Grooming Weakness

As US dominance over its sphere of influence intensifies, Canada and Europe, stuck with their geopolitical eggs all in the US basket, are vulnerable to becoming messy omelettes in America’s new gambit

Europeans celebrating their weakness: “Big Brother is Back”

Weakness breeds contempt, both in geopolitics and multicultural community relations. On January 8th, President Trump made headlines by threatening to use economic force to annex Canada, while notably refusing to rule out the possibility of military action to conquer Greenland or reclaim the Panama Canal Zone. In doing so, Trump signalled a dramatic shift back to sphere of influence geopolitics, a strategy that many had thought had been relegated to the dustbin of history. Seemingly to avoid accusations of hypocrisy, Trump acknowledged the rationale behind Russia’s unwillingness to tolerate Ukraine’s NATO aspirations. However, Trump’s rhetoric fell short of explicitly applying the same logic to Taiwan—although, given the trajectory of his thought, such a move seems inevitable.

By transforming "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) into "Make Greater America" (MGA) even before his second inauguration, Trump turned the geopolitical script on its head. This rebranding marks a departure from traditional US globalist rhetoric and demonstrates a raw embrace of revisionist power politics. For America’s supposed allies in the so-called "Collective West," the implications were both jarring and deeply unsettling. Trump's new approach gives an entirely new meaning to the old adage: “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”

In an eyeblink, Europe and Canada went from shining knights at America's side in slaying the Russian dragon, to feeling vulnerable as potential victims of Trump’s grand strategy. The veil of consensual global hegemony—where liberal ideals supposedly united the West—was ripped away, exposing naked anarchic power politics. Trump’s declaration shattered illusions of transatlantic solidarity and marked a return to a world where might makes right, leaving former allies torn between supporting their threatened neighbours or assisting the US in ravaging them.

Hegemony or Force?

A unipolar power has two principal mechanisms of rule: consent (hegemony) and coercion (force). Consent is cultivated through the careful orchestration of ideology, information warfare, and media operations. This approach aims to shape the worldview of subject nations and populations, persuading them to align their interests and identity with the dominant power. The true art of hegemony lies in manufacturing consent so effectively that obedience becomes voluntary, as those under its influence "internalize the whip," believing that submission serves their own best interests.

Ideas, more enduring and potent than steel, form the backbone of this strategy. When the whip of coercion is wielded sparingly—used as a last resort rather than a daily tool—it creates an aura of legitimacy around the hegemon's authority. The illusion of choice and mutual benefit, reinforced by cultural exports, economic integration, and a narrative of shared values, sustains this softer form of dominance. The hegemon, in this sense, becomes a benevolent overseer, offering stability and order while subtly enforcing compliance. Such a hegemon breeds domesticity to his rule, in other words, he grooms weakness in his subjects.

By contrast, coercion relies on overt displays of power: economic sanctions, military interventions, and other forms of direct force. While effective in the short term, coercion breeds resentment and resistance, undermining the long-term stability of a hegemonic system. Overuse of coercion exposes the hegemon’s reliance on brute strength, eroding its ideological appeal and revealing the inherent fragility of its dominance. Paradoxically, coercion grooms strength in adversaries.

At the peak of US hegemony around the year 2000, Washington made the fatal mistake of shifting its strategy toward overt force, most disastrously in Afghanistan and Iraq. While a brief campaign in Afghanistan after 9/11 was understandable and even necessary, stretching it into a 20-year quagmire of defeat exposed the US as a paper tiger. Iraq, Syria and Libya were totally unnecessary from any American First point of view. Consent is best maintained when underpinned by the tacit fear of coercion. However, the US’s repeated failures to impose coercive power by force—most recently in Ukraine—have shattered the world’s fear of American power.

Roots of Defeat

In a strikingly optimistic development during his interregnum, the "Orange Menace" retweeted a Cambridge Union lecture by prominent Jewish-American economist Jeffrey Sachs. In his talk, Sachs delivered a scathing critique of both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the cabal of American neoconservatives that have influenced US foreign policy for decades.

Jeffrey Sachs is, by any measure, one of the finest examples of elite intellectuals America can produce. A celebrated economist and public intellectual, Sachs rose to prominence for his work on global economic development and international policy. He served as the Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and is currently a professor at Columbia’s Center for Sustainable Development. Earlier in his career, Sachs made his mark advising transitioning economies in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union during the 1990s.

In his Cambridge Union lecture, Sachs argued that Israel has effectively hijacked American foreign policy. While he didn’t explicitly frame his critique in terms of the distinction between hegemony and force, his argument makes this dynamic evident. Israel lacks the capacity to ideologically impose hegemonic power over the entire Middle East; yet, it must be admitted that Israel has achieved remarkable success in internalizing its "whip" within many Sunni Arab leaders.

