Category: Authoritarianism

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Thinking about life in a nuclear armed crowd.

The title of this post comes from Albert Wohlstetter’s 1976 seminal essay Moving Towards Life in a Nuclear Armed Crowd. In that essay he contemplated a world in which several nations had nuclear weapons, and also the strategic logics governing their proliferation, deployment and use (mainly as a deterrent). For years after his essay was published, the number of nuclear-armed states remained low. Today they include the US, UK, France, PRC, Russia, India and Pakistan, with Israel as an unacknowledged member of the club and Iran and North Korea as rogue aspirants. At one time late in the Cold War, Argentina, Brazil and South Africa had nuclear weapons programs but abandoned them as part of the their transitions to democracy. By and large the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has kept the acquisition of nuclear weapons in check, something that along with various arms control agreements between the US and USSR/Russia (SALT I and II, START, the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF)), helped stabilise a low number nuclear weapons state status quo for five decades.

But that may be about to change. Not only have nuclear powers like the PRC, India and Pakistan opted to not be bound by international arms control agreements and others like Israel, Iran, India, Pakistan and DPRK have ignored the NPT. All of the major bilateral treaties between the US and Russia governing strategic and tactical nuclear weapons have been allowed to lapse. The non-proliferation regime now mostly exists on paper and is self-enforcing in any event. There are no genuine compliance mechanisms outside of voluntary compliance by States themselves, and in the current moment nuclear armed states do not wish to comply

The situation has been made considerably worse by the re-election of Donald Trump to the US presidency. Although he speaks of securing some sort of “deal” with Iran that freezes its nuclear weapons development programs, his threats of withdrawing from NATO, including withdrawal of security guarantees under the collective security provisions of Article 5 of the NATO Charter, coupled with his pivot towards Russia in its conflict with Ukraine, has forced some countries to reconsider their approach towards nuclear weapons. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told his parliament this week that Poland “must reach for the most modern possibilities, also related to nuclear weapons and modern unconventional weapons” because of the threat of Russian aggression and unreliability of the US as a security partner under such circumstances. Similarly, French President Emmanuel Macron has floated the idea of extending a French “nuclear umbrella” over Europe (read: NATO and the EU) should the US renege on its Article 5 obligations.

The perception that the US is no longer a reliable security partner, at least under the Trump administration, must be considered by front-line states such as South Korea and Taiwan, perhaps even Japan and Germany, that are threatened by nuclear armed rivals and which until now were heavily dependent on the US nuclear deterrent for defending against aggression from those rivals. The situation is made worse because Trump is now using extortion (he calls it “leverage”) as part of his approach to security partners. His demands that Ukraine sign over strategic mineral rights to the US and that Panama return control of the Panama Canal to the US under threat of re-occupation are part of a pattern in which US security guarantees are contingent on what the US can materially get in exchange for them. Even then, Trump is notoriously unethical and prone to lying and changing his mind, so what US guarantees may be offered may be rescinded down the road.

Trump wants US security partners to spend 2 to 5 percent of GDP on defence and threatens to not honour US agreements with them if they do not. Although this may well force some NATO members and others to up their spending on defence (as Australia, Poland and South Korea already do), the one-size-fits-all percentage of GDP demand fails to recognise the circumstances of small and medium democracies such as NZ, Portugal and Holland, among others. Trump may call it driving a hard bargain, others may say that his approach is “transactional,” but in truth he is extorting US allies on the security front in order to gain concessions in other areas. And for “whatever” reason, he admires Putin and deeply dislikes Ukrainian president Zelensky as well as Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau, something reflected in his approach to bilateral issues and the way he talks about them. The personal is very much political with Trump, and he is an impulsive bully when he believes that it suits him to be.

The US pivot towards Russia under Trump has been much discussed in terms of its implications for the world order, strategic balancing among Great Powers and the future of the US-centric alliance systems in Europe and Asia. It truly is a major transitional moment of friction in world affairs. But the issue of nuclear proliferation as a response to the changed US stance has gone relatively unnoticed. Remember, these are not the moves of rogue states that are hostile to the old liberal international order. These are and may well continue to be the responses of democratic and/or Western aligned states that were integral members of that old order, who now feel abandoned and vulnerable to the aggression of authoritarian Great Powers like Russia and the PRC.

In the absence of the US nuclear guarantee and in the security vacuum created by its strategic pivot, indigenous development and deployment of nuclear weapons becomes a distinct possibility for a number of states that used to have the US nuclear guarantee but now are unsure if that is still true, and have the technological capabilities to do so. The global spread of high technologies makes the pursuit of nuclear weapons easier than in previous eras, and if time, money and willpower are devoted to doing so, nuclear proliferation will inevitably happen. Remember that nuclear weapons are primarily deterrent weapons. They are designed to deter attacks or retaliate once attacked, but not to strike first (unless destruction of the targeted society is the objective and retaliation in kind is discounted). They are the ultimate hedge against aggression, and now some non-nuclear states are reconsidering their options in that regard because the US cannot be trusted to come to their defence.

Russia has repeatedly raised the spectre of using tactical nuclear weapons in Europe should it feel cornered, but even the Kremlin understands that this is more an intimidation bluff aimed at comfortable Western populations rather than a serious strategic gambit. But that only obtains if the US still honors its nuclear defense commitments under NATO Article 5, and if it no longer does, then the Europeans and other US allies need to reassess their nuclear options because Russian threats must, in that light, be considered sincere.

Even so, first use of nuclear weapons, specially against a non-nuclear state, remains as the ultimate red line. But that line has been blurred by Trump’s equivocation. Nuclear hedging has now become a realistic option not just for front-line democratic states facing authoritarian aggression, but with regards to the US itself because it is a no longer a reliable democratic ally but is instead a country dominated by an increasingly authoritarian policy mindset at home and in its relations further abroad. Ironically, the “madman with a nuke” thesis that served as the core of deterrence theory in the past and which continues to serve as the basis for resistance to Iran and North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs can now be applied to the US itself.

There are two ways to look at the situation. On the one hand the chances of nuclear proliferation have increased thanks to Trump’s foreign policy, especially with regards to US international commitments and alliance obligations. On the other hand, deterrence theory is in for an overhaul in light of the push to proliferate. This might re-invigorate notions of flexible response and moves to provide stop gaps in the escalatory chain from battlefield to strategic war. Notions of nuclear deterrence that were crafted in the Cold War and which did not change with the move from a bi-polar to a unipolar to a multi-polar international system must now be adapted to the realities of a looser configuration–some call them metroplexes or constellations–in which the spread of advanced technologies makes the possibility of indigenous development of nuclear deterrence capabilities more feasible than in the old security umbrella arrangements of previous decades.

