It’s always sad, the end of a friendship. Especially when it comes to betrayal-for example, when the United States turns their backs on Europe when it needs it most. In this case, it is difficult to heal it … By threatening Canada with annexation, Greenland, Occupation, and NATO, abandonment, Donald Trump not only deceived his closest friends, but also “demonetized” the voice of America for many years. “It has never been possible to trust 100 % in the United States which, like any nation, always favor their own interests, admits the American geopolitologist Jacob Heilbrunn. But the current betrayal is equivalent to a metamorphosis ‘with Frankenstein’: America is no longer reliable; it is prorussy; it is dangerous;”
This scary new face is also the result of twenty-five years of drift of continents on both sides of the Atlantic, reciprocal misunderstandings and-say it-an accumulation of errors of judgment by the White House.
Between 2001 and 2008, George W. Bush, unilateralist and messianic president, claims, against the opinion of France and Germany, reorganize the Middle East to impose democracy. And that, after having lied to the NATO allies on the dangerousness of the regime of Saddam Hussein, by exaggerating it. The result of this policy of Regime changes (change of regime) was the opposite of the targeted objective: destruction of Iraqi society, chaos in the region, rise in power of the Islamic State terrorist organization and demoralization of Americans later grouped around the Trumpian policy ofAmerica First.
Obama’s indecision, Trump’s flip-flop
Model of indecision, Barack Obama, he remains inert in the face of the use of chemical weapons by Bashar el-Assad in Syria in 2013. Abandoning at the last moment the famous “red lines” which he had fixed himself, he drops François Hollande who, in a solid ally, was about to take off the French Rafale supposed to escort the American F-35, in accordance with the military support promised by France. The following year, a new sign of his weakness: he did not react any more to the annexation of Crimea by Putin, leaving the field free to the latter which concluded that the West resolution in the face of successive pennilets of “Bashar” and himself.
Noting successive American renunciations, Russia intervenes in Syria in 2015, advancing its pawns in the Middle East. This will not prevent Obama from explaining, with a touch of sufficiency, all the “genius” of his foreign policy in an interview Testament at the end of the mandate at the journal The Atlantic. As this president disinforced by Europe had expressed a few months ago, his philosophy of international relations was summed up in these few words: “Don’t do Stupid Stuff” (not to do stupid stuff). Which does not mean much.
From 2017, transatlantic distance is still widening. Donald Trump displays a frank detestation of Europe and NATO without making mystery of his inclination for Russia. An “Made in USA” flip-flop which, since the start of his second term, has been confirmed in previously unimaginable proportions. In 2021 the turn of Joe Biden arrived. Caution to excess, shaped by the grammar of the Cold War and traumatized by the time of “the balance of terror”, he overestimates Russia while underestimating the capacity for resistance, the courage and the determination of the Ukrainians which he only helps halfway. Without long-range missiles or aerial reinforcement, they receive just enough weapons so as not to lose … but not enough to win. They fight with an arm in the back.
A great architect of his foreign policy, his national security advisor Jake Sullivan, he is discredited by signing an article entitled “The sources of American power” in the October 2023 issue of the journal Foreign Affairs. He says that the Middle East is “quieter than it has been for decades”. A few days later the terrorist attack of Hamas comes on, on October 7, 2023 … In short, everything indicates that one cannot trust the ability to judge the US Department of State (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) than “security guarantees” of the White House which jeopardizes article 5 of NATO (“All for one, one for all”) jeopardized by the words of Donald.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyui0V9SCLI
“The way we have carried out foreign affairs for twenty-five years makes us lose all credibility,” laments a non-trumpist republican which, however, gravitates in the circles of power. “Who can make us believe that destroying 250 years of friendship with our best ally, Canada, rhymes with anything? It makes no sense, America no longer has a compass,” he insists. In the maelström triggered by the crazy realignment wanted by the 47th president, there remains a consolation: three decades after the end of the Cold War and the myth of happy globalization, the “shock” forces Europeans to become adults and think – finally – their own security. Without the uncle Sam.
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