Through a deft application of geopolitical jujitsu, neoconservative intellectuals have managed to impose a form of hegemony over American foreign policy elites—not through force, but through the power of ideas. By shaping narratives and framing the Middle East as a perpetual existential threat, these intellectuals have persuaded the United States to act as Israel’s muscle in the region. This manipulation of America’s military and diplomatic apparatus has resulted in decades of interventionist policies that have destabilized the Middle East and strained US resources, all while barely advancing the interests of the Jewish State.

Lifting the Mask

Trump ran his Presidential campaign promising to close the southern border and acting as the best enabler Israel ever had. And yet even before his term begins, Trump seems to be implying that the Panama Canal will become the de facto southern border and that he agrees with the wise words of Jeffrey Sachs on Israel.

In amplifying Sachs, it’s as if Trump is explaining the reason he must now construct a "Greater America." If he succeeds in annexing Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal zone, Greater America will geographically be the largest nation-state in history. To achieve this grandiose vision, bullying, berating, and looting America’s soon-to-be-former allies will become the modus operandi.

But is this just, turning so brutally on America’s faithful chums?

From an anti-colonial perspective, eagerly amplified by Russia and China, the Collective West has spent the past 500 years as a cabal of international robber barons. Trump’s actions do indeed raise a timeless philosophical question, one that Cicero famously wrestled with: is there honour among thieves? Cicero argued that honour and justice, however minimal, are necessary for even the most basic of criminal enterprises to function:

"Justice is indispensable... even those who live by wickedness and crime cannot get on without some small element of justice. For if a robber takes anything by force or by fraud from another member of the gang, he loses his standing even in a band of robbers; and if the one called the ‘Pirate Captain’ should not divide the plunder impartially, he would be either deserted or murdered by his comrades."

America’s incoming "Pirate Captain" appears poised to resolve this ancient debate. For example, Trump’s plans to seize Denmark’s colonial prize in Greenland show scant regard for idea of sharing imperial spoils. The critical question is whether his European and Canadian racketeers possess the strength to either desert or challenge him. All evidence points to the contrary: they appear too weak, too ideologically self-hating, and too reliant on American leadership to mount any meaningful resistance on their own. Instead, they seem destined to grovel and accept whatever outrages the Pirate Captain decrees. How did Americans manage to groom such weakness into their allies?

Canada: Grooming Post-national Weakness

The ideological backbone of US hegemony over the past 30 years has been grounded in the notion of "The End of History," a concept popularized by political theorist Francis Fukuyama. This idea posited that human civilization had evolved and progressed over millennia with a teleological trajectory—culminating in the perfection of global liberal democracy, epitomized by American rule. According to this worldview, the American-led global order represented not just a phase in history but its final, triumphant conclusion. Implicit in this ideology was the notion that all other systems, ideologies, and national identities were either obsolete or subordinate to this ultimate state of human governance.

A key corollary to "The End of History" was the systematic suppression of nationalism and patriotic pride within the subject nations of this global order. Nationalist sentiment was framed not as a source of legitimate pride or self-determination, but as a dangerous threat to the cohesion and stability of American hegemony. Expressions of love for one’s own nation—beyond what served US interests—were treated as subversive acts, challenging the moral and political supremacy of the United States. This ideological poison eventually blew back on the US itself, a classic case of getting high on your own ideological supply.

There were, of course, exceptions to this rule when it suited American objectives. Ukrainian nationalism, for example, was not only tolerated but actively encouraged and weaponized as a tool to counter Russian influence in Eastern Europe. The selective endorsement of nationalism for countries like Ukraine demonstrated a cold pragmatism: nationalism was not inherently taboo but was permissible when aligned with American geopolitical goals.

For the majority of the world, however, the rule was clear—any form of national pride, especially if it implied resistance to the global order or an assertion of sovereignty, was treated as an affront to US hegemony. This suppression of national identity was accompanied by cultural and ideological narratives that framed globalism, multiculturalism, and cosmopolitanism as the superior virtues of an enlightened world.

And so as President Trump’s spyglass scans northward, his desire only grows for Canada’s buried treasures, ranging from rare abundant earth minerals to hydrocarbon rich tar sands. How will this national booty be defended? After all, there is no better example than Canada of the ravages of globalization hollowing out the very concept of national spirit and social cohesion that any sustained defense would rely on.

In 2015, perhaps to impress then US President Barack Obama, Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau announced the death of a unified Canadian nation:

There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada.... There are shared values—openness, respect, compassion, willingness to work hard, to be there for each other, to search for equality and justice. Those qualities are what make us the first post-national state.