The irony is that it is the US pivot towards Russia that has popped the cork on the nuclear proliferation bottle. States like Iran and the DPRK have been subject to sanctions regimes that have slowed the development of their nuclear arsenals. But that happened against the backdrop of the US providing binding security guarantees to its allies, offering a credible nuclear deterrent to those who would seek to do harm against them and giving material support to the NPT. That is not longer true. It is the US that now must be viewed with suspicion, if not fear. The briefcase with nuclear codes is within a few arm’s lengths wherever Trump goes and he is now staffing the highest ranks of the US military-security complex with personal loyalists and sycophants rather than seasoned, politically neutral, level headed professionals with experience in the practice of strategic gamesmanship, including nuclear deterrence and war planning. Under those circumstances it would be derelict for military and political leaders in erstwhile US allied states to not hedge their bets by considering acquiring nuclear weapons of their own.

This was not what Wohlstetter envisioned when he wrote his essay. But after a period where that nuclear armed crowd appeared to stabilise and even shrink, some of his insights have become relevant again. It may no longer be about MAD (mutual assured destruction), but it sure is SAD.

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Scholarly Link: The Comparative Notebook.

I am pleased that the under-recognized scholar (and previous co-author of mine) Kate Nicholl has decided to join Substack and publish her thoughts on comparative politics. By using Substack she wants to bridge the gap between scholarly articles and opinion editorials (op eds). Her gift as a writer is to make the complicated seem simple.

Her stack is free so please check it out. Knowing her work as well as I do, I can confidently say that she deserves to be read by wider audiences. In her first Substack essay she briefly explains why comparisons between NZ and Ireland or Singapore are largely spurious from both a methodological as well as a policy standpoint.

Check her out here

Also, coincidentally, she has a piece in The Conversation on a related yet different topic.

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Empty vessel and strategic disruptor?

I have been trying to make sense out of the shifts in US foreign policy under Trump 2.0. I understand his admiration for authoritarians and supination to Putin (which I believe is because Putin has dirt on him), and I also understand the much vaunted “transactional” nature of his view of foreign relations. Moreover, it is clear that he is a racist (remember his comments about “s***hole countries”), so he has a dim view of soft power projection into the underdeveloped world and the benefits of global engagement. His neo-isolationism is apparent, although it doe not fit well with his delusional designs on Canada, Greenland, Gaza and the Panama Canal Zone (I am of the opinion that his medications have been changed in order to make him speak in a more moderate monotone even if his message remains as deranged as always) . In any case even if I can reconcile all of this, the open move to side with Russia in its conflict with Ukraine and his attacks on erstwhile European allies are perplexing on the face of it. But perhaps there is a method to his madness, so let me try to unpack things. Let’s be clear: this may be a stretch but it is within the realm of the possible given what has happened so far.

First, let start with some background. Trump is an empty intellectual vessel. He has no foundational morals or guiding principles other than making money and garnering power. That makes him non-ideological as well as transactional in his worldview. Remember that at its core ideology is a coherent set of value principles that organise reality over time and specify the relationship between the imaginary (what could happen) and the real (what is happening). That is important because as a non-ideological empty intellectual vessel Trump is susceptible to whatever advice and suggestions appeal to him in the moment. Scapegoat immigrants? Sure. Demonize transgender people? Why not? Rename geographic locations? Sounds good. Embrace Christian nationalism? Halleluja! Champion guns, state’s rights and NASCAR? Dang right! And so forth. There is nothing too petty or trite that he will not stoop to when it comes to patriotic symbolism if it advances his interests under the pretext of making the US great “again.” The ghost whisperers who surround him know this and play upon his vainglorious ignorance.

But there is a serious side to his intellectual influences. They come in the form of disruption or chaos theory, on the one hand, and neo-reactionaryism on the other.

Chaos or disruption theory posits that stagnated status quo’s can only be “broken” by chaos or a disruptive force. That force may come in the form of “disruptors” who take advantage of chaos to impose a new order of things. The origins of this ideological belief in chaos or disruption theory come from many sources but include Milton Friedman, the father of neoliberalism, who justified his support for the 1973 Chilean coup and a number of other pro-market dictatorial interventions as the only means of breaking the hold of welfare statism on national economies. The depth of the crisis determined the extent of the disruption, be they coups in Latin America, Southern Europe and East/Southeast Asia or socially dislocating macroeconomic reform done under emergency in places like NZ and England. A political disruption was necessary in any event in order to break the extant economic model via chaotic reform.

Chaos and disruption theory see the moment of crisis as a circuit breaker, a means to end cycles of social decay and vicious circles of bureaucratic parasitism and clientelistic rent-seeking. Under proper guidance by “disruptors” as change agents, societies can re-emerge from the ashes of the old order better and stronger than before.

Reports have circulated for years that Trump embraces his own form of chaos theory in which he pits his underlings against each other in order to shake out the ideas that best suit him. Although he seems to have toned things down when compared to his first presidency and what may have worked for him in the private sector may not work in the public sector (as his first presidency appears to have proven), it is possible that his advisors believe that he will welcome the “disruptor” role where he makes order out of chaos. This may be psychological manipulation by his advisors but if so it seems to be working.

That s where the second ideological strand poured into Trump’s empty vessel comes into play. Neo-reactionism holds that democracy no longer is fit for purpose. The main reason is that political equality 1) allows stupid people a vote equal to that of smart people, which in turn leads to 2) inefficient and self-destructive economic and social outcomes because elected officials and the bureaucracies that they oversee will always seek to accomodate the interests of the stupid majority over those of the enlightened few. Because of this, the ranks of the non-productive beneficiary classes grows while the entrepreneurial class shrinks, in what is seen as a form of reverse social Darwinism with a twist. Adding to the mix “progressive” policies like refugee and other migrant admissions from low IQ societies and providing social services that individuals otherwise would have to provide for themselves further dilutes the gene pool and perpetuates a cycle of dependency in the ever-expanding mass of dumb rent-seeking parasites.

The solution lies in creating an elected oligarchy that makes popular appeals and promises but which rules in a beneficent authoritarian manner, as in, for example, Singapore. It is they who know what is best for the polity and it is they who define what is in the public interest and public good. Elections are seen simply in instrumental terms, as a means of securing and maintaining power that also serve as legitimating devices for their rule.

It does not matter if this view of society and governance is a grotesque caricature of what is really happening in the US. It is what the technology entrepreneurs known as “tech bros” imagine and therefore believe it to be. Led by Elon Musk, it is the ideology of this sub-strata of wealth-horders that has gotten inside of Trump’s head. As we currently see playing out, via DOGE they are now in the first phase of implementing their vision of how the federal government should look and act.

