a pliant European market for German manufacturing. Both of these were things it had previously tried (and failed) to accomplish by force. The long quotation below is from the speech Helmut Schmidt made to the Bundesbank Council in 1978 in favour of the EMS, the European Monetary System that would lead to the euro. Classified as confidential for 30 years, the text was declassified in 2008. There emerges from it a highly political vision of the German use of the monetary weapon and of the strategic weight of a single continental market: What now concerns German pol...