European foreign policy has been intervened and captured by American neoconservative interests. This seizure represents a serious threat to both European democracy and global security. The threat to global security is due to the fact that Europe is currently a prisoner of the US neoconservative war against China and Russia. The threat to democracy lies in the fact that, progressively, the European electorate senses that it has been sold out, which helps explain why it has turned against the ruling political class.
The consequences of this interference are simple and dire, but revealing them is difficult. It privileges the the state in which and there is resistance to recognizing unpleasant facts. This article lays out those facts.
What is neoconservatism and who are neoconservatives?
We must begin by understanding neoconservatism and neoconservatives. The first is an American political doctrine that was imposed in the 1990s. It maintains that there will never again be a foreign power, like the former Soviet Union, to challenge American world hegemony. This doctrine gives the United States the right to impose its will anywhere in the world, which explains why it has more than 750 bases in 80 countries around both Russia and China.
Initially, this doctrine spread among diehard Republicans like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, and was later adopted by Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. That makes it even more dangerous, as it has taken over both American political parties. Furthermore, now, Democrats give it a misleading legitimacy by stating that the US motivation is to protect democracy and human rights.
The US has a long history of political intrusion. Perhaps the most famous European incident occurred during the Italian elections of 1948, which some maintain were decided thanks to the enormous covert financial support that the Christian Democrats received from the US.
However, what sheds much more light on the current situation is the history of American interference in the European trade union movement during the Cold War. This history is reflected in the career of Jay Lovestone, American trade unionist and CIA agent, who is said to have been one of the five most important people within the hidden power structure of the Cold War. Lovestone led a covert intrusion operation that exerted significant influence within the European and international trade union movements, and traces of it are likely to remain.
Jay Lovestone, during a union rally in the 1930s. / Marxists Internet Archive
Lovestone’s model provided an operational template for infiltrating the labor movement, but there is reason to believe that it may also have been employed to do so in Germany’s Green Party. The Greens have their political roots in the anti-war movement of the 1970s that opposed the deployment of American tactical nuclear weapons in Germany. However, today, under the leadership of Annalena Baerbock, the Green Party has become the leading party in the war and a prominent ally of American neoconservative interests. Furthermore, as explained below, this alliance has caused serious environmental damage, which is totally contrary to the political purpose of the Greens.
The mechanics of intrusion
Today, the intrusion process works through the US Government and its corporate allies, who try to tip the balance in the political outcomes of foreign countries in their favor. They do this by helping political allies and promoting adept journalists and academics. Related political interests benefit from financial and media support. Communications professionals are rewarded with job promotions and higher salaries accompanied by greater access, visibility and support from the ruling class.
Idea laboratories are a fundamental tool. They provide a reference and a stage for professional politicians and commentators, and develop the political narratives that feed society’s great echo chamber. They also provide the intellectual credibility that legitimizes the neoconservative narrative and its authors. Among the best-known think tanks are the German Marshall Fund, the National Endowment for Democracy, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Atlantic Council, and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Speaker fees and consultancies also play a key role. Working politicians are rewarded with well-paid speaking engagements and extracurricular second jobs. Politicians who have temporarily withdrawn from the arena receive even more comfortable employment contracts that represent an investment in the future. The services of former leaders are also used with crazy fees for conferences and advisory work. to this.
These practices are especially evident in British politics. Fees and remuneration vary depending on the perceived value, and the system is open to politicians of different stripes. Among the beneficiaries are stars such as Tony Blair and Boris Johnson, but also lower profiles such as Theresa May, Gordon Brown and Liz Truss. Keir Starmer appears to have a promising outlook for the future considering his support for US policy towards Ukraine and the Middle East. In Germany, former Green Party leader Joschka Fischer benefits from the system and has declared himself a strong supporter of the US position on Ukraine and Russia.
The evidence of interference
The mechanics of interference are part of the