Against that backdrop, the question then turns to US foreign policy and the dramatic shifts in it. Again, this may be a stretch but what could be happening is that the US is embarking on a foreign policy disruption and reset of its own that is designed to realign the international system that followed the Cold War. It could be that Trump (or, more precisely, his foreign policy advisors) are looking down the road and envision a new world system that, transaction by transaction and incremental reneging on the rules of the old international “liberal” order, replaces the emerging and somewhat chaotic multipolar/polyarchic/multiplex networks of the last 20 years. They are not interested in re-hashing the causes of US decline and the rise of the Global South or the ways in which international relations are no longer an exclusively State-centric and -dominated affair. They are not interested in the international liberal order. They want to re-assert US primacy after a period of challenge.

For that to happen it appears that Trump 2.0 has taken inspiration from the Cold War and is attempting to re-invent a tri-polar international system, The idea is to re-align with Russia because of shared Western traditional values and pull it away from China’s growing sphere of influence. The Russian hinge will be what balances the US-PRC relationship, giving Russia a sense of restored prestige and the US a better sense of security vis a vis the PRC.

Here again, Trump and his advisors are deeply racist in their views (think Stephen Miller) and have an abiding fear and loathing of the Chinese. The US has made clear that it wants to turn away from Europe and the Middle East and concentrate strategic attention on curtailing Chinese power expansion in Asia and elsewhere. The PRC is already mentioned–and has been for a while–as the US’s main “peer competitor,” and US war planning is heavily focused on gaming contingency scenarios versus the PRC. Trump’s attempt at territorial expansion into Greenland, the Panama Canal Zone and even (however farcical) Canada is designed to create a US lebensraum equivalent to the notion of Russian buffer states in which its interests are undisputed and inviolate (which is what Russia claims about Ukraine).

A rapprochement with Russia could tip the geopolitical scales in US favour by moving Moscow away from China’s embrace while forcing Europeans to accept new Russian-drawn buffer border boundaries and stop their security dependency and corresponding rent-seeking from the US. The US can then focus on its Asian partnerships and military planning versus the PRC, and Russia is restored, thanks to US recognition, to the community of nations (where it already enjoys support in the Global South, especially in Africa) whether the Europeans like it or not (some do, most don`t).

That is where the rubber hits the road. The move will involve sacrificing Ukraine in some form or another, be that a land-for-peace swap or some other type of security guarantees. No matter what, Ukraine will come out the lesser for its troubles and Russia will be rewarded for its aggression. But that is no longer the point because the bigger picture is what is more important in Trump’s eyes, especially if he can secure rare mineral concession rights in both Ukraine and Russia (as has been discussed lately, something that demonstrates the power of US coercive diplomacy versus Ukraine and the power of Russian persuasive diplomacy versus the US). The stagnation of the Ruso-Ukrainian war invites the application of disruption theory to the conflict, even if there will be significant collateral damage to Ukraine and US-European relations as a result.

This gambit also rests on the assumption that Russia is an honest actor and will in fact prefer to normalize relations with the US while distancing itself from the PRC (since it would be part of any negotiations to betray Ukraine unless Trump is completely owned by Putin). That may be a mistaken belief, which would make all the claims about Trump’s ability to play “three dimensional chess” a bit of a pipe dream. It also discounts the PRC reaction, which also would be a mistake.

The bottom line is that precisely because Trump is an empty intellectual and ideological vessel he is more susceptible than other presidents to the suggestions of his advisors, especially when they appeal to his narcissism and bigotry. Chaos or disruption theory-derived policy recommendations are a good way of doing so, especially when coupled with the suggestion that he is the only “King” (remember last week’s White House-generated Time Magazine cover) capable of imposing a new order both at home and abroad. If that advice is coupled with suggestions that the pivot towards Russia could earn him the Nobel Peace Prize (something that he has repeatedly said that he thinks that he deserves), then the neoreactionary ideological project will have started to bear fruit in terms of US foreign relations.

Judging from what is going on in terms of changes to US domestic policy under Trump 2.0, the strategic shift in foreign policy appears to be just one side of the disruptor’s coin. But is that a coin secured in hand by a long-term strategic plan or one that is simply being tossed to see how it lands?

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The limits of over-reach.

Here is a scenario, but first a broad brush-painted historical parallel.

Hitler and the Nazis could well have accomplished everything that they wanted to do within German borders, including exterminating Jews, so long as they confined their ambitious to Germany itself. After all, the world pretty much sat and watched as the Nazi pogroms unfolded in the late 1930s. But Hitler never intended to confine himself to Germany and decided to attack his neighbours simultaneously, on multiple fronts East, West, North and South. This came against the advice of his generals, who believed that his imperialistic war-mongering should happen sequentially and that Germany should not fight the USSR until it had conquered Europe first, replenished with pillaged resources, and then reorganised its forces for the move East. They also advised that Germany should also avoid tangling with the US, which had pro-Nazi sympathisers in high places (like Charles Lindbergh) and was leaning towards neutrality in spite of FDR’s support for the UK.

Hitler ignored the advice and attacked in every direction, got bogged down in the Soviet winter, drew in the US in by attacking US shipping ferrying supplies to the UK, and wound up stretching his forces in North Africa, the entire Eastern front into Ukraine and the North Mediterranean states, the Scandinavian Peninsula and the UK itself. In other words, he bit off too much in one chew and wound up paying the price for his over-reach.

Hitler did what he did because he could, thanks in part to the 1933 Enabling Law that superseded all other German laws and allowed him carte blanche to pursue his delusions. That proved to be his undoing because his ambition was not matched by his strategic acumen and resources when confronted by an armed alliance of adversaries.

A version of this may be what is unfolding in the US. Using the cover of broad Executive Powers, Musk, Trump and their minions are throwing everything at the kitchen wall in order to see what sticks. They are breaking domestic and international norms and conventions pursuant to the neo-reactionary “disruptor” and “chaos” theories propelling the US techno-authoritarian Right. They want to dismantle the US federal State, including the systems of checks and balances embodied in the three branches of government, subordinating all policy to the dictates of an uber-powerful Executive Branch. In this view the Legislature and Judiciary serve as rubber stamp legitimating devices for Executive rule. Many of those in the Musk-lead DOGE teams are subscribers to this ideology.

