January 6th marks the feast of the Epiphany, also known as “Three Kings Day” as it commemorates the revelation of Christ to the Gentile world, the arrival of the Three Kings from the East to visit the Christ child, and the end of the Christmas season. While people commonly give gifts on Christmas day and historically for the twelve days leading up to Epiphany (hence the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas”), Trump has been the most generous gift giver as of last year leading up to and through the Christmas season, where he announced at the close of Epiphany that he was giving another gift to Germany, and that is insulting them and other European nations to their face by saying “You are vassals and I don’t care”:
“I don’t care about Europe,” declared US President Donald Trump this week during his White House cabinet’s first meeting of the new year.
The American president probably revealed more about the true nature of US-European relations than he intended.
Trump was speaking in the context of American military involvement with Europe, as well as trade and other issues. He was reiterating the tedious mantra that the US is allegedly being “taken advantage of” by European allies by not spending more on their military budgets.
It was the usual rambling, barely articulate fallacy from Trump who portrays the inherent military profligacy of American corporate capitalism not as a destructive vice, but as a supposed virtuous cause of “protection” for allies and the rest of the world. In short, delusional American exceptionalism.
But it was Trump’s bluntly stated contempt for European allies that was notable. In a quip to a question about his reported unpopularity in Europe, the president said he didn’t care what Europeans think. A few seconds later, in a betrayal of his arrant egotistical state of mind, Trump turned around and claimed that he would be popular if he stood in an election in Europe!
Ironically, though, perhaps we should be grateful to Trump for his brash outspokenness. By dissing Europe with such contemptuous disregard, he lays bare the true face of Washington’s relations with the old continent.
Past American presidents have been adept at presenting the transatlantic connection as a putative “strategic partnership” – as most clearly manifested by the US-led NATO military alliance. Trump’s former Defense Secretary James Mattis, who resigned in protest over policies, was of this conventional transatlantic mould. Mattis repeatedly talked up the importance of maintaining strong bonds with allies.
However, decades of transatlantic rhetoric has often served to conceal the real relationship between Washington and Europe. The reality is the Europeans are not partners. They are vassals.
Successive European governments and the European Union have continually permitted their countries to serve as bases for American military forces, including in the past, nuclear weapons pointed at Russia. Those missiles may return to European soil, if the US walks away from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty as it threatens to do under Trump.
The subordinate European governments have also dutifully facilitated American militarism by affording a multilateral pseudo legal cover for Washington’s imperialist wars. For example, European nations sent troops to augment US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq thereby giving criminal genocidal ventures a veneer of legitimacy.
Ironically, in his remarks to his cabinet this week Trump scoffed at European nations for sending “only 100 troops” to Afghanistan and Iraq. He also mentioned Syria, illustrating how rampantly arrogant US criminality is.
So, Trump is berating Europeans for not devoting more of their economic resources to match the American pathological addiction to militarism; for not paying more for US military occupation of European countries; and for not sending more troops to join in American overseas criminal aggressions.
Previous American presidents would be a little more circumspect in disguising Washington’s tyrannical relationship with Europe. But Trump is too self-centered and boorishly transactional in his view. The whole self-indulgent pretense of American chivalry and protection is shredded, albeit unwittingly.
Trump told Europe this week he does not care a jot about the continent and supposed US allies. With such contempt, European nations need to wake up to the reality of charting their own independence from Washington, and in particular pursuing a genuine continental partnership with Russia.
Washington’s arrogance is perhaps most starkly expressed by the Trump administration threatening European states with sanctions if they continue building the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia. Russia is a natural strategic partner for Europe, especially in terms of economical supply of gas and oil fuel.
The issue of energy supply and demand epitomizes so much else about the relation between Europe and Russia, and the US. The latter is something of an imposter and is foisting its selfish interests on others, whether in energy trade or in military affairs. We have also seen this with regard to Trump tearing up the Iran nuclear deal and punishing Europe for upholding that international treaty.
Trump could not have stated the reality of American disregard for European interests any more brazenly. He doesn’t give a fig.
At the end of last year, the European Union voted to renew economic sanctions on Russia for another six months. Those sanctions are based largely on anti-Russian ideological claims made by Washington and its NATO partners over a host of spurious issues, including conflict in Ukraine and the preposterous fantasy of Russia interfering in elections. Again, the vassal position of Europe is revealed by the fact that it is European economies, not the American economy, that have incurred self-defeating damage from the sanctions on Russia.
European governments need to adopt something of Trump’s “America First” policy and begin putting the interests of their people first. Europe must repudiate Washington’s antagonism and militarism towards Russia. Many of the incumbent European governments seem incapable of finding the necessary political will to be independent from Washington. That is partly why there is such a phenomenal rise in popular discontent with the European Union and establishment politicians. The powers-that-be are unresponsive and unrepresentative of popular interests and needs, creating further backlash to the establishment institutions.
Europe needs to stop being a lackey of Washington. After Trump’s blatant contempt this week, Europe has no excuse or justification to continue debasing itself as an American vassal. (source, source)
When one speaks of continental Europe, there really are only two major powers: Germany and Russia. All other nations can be discussed in terms of their allegiance to either nation. This is the reason why Balkan region politics and hence the term “Balkanization”, referring to a veritable parasitic infighting between nations fracturing into smaller and progressively more hostile groups, is such a huge issue, because Germany and Russia view that area between them as their chessboard where they fight out their differences. While historical examples always change, generally speaking on the side of Germany is Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, “Kosovo,” Latvia, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and the western regions of Ukraine with increasing tendencies from Belarus, while on the Russian side is Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia, the eastern regions of Ukraine and increasingly less Belarus. Lithuania tends to stand with Poland, of which she has a strong nation but is disliked by both her neighbors and when war happens becomes the first and usually one of the heaviest casualties.
