topics
A world in a state of war and de-globalization has lost all will to establish common rules for itself. It's a world of populism and nationalism with “America First.” A world that in one sense seals its borders, in another sense ignores them in a giant “homo homini lupus” way
The crazy world of “world war in parts” is a territory where each state acts independently and where what seemed to have been established by common rules has been destroyed
The latest episode took place in Congo. Rebel guerrillas from the March 23 Movement captured Goma, the capital of North Kivu, the province in the far east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The rebels were aided by at least 4000 Rwandan army soldiers and thus gained control of a part of the country rich in gold, copper, cobalt, and various rare earth metals needed for high technology, defense, and renewable energy. M23 is said to be Rwanda’s proxy militia. In essence, little Rwanda is taking over part of the vast and chaotic Democratic Republic of Congo, riven by corruption and poverty. A commentator on France’s Europe 1 channel said it was always a war that few or no one was interested in. There is no world authority to stop the offensive, and the war has not led to a crisis in multilateral relations. The crazy world of “world war in parts” (© Pope Francis) is a land where each state acts independently and where what seemed to be established common rules have been destroyed. Let’s face it: the West missed a golden opportunity after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the Soviet Union in 1991. After fifty years of division between East and West, there was a great opportunity to create new rules for coexistence and development in a multilateral and diversified world. This never happened. The desire to reduce the world to unipolar domination was a temptation that ultimately created more instability, to the point of exploding national interests. Honestly, who really thinks the world today is divided between the G7 and BRICS spheres of influence? The image of a universal dump is more realistic…
Donald Trump’s second presidency began under the slogan “America First” in foreign policy: Canada should become the 51st star-spangled state, Greenland should be separated from Denmark, Panama should return under US influence. The Economist called it “the diplomacy of madness.” But, to quote the great Bard, it must be said that “there is genius in this madness.” The Donald actually applies a vision of nationalist interests taken to extremes in a political strategy that avoids engagement with international organizations for which he has an instinctive individual weakness, from the UN to the WHO. The model of relations between states is a bilateral B2B relationship, as between businessmen. As Le Monde Diplomatique wrote, using the metaphor of board games, this is a statement of Monopoly replacing Risk, all of Joe Biden’s wars and tanks.
While the big screen of current events shows outcomes and wars, the political ruling classes of the world are obsessed with the migrant issue
A populist, nationalist ideology cannot have an internationalist aspect: this is why it would be an illusion to think that an organic alliance between the European, Israeli, or even African right and the American Republicans of MAGA (Make America Great Again) is possible. In any international dispute, national interests will always come first. Thomas Hobbes defined it as a “homo homini lupus” (man is a wolf to man) world, an Earth where, as a rule, the law of the fittest triumphs. Will multilateralism, cooperation, and globalization ever return? It’s hard to imagine it happening today.
The two conflicts that have unfolded over the past year follow this logic: Russia has been fighting for three years to “liberate” Donbass and draw a new border for Ukraine. Israel has bombed and occupied Gaza for fifteen months. Not to mention the Golan Heights occupied by the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria. Limes: borders have once again become the centerpiece of international disputes. Just as refugee migration has reached an all-time high in recent years. Exoduses and wars unfold on the big screen of current events, from Europe to Africa.
The world’s ruling political classes are obsessed with the migrant problem. Led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the British attempted to deport the asylum seekers, mostly Albanians, to Rwanda (which apparently took them in), but were stopped by the judicial system. The Italian government has tried three times to transfer asylum seekers from Bangladesh and Egypt to Albania. However, judges, first of the Tribunal’s immigration division and then of the Rome Court of Appeals, denied the legality of the transfer three times.
In Germany, the AfD (Alternative for Germany) party won a significant share of the popular vote in the new Länder, but also a significant share in the old ones. The party promotes an ultra-nationalist program focused on closing borders – the main message of chancellor candidate Alice Weidel. She mythologized 2015, when former Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to open the borders to one and a half million Syrians, which Weidel (supported internationally by Elon Musk) believes led to political and economic instability, as well as internal security issues. In fact, this “fatal opening of borders” story is a rhetorical metaphor that was also adopted by BSW (Sahra Wagenknecht’s Union) candidate and former Left Party member Sahra Wagenknecht. However, it is worth noting that the borders were not “closed” before; Merkel can be blamed at most for not closing them later. It is thus a manipulative and demagogic rhetoric that distorts the facts and risks overshadowing the positive content offered by Wagenknecht herself, especially with regard to the theme of peace prophecy. This is one of the reasons why Wagenknecht was able to unexpectedly get 6% of the vote nationwide in the European elections, and the percentage was even higher in the new Länder.
The AfD or BSW are not anti-democratic parties, nor is the Republican Party that supported Donald Trump in the United States. Yet the tendency to pursue national interests undermines the principle of solidarity and the federative tendency of a united Europe in the common mentality of nations. We need more Europe and more unity, but voters and leaders are taking diametrically opposed paths.
“In the life of nations, the mistake of failing to take advantage of a fleeting moment is usually irreparable. The need to unify Europe is obvious. Existing states are dust without substance. None of them can afford the cost of their own defense. Only the Union can make them long-lasting.” Luigi Einaudi wrote these words in the spring of 1954. The last four years have clearly demonstrated that it is not American defense or NATO that guarantees a European role and that Einaudi (and Alcide De Gasperi) were not right, but absolutely right.
It’s a paradox: the world is collapsing, and all of Europe’s interlocutors prefer to talk to individual states (who don’t remember this “dust without substance”), while EU leaders in turn delude themselves into thinking they have the benefits of bilateral relations. With Donald Trump and everyone else.
Compared to his EU counterparts, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is attending the BRICS summit in Kazan despite being a NATO member, as he did last summer, or who is gaining control of at least a third of Syria thanks to the new Al Jolani regime, appears to be a giant on the international stage. Don’t tell Ursula this, but Brussels is becoming less and less important.