At the same time the new oligarchs want to re-make the International order as well as interfere in the domestic politics of other liberal democracies. Musk openly campaigns for the German far-Right AfD in this year’s elections, he and Trump both celebrate neo-fascists like Viktor Urban in Hungry and Javier Milei in Argentina, Trump utters delusional desires to “make” Canada the 51st State, forcibly regain control of the Panama Canal, annex Greenland, turn Gaza into a breach resort complex and eliminate international institutions like the World Trade Organization and even NATO if it does not do what he says. He imposes sanctions on the International Criminal Court, slaps sanctions on South Africa for land take-overs and because it took a case of genocide against Israel in the ICC, doubles down on his support for Netanyahu’s ethnic cleansing campaign against Palestinians and is poised to sell-out Ukraine by using the threat of an aid cut-off to force the Ukrainians to cede sovereignty to Russia over all of their territory east of the Donbas River (and Crimea). He even unilaterally renames the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America in a teenaged display of symbolic posturing that ignores the fact that renaming the Gulf has no standing in international law and “America” is a term that refers to the North, Central and South land masses of the Western Hemisphere–i.e., it is not exclusive to or propriety of the United States.

Trump wants to dismantle the globalised system of trade by using tariffs as a weapon as well as leverage, “punishing” nations for non-trade as well as trade issues because of their perceived dependence on the US market. This is evident in the tariffs (briefly) imposed on Canada, Mexico and Colombia over issues of immigration and re-patriation of US deportees.

In other words, Trump 2.0 is about redoing the world order in his preferred image, doing everything more or less at once. It as if Trump, Musk and their Project 2025 foot soldiers believe in a reinterpreted version of “shock and awe:” the audacity and speed of the multipronged attack on everything will cause opponents to be paralyzed by the move and therefore will be unable to resist it. That includes extending cultural wars by taking over the Kennedy Center for the Arts (a global institution) because he does not like the type of “culture” (read: African American) that is presented there and he wants to replace the Center’s repertoire with more “appropriate” (read: Anglo-Saxon) offerings. The assault on the liberal institutional order (at home and abroad), in other words, is holistic and universal in nature.

Trump’s advisors are even talking about ignoring court orders barring some of their actions, setting up a constitutional crisis scenario that they believe they will win in the current Supreme Court.

I am sure that Musk/Trump can get away with a fair few of these disruptions, but am not certain that they can get away with all of them. They may have more success on the domestic rather than the international front given the power dynamics in each arena. In any event they do not seem to have thought much about the ripple effect responses to their moves, specifically the blowback that might ensue.

This is where the Nazi analogy applies. It could be that Musk and Trump have also bitten more than they can chew. They may have Project 2025 as their road map, but even maps do not always get the weather right, or accurately predict the mood of locals encountered along the way to wherever one proposes to go. That could well be–and it is my hope that it is–the cause of their undoing. Overreach, egos, hubris and the unexpected detours around and obstacles presented by foreign and domestic actors just might upset their best laid plans.

That brings up another possibility. Trump’s remarks in recent weeks are descending into senescence and caducity. His dotage is on daily public display. Only his medications have changed. He is more subdued than during the campaign but no less mad. He leaves the ranting and raving to Musk, who only truly listens to the fairies in his ear.

But it is possible that there are ghost whisperers in Trump’s ear as well (Stephen Miller, perhaps), who deliberately plant preposterous ideas in his feeble head and egg him on to pursue them. In the measure that he does so and begins to approach the red-line of obvious derangement, then perhaps the stage is being set from within by Musk and other oligarchs for a 25th Amendment move to unseat him in favour of JD Vance, a far more dangerous member of the techbro puppet masters’ cabal. Remember that most of Trump’s cabinet are billionaires and millionaires and only Cabinet can invoke the 25th Amendment.

Vance has incentive to support this play because Trump (foolishly, IMO) has publicly stated that he does not see Vance as his successor and may even run for a third term. That is not want the techbro overlords wanted to hear, so they may have to move against Trump sooner rather than later if they want to impose their oligarchical vision on the US and world. An impeachment would be futile given Congress’s make-up and Trump’s two-time wins over his Congressional opponents. A third try is a non-starter and would take too long anyway. Short of death (that has been suggested) the 25th Amendment is the only way to remove him.

It at that point that I hope that things will start to unravel for them. It is hard to say what the MAGA-dominated Congress will do if laws are flouted on a wholesale basis and constituents begin to complain about the negative impact of DOGE cost-cutting on federal programs. But one thing is certain, chaos begets chaos (because chaos is not synonymous with techbro libertarians’ dreams of anarchy) and disruption for disruption’s sake may not result in an improved socio-economic and political order. Those are some of the “unknown unknowns” that the neo-con Donald Rumsfeld used to talk about.

In other words, vamos a ver–we shall see.

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On the DOGE data sweep.

Among the many other problems associated with Musk/DOGE sending a fleet of teenage and twenty-something cultists to remove, copy and appropriate federal records like social security, medicaid and other supposedly protected data is the fact that the youngsters doing the data-removal, copying and security protocol and filter code over-writing have not been properly security vetted and have at best been temporarily deputised into public service to do the retrieval tasks. They are loyal to Musk first, second and third and MAGA/Trump fourth. They are not loyal to the US public whose data they have now appropriated. This means that all that data collected is potentially being compromised or at risk of wider exposure and can even be data-mined, gifted or sold off to third parties for purposes other than public sector auditing or transparency.

That is pretty mind-boggling. As someone who held a S/TS/SCI clearance before leaving the US for a better life overseas, I had to undergo two polygraph and background checks conducted by the Defence Intelligence Agency before being granted the clearances, and upon leaving the security community I was placed under a 20 year gag order on what I had seen/done, with any material that I wanted to use after the 20 year gag window period ended subject to DoD censoring and editing (should I have decided to write or speak about topics that included using classified materials). I say this because I handled material that was just pertinent to my official duties, not wide swathes of data about everything under the sun, so the lack of security vetting of Musk’s minions is, again, astonishingly wrong.

This has the potential to end very badly, not just for the US government or what will be left of it after this reckless DOGE wrecking ball is done with it, but for the millions of people whose data can now be manipulated and used for untoward ends. We must remember that Musk is a dishonest and unscrupulous person, his cult minions and other “techbros” subscribe to variant of an anti-democratic and Social Darwinistic ideology known as “neoreactionism,” and MAGA acolytes like Stephen Miller, Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, Pam Biondi and the authors of Project 2025 now installed in the corridors of power are all too happy to use any means to pursue the Trump/Musk agenda. Since all of these people are disreputable curs, none can be trusted to prevent misuse of personal confidential data for revenge, profit or other non-accountable purposes.

The questions then become: who benefits from the data-grabbing move? The GOP? Putin? The techbro oligarchy? What is the end game?

Whatever it is, it is a disaster in the making.

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The politics of cruelty.

