THE COMEDY OF MISUNDERSTANDINGS
It may be that the irruption of Hurricane Trump on the international scene has disconcerted many, or that expectations were exaggeratedly high, but it seems that this is unleashing a series of truly considerable misunderstandings.
To begin with, the new America is not at all oriented towards multipolarity, not even in terms of a simple acceptance of reality. On the contrary – and many things demonstrate this – it is simply operating a tactical conversion, which takes note of the emergence of a multipolar world, but only to better combat it, and reaffirm US predominance. This does not only result from the repeated statements (and actions) that continue to indicate China as a threat, and the need to contain it (even militarily), but also from the changed attitude towards Russia.
The 180° reversal, compared to the positions supported by the previous US administration until a few months ago, is in fact due to two elements: on the one hand, the recognition of the strategic error committed by triggering the conflict in Ukraine, which pushed Moscow to establish a de facto strategic alliance with Beijing, and on the other, the reassessment of the Russian enemy as difficult but still of a lower level. Hence the new American policy that aims to separate Russia and China (and more generally to break the quadrilateral alliance block with Iran and North Korea), opening a phase of dialogue and collaboration with Moscow, which aims to involve it in a mechanism for reducing conflict. Fundamentally, this scheme is based on the idea that by easing the conflict with Russia, and at the same time accentuating the one with China, this ends up insinuating a wedge between the two countries. Obviously, the assumption is that the US offers are attractive enough for Moscow to convince it to stay out of a possible worsening of Sino-American tensions. We will see later how this operation is actually much more complicated, starting with the fact that Washington does not actually have much to offer.
Moreover, even for the United States - albeit to a lesser extent than the Europeans - making such a clear change of direction is not exactly simple, starting with the fact that even in environments linked to the political world that supports Trump there are quite a few ferocious Russophobes. And besides, even if the face that the US administration is presenting to Moscow is very friendly, it has not yet given up the carrot and stick mode at all, not failing to flash threats of various kinds here and there, should the Russian response not be sufficiently collaborative.
In more general terms, it is necessary to understand that US power politics has always conformed to geopolitical, not ideological, criteria. Even though, during the entire period from the First World War to the fall of the USSR, anti-communism was a powerful tool, just as democratic progressivism became a powerful tool from the end of the Cold War onwards, these have always been superstructures. The foundation of the hegemonic policy of the United States has always been geopolitical in nature, therefore free from ideological and/or idealistic pressures. And, as is obvious for a great imperial power, its strategies have always been a medium-long term issue, not subject to radical changes with every change of administration.
As is natural, these strategies are therefore only partially developed by the various federal administrations; the strategic continuity of the empire is ensured by a vast corpus of powers (economic, bureaucratic, cultural) that constitute the ground in which the different government groups have their roots, and from which they arise and – at the same time – draw their political personnel. This set of powers is substantially permanent (in the sense that its capacity for influence remains, regardless of changes in the White House), and should not be understood as a monolithic block, but rather as a vast informal network, in which even different interests co-operate and gradually find a strategic synthesis, and obviously a political synthesis that expresses it and guarantees its implementation. This is exactly what we are used to defining as the deep state. It is important to understand that this deep state cannot be defined in terms of political alignments (democratic or republican), which simply represent its epiphenomenon; by its nature, it determines the selection of the ruling classes, but does not coincide with one or the other. This absolutely also applies to Trump.
Even if the current president is not a career politician, he has always been a prominent member of the US oligarchy, and therefore absolutely organic to it. Therefore, it is not Trump who imposes himself on the deep state, but it is the latter (a part of it) that selects him, to carry out an operation deemed necessary - that is, an abrupt change of direction - because the American decline has reached a crisis point that makes it unavoidable. What Trump is operating in the states, therefore, is not an operation to destroy the deep state, but its purge. The most superficial elements, those most involved in strategic mismanagement, the most corrupt or ideologically influenced, are being removed to restore efficiency: at a time when the United States is preparing to face the greatest challenge to its global dominance, it is necessary that the war machine is perfectly up to the task, and absolutely cohesive. The apparatuses now considered inadequate, such as USAID, will be dismantled, but no one will question Lockheed Martin or Blackrock.
Another major misunderstanding – or rather two – concerns the Ukrainian conflict. In their extraordinary obtuseness, European leaders believe that Trump is, in this regard, making a strategic U-turn (and that this constitutes a betrayal of common ideals). First of all, for the US, even during the Biden administration, this war has never been a question of ideals (democracy vs. autocracy); that was propaganda for suckers – and in fact European leaders bought it. For Washington, the conflict in Ukraine has always represented a strategic move that concerns power relations with Moscow; the Trump administration does express a different strategic orientation, but always within the context of geopolitical relations between the United States and Russia. The ideals that Europeans preach about, and even less so the Europeans themselves (including the Ukrainians), have never counted for anything. What Trump is putting into play, therefore, is simply a continuation of the previous line, based on the defense of US interests, stripping it of the frills that had served to embellish it for Western public opinion. The resumption of dialogic relations between the two powers, therefore, is not related to the conflict and its resolution, except to a very marginal extent, the objective being of a completely different nature and dimension.
The primary need of the United States in this phase, and in view of the decisive confrontation with China, requires on the one hand industrial reconstruction (and therefore the optimization of the use of resources, and the time necessary to employ them), and on the other - as already said - the division of the opposing front. The new American position towards Russia, therefore, is functional to the achievement of these two objectives, gaining time and detaching it from China. It is American strategic interests that are at stake, therefore the involvement of third parties (such as European states) makes sense only if and when this is useful to these interests; in no way does it concern the defense of common interests.
