Donald Trump maintains, with his recently published National Security Strategy, that Europe faces the disappearance of its civilization. You are right. But she is wrong about who threatens her: it is neither the immigrants nor the culture. woke upnor the community institutions. They are, in different ways, himself and Putin. Trumpism is waging an assault against the European model: a counterrevolution must be mounted.
Last week’s installment of this column was titled “How to become independent from a US that has become an adversary.” The document confirms black on white that Washington is no longer an ally but an adversary. Already last February, Vice President JD Vance had warned us, who came to Europe, to the Munich security conference, to tell us that our problem was not Putin’s missiles: it is us, the Europeans, with our model. Given this evidence, we must become independent. And, in parallel, mount a counterrevolution, the other indispensable leg so that the European body can make its way.
Public opinion is beginning to understand this more and more. A survey commissioned by the magazine The Grand Continentcarried out by Cluster 17 in nine European countries, indicates that 48% of those surveyed consider Trump an enemy, 4 percentage points more than in the previous wave. Somehow it is surprising that there are still 40% who think that Trump is neither friend nor enemy. But consciousness advances.
The survey was published within the framework of the Grand Continent Summit, the annual conference organized by the magazine in Valle d’Aosta (Italy), which brings together prominent politicians, businessmen, historians, political scientists and representatives of civil society. The European Compass attended the forum – on a trip funded by the organizers – participating in the panel presenting the study.
The study not only shows a growing awareness of what the Trumpist challenge is, but also a European society marked by concerns and anxieties. Added to the war threat posed by the Russian imperialist regime is the perception that the United States is becoming an enemy, one on which we depend in terms of military, intelligence, and technology—or, rather, technologies, with devastating potential. These technologies are a fundamental instrument of the assault that seeks to overthrow the European integration model in favor of the rise of European national-populist movements related to Trumpism.
The awareness of what Trumpism is and the depth of the concern are the bases on which to build a political process of building independence—overcoming our current condition of military protectorate and digital colony—and developing a counterrevolutionary political strategy. You have to work with that sourdough. The official sessions and private conversations held at the El Grand Continent conference have yielded an interesting handful of analyzes and proposals in this regard.
At the level of independence the path is difficult, but clear. We must create digital sovereignty. The conference has put a lot of focus on the fact that regulatory activity or the defense of competition is not enough to achieve this. It is essential to advance in the constitution of European infrastructure assets. Today, we not only depend on others in terms of digital platforms, algorithms, cutting-edge technologies. We also suffer from a lack of control over—or sufficient capacity in—infrastructural frameworks, whether clouds, satellite networks, cables or adequate data center power. We lack the business culture and the support of capital markets to produce competitive material ventures on a global scale. This issue is nuclear. There is no sovereignty of any kind without digital sovereignty. Without it we are exposed to the onslaught of mind manipulation maneuvers; to the threat of the activation of kill switchof buttons that deactivate functionalities, which can have profoundly disruptive impacts.
It is also necessary to create its own defensive capacity. Europe has taken steps forward with an increase in military spending and the productive capacity of its industrial fabric. But we are at a starry distance from having real power to be considered a power that must be treated with respect and care. Again there is a problem of assetsof those enabling assets that allow you to trust yourself; and there is of course a problem of convergence of wills that makes the abstract sum of the investments of each European country credible. The Reuters agency reported yesterday that the United States wants Europe to assume the bulk of the alliance’s conventional effort by 2027. Let’s take advantage of the opportunity to assume prominence and also quotas of management capacity and competence. It will be very good for us.
Today Europe is divided into areas with different perceptions: the Baltic, Nordic and Poland areas, in extreme alert mode; Germany, determined to take a big step forward; France and the United Kingdom, the two nuclear powers with the most credible armed forces, mired in political crises and budgetary limitations; and a South that says the right things, but does not do enough, out of an incorrect sense of security. Incorrect because the problems of some Europeans are the problems of all; and because a Shahed drone fits perfectly in a container. You don’t have to fly from Moscow to create an incident, you can do it from nearby international waters.
All of the above is complex. But perhaps even more complex is designing the counterrevolutionary strategy to prevent the Trumpist assault from being successful and nullifying our possibility of building independence by annihilating the will and the possibility, elevating forces that do not want it, that agree with Trumpism.
For this, radical changes are necessary. It is essential to find a political narrative that manages to make an emotional vibration resonate. The national populists play skillfully in that field. Responding with mere rationality places us in a losing asymmetry. In this area, we must also recover traits of optimism and enthusiasm, and abandon those pessimistic and gray gestures that accompany us too often. Afterwards, it is imperative to understand that the assault calls for another form of cooperation between European democrats: much more loyal, much more effective, much more generous. Everything is at stake. Thirdly, an escalation in the ambition of our projects is necessary. An entire counterrevolutionary strategy must be designed against an adversary determined to assault. Please abandon childish quarrels and focus on repelling the bestial attack that is coming to us from the other side of the Atlantic at the same time that an armed one is coming to us from Russia.
The pillar supporting all of this has to be a new issuance of Eurobonds that finances the construction of the European assets that are necessary. And in that context it will be necessary, as a conference participant stressed in a reserved debate, to fail to fulfill the delirious commitment that we Europeans assumed in the sad commercial pact of the Trumpist golf course in Scotland, the one by which we are linked to enormous European investments in the United States that are a delirium, which would effectively produce a reinforcement at the expense of our own money of the advantages of an adversary power. That money is necessary to create assets Europeans; It cannot be wasted to tame the American beast. It doesn’t need to be said explicitly, but we must be clear that we don’t have to do it.
We must move full steam ahead towards the pragmatic federalism that Mario Draghi speaks of, a true intellectual beacon of the European path in the darkness of this time. We must move forward with all force in the design of a strategy that short-circuits the national-populist attack scheme. It doesn’t just depend on politics. Civil society is called to do its part. Europe faces the disappearance of its civilization. We know who threatens her. Let’s roll up our sleeves, Europeans.
For more updates, visit our homepage: NewsTimesWire