What seems to be the common theme in the US, NZ, Argentina and places like Italy under their respective rightwing governments is what I think of as “the politics of cruelty.” Hate-mongering, callous indifference in social policy-making, corporate toadying, political bullying, intimidation and punching down on the most vulnerable with seemingly unrestrained glee seem to be a hallmark of their respective approaches to governance. The fact that they share ideological and organisational ties through entities like the Atlas Network and Heritage Foundation suggests that this common approach is orchestrated rather than spontaneous and comes from the top down from conservative elites rather as an expression of the desires of the voting grassroots.

To be clear, they all won open elections fairly, albeit not by as wide margins as they claim, so their “mandates’ are a bit more tenuous than they may appear at first glance. But it is not so much whether they have large electoral margins of victory that matters but how they have chosen to exercise power once having won. On that score the post-election moment is alarming and the trend is authoritarian. What fuels this trend is belief in the power of “chaos theory,” where “disruptors” smash the system as given in order to achieve social, economic and political break-throughs after a period of stagnation and decline. This has been an ontological pillar of modern neo-Right thought–out of chaos and disorder comes rebirth–but it requires the firm hand of a determined leadership to push through the needed changes against the wishes of a reluctant or opposed polity.

In addition, although they all have their own variants of rightwing approaches to policy-making, be they MAGA populism (US), anarcho-capitalism (Argentina), post-neoliberalism (NZ) or neofascism (Italy), every one of these governments has elements of the “neoreactionary” movement growing strength in global rightwing circles. That movement sees liberal democracy as terminally flawed because it allows less-intelligent people to vote, which in turn produces political societies dominated by inefficiency, waste and rent-seeking collusion between public bureaucrats, their clients and feckless and avaricious politicians. For the neoreactionary movement, rule by a “monarchy” of corporate technocrats (e.g., Musk and Thiel) is preferable even if not possible over the short term. The new ‘masters of the universe” come from Silicone Valley rather than Wall Street, and are supported by legions of so-called “groypers” (younger rightwing ideologues and trolls) who serve as the foot soldiers of the new political-technocratic order.

At a political level, given the impossibility of immediately dispensing with elections and installing direct rule by the technocratic elite (as the leading edge of capitalism, now replacing finance capital), the short term remedy is therefore to elect “strong” leaders who rule by decree, fast-track legislation and/or emergency powers in which a Blitzkrieg approach is applied to institutional reform without regard to legal niceties or constitutional norms. The idea is to throw policy reforms against the societal wall and see what sticks given economic, socio-political and legal conditions. And given the pervasive influence of what can be called the attention-seeking (as opposed to information-seeking) culture accelerated by social media, this aim-at-the-wall approach flies below the radar of scrutiny by a public and mass media obsessed with clicks, likes and selfies rather than the incremental slide into authoritarianism. Because of that campaigns can be based on lies, disinformation and primal scapegoating of designated “others” because the ends justify the means. Elections have no intrinsic worth other than as serving as another instrument by which power is attained, and the turn towards authoritarian cruelty is the manner in which the spoils of victory are shared by election winners.

Not surprisingly given the above, in all of these cases rammed-through reforms have stuck. It remains to be seen what the long term effect will be or whether successful challenges can be mounted against them, but the disruptor neoreactionaries are on the rise and disruption is at play with no effective counterweight yet in sight.

For the time being, it appears that an era of darkness has descended upon us.

***Thanks to Lorenzo Wachter Buchanan and Dr. Jeanne Guthrie for their insights on this subject.***

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A turn to the Big Stick.

This is from the 36th Parallel social media account (as brief food for thought).

We know that Trump is ahistorical at best but he seems to think that he is Teddy Roosevelt and can use the threat of invoking the Monroe Doctrine and “Big Stick” gunboat diplomacy against Panama and Greenland to leverage concessions from them. But he is no Teddy Roosevelt and this is not the early 20th century. Trump may find that abrogating Treaties and engaging in coercive diplomacy may suit Putin but may not be the useful tools that he thinks they are when dealing with two friendly democracies/military partners (Rio Treaty/NATO) in today’s world. Who is advising him on this?

Because it smacks of mobster thuggery mixed in with gross ignorance.

Trump’s reasoning appears to be rooted in his fear of Chinese influence in both countries. Chinese firms have invested in Greenland’s strategic minerals sector for over a decade while US and other Western firms have not. Trump and his advisors see this as a threat now that the Arctic Passage is opening thanks to global warming (that Trump refuses to acknowledge much less address), but neither the autonomous Greenland government or the Danish government that oversees it (the relationship between the two is akin to that of NZ and the Cook Islands) seem particularly bothered by their presence and welcome the investment. Even if it stationed military personnel there in WW2 and has mounted Arctic expeditions using military personnel stationed at a Greenland base, the US has no claim to Greenland whatsoever. It is Danish territory with a local independence movement (something that Trump may attempt to exploit), which means that he is eying the internationally recognised territory of a NATO partner for annexation or acquisition.

Since 1996 Hong Kong based maritime transport firms (COSCO in particular) have managed the container terminals at both ends of the canal. The locks are manned by a mixture of Panamanian, US and other nationalities, so the Chinese do not “control” it. Contrary to Trump’s lies, there are no PRC “soldiers” in the Canal Zone and the management of the canal, including passage fees and related levies, are not discriminatory against US-bound, US-originated or US-flagged vessels. Under the terms of the 1977 Panama Canal Treaty that replaced the original Treaty signed in 1903 (in which the US paid Panama a flat sum and yearly rents for a ten-mile swathe of land on either side of the canal), no military personnel other than those of the US and Panama can be stationed in the Canal Zone, and foreign military forces must ask for permission to transit the waterway. The result is that the Canal Zone is sovereign Panamanian territory whose security is partially guaranteed by the US rather than be threatened by it.

As for the invocation of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine as a reason to intervene in Panama, beyond the imperialistic motivations behind it, the reality then and now is that the Doctrine is just a proclamation by one US president backed by military force. Its original focus was on deterring European powers (and Russia) from establishing footholds in the Western Hemisphere but over time it became an umbrella excuse for US interventionism even if it was not particularly effective in preventing the establishment of a Soviet naval base in Cienfuegos, Cuba, or Marxist/Maoist inspired and backed guerrilla revolutionary movements from cropping up throughout the region in the post-WW2 Cold War era.

Most importantly, the Monroe Doctrine has no basis in international or US law. It is not a Treaty (unlike the Panama Canal Treaty) that has been ratified by the US Congress, and therefore has no legal standing. It just survives as a historical relic propped up by notions of customary usage as a general justification for US interventionism in the Western Hemisphere. I had to deal with it when I was the Western Hemisphere Regional Policy Analyst in the Office of the US Secretary of Defense, and let’s just say that US security hawks like it because they believe that it gives them unilateral carte blanche to meddle in Latin American and Caribbean affairs. They now have a chance to test that belief.

