This is some big s___. If you had told me this would happen 18 months ago I would have told you to put the crack pipe down. In case you haven't heard, yesterday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel (aka Queen of Europe) held a rally where she said that "The times when we could completely rely on others are, to an extent, over." Here Merkel is basically saying to the Europeans: "Hey guys... the Brits & Americans have made it clear that they don't like us anymore. Maybe we should stop counting on them?"
In this piece I will briefly explain why this one sentence from Merkel shakes up an understanding of the world that has been in place for the last 71 years i.e. since WWII. If you are reading Steemit as early as 2017 I assume you are an intelligent person and so I am going to gloss over issues (e.g. EU formation) just so I can communicate my point without putting everyone to sleep.
Here we go:
Given that the Allies won WWII they got the privilege of shaping the global order that emerged from there and has governed until today. We see evidence of this everywhere. The countries that can veto things in the UN, the global dominance of the US dollar or the fact that the Japanese love baseball and can do Soulja Boy dances.
No doubt this setup was a little awkward because at its core it's a highly sophisticated form of colonialism but it worked well till now. As long as the different elites were getting rich (shoutout to my bwoi Adam Smith) who cares right? Let's get that money. Europe was happy to let the US set the global agenda in its own favor (under the guise of "Western interests"), and in return, the Europeans didn't have to pay for guns and could always count on the USA to ride thru [sic] if Russia et al. wanted to throw down. Iraq? Who did that? Je ne sais pas.
Enter The Donald. Everyone has an opinion on this guy, I won't go there. However, his political orientation represents a YUGE departure from the way the elites of today have organized the world. From the European perspective, he is the opposite of everything they believe in. Even the pro-Brexit Brits don't like Trump but they are willing to go along because they need to leverage the US relationship to extract as much as possible out of EU in Brexit relations. Skeptical? Check out what Boris Johnson said about Trump before the election.
The Donald has made it clear that he doesn't value the current setup where the USA gets to do what it wants on the world stage with the West backing it in return for protection. He wants the Europeans to pay for their own damn guns - bought from the US ofcourse. In Donald's view, these guys are just riding on the US' coat tails. Usually, the UK has always been a mediator between US-Europe but with Brexit now they have decided that they hate Europe too.
So now the Europeans find themselves in a bad position. 1) US has no love for them. 2) UK has no love for them. 3) Russia is a giant rabid dog in their right ear biting chunks out of them at every opportunity (Georgia 2008, Ukraine 2014, Who's next?)
And so Merkel's statement is an acknowledgement of this situation. Europe is now on its own. Yeah Trump will be out by 2020, but as a leader, you have to think on a multi-decade timescale. What happens if Trump's approach is the new American way for the next 20 years? Much like Bitcoin's price next week, we have no idea. The Europeans need to prepare now.
So Merkel, as the leader of the most powerful country in Europe, with Macron at her side, is basically signaling - F___ these guys. Now... if the Anglo-American decision apparatus was smart it would play nice and placate the Europeans so as to slot them back into that setup of Anglo-American dominance. Unfortunately, because of the political setup in both countries, this is not possible.
As such, we now have a front row seat to the biggest reorganization of the global order since 1945. I couldn't write this piece without mentioning China, so... China. I have written enough though, so if anyone is curious about China, ask in comments and I will go down that dragon hole.