TRUMP’S SECOND PRESIDENTIAL BID

 I wrote the following post on the 11th of April 2023 on Facebook. Unfortunately, subsequent events proved my professional intuition right.

I wasn't a Trump fan in 2016, I'm not now one either.

It is true that during Trump's first presidency no new war broke out, like now in Ukraine. This does not mean that he has abandoned the expansion policy of NATO or the economic expansionism of the USA in Europe. On the contrary, although he threatened to dissolve NATO, he increased the budget of the American army and courted the Poles, who inaugurated a base in Poland called "Fort Trump".

Trump urged the Poles to give up Russian gas and import LNG from the US, which actually happened during Biden's time. Trump also decided to send offensive weapons to Ukraine, an aid denied to them during the years of Obama's presidency.

But the most important promise made to the American electorate by Trump was that of "the draining of the swamp in Washington". Well, although he claimed the opposite, Trump  also favoured politically and from an economic point of view (tax reductions)  big business and his cronies.

Ukraine, Gaza and Nuclear Proliferation

 

" Both countries have displayed a willingness to include in their present-day geopolitical agendas huge swathes of territory which belonged to them in the past. In many respects, their expansionist plans are similar to the Trump administration’s stated intentions to include within the borders of the United States countries like Canada or territories like Greenland. "

 https://florianpantazi.substack.com/p/ukraine-gaza-and-nuclear-proliferation

The Geopolitical Stakes of the 2024 Romanian Presidential Elections

 The unexpected results of the first round of the Romanian presidential elections have greatly alarmed Washington, Brussels and Bucharest woke elites, who demanded and obtained the cancellation of the election process just before the second round on December 6.

https://florianpantazi.substack.com/p/the-geopolitical-stakes-of-the-2024

Civic vs Ethnic Nations

 "  In fact the differences between the two models of nationalism have been grossly exaggerated and are simply not real. Western nations were also based on a dominant national group that until very recently did not provide places for minorities in public life. We tend to forget today that in the 1930s an immigration country like the US had extremely restrictive immigration policies meant to retain “Anglo-Saxon” ethnic dominance, and that with very few exceptions, “over the last three centuries the building of all modern nation states required one ethnic group dominating and assimilating others”. " 

https://florianpantazi.substack.com/p/civic-v-ethnic-nations

The Danubian Democracies

 Accordingly, there is an obvious need for a more accurate geopolitical concept covering former Soviet satellite-states, subsequently lumped together into “New” Europe. The latter has proved to be an inadequate reflection of realities on the ground. 

Taking  commonalities and shared political agendas into account, one such grouping could be called  the Danubian democracies.

https://florianpantazi.substack.com/p/the-danubian-democracies

The US and the Polish Honey Trap

 " Following the law of unintended consequences, the pursuit of America’s global hegemony agenda has given rise in Warsaw to hopes that Poland could somehow benefit from NATO’s expansion in order to resurrect the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, a confederation that at its zenith in the 17th century covered a million square kilometres and encompassed the territories of today’s Poland, Belarus and Ukraine. 

https://florianpantazi.substack.com/p/the-us-and-the-polish-honey-trap

IT'S TIME FOR AN AMERICAN GORBACHEV ?

 This at least is the opinion shared by the foreign news editor of Cotidianul daily from Romania

I think however that a much more appropriate analogy for the current situation the US finds itself in is not with the USSR in its last decade, but with Yeltsin's Russia.

Consider  this . By 1999, Boris Yeltsin was to ill to fulfill his duties as president, same as Biden is now. Both Yeltsin and  Biden  worked for decades as high-ranking officials in their parties, Yeltsin for the CPSU, Biden for the Democratic party. They were both elected presidents at the end of their careers, when they proved unable to adapt to a rapidly changing international environment. 

Moreover, the two were accused of allowing their children to profit from their positions in the state by taking bribes from foreign business people. And finally, given their medical condition , they were both unable in the end  to work for more than a few hours daily and we're eased out of their positions by their political allies and / or family.