For some background on the Panama Canal see these US briefs on how the Panama Canal Treaties came into effect.

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1899-1913/panama-canal#:~:text=In%20his%20new%20role%2C%20Bunau,guarantee%20the%20independence%20of%20Panama.

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1977-1980/panama-canal

The text of the 1977 Treaty restoring Panamanian control over the canal can be found here: https://pancanal.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/neutrality-treaty.pdf

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About Syria.

I have been thinking about Syria and coverage of the fall of the Assad regime, and to be honest I believe that there is something missing from the picture being painted, at least in NZ. Although I am no expert on Syria or the Middle East, I do have some experience working with irregular and unconventional fighting groups as well as writing about authoritarian regime demise and the modalities by which that occurs. I will therefore take a moment to reflect on what I think is missing.

Media reporting has it that the attack on Aleppo and rapid, two-week drive through Hama and Homs to Damascus was a surprise. That may be true for the media, many non-Syrian laypeople and perhaps the Russians and pro-Assad Syrians themselves, but otherwise I beg to differ. The reason is because the training and massing of rebel fighters in Northern and Central Syria would have taken time (some believe the uprising has been 5-10 years in the making), and would have therefore been detected by Western and regional intelligence services some time ago. If we think about satellite and aerial imagery, signals intercepts, ground based thermal and other technical acquisition capabilities as well as human intelligence on the ground, then consider that Syria and its armed factions are in the middle of a larger geopolitical conflict in the Levant and wider Middle East, and then think about who has a direct vested interest in Syria’s fate (as well as their partners and patrons), it is probably safe to assume that intelligence agencies grouped in the 5 Eyes, Jordan, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, France and/or Germany were monitoring at one level or another developments in rebel-held areas long before the assault on Aleppo was launched.

And then there is the pro-Assad intelligence community.

Perhaps distracted by events elsewhere, the Russians appear to have been genuinely caught off-guard, although it has been reported that they started pulling out personnel from Syria weeks before the attacks began (which would suggest they knew something was about to happen). Likewise, perhaps distracted by their own concerns regarding Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah, the Iranians eventually airlifted key personnel out of Damascus shortly after Aleppo fell, so even if they were blind to the preparations for the uprising, they clearly believed, correctly, that momentum was with the rebels once the assault was launched. More tellingly, weeks ago there were credible claims that the Syrian State had been “hollowed out” by senior officials (i.e. state coffers were raided, corruption and drug-dealing was endemic and public service provision halted), who then fled the country. Make of that what you will.

All of this would have given some clear indications that the Syrian status quo was about to change and Assad and the rest of his henchmen were soon to exit one way or another. What is telling is that the intelligence agencies that would have known about the rebel’s preparations (including NZ via its connections to 5 Eyes and other Western intelligence agencies including Mossad), maintained excellent operational security and did not let it be known, either by leaks or mistakes, that a major coordinated assault by the rebels was in the making. This was done not so much to spite the mainstream corporate media, which clearly had zero boots on the ground in rebel-held areas prior to the assault, but to prevent the Syrians, Iranians, Hezbollah, Hamas and Russians from learning about the uprising before it was underway. By the time the “axis of resistance” realised what was happening, it was too late to do anything but wait, watch and if need be, flee.

Whether the Russian, Syrian and Iranian intelligence failures were caused by them being stretched too thin on the ground, distracted with external events and/or incompetence, there are lessons to be learned learned from their lack of forewarning.

Israel’s successful (at least for now), multi-front campaign against Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and the Houthis, with some sidebar strikes on Syria thrown in for good measure, degraded the axis of resistance’s capabilities to detect and prevent the uprising. Now it appears that Israel is opening another front in Syria with an eye to significantly changing the geopolitical landscape in the region. Hamas and Hezbollah have been decimated as military forces. Iran has been intimidated into passivity. The Houthis have gone largely silent. This, thanks to Israel’s scorched earth, targeted assassination and long-range missile strike operations against all of them. Now Israel has launched a two-pronged offensive in Syria, conducting a bombing campaign against weapons storage facilities (some containing chemical weapons stockpiles) while simultaneous targeting command and control facilities as well as the entirety of the Syrian Navy (which shares major port facilities with the Russian Mediterranean fleet at the city of Tartus, which in turn raises the question of what will become of the Russian presence there and at a nearby airfield once the rebels seize control of them).

The IDF has also sent ground forces into and beyond the UN-monitored buffer zone separating Syrian control from Israel within and beyond the Golan Heights. Much like in Southern Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank, Israel has seized the opportunity provided by neighborly discord in order to expand its presence in its neighbours’ territory, perhaps with an eye to redrawing their common borders. Since there is no foreign power capable of stopping Israel or willing to do so, it looks like the Israeli gambit will pay off. But that may depend on what the rebel-led government in Syria does next.

If foreign powers were aware in advance of the rebel’s plans, it is also very likely that they conducted more than passive observation and information-sharing amongst themselves. The US has 900 troops in Syria, most of them US Army Special Forces (Green Berets), Green Berets’ main mission is to train, advise and assist local forces in any given conflict, so it is possible that they had working ties to the rebel groups in advance of the assault on Aleppo. The US also has combat troops stationed in Jordan, Israel and Iraq and a variety of military assets in Turkey, effectively surrounding Syria’s land borders. Likewise, in part because of the lingering presence of ISIS in central and eastern Syria, a number of other countries–NATO members most likely–have special operators and/or military intelligence assets “in theatre.” Turkey acknowledges its military working relationship with one of the rebel groups, the Syrian National Army (SNA) in Northern Syria. The US has close ties to Kurdish insurgents in Northwest Syria and Northwest Iraq. The Jordanians are said to have operatives in Southern Syria and one can assume that, if not an surreptitious military presence, Israel has its covert hand in the pie as well.

What this means is that it is quite possible that foreign forces provided training, advising and intelligence and logistical support in the years, months, weeks and days leading up to and through the assault on Aleppo. If so, it should not be surprising that he rebels maintained an unusual amount of discipline previously unseen in their ranks, and that the various armed factions worked well together, sometimes in coordinated fashion. Even some of their combat fatigues and weapons look new and Western in origin!

So who are these rebels? Basically they are Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), who are the remnants of a group formerly known as Jabbat al-Nusra (Nusra Front), an al-Qaeda and ISIS-connected Islamicist group; the Free Syrian Army (an anti-Assad “secular” group backed by the West); and the afore-mentioned, Turkish-backed SNA. There are also Kurdish PKK/YPG/SDF militias in the mix who control approximately one quarter of Syrian territory east of the Euphrates River (and major oil fields), although these divide their time between mopping up Syrian Army troops in Northeastern Syria and fighting ISIS militants, the SNA, the Turkish military and pro-Turkish militias.

