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Forcing the region to choose sides risks pushing it toward China.

Why military strategy no longer delivers victory.

Au Gabon, Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema remporte la présidentielle gabonaise par une victoire écrasante plus 90% des voix, d’après les résultats publiés ce jour par le ministère de l’Intérieur. Le président de la transition s’impose face à ses sept concurrents avec une large avance. L’issue de ces élections doit refermer la parenthèse de la transition, issue du coup d'État contre le pouvoir cinquantenaire des Bongo, en août 2023. 

Brexit was never the will of the British people – it was the will of a frustrated minority, and even that support has now collapsed.

For most of our five decades in the EU, Britain was broadly pro-European. In the 1975 referendum, every part of the UK voted decisively to remain, with a huge 35-point margin. Pro-Europe sentiment remained strong for years. Polls in 2014 and 2015 showed Remain support at 56% and 61% respectively – well ahead of Leave.

The 2016 referendum was the anomaly. The Leave win was narrow – just 4% – and only 37% of the total electorate voted for it. Two of the UK’s four nations, Scotland and Northern Ireland, voted clearly to remain.

This was not a national consensus. Unlike in 1975, when the public voted with knowledge of the terms of membership, the 2016 referendum was held before any exit deal was known – and no confirmation vote followed.

Today, the British people have seen the consequences.

The economy is weaker, exports are down, and British citizens have lost their freedom to live, work and love across the continent. Promised benefits never materialised. Instead, businesses struggle with red tape, and farmers and fishers feel betrayed.

Now, poll after poll confirms what most of us feel: Brexit was a mistake. According to YouGov, 55% of Britons now say the nation was wrong to vote to leave the EU in 2016, with the same proportion saying they would support rejoining. Just 11% believe Brexit has been more of a success than a failure.

And now, a new poll this month reveals that a clear majority of UK voters want the government to prioritise rebuilding trade ties with the EU, rather than seeking a new economic deal with the US. Voters see Europe as key to future prosperity and security.

There’s also a new urgency. With Donald Trump back and threatening global trade with new tariffs, American democracy is under strain and no longer a stable ally. The UK must secure its future by aligning more closely with Europe – our neighbours who share our values, our economy, and our security interests.

Britain’s natural home is in the EU, among partners who respect international law, uphold democratic norms, and work together to face global challenges – from climate change to military threats.

We must stop pretending Brexit was a done deal. In a democracy, no decision is forever. When the facts change, when the people change their minds, when the nation suffers – there must be a democratic way forward.

It’s time to ask the British people again. Not out of bitterness, but because the country deserves better. The Brexit experiment has failed. Let’s restore our place in Europe – and our future.

Sources

• Ipsos poll  (2014)
• Ipsos (2015)
• YouGov ‘Few Britons think Brexit was good for anything’
• National Institute of Economic and Social Research: Revising the effect of Brexit
• The Guardian ‘Voters want Keir Starmer to focus on rebuilding trade ties with EU, poll reveals’ 

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The post It’s time to rejoin the EU: Britain deserves a new say on a broken Brexit appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Who is Gen Brice Nguema, the man who overthrew the president he was supposed to protect?

The world was shocked by Trump’s response to Ukraine’s new deal. In his second administration, it seems that the „rules of engagement” have changed. This article analyzes how the geopolitical terrain is shifting by presenting an analysis based on the three levels of traditional International Relations Theory. Each example is linked to historical and post-cold war examples of these American policy outcomes.

The Art of the Deal 

When analyzing Trump’s deal-making style, the Ukraine negotiations are currently in the exploration or discovery phase. Behind the rhetoric, the Trump administration is looking for the true interests and weaknesses of each party (Ukraine, Russia, the EU, the USA, etc.). Once these underlying factors become evident, the Trump administration will only then „choose a side” by brokering a deal. This is an administration that prefers to „judge” a matter rather than ideologically act on it. This is a departure from former administrations (e.g. Biden-Obama was about spreading a new vision of progressive democracy, Bush was about regional wars as the solution to all problems). Trump prefers business-like deals that gradually expose the true, underlying interests of each party. These deals are designed to gradually become better for each party through good-faith and self-motivated compliance. Ideally, the deal creates its own enforcement with the incentive to comply which is designed within it. This is actually unlike the historic „mafia style” government deals, which are backed by the threat of the state’s sovereign force. In these mafia-style deals, if compliance with an unfavorable settlement is not maintained, then the actor will face diplomatic scolding, sanctions, and eventual military action. This change can be seen by studying the Israel-Palestine solution they proposed in his first term and the compliance-based incentives that „sweetened the deal” as it progressed.

