During an event organized by the German Atlantic Society in Frankfurt, a fairly interesting speech was given by German political analyst Dr. Josef Braml, well-known US- expert, European director of the Trilateral Commission, and author of several books such as “The transatlantic Illusion”, as well as “Sleepwalkers. How the U.S. and China slide into a new war, coauthored by former CIA analyst Matthew Burrows, as well as the latest book by the same two authors: “A world to come – The return of Trump and the end of the Old Order.” The speech gave a useful insight into the present Elite thinking in Germany, that is deeply engrained in Kantian axioms and antinomies and only very seldom able to free itself from fixed assumptions and creatively toss around new ideas.
In her introduction Mrs. Nouripour-Welteke from the German Atlantic Society underlined that since the end of the Second World War the West hasn’t seen so much pessimism and insecurity as is the case now, in respect to the future of the world. She quoted from the Italian Philosopher Antonio Gramsci who at the end of World War I had stated: “Now is the time of monsters” and continued: “Being a witness of the rise of Italian fascism Gramsci recognized the potential dangers inherent in transition periods. Today the world again faces a similar turning point: With Trump’s victory the western liberal order that got implemented at the end of the Second World War by the US came to an end.” She mentioned several factors that are characteristic of the present “transition period”: Climate change, growth of Artificial Intelligence, a global weakening of the economy and endemic illegal migration—that reinforce each other and lead to increased instability. Right wing extremists and populist movements in Europe and USA profit from this vulnerability.”
Dr. Braml spoke about the loss of power in the US and its global consequences. How a world after the end of pax Americana could look like. “The good news,” he said, “is that there is life after Trump and a new World order is coming into being. We however live in a dangerous ‘transition’ period. Several studies have documented that America as the “Global Hegemon” is slowing down, being battered by social problems with the inherent problem of radicalization and a quite instable Dollar.”
Braml recalled that after the collapse of the Soviet Union there was a “unipolar” moment in the US. After the recent G7 summit in Canada (June), which U. S. President Trump had to leave earlier, claiming it was for urgent tasks he had to do, the “Old world order got buried.” The US attack end of June against Iran’s nuclear sites, according to Braml, was “a strategic stupidity.” Reality is that today China trades with more than the rest of the world and BRICS is emerging as an alternative to stop the dominance of the US dollar. But the US with its gigantic debt mountain more than 36 trillion Dollar has yearly 1 trillion Dollars to pay in terms of interest rates alone. Meanwhile Trump has declared “war” against the entire world with his trade tariffs policy, a very “stupid” move which as we witnessed almost “led to a dangerous and historic meltdown of the world bond markets,” as Braml recalled. “And we continue financing our armament on the basis of borrowing credits from the US, in order to buy weapons from the US. The Ukraine conflict meanwhile has moved to the third rank in the US.
Taiwan’s leader Lai Ching-te is on speaking tour and calls for independence, which is crazy. There is in respect to US and China a “Thucydides’ gap” and the US makes mistakes like GB did in the past, and wants to hide behind the tariff flank. Trump is not eager for war, but the economic policy of Trump is worrisome, he said. “This American ‘narcissist’ cannot stand to be the Nr 2.” He is destroying all economic supply chains, which makes a war more probable with China. Braml had also a lot of ridicule about the way in which political debates are conducted in Germany, for example the German TV roundtable discussions with so called “experts” on the Ukraine war etc., which he qualified as unbearable and “guided TV watching” that the Germans apparently have accepted.
The only option which Braml sees in a world of US decline as global leader, is to strengthen Europe and make Europe great again. Economically by adapting a common “Eurobonds policy and market” accompanied by a sovereign military policy and strategy.
In the discussion period there were questions about the US bomb attack against Iran (Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz) Trump had cancelled the JCPOA, Braml explained, and Netanyahu paved the way for US intervention. “Some speak about the need for regime change in Iran now,” Braml stated. He spoke at length about the “narcissist” problem of US President Trump and his unpredictability and warned of the economic danger within US and its implications for the dollar. Europe could only get out of its dilemma, if Europe is made great again- a continent of peace, which of course implies dialogue with Russia, that Braml sees as “junior partner” of the US that at present negotiates with Russia on an “eye to eye” level.
In terms of the recent NATO summit in den Hague, not much has come out, according to Braml. He on the contrary made clear that the US is clearly “shifting away from Europe” and that Europe has to “pay the bill”. (As was laid down in paragraph 1 of the final NATO summit communique which “reaffirms the ironclad commitment to collective defense as enshrined in Art 5 of the Washington treaty. As well as in Paragraph 2 that “given the long-term threat posed by Russia to Euro-Atlantic Security and the persistent threat of terrorism, Allies commit to invest 5 % of GDP annually on core defense requirements as well as defense and security related spending by 2025 to ensure our individual and collective obligations, in accordance with Art 3 of the Washington Treaty. Our investments will ensure we have the force, capabilities, resources, infrastructure, warfighting readiness, and resilience needed to deter and defend in line with our three core tasks of deterrence and defense, crisis prevention and management and cooperative security.” Paragraph 3 (…)Allies reaffirm their enduring sovereign commitments to provide support to Ukraine, whose security contributes to ours, and to this end, will include direct contributions towards Ukraine’s defense and its defense industry when calculating Allies’ defense spending.” E.H.)
