Quo Vadis America?

During a press conference in 2018, Vladimir Putin handed a soccer ball to Donald J. Trump. That soccer ball back then symbolized the world (not just the world cup) to me. Which DEAL had the two leaders been making, something inside of myself asked. Trump the self-proclaimed dealmaker... 

In 1997, Zbigniew Brzezinski in a book titled 'The Grand Chessboard' ('Das Grosse Schachbrett'), had called Russia without Ukraine an Asian power(house). Together with Ukraine, by contrast, Russia still was a EURASIAN power, so Brzezinski.

British (and later US American) geopolitical thinkers knew that in order to prevent a Eurasian superpower, Germany and Russia (previously, the German Kaiserreich and the Russian Empire), needed to be kept apart, separated, divided; the Cold war following World War II was just one example in that regard. 

On the other hand, and despite all war-related grievances between the Russian and German people, resulting from two World Wars, the cultural and historic ties between Prussia and Russia used to run deep. 

In the current Presidential election campaign, Donald J. Trump has been emphasizing, with him in power (instead of Biden), the war in Ukraine would never have started - Russia would not have intervened in early 2022 - and Trump would end the war the minute he was back in power; this because he was a 'feared leader' - more feared than Biden used to be.

I think, the contrary is the case. 

I think, Putin intervened in 2022 (and proceeded slowly in Ukraine without 'winning'), based on the calculation by the Kremlin, that Trump was going to be back in the White House by late 2024 / early 2025. I would argue, Putin-Russia with regard to her strategy in Ukraine since 2022, seems to have been waiting for Trump's return. 

Looking back, the time hoping for peace and better relations with Moscow, for me ended in February 2022 and the ensuing months. 

It seems clear by now, that Putin has been putting his cards and bets on a Trump-victory in November 2024, and that the Putin-Trump duo has been carving up Europe and the world, probably deciding which parts of the world would be in whose 'sphere of influence', yet again. With regard to Europe, it seems all too clear, that much or most of its Eastern and Central European parts would be under the control of a Putin-led 'Soviet Union 2.0' again - with Trump-America allowing precisely that to happen. (With Moscow giving a Trumpist foreign policy agenda possibly a free hand somewhere else in the world, for instance in the wider Middle East?)

The debates in Congress on April 26, 2024 regarding aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan seemed to reflect a new realization in heartland-America that the world as we had known it since the aftermath of WWII, might indeed come to an end, with real and grave consequences for 'the West', the Western alliance and America's role in the world. 'Angst' was graspable during these debates, and a sense that time for appeasement was over. 

And while I had been highly critical of the policy vis-à-vis Ukraine by the Obama-Biden administration in 2014..., what choice did a Biden-Harris administration have following Russia's intervention in Ukraine in 2022, other than to support and arm Ukraine? 

It has become obvious by now, that containing and deterring Russia abroad AND containing and deterring Trump and the Trumpists at home serves one and the same purpose: containing totalitarianism. Trump and Putin are the same. And a century old pattern with a logic grounded in Hegelian dialectic - fascism and communism share the same totalitarian roots - aims to repeat itself, with Trump for one aiming to seal America's fate as a fascist corpocracy.

Looking back at the past twelve plus years, Donald J. Trump seems to have emerged from the legacies that both George W. Bush and Barak Obama had left behind. Bush's Presidency started with hanging chads in Florida. Nine months later we had 9/11, followed by an unconstitutional 'Patriot Act' and America committing war crimes abroad within the context of an ill-guided 'war against terror'. Obama's proclaimed 'change we can believe in' turned into disappointment. The one thing Obama did domestically, health care reform without public option, served private insurance companies. I remember, in 2016, while in Germany, I told my American daughters, their mother was not going to vote by absentee ballot from Germany in November 2016, as she could not vote for Hillary Clinton, because in my opinion, with Clinton in charge, relations with Russia were going to escalate further; and, as American citizen with European roots I wanted peace in Europe and constructive relations with Russia.

Looking at the last eight years, I assume a considerable number of foreign policy observers have been misled by Trump and Trumpism regarding their true nature and agenda. People like Paul Craig Roberts, General McGregor and others, probably observed what had been unfolding abroad - from Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo (under Bush) to Obama pursuing whistleblowers and escalating the drone war in Afghanistan.

A growing number of people - increasingly disillusioned with America‘s standing in the world - may (initially) have placed their hopes in Trump' s rhetoric when he talked about de-escalation and rapprôchement with Russia. Personally, as someone who remembers the Cold War and its ending, who grew up in Western Germany, it seemed hard to grasp that Edward Snowden should find asylum in Moscow. What had happened to 'the West' and what it once stood for? The world seemed upside down. I recall taking a note in 2013, while living in Germany: 'Start of a New Cold War / Cold War 2.0'. 

To me, NATO attacking Lybia in 2011 was a turning point, a decisive moment. I was teaching a graduate course on 'peacemaking theory' at New York University and closed my textbook. Another war! I was opposed to the Western-supported coup in Ukraine in 2014, which occurred under Obama-Biden. 

Ultimately, I think, Trump and the Trumpists have managed to use and instrumentalize ANY grievance within America and abroad, about or due to America. 

Fundamentalist Christians are meant to be Trump' s so-called 'Steigbügelhalter' (willing helpers) to claim totalitarian power. 

I would say today, we should assume that Trump and the Trumpists have worked together with America' s opponents, with enemies to the very 'idea of America' (as incomplete as it might be); enemies within America and abroad, with the goal to end this Republic, to finish off the Constitution and to enable a fascistoid, totalitarian corporatist power grab. 

The warnings of Smedley Butler in front of Congress in the 1930s come to mind. This might be the second try or attempt to achieve just that.