Not only, therefore, is Europe kept on the sidelines precisely because it is marginal, but its perception of what is happening is affected by the perceptual distortion of its own leadership.
Despite the enormous evidence that the conflict disproportionately damaged European countries – while the US benefited from it – these leaderships launched into the anti-Russian crusade with the dual conviction that this was necessary to defend a common heritage between the two sides of the Atlantic, and that this heritage (in terms of values but also material) in itself established a 360° superiority of the West over the Russian bear.
In essence, the war in Ukraine was for the United States a strategic move imagined and desired in the context of a conflict between powers, and therefore exclusively a question of interests (including anti-European ones, for that matter), while for Europe it became a clash of civilizations. And so Washington has always considered it as an episode, a single move on the vast geopolitical chessboard, while for the European chancelleries it became a sort of ordeal, the center of everything.
Which is why, while the US is making a move that (only apparently) seems to radically change the game, European leaders continue to think that the matter is completely different.
From this umpteenth perceptual error, another incorrect assessment follows. The idea that the end of the conflict - and therefore of the existential battle that Europe believes it is fighting - is imminent, because the two powers are about to agree to this, and over their own heads. In reality, none of this is real. The war is far from approaching its epilogue.
Here too, the reasons are twofold. First of all, the very fact that the conflict is - for both powers - a part of the issue, means that even the resolution of this can only occur within a broader framework, which redesigns the entire (mutual) security architecture. It goes without saying, therefore, that the complexity and vastness of the problems to be solved is such as to require long times, even just to identify and systematize them. But even if we wanted to eventually highlight the ongoing kinetic conflict (which Trump will probably try to do anyway, also for image reasons), this does not mean that the solution is within reach. The historical experience of conflict resolution (post-World War II) tells us that it can take years. In any case, it is reasonable to assume that in the best of cases it will take no less than a year to end the conflict in Ukraine. And during these twelve months, the war will continue. The hypothesis of a freeze on operations, or even just a ceasefire, is in fact to be excluded. Not only because this would be absolutely contrary to Russian strategic interests, but also because – see the Middle East – when one of the parties involved is not fully convinced, the instability of the situation remains anyway.
A further misunderstanding seems to be blooming in the old continent. If the three years of NATO war against Russia on Ukrainian soil have worn down Europe, to the point of starting to open significant cracks in its (presumed) unity and univocality of intent, the tactical change of the US administration is inducing the European leadership to cultivate the illusion that by replacing the enemy Putin with the enemy Trump - or better yet by adding the second to the first - a bloc of countries can be reconstituted that, feeling threatened by ending up like the clay pot, rediscover the lost unitary spirit. The moves (rather disjointed and contradictory, in this regard) of some leaders, are however increasingly highlighting the differences and distances between the various countries, increasingly destined to march divided.
Furthermore, each of the hypotheses put forward is destined to clash with the harsh reality of the facts; both the multiplication of aid to Kiev (which, moreover, clashes with the claim to sit at the peace negotiating table), and the implementation of a war economy, and even – more trivially – the intention to accelerate Ukrainian accession to the EU, are impossible, both due to objective incapacity and the refusal of some subjects.
The certified irrelevance of Europe, as a geopolitical subject of some weight, is a fact, and decidedly prior to the change of administration in Washington. The only difference is that now it is no longer concealed, by the Americans, nor by the Russians. After all, it would be enough to observe how European countries are quietly being ousted from their former African colonies, while the influence of other actors, even medium-level ones, such as Türkiye or the UAE, is growing visibly. And still to stay in Europe, the idea that a possible change of the ruling classes (which the multi-billionaire Musk seems to have taken charge of) represents a chance for the continent to repent is absolutely fallacious. We have already seen the era of sovereignists at work, and much more than a chance to recover a longed-for sovereignty, it will inevitably end up translating into a mere realignment with the new authorities in Washington, without even minimally questioning the vassal role played up to now.
Last but not least, and very marginally, it is worth mentioning the last of the misunderstandings created around the rise of Trump. This time right inside Russia. In fact, a school of thought is emerging, led by the political philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, who sees in the figure of the American president a champion of traditionalist-conservative thought, and in this identifies a possible commonality of intent and paths with the Russian Federation.
Dugin, who in the past the Western media had even portrayed as a sort of advisor to Putin, is in reality the point of reference (not only in Russia) of an absolutely minority part of the political world, which sees in the return to traditional values (god-country-family, to simplify) the path to the rebirth of the Russian national identity. They mistake Trump's anti-woke policies for a manifestation of a similar traditionalist spirit, when in fact it is a question of mere conservatism, but totally internal to an American identity spirit that has nothing to do with the one imagined by Dugin.
Undoubtedly, the advent of the Trump era brings considerable changes to the global geopolitical framework, even if they appear much more radical than they are. And it introduces an element of acceleration. But we are absolutely not in the presence of a phenomenon of inversion, neither strategic nor historical. In a certain sense, we can say that Trump is the reaction of a significant part of the US oligarchies to the decline of the hegemonic power of the United States; a decline that neither began with nor is the fault of the Democratic administrations (which, if anything, can be accused of having responded badly), and moves in the wake of the US geopolitical tradition, which is that of affirming and defending, at all costs, American predominance. Predominance to which America would otherwise have a right, by virtue of its exceptionality. In short, we are not in the presence of a Copernican revolution in world balances, nor even its beginning. Very simply, the deep state has replaced the commander in chief, because the war was going badly.