The UK and Ireland, while a part of Europe, are culturally isolated from much of the continent despite their connection to them, and have more in common with the Canadians and USA despite the shared history. With the exception of the Latin peoples of southern Europe- Central/South Italy, Portugal, and Spain save the northern regions -western Europe is mostly made up of Germanic and German-ish tribes that broke up and mixed with other peoples over a period of centuries. Thus while the Belgians, Catalans, Dutch, French, Piedmontese, and Swiss are different nations and do fight with each other, they also have a common historical and ethnic connection they share. As such, there is a general tendency that unless mitigated by significant other reasons, such as one’s faith or a political motive, they tend to either ally with or fall under the influence of Germany.
The US and Germany have worked with each other for decades since World War II, as the war was not so much about who was “right” versus who would be in control. This is evidenced by the very eugenics programs of Germany and Japan. While America publicly said she opposed them, the reality is that she did nothing to stop them and then went on to protect and employ said eugenicists in her own government because she taught them what they practiced and to that she wanted to take the data gleaned from said experimentation for her own use. This is not to excuse either nation, but to say that while it is wrong what Germany did, at the same time the US is equally guilty because she instigated, educated, encouraged, watched, and then selectively prosecuted said crimes while protecting the data learned from it and then tried to deny it.
The US and Germany will fight publicly, but at the end of all conversations she and the US are friends. As a part of being friends, they give each other gifts.
Now it is true in the objective sense that Germany is a US vassal, and that World War II was about securing said vassalage of her. To that extent, Germany does not have the ability at the moment to break away from US vassalage even if she wanted to, and neither is there a need to at the current time since Germany and the US are both united in their stance against Russia. As noted above, they continue to give each other gifts, and they will use public spats with each other in order to realize their mutual objectives.
In the case of Germany, Trump’s gift to Germany is to unshackle the military constraints placed on her by the US following World War II. There are multiple ways that this can be done, but the way that has been used and is being followed by Trump is to promote nationalism and say that Germany “needs to take care of herself,” and to that to also insult Germany and other Europeans so to stoke nationalist fervor in order to gain public support for such actions.
All of the anger that rises in a public sense against the US coming from the German public, or the cheers of the American masses for Trump to “make them pay” is all nonsense because the public can clamor at what they want, as the fundamental relationship does not change based on popular opinion because these voices do not have control over the financial and industrial tools that guide society. It is similar to the screaming of slave masses on a plantation, for they can scream all they want but their voices cannot release them from their chattel nor will it supply them with guns to fight their owners.
This piece was from the “Strategic Culture Foundation,” which is a Russian front group similar to the many American “alternative media” and “think tank” front groups such as the Heritage Foundation and the Aspen Institute that exist. One would think that reading this piece, as it clearly promotes nationalism, that Russia would be against nationalism as ultimately nationalism is going to be used to target Russia.
Russia is currently using nationalism because, in her mind, she wants to divide Germany from the US. As I have stated before, Russia is currently threatened by four major enemies- the US, Germany, Turkey, and Japan -and they cannot win a war against all four of them, most likely not three, may be able to break even over two and possibly win, and most likely be able to win against one. The US is the largest one in the situation- take her out and it becomes much more manageable.
Germany did fight the US in World War II, but Germany for much of World War II secretly worked together (I speak of banks and industrial companies), and since World War II has been a satellite of the US working together for Operation Gladio against Russia and building Turkey into a world power again. It is the US who has been working with Germany to promote nationalism throughout Europe with the intention of encouraging Germany to militarism, and is the reason why Trump is promoting German militarism directly through support of a renewed Wehrmacht as well as indirectly through riling up the people, as in this example, to anger so that the population supports militarism.
Russia, as noted before, has no good moves that she can make save for promoting herself as a peacemaker because she needs as much peace as she can so to limit the number of enemies she has to fight.
Russia promoting nationalism will ultimately fail for her because her action directly play right to the American and German agenda, which wants nationalism in order to revive her Reich past. Whether Germany will turn on the US is unlikely, as she is indebted to the US for rebuilding her, and if the US should turn and attack Germany, it would be to recover her investment into Germany if she did not believe she could recover it or she felt that she was betrayed by Germany. Barring one of these reasons, it is almost impossible that Germanian nationalism would lead to anti-Americanism in the foreseeable future and under the current conditions.
This is why Putin did not look as powerful or as sure of himself at his meeting in October 2018 with John Bolton. He knows that he is trapped, and that Bolton wants to destroy Russia and has the advantage now and for the future.
As far as the gas line threats go, Germany has known for over a century that in the event of a war involving Russia, the gas lines from Siberia to Russia would be turned off. Hence is why Germany is working with the Americans and Turks on the many pipeline projects through Turkey, and all of which go to Azerbaijan and Central Asia.
While things can and do change, barring a serious, major event such as a natural disaster or something else with tremendous consequences for the US mainland or her interests, she is most likely not going to stop supporting Germany and likewise Germany supporting her because they know what the end game is, which is the revival of the Reich.
The Russians are strategic and a great nation, but right now promoting nationalism in Germany as a means to try and undermine Germany is logically similar to a plot made by Boris and Natasha from the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons of the 1960s. It will be somewhat strange, almost desperate, but will eventually backfire on and result in harming them more than helping them.
In the meantime, Trump will continue his public rhetoric and private deals, for while the German public will be angry, eventually they will sing with the tune their leaders joyfully proclaim in silence, of Deutschland über alles.
Top, what is likely happening with Russia promoting nationalism
Below, what said promoting of nationalism will result in