The rebel coalition has formed a tactical alliance against its common enemy. None of the constituent parts are particularly democratic in orientation, and in spite of HST’s claims that it has served all ties with ISIS and does not espouse (Sunni) Islamicist beliefs such as Salafism or Wahhabism, such statements must be taken with a grain of salt. There are numerous reports of lethal attacks on Christians and Alawites (which is a Shiite sect) by rebel forces in Aleppo and Hama, so the proof of the rebel’s good intentions remains to be seen, especially if military discipline has broken down amid the quest for collective revenge.

The sectarian nature of the rebel coalition is worth noting because the Assad regime was Alawite, which is a mostly coastal minority community in an otherwise Sunni-dominated country. Assad reserved many of his governments’ top positions to co-religionists in the Syrian Baath Party (originally related to the Iraqi Baathists led by Saddam Hussein), so retribution and revenge against those who formed the support base and bureaucratic staff of the Assad regime can be expected, HST assurances to the contrary notwithstanding. What is promising is that HST has agreed to form an interim (not yet transitional) government with various sects represented and some carry-overs from the Assad regime appointed in order to restore and/or maintain continuity in public services.

The HST-led government is now focused on rooting out Assad loyalists, imposing social order, securing military and police facilities (including notorious prisons), and bringing public services back to life where possible. But reconstruction of battle-damaged areas will be lengthy and difficult process given that Syria’s treasury has been emptied, many public offices looted and/or damaged, and corruption is rampant within and between various sectarian groups. The international community will be asked to foot the bill and provide the human, material and financial capital required to return the country to some semblance of normalcy. This is complicated but the fact that the HST and PKK/YPGSDF have been designated as terrorist entities by the UN and a number of countries (although for different reasons, with HST designated because of its ties to ISIS and the PKK/YPG/SDF designated at Turkey’s insistence because of their irredentist activities in pursuit of an independent Kurdistan in territory now controlled by Syria, Iraq and Turkey). Before international relief can be offered, the terrorist designations will have to be lifted, something that will not please many interested parties for a variety of reasons.

More broadly, the fall of the Assad regime is one variant of what is known as “bottom-up transitions,” where before the regime is prepared to exit it is forced to do so by public pressure and mass collective action. Bottom-up transitions can stem from revolts, rebellions, general strikes, mass protests and the ultimate sub-type, revolutions (which, unlike the others, involve parametric change in the economy, social order and political society). These are not to be confused with top-down transitions, in which the outgoing regime frames the conditions by which it relinquishes power. This can be done peacefully or by a coup d’état, which is essentially an armed quarrel amongst elites in which the military acts as the arbiter of who wins and loses in the power struggle by siding with those that favour an exit strategy and transition to a different regime type. Examples of peaceful top-down transitions were seen in Brazil in the 1980s and Chile in the 1990s, where power was devolved from military control and handed over to elected civilian rule rather than be overthrown by force.

In Syria as has happened elsewhere, there will be major tensions between so-called “moderates” and “militants” (soft-liners and hard-liners) in the HST-led coalition. Hardliners and militants tend to come from fighting backgrounds. They tend not to seek compromise and conciliation because they have succeeded in imposing their will by force of arms. They are reluctant to forgive their defeated adversaries and many are sworn to avenge the affronts committed against their families, friends and communities (and in Syria, the affronts included atrocities and other forms of barbarism committed by Assad’s forces against the civilian population). Moderates, on the other hand, tend to come from the non-fighting political opposition, religious, business and community leaders and foreign interlocutors. These seek to draw a line behind them when it comes to dealing with the past in order to facilitate the reconstruction of society and promote national reconciliation.

The key to keeping the post-Assad transition relatively peaceful is for the moderates and softliners to gain the upper hand in negotiations to form the new government. For that to happen, inducements and constraints (think carrots and sticks) must be offered to and placed on the militant hardliners. Inducements can include open trials for those accused of heinous crimes committed on Assad’s behalf, placement of senior rebel commanders in leadership roles the Syrian security apparatus, establishment of Truth and Reconciliation Tribunals that address past sins committed on all sides, and even material rewards for those who refrain from continuing to use violence as a means to an end. Constraints could include weapons impoundments, criminal prosecutions, and other legal and material disincentives that discourage continuation of hardline or militant behaviour.

None of this will be easy but it is necessary is stability is to return to Syria. It is possible that the armed factions and their political and social supporters can use the common ground forged fighting the common enemy to expand the basis for commonality into other aspects of Syrian life. It could start with something as simple as national sports or cultural traditions and then move to the more thorny issues of governance, economic accumulation and distribution, religious and secular civil rights, and so forth.

What is clear is that, for the short term at least, the big losers in Syria are Alawites, Iranian and Russians. Assad is gone and his minions routed. Iran has lost its major overland transit route connecting it to Lebanon (Hezbollah) and Palestine (Hamas) as well as the intelligence, forward basing and logistical support of the Assad regime. Russia has lost it foremost ally in the Middle East as well as the intelligence and military assets that it had stationed in Syria prior to Assad’s fall (assuming that the new regime will confiscate the Russian facilities at Tartus and Khmeimim Air Base near Latakia city). Reputationally, both Iran and Russia have taken a major hit with their weaknesses as a security partner now exposed.

Israel appears to be the primary short-term beneficiary of Assad’s overthrow. To a lesser but significant extent, so are Western and Middle Eastern powers with a stake in the Levant. But a longer-term prognosis is more difficult to ascertain because the direction of the HST-led government has yet to be determined, and the post-Assad settling of scores has yet to be decided. Whether or not this involves a return of Islamicists with or without the ISIS brand is foremost among the concerns of many security agencies.

In any event the best we can do is embrace the uncertainties inherent in the moment, attempt where possible to bolster the moderate/softliner positions within the new government and offer concrete steps based on the experience of others as part of the path towards national recovery. History will be the ultimate judge of the process but for the moment all we can say is that we live in interesting times.

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Not all authoritarians are fascists.

A few days ago I responded to a post about Trump being a fascist on one of my friend’s social media page, then made a few comments on the consultancy social media page by way of follow up. Given the subsequent back and forth (including with regular KP reader Diane under her other social media moniker) I figured I might as well share my thoughts here. I realise that it may seem pedantic (it is) and inconsequential (it is not), but the misuse of value added terms is a trigger for me. So, with my political science/comparative politics hat on, let me offer some thoughts on the matter.