During the Covid panic, patriotic working class Canadians wrapped themselves in their national flag and launched “freedom convoys” to protest vaccine mandates that post-national Canada tried to impose on its post-citizens. Trudeau response was to denounce them:

I want to be very clear; we are not intimidated by those who hurl insults and abuse at small business workers and steal food from the homeless. We won’t give in to those who fly racist flags. We won’t cave to those who engage in vandalism or dishonour the memory of our veterans. There is no place in our country for threats, violence, or hatred … it needs to stop.

Today, Canada’s population is more than 40% foreign-born. Among admittedly arrogant American observers, a common belief persists: the only reason an immigrant would choose Canada is that they were first rejected by the United States. The idea is that Canada is less a destination and more a way station, a consolation prize for those unable to achieve their ultimate goal of life in the US. In other words, Canada plays a role akin to a junior college in collegiate athletics—a temporary stopover on the path to transferring to a prestigious, first-choice institution: the United States.

And so, when push comes to shove and economic coercion fails to convince Canadians to join the US, how will Canada’s immigrant population, with their often tenuous ties to the fabric of post-national Canada, react? Are they likely to pick up arms and fight and die for a nation they’ve been actively encouraged not to assimilate into?

The stark reality is that the only Canadians who might resist invading US forces are the same “racists” and so-called extremists who fought against Covid-era authoritarianism. These Canadian patriots, clinging to the proud and independent vision of Canada from their youth, may form partisan groups and do their best to slowdown the invaders from the south—limited by their dwindling cache of hunting rifles the Canadian government has not yet grabbed away from them.

Although such an invasion is a longshot, the entire idea of America annexation puts Canadian patriots in a difficult position. As irony and tragedy conjugate, this campaign will alienate the very Canadians MAGA might have actually wanted to join the United States—proud, independent, and resolute individuals who share a spirit of defiance towards globalism while embracing a national pride akin to their own.

From Vassals to Prey: Nord Stream and Rotherham

Although Trump is setting himself out as the poster boy of the New American Imperialism, the first decisive strike of this rising new order was the Biden Administration’s destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline. Germany’s grovelingly submissive response—shifting blame onto a ravaged Ukraine in the midst of getting pounded by Russian missiles—demonstrated to the United States that Europe could be dominated and humiliated without fear of reprisal.

Worse still was the open celebration of American energy terrorism by other European nations. Such reactions must have only whetted the American appetite for more conquest.

Former Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs expresses his gratitude following the US attack on Nord Stream

This abdication of Germany’s national interests by meekly acquiescing to the pipeline destruction surely left American observers incredulous at the power of the post-national false consciousness that globalization was able to impose. This disbelief must have been paralleled by the astonishment felt by the perpetrators of the Rotherham mass rape scandal. Pakistani men, when caught red “handed” in the act of gang raping preteen indigenous British girls, must have been utterly stunned by the sight of the responding police officers arresting the bleeding victims instead of them. In both cases, of American Imperialism and Pakistani sexual violence, the local authorities passive responses served as a welcome mat for escalatory abuse.

One gang rape victim’s harrowing observation that “it was easier for the police to criminalize the children rather than go after the abusing adults” applies equally to Germany’s deflections in the aftermath of the Nord Stream pipeline attacks. Instead of confronting Uncle Sam over the sabotage, German officials concocted the absurd narrative of some drunk Ukrainian sailors blowing up the pipeline—a convenient distraction from holding their protective “Big Brother” accountable for the attack that has wrought deindustrialization and looming economic precarity on the German people.

The motivations for appeasement in both the Nord Stream and Rotherham rapes stem from the same post-national desire to not make waves. A local Labour politician openly stated that the rapes were allowed to continue to avoid “rocking the multicultural boat.” Surely Germany accepted the US attack on Nord Stream in order to avoid '“rocking the Collective West alliance against Russia.”

But both England and Germany backed down at a moment of maximum leverage. Germany, at the beginning of the Ukraine war, had the power to make or break the American jihad against Russia. Instead they folded and now find themselves in even a worse situation: how will they respond to Donald Trump strong-arming Greenland away from Denmark? Will Germany lead a “Slava Grønland!” movement and scramble together whatever crumbs they have left in their armouries to confront the Americans before they turn this Danish possession into “Orangeland”? Will Germany ask Russia and China to join them in a Eurasian unity alliance to stop Greater America? No, of course they will not.

In turn, England could have cut off the Pakistan-to-England immigration pipeline if the rapes didn’t stop. In his New York Times op-ed published in 2014 entitled The England That Is Forever Pakistan: Multiculturalism and Rape in Rotherham, Pakistani-British writer Sarfraz Manzoor explains the social hierarchies in play during the mass rapes in Britain:

What may seem like a story about race and religion, however, is as much one about power, class and gender. The Pakistanis who raped and pimped got away with it because they targeted a community even more marginal and vulnerable than theirs, a community with little voice and less muscle: white working-class girls.

What Manzoor highlights is the tendency of those on the "second rung" of the social hierarchy to eagerly oppress those relegated to the bottom rung—in this case, indigenous British preteens—whose lowly status was driven in part by globalization’s imperative to dismantle national communities.

Similarly, as Denmark seeks allies within the Western bloc to resist America’s incursions into Greenland, Copenhagen may find itself occupying the bottom rung of the fracturing Western alliance. Those on the second rung, such as Poland and the Baltic states, are already urging Denmark to metaphorically "lie back and think of England" as Trump asserts dominance over Greenland. Their unwillingness to challenge American aggression stems from a desire to preserve the anti-Russian coalition, even at the expense of Denmark's sovereignty and dignity.

Win-Win-Win Feudal Fragmentation?

Gang of Three Great Sovereign Powers?

There is a growing trend among theorists—some of it uninformed hyperbole—that capitalism is collapsing and the world is regressing toward a new "techno-feudal" age. In Marxist historiography, the feudal mode of production was superseded by the capitalist mode through a series of bourgeois revolutions, the most iconic being the French Revolution. On one point, Marxists and libertarian capitalist ideologues agree: feudalism represents a profound evil that humanity must never revisit.

Figures like Tech Bro Peter Thiel do indeed appear to be modelling themselves after modern-day feudal lords. Feudal society, while highly complex, can be abstracted into three primary classes: a military nobility, an intellectual clergy, and a mass of peasant serfs. Thiel's control over Palantir—a linchpin in the national security apparatus—positions him within the modern military elite, while his championing of René Girard, the intriguing Catholic-French theorist of sacrifice and desire, aligns him with the intellectual clergy of old. In these two respects, Thiel seems to embody elements of the two highest feudal estates.

A defining characteristic of feudalism was the fragmentation of sovereignty and power, and as US hegemony wanes, we do see a similar de-concentration of global authority into smaller, competing blocs. Chief among these emergent power centres are the Big Three: China, the United States, and Russia. This diffusion of influence, while not a full regression to feudalism, echoes the decentralized power structures of that era, with individual actors and states carving out spheres of dominance in a less unified world system.

Playing upon this theme, Russians with Attitude recently published a strong defense of Trump’s turn towards force:

The incoming administration seems to have a more realistic image of the state of American hegemonic decline and wants to take proactive steps to try to counteract and reverse it, breathing new life into the American Global Empire.

In this context, it makes perfect sense for the US to increase pressure on its vassals. I am not using the term in a pejorative sense. The US does not have “allies” in the traditional meaning of the word. It has vassals with different levels of feudal obligations and elite integration, and different tasks. Extracting more value from vassals -- whether through tariffs, increased NATO budgets, meddling in local politics or potential territorial concessions -- is an absolutely logical step in cementing and renewing America's position as overlord of its sphere.

A fundamental tenet of capitalism is the concept of a free market. While such a market has never been fully realized, the ideal was for it to be "free" from the parasitic rent-seeking of non-productive but militarily powerful aristocrats which defined feudalism. The underlying premise was that the productive class—the "makers"—would dominate over the "takers," a group composed of rentiers and financiers who merely siphon wealth from productive enterprises to hoard it in their vaults.

A potential spectre of feudal dynamics rises as American investor Stephen Lynch seeks to purchase the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a strategic asset valued at $10 billion. Although the pipeline suffered extensive damage from the American attack, repair costs are estimated at less than $1 billion—an investment Lynch is reportedly eager to make. Lynch, a prominent donor to Donald Trump, plans to reopen the pipeline to allow Russian gas to flow to Europe once again, but with a crucial twist. Unlike before, the United States would charge European nations a toll for every cubic meter of gas purchased, effectively collecting rent while keeping the flow of energy under American oversight.

This manoeuvre dovetails seamlessly with Trump’s broader geopolitical strategy. Trump has repeatedly demanded that European nations significantly increase their defense spending, with a new target of 5% of GDP. These tolls on Russian gas could be justified as a “down payment” for America’s role in defending Europe—a daily reminder of Europe’s dependency not only on Russian energy but also on American military might. In effect, the plan positions the US as both gatekeeper and profiteer of Europe’s energy security. This solves the riddle as to why Elon Musk is promoting political parties in Europe, such as AfD in Germany and Reform Party in the UK, who call for rapprochement with Russia.

An agreement to collect tolls on Russian gas supplies to Europe would require at least tacit approval from President Putin. While nothing is confirmed, rumours suggest that Trump is planning a summit with Presidents Putin and perhaps China’s President Xi will also be invited. Such a Big Three meeting would inevitably recall the Yalta Conference, held in the final months of World War II, where Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin carved the world into spheres of influence.