The Cold War is Now (finally?) Over

The bi-polar cold war was fought on three levels, realism (hard military capacity, striking ability, and mobilization), liberalism (trade access, economic capacity, and technology), and constructivism (nationalist/democratic identity, political movements, and propaganda). Since the official end of the cold war, we have seen the gradual dismantling of these three families of systems that were built on both sides. As the Soviet system became less relevant, the „hardness” of the US system also gradually and proportionally decreased. The regression of nuclear capacity and withdrawal of warheads from the former soviet regions was one example of the change in realist power. The re-opening of trade between the first and second world regions was evidence of the dismantling of the cold war economic system of liberal power. A strong example of this was the US energy supply chain that developed to freely include central Asian regions that were traditionally within the Soviet sphere. Finally, the internet crossed the divide for information (and therefore propaganda) to flow across this cold war divide. An early example was the exposure and change in US destabilization activities in Latin America. The exposure and (at least temporary) end of USAID and decline of traditional media outlets shows that the US is significantly decreasing the use of traditional foreign and domestic information warfare through these methods (democracy promotion and propaganda).

Realism: Europe is not NATO

Europe will have to accept that NATO was never a marriage of equals. NATO was an offer of security guarantees to secure both US national interests and US suzerainty. It is a tax in the traditional sense of taxation as a defense levy. Each state is required to pay this tax to retain the benefit of US guardianship. Not every president has been so dogmatic in demanding this (2%) payment, but Trump has been reminding people of this. While it is presented this way because it fits the US internal narrative, NATO defense contribution is not about paying your fair share of a collaborative project; it’s a question of whether you have realist, hard power backing and can bear your own geopolitical risk or not. If you don’t have this backing, and can’t bear this burden, you pay for NATO insurance, assuming you qualify.

Europe again has the choice of building up regional or national defense capacity, which correspondingly will increase their regional sovereignty within the NATO alliance. However, Europe, with certain exceptions for the UK, has been historically and culturally comfortable with a level of overlordship. This is evident in the compromises made in the Habsburg years, alignment with Rome, and the conquering work of Charlemagne. Often, the EU is presented as the solution to the endless wars of Europe. Realistically, NATO is actually this compromise. The EU’s role is economic integration, which addresses the liberalist view of international relations.

Liberalism: The US Has Returned to Securing Global Trade Interests

If the current turn in US foreign policy continues, the upcoming global order is more likely to regress to the historical European pattern (e.g. early British Empire, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese Empires) where great powers intervened to protect global interests, trade routes and trade access, while leaving domestic affairs to the individual states. This is likely to mean that the US will prefer Ukraine to exist within „defensible” borders and with a manageable „home rule” situation where it is more ethnically homogeneous.

By validating that it was possible to achieve US energy independence in his first term, the Trump administration is now confident to return to an export-based trading policy. This is similar to mercantilist Britian during the steam-engine phase of industrialization. The steam engine was jealously guarded within industrializing England, and the colonial trade routes were kept open to ensure a strong flow of raw materials, and, to a lesser degree, export markets. Digital products and services will be produced in the USA and the core dual-use technologies will remain there under the national security justification. US government power, both military and diplomatic, will be used to secure the interests of the digital industry in „colonial” markets i.e. all markets that rely on US defence and security backing. This will ensure that the new digital „means of production” will have free access to production inputs, and to a lesser degree, export markets.

Constructivism: „Democracy Promotion” is Now Over

The early Roman empire saw the role of civilizing tribes as a process of creating access for Roman interests. As the empire grew, it worked harder to create a unity of belief and identity. It became more dogmatic in promoting the constructed Roman idea of domestic society. This led to central instability in the core power regions and peripheral irrelevance on the edges of the empire. It seems that the USA may have avoided this risk of civilizational irrelevance for the time being. The Trump administration is creating conditions that force Ukraine to determine its own national interests clearly, based on its own capacity. This capacity includes the national ability to defend, rule, and populate territory. By focusing on guaranteeing mutual interests that are concretely based in national capacity, US foreign policy is now aligning more closely with traditional IR theory. By withdrawing from more interventionist measures, the US can be more effective at meeting the underlying interest of good and peaceful relations between states.