First, by way of prelude and backdrop to why I have decided to opine about this particular subject, let me explain something about analytic precision, specifically the notion of conceptual integrity. Conceptual transfer is an analytic tool where a concept is taken out of its original context in order to explain a different phenomenon that replicates the original meaning intact. The integrity of the original meaning is upheld in spite of the transfer. Say, a wheel back when is a wheel today even if its specific features are different. Conversely, conceptual stretching is a situation when a concept is stretched beyond its original meaning in order to describe a different, usually related but not the same, phenomenon. It loses explanatory and analytic integrity as it is stretched to explain something different. For example, when a hawk is called an eagle or an orca is called a killer whale. As an analytic tool the former is methodologically sound and intellectually honest. The latter is not. Conceptual integrity and precision is particularly important when using loaded or charged words, especially in contentious areas like politics.

There are plenty of authoritarians but only few were fascists or neo-fascists. There are Sultanistic regimes like those of the Arab oligarchies. There are theocracies like Iran (which used elections as a legitimating device). There one party regimes like the Belarus, PRC, DPRK, Syria and Cuba, one party dominant/limited contestation regimes like Algeria,Egypt, several of the K-stans, Hungary, Russia, Singapore, Tunisia, Turkey, Nicaragua and Venezuela and Egypt, military-bureaucratic regimes like those of the Sahel, and a variety of personalist and oligarchical leaders and regimes elsewhere. The way in which leadership is contested/selected and exercised, the balance between repression and ideological appeals in regime governing approaches, the mixture of inducements (carrots) and constraints (sticks) when it comes to specific key policy areas (say, in labor, tax, sexual preference and reproductive rights laws). There are many manifestations of the authoritarian phenomenon, so mislabeling some types as others compounds the practical and conceptual problems associated with the conceptual imprecision and confusion.

That is why it is unfortunate that Trump is being labeled a “fascist.” He clearly is a dictator wanna-be but fascism was a political movement specific to 20th century interwar Europe that combined charismatic leaders at the head of a mass mobilisational one party regimes with specific economic projects (state capitalist heavy industrialisation in the case of Nazi Germany) and state-controlled forms of interest group representation (state corporatism, to be specific). Fascist gain power via elections, then end them. Trump may lead the MAGA movement but he has no ideological project other than protectionist economics, diplomatic and military isolationism and nativist prejudice against assorted “others.” He prefers to manipulate rather than eliminate elections as a legitimating device. Barring an outright military takeover at this command, he will not be able to control the three branches of government even if he wants and tries to. He cannot control how interest groups are organised and represented unless he changes US laws governing interest representation and intermediation. Most fundamentally, he is just about himself, using tried and true scapegoating and fear-mongering in an opportunistic push to gain power. It worked once in 2016, so he is at it again, this time with a “better” (Project 2025) plan. That is scary but not fascist per se.

The closest he gets to a proper political category is national populist. As seen in the likes of Juan Peron in Argentina, Getulio Vargas in Brazil and Lazaro Cardenas in Mexico, these were charismatic leaders of mass mobilised movements as well, but who had different economic projects, different social bases (e.g. German Nazism and Franco’s fascist regime in Spain were middle class-based whereas Italian fascism and Argentine Peronism was urban working class-based and Mexican populism under Cardenas was peasantry-based), and who did not use warmongering to restore their nations to a position of global dominance (as did the European fascists). Trump’s base is low education working and lower middle class rubes encouraged by opportunistic business elites who self-interestedly see short-term benefit from supporting him. In other words, his supporters are the greedy leading the stupid.

It appears that respected people like Generals Milley and Kelly, who served in the Trump administration, are mistaken when they ever to him as a fascist. What they are describing is no more than garden party electoral authoritarians such as that of Viktor Urban or Recep Erdogan. Trump may admire despots like Putin, Kim and Xi, but he is a long way from being able to copy them, and none of them is a fascist in any event. Dictatorial ambition and authoritarian approaches come in many guises beyond the often misused term fascism. In fact, superstructural affinities like rhetorical style, corruption and bullying tendencies aside, Trump is less a fascist than he is a lesser moon in the authoritarian universe.

If I had to label him, I would say that Trump is a populist demagogue who has strong authoritarian ambitions such as purging the federal government of non-loyalists and persecuting his political opponents. Perhaps he will graduate into becoming a full-blown dictator. But what he is not is a fascist, at least not in the proper sense of the word. He is too ignorant to implement a modern variant of fascism in a place like the US, and there are too many institutional and social counters in the US to any move he may make in that direction. What I will admit is that he has neo-Nazis in his inner circle (Stephen Miller) and evil Machiavellians as his consiglieri (Steve Bannon, soon to be released from jail for contempt of Congress). Along with assorted lesser ogres equipped with the Project 2025 playbook, it is possible that they could turn the US political system into something resembling a modern variant of a national populist regime. But there is a ways to go before that happens.

I therefore feel that it is unfortunate and counterproductive to call him a fascist. It is like how he and his minions call Kamala Harris a “communist” or “socialist.” The labels are absurd and betray a profound ignorance of what those terms mean (and the differences between them), but they make for good red meat rallying points for a MAGA base that lacks the education or common sense to see the smear for what it is or the reality that communists and socialists do not get to hold the positions of California Attorney General, US Senator and Vice President (the closest they have come in recent times is Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, and he is no communist).

If the good generals and Vice President Harris decided to take a page out of his fear-mongering smear playbook by calling him a fascist, that may be understandable given the danger he poses for US democracy. But it is also dishonest (given Milley and Kelly’s educations, I find hard to believe that they do not know what fascism is and is not, but then again, many general grade officers major in military history, international relations and/or security studies rather than comparative political science and so may not be familiar with the proper definitions of the term. As for Harris, she is trained as a lawyer. Enough said).

Anyway, the point of this undoubtably boring exegesis is to get a pet peeve off of my chest, which is the resort to conceptual stretching in order to negatively frame narratives about political phenomena.

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Media Link: “AVFA” on the politics of desperation.

In this podcast Selwyn Manning and I talk about what appears to be a particular type of end-game in the long transition to systemic realignment in international affairs, in which the move to a new multipolar order with different characteristics than the previous one is marked by conflict, the inevitable friction that ensures from unregulated competition absent universal norms and boundaries of behaviour, and the unfortunate yet predictable turn to politics of desperation by actors who are personally or politically invested into status quos under siege. The consequences of this turn of events is both uncertain and yet likely negative in the end. We use Trump, Netanyahu, Zelensky, Putin, Maduro and Ortega as examples of desperate leadership, although the trend can be extended to other cases as well.

The bottom line is that little if any good can come from the politics of desperation.