The new diplomatic revolution

 The ‘Diplomatic Revolution’ of 1756 was a major change in the alliances between European powers. Britain allied with its former enemy Prussia and went to war against its former ally Austria. Austria allied with its former enemy France. The Dutch Republic dropped its alliance with Britain and a few years later became its enemy. We are now facing a similar diplomatic revolution, with the USA moving away from its longstanding membership of NATO into a de facto alliance with Russia. The remaining NATO powers will probably respond by moving closer to China, initially in the form of an economic alliance.

These changes are happening because of an alignment in the moral values of the leadership in the USA and Russia, and, to a lesser degree, because both countries are experiencing similar problems. Trump and Putin are both crudely-spoken amoral gangsters, who portray themselves as upholders of ‘masculine values’, and depend on the support of a coterie of favoured and very wealthy oligarchs. ‘Masculine values’ for them involves despising women in any but a supporting or procreative role, glorifying the bullying and humiliation of the weak, and preferring religion or ‘common sense’ to scientific knowledge. Both leaders have undermined democratic institutions, and their regimes depend for legitimacy on the actual or threatened use of military force. The USA has of course a far stronger culture of legality and democracy than Russia, and these traditions may well survive Trump’s attempts to undermine them. But the USA and Russia have encountered similar problems that make authoritarian rule attractive to many of their people. Both countries are vast land empires that have expanded through conquest and the extermination of indigenous populations. Both have disproportionately large military forces which are regularly used to display the might of the country by invading foreign states. Both have seen a radical decline in industrial employment and the concentration of the wealth of the country into the hands of a few. This has created an understandable resentment and a longing for an imagined golden age, which authoritarian leadership has directed against foreigners, immigrants and the educated ‘elite’.

The other great territorial empire, China, has chosen a different route. Instead of the erratic economic policies favoured by Trump, China has successfully built its industrial base, becoming the world’s largest economy in all but name. It is challenging the technological lead of the USA, which is being undermined by Trump’s cuts to research funding. Again in contrast to the USA and Russia, it has expanded it influence through trade and the development of infrastructure in many parts of the world. This is usually funded by loans, making China the world’s greatest creditor nation. It even holds $769 billion of the US national debt, the USA now being the world’s largest debtor. China’s increasing domination of world industrial production makes it committed to stable and tariff-free trade. In this respect, its interests coincide with those of the European powers rather than the USA, where Trump is imposing an unpredictable range of tariff restrictions on trade.

We can therefore expect China and Europe to become ever-closer trading partners, but itt is not yet clear whether this will develop into a more formal defensive alliance. But Europe and China have few reasons for conflict. They do not have common borders or any territorial disputes, or any other conventional reason for conflict. By contrast, Russia has vast empty lands bordering China, while the USA regards the Pacific Ocean, right up to the Chinese seaboard, as within its own sphere of influence. A new Russian-USA alliance would therefore be united in regarding China as both an immediate and a long-term threat.

There is of course already a cold war between Russia and the rest of Europe, with Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, its occupation of parts of Moldova and Georgia, and its attacks on European maritime and electronic infrastructure. The new cold war is driven by the Russian leadership, which regards Europe as an existential threat because it demonstrates a more successful and appealing alternative model of government to its citizens.

We may therefore see a new diplomatic revolution in the next few months, although predictions of this kind can rapidly fall apart with unexpected changes of leadership.