After WW2, the US used Marshall Plan diplomacy to rebuild and reindustrialize (but not re-arm) post-war Europe. This was a project focused on the recovery of European economic capacity, not a fundamental change of European values. However, sometime between WW2 and the present, and more strongly in the post-Soviet era, the US moved from this approach towards a more active attempt to „re-civilize” parts of Europe. This has been more obvious in the parts of Europe where the traditional values do not neatly fit with modern, western, European values. This effort in re-civilizing is proving to be much more difficult, and much more morally uncertain than anticipated. On a broader scale, the recent US foreign policy efforts in post-communist Europe and Africa have also resembled a missionary effort rather than true foreign policy. Using American power to pressure domestic society to give up their traditional values has been a thinly veiled campaign to religiously convert locals while ignoring liberal and realist considerations of the economy and military. Europe and the EU must be wise not to fall into the same trap.

Conclusion

European powers who want to remain strategically relevant with the current administration will be wise to brush up on each of the three major theories of international relations. It is time for the European community to come out from the shadows of the Cold War. This current administration is much more realist than any we have seen in the last 40-50 years. European leadership, on the other hand, has become increasingly constructivist. This European shift seems to have led to the neglect of the importance of trade relations and military power in international relations. This leads to the risk of finding less common ground on trade and economic issues. When a domestic government spends more effort converting its local (and especially rural) population to a new or innovative religious and moral sensibility, these other dynamics of strength are inevitably left behind. If Ukraine is of core strategic interest to Europe, then the power belongs to Europe to act in a concrete way. Lobbying Washington is not the only answer. Some of the answer must come from European national leadership rebuilding the strength of each member state on liberalist and realist dimensions. This includes the economic and military dimensions. Let the strength of the modern European state meet the challenge of the modern time.

March 4, 2025

Author: Joshua Heinrichs, Strategy, Audit, and Regulatory Expert

A On Ukraine: Trump is Not Stupid, He’s Just Different bejegyzés először Biztonságpolitika-én jelent meg.

Une ceremonie de remise de medailles des Justes aurait du se derouler a la mairie de Vendome. Mais, finalement, elle aura lieu, apres de nombreuses discussions, a la sous-prefecture. Explications.

TRIBUNE. Malgre les analyses rassurantes, certaines figures militantes et politiques entretiennent le mythe d'une population sacrifiee au nom de la grandeur de la France.

CHRONIQUE. Il y a le feu. Candidat a la presidence des Republicains et a celle de la Republique, il prend tous les risques. Y compris de se nuire.

L'image du patriarche Kirill bénissant avions et chars russes partant détruire l'Ukraine a ravivé les clichés d'une orthodoxie belliciste, ultraconservatrice et homophobe, radicalement hostile à l'Otan et aux valeurs démocratiques occidentales. Cet essai à la fois historique et géopolitique nous permet de mieux comprendre le monde orthodoxe, sa culture et son rôle politique.
Avec près de 300 millions de fidèles, l'Église orthodoxe est la troisième confession chrétienne, après le (…)

- Livres / Colonne de droite - A ne pas manquer, Albanie, Bosnie-Herzégovine, Bulgarie, Grèce, Kosovo, Croatie, Macédoine du Nord, Moldavie, Monténégro, Roumanie, Serbie, Turquie, Essai, Géopolitique, Histoire, Religions, Grand Bazar - Diaporama

L'image du patriarche Kirill bénissant avions et chars russes partant détruire l'Ukraine a ravivé les clichés d'une orthodoxie belliciste, ultraconservatrice et homophobe, radicalement hostile à l'Otan et aux valeurs démocratiques occidentales. Cet essai à la fois historique et géopolitique nous permet de mieux comprendre le monde orthodoxe, sa culture et son rôle politique.
Avec près de 300 millions de fidèles, l'Église orthodoxe est la troisième confession chrétienne, après le (…)

- Livres / Colonne de droite - A ne pas manquer, Albanie, Bosnie-Herzégovine, Bulgarie, Grèce, Kosovo, Croatie, Macédoine du Nord, Moldavie, Monténégro, Roumanie, Serbie, Turquie, Essai, Géopolitique, Histoire, Religions, Grand Bazar - Diaporama

L'image du patriarche Kirill bénissant avions et chars russes partant détruire l'Ukraine a ravivé les clichés d'une orthodoxie belliciste, ultraconservatrice et homophobe, radicalement hostile à l'Otan et aux valeurs démocratiques occidentales. Cet essai à la fois historique et géopolitique nous permet de mieux comprendre le monde orthodoxe, sa culture et son rôle politique.
Avec près de 300 millions de fidèles, l'Église orthodoxe est la troisième confession chrétienne, après le (…)

- Livres / Colonne de droite - A ne pas manquer, Albanie, Bosnie-Herzégovine, Bulgarie, Grèce, Kosovo, Croatie, Macédoine du Nord, Moldavie, Monténégro, Roumanie, Serbie, Turquie, Essai, Géopolitique, Histoire, Religions, Grand Bazar - Diaporama

L'image du patriarche Kirill bénissant avions et chars russes partant détruire l'Ukraine a ravivé les clichés d'une orthodoxie belliciste, ultraconservatrice et homophobe, radicalement hostile à l'Otan et aux valeurs démocratiques occidentales. Cet essai à la fois historique et géopolitique nous permet de mieux comprendre le monde orthodoxe, sa culture et son rôle politique.
Avec près de 300 millions de fidèles, l'Église orthodoxe est la troisième confession chrétienne, après le (…)

- Livres / Colonne de droite - A ne pas manquer, Albanie, Bosnie-Herzégovine, Bulgarie, Grèce, Kosovo, Croatie, Macédoine du Nord, Moldavie, Monténégro, Roumanie, Serbie, Turquie, Essai, Géopolitique, Histoire, Religions, Grand Bazar - Diaporama

L'image du patriarche Kirill bénissant avions et chars russes partant détruire l'Ukraine a ravivé les clichés d'une orthodoxie belliciste, ultraconservatrice et homophobe, radicalement hostile à l'Otan et aux valeurs démocratiques occidentales. Cet essai à la fois historique et géopolitique nous permet de mieux comprendre le monde orthodoxe, sa culture et son rôle politique.
Avec près de 300 millions de fidèles, l'Église orthodoxe est la troisième confession chrétienne, après le (…)

- Livres / Colonne de droite - A ne pas manquer, Albanie, Bosnie-Herzégovine, Bulgarie, Grèce, Kosovo, Croatie, Macédoine du Nord, Moldavie, Monténégro, Roumanie, Serbie, Turquie, Essai, Géopolitique, Histoire, Religions, Grand Bazar - Diaporama

L'image du patriarche Kirill bénissant avions et chars russes partant détruire l'Ukraine a ravivé les clichés d'une orthodoxie belliciste, ultraconservatrice et homophobe, radicalement hostile à l'Otan et aux valeurs démocratiques occidentales. Cet essai à la fois historique et géopolitique nous permet de mieux comprendre le monde orthodoxe, sa culture et son rôle politique.
Avec près de 300 millions de fidèles, l'Église orthodoxe est la troisième confession chrétienne, après le (…)

- Livres / Colonne de droite - A ne pas manquer, Albanie, Bosnie-Herzégovine, Bulgarie, Grèce, Kosovo, Croatie, Macédoine du Nord, Moldavie, Monténégro, Roumanie, Serbie, Turquie, Essai, Géopolitique, Histoire, Religions, Grand Bazar - Diaporama

L'image du patriarche Kirill bénissant avions et chars russes partant détruire l'Ukraine a ravivé les clichés d'une orthodoxie belliciste, ultraconservatrice et homophobe, radicalement hostile à l'Otan et aux valeurs démocratiques occidentales... Pourtant, que comprend-on de l'orthodoxie et de sa relation complexe aux pouvoirs politiques ? Jean-Arnault Dérens publie une Géopolitique de l'orthodoxie. Bonnes pages.

- Articles / Courrier des Balkans, Albanie, Bulgarie, Bosnie-Herzégovine, Macédoine du Nord, Kosovo, Grèce, Monténégro, Roumanie, Moldavie, Serbie, Turquie, Religions, orthodoxie, Gratuit