Braml, it became clear, is however missing certain aspects, when it comes to the issue of making Europe great again, which in and of itself is a noble idea. Yet, he is somewhat overoptimistic in his evaluation of Europe: It is a fact that from Russia’s side there has been increasingly persistent criticism about EU commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her “Foreign Minister” Kaja Kallas, and their Russophobe vision of a EU that is totally hostile towards Russia and wants to become “NATO- ized.” This was for example clearly expressed by Russian Vice Foreign Minister Alexander Gruchkov, July 2nd , who for years had been working within NATO as Russian Ambassador in Brussels. In reaction to French President Macron, who after almost 3 years of war, on July 1rst engaged in a 2-hour telephone call with Putin (Merz and Trump were pre- informed), Gruchkov characterized the path of the EU as being like “NATO” – a “EU that turns into NATO: It’s no longer a peaceful project but a growing war project,” Gruchkov said. (…) Moscow would defend itself against it.” He underlined that the EU is having aggressive intentions against Russia: “NATO defines the tasks and the EU carries them out.” Macron in respect to Ukraine had stuck to the known EU position: Ceasefire and full territorial sovereignty for Ukraine et cetera.
If Europe was serious and took up the chance for “peaceful dialogue with Russia”, this would imply that it fully evaluates what had happened in the almost three-year long Russia -Ukraine war, also in territorial terms and what Russia’s aims are in terms of creating a viable “European Security architecture”, in which Ukraine will have no place in NATO and in the EU, but remains neutral. The reality is however very bleak, with most of the European leaders betraying the self- interest of their people and with Germany almost acting as if it wanted to “adopt” Ukraine in the future.
NATO summit as a “political theatre”
A useful insight into the present state of affairs of NATO and the EU was given in a recent 45- minute interview between Kremlin Expert Prof. Doctorow and Judge Napolitano (June 26th). The two discussed about the recent NATO summit in Den Hague which had resulted in the above mentioned 1 page communique. Prof. Doctorow concluded that the summit was an exercise in “political theatre”.
“The theatre was there not for us to have a good laugh at the expense of the Secretary General. The Theatre was there to do business and it did it. It got a commitment from these countries, all member states of NATO (with the exception of Spain) to something that, as I say, most of them cannot achieve…But this is not the end result. The end result is that Mr. Trump has created an exit ramp for the United States from NATO. (…) If these countries all are committed and signed in writing that they are going to raise their contributions by several trillion dollars in the coming decade, the United States correspondingly can reduce its commitment and its spending on NATO (US has met so far 2/3 of the costs) over that period. I don’t see anybody looking at that fact.”
In another interview with Prof. Glenn Diesen, Prof. Doctorow was particularly critical about the “lay psychologists” that keep analyzing Trump. “The time spent by lay psychologists to analyze Trumps narcissist character,” would simply ignore the fact that the so-called obliteration of Iranian nuclear sites by US bombers end of June, “had as raison d’etat, the salvation of the state of Israel from the latest results of the war of aggression unleashed by Benjamin Netanyahu, namely the utter destruction of much of Israel’s defense establishment.”
“This resulted in the destruction of much of Israel’s defense establishment as well as of its office and residential towers in Tel Avic and elsewhere”. Doctorow further stated that by harping on the fact that Iran may have moved centrifuges and enriched uranium away from the sites before the Trump attack, these analysts in mainstream and independent media are, objectively speaking, spreading sedition and arguing for renewed attacks on Iran and never-ending war.”
(…) “As for the NATO summit, I argue here that its main achievement, namely the agreement of the NATO member states to raise their defense budgets to 5% by 2025, sets the stage for reduced American contributions to NATO (!). This may not be the same as a U.S. withdrawal from NATO but it can be a fairly good approximation, depending on Trump’s budget for the years remaining in his term of office. This, in turn puts NATO on a fast track to collapse, since European contributions will de facto not rise much if at all: The member states simply cannot raise taxes or take loans sufficient to meet the new military obligations and they cannot find fund by cutting other budgetary categories, meaning social benefits, because that spells political suicide.”
Doctorow, in order to give an illustrative example of what he meant, pointed to the “censored” debate, that broke out inside the German SPD when a manifesto (“spd-manifest-frieden-100”) was published and signed by more than 100 SPD members, among them Stegner and most prominent Peter Brandt, the eldest son of Chancellor Willy Brandt who set into motion the 1970ies Ostpolitik. This manifesto (now signed by more than 15 000) is against rearmament, which the FT reported about prominently (!). It was against all that which had developed under former Chancellor Scholz, who rejected an accommodation with Russia and assigned it “enemy status”.
