No Pax Americana
4 years, 2 months, 29 days, 19 hours
23 February 2025
Silence and submission are the friends of those who intimidate through their power.
‘History will record The Munich Security Conference as the day the Americans finally left the stage and the Europeans are on their own’.
These words from General Sir Richard Shirreff, formally NATO’s Deputy Supreme Commander Europe, in an on-record event I attended on Wednesday in London, were the conclusion of a gathering as sombre as anything I have ever known. The discussion was formally about Ukraine but quickly broadened out into even deeper issues. Worry was expressed about how the apparent current position of the US administration tipped the balance of power in the world towards states that preferred to operate through spheres of influence rather than through global institutions and attempts at consensus. Similar sentiments can be found in The Economist whose cover title this week is ‘Europe’s worst nightmare’, followed by a prescription that Europe needs rapidly to increase its arms spending, and overhaul its governance, to provide for its own security from now on.
All this you know, because it is plastered over every serious news outlet in the world. However, what has interested me this week is how different friends and colleagues are reacting to this seismic shift in the world’s geopolitics.
One, a former civil servant of my generation, quickly closed down the conversation on the basis it fell into his category of things he couldn’t do anything about so he wanted to protect his own sanity. I can see some merit in that at a personal level but I wonder what it means if collectively we close our eyes and ears and hope it all goes away?
Another friend shrugged and said it was no different to what the British were doing until they were knocked off their pedestal. It’s obviously true, and indeed many other countries did the same in the age of empires. But the fact I am British doesn’t mean I think the British empire was a good thing and I would like the UK to be able to act unilaterally or bilaterally on the world stage again if it had the clout. I am a child of 1970 who thinks all of that was in an era of primitive might-is-right politics, that strenuous efforts at building global rule-based institutions had got us beyond. But it seems no.
I am a historian who can see the evidence of the unprecedented period of peace and prosperity (not everywhere, for sure, sadly, but in general) that has been delivered by that global, collaborative approach over the last 80 years. And I am, as you know, deeply worried about the future if the world doesn’t continue to broker and enforce collective agreements to decarbonise as quickly as possible.
I will clutch at straws that maybe the rhetoric won’t line up to the actions, or maybe Europe and other like-minded nations can align and wield enough collective power in this new era.
And meanwhile I feel I must share my views, as silence and submission are the friends of those who intimidate through their power.