American empire

'The process of European integration has historically not been a European project but rather an American one.

'It is an American project both ideologically and politically. Ideologically because, from the American viewpoint, the European continent is home to quarrelsome micro-states still trapped in their own history, unlike the United States of America which broke away from its past, discovered the secret of good government in 1776, and never looked back. That secret is to be found in federalism and constructivism—the idea that a polity can be created ex nihilo, based on rational principles alone, and free from the determinisms of history. It is this invented nature of the American republic that gives it its famous millenarianism—novus ordo saeclorum or “the end of history” as it has been more commonly known in recent years. The European project is inspired by the same idea that Europe should turn its back on its own history and embrace a constructivist and rationalist project in order to achieve peace.

'Politically, this deep American conviction that Europe should Americanise has been conjugated since 1945 with the conviction that the U.S. needs to maintain a military presence in Europe to ensure its global hegemony. Without a bridgehead on the Eurasian continent, the “island” state cannot hope to dominate the “World Island,” to use Sir Halford Mackinder’s terms for the U.S.A. and the Eurasian continent. Americans hold their inter-war isolationism responsible for the outbreak of World War II because, with a Hobbesian logic, they believe that their power is the only antidote to the otherwise anarchical society of international relations.'

This is from an essay by the idiosyncratic thinker John Laughland in January and is, of course, true. 

It is exactly how Robert Kaplan and Victoria Nuland think and how the late John McCain did. 

The alternative to the American empire is literally Hitler. He's dead but he won't lie down.

After Hitler the role was reprised by a series of people from Stalin to Putin, Orban and of course Donald Trump.


Before the Soviet Union broke up America was fighting for democracy and freedom against godless Communism, but now social liberalism and the values of the American progressives in both parties are a very large part of the mix. 

That means identity politics. 

The Americans have long tried to change French republican opposition to multiculturalism. 

Shortly before the 2007 French race riots, when Bush 2 was president, the US Embassy appointed two diplomats to “sensitise all levels of the French population to its own egalitarian ideals”.

“The real problem is the failure of white, Christian French to consider their dark-skinned and Muslim compatriots to be real citizens,” said the US ambassador to France of the day.

The WikiLeaks cables quote Barak Obama's ambassador Charles Rivkin saying, "French institutions appear insufficiently flexible for a population that is growing more diverse."

Did American ideas influence the way the recent riots were reported? An American trained Frenchwoman did.

At first the French media sided with the police. Rokhaya Diallo was the person who disseminated the clip of the killing that started the riots. It certainly looked like a cold blooded shooting by the policeman - but the clip is very short. It's hard to be sure what happened. 

The net says, "Journalist, filmmaker, and French activist Rokhaya Diallo fights for racial, sexual, and religious equality on both sides of the Atlantic. She is a columnist for the Washington Post and she recently joined the Georgetown University Gender and Justice Initiative". 

She puts me in mind of the Iranian-American feminists who have been active this year and last in Iran. I have every sympathy for them but they are being used by Washington.

America is exporting left-wing arts graduates  to countries around the world, including many in Romania. With them the ideas of left-wing American academics are exported. 

In Hungary this year an American official, Samantha Power, met NGOs and opposition parties but not the government to discuss the law restricting teaching in schools about homosexuality.

Obama, at George Osborne's request, impertinently advised the British not to vote for Brexit. This, as you would expect, won votes for Leave. 

Mr Biden continually interferes in Northern Ireland. 

If I had time to research the matter I suspect I'd find an American empire treating European states as we British treated the supposedly independentish princely states in India under the Raj. 

American diplomacy reflects the opinions of the American ruling class and this means it is promoting the ideas of the student radicals of 1968.

This may lead to big conflict between America and European populations unhappy with Woke, unless Mr Trump gets back in power or some other right-wing maverick. 

Or maybe America is too powerful to worry about what European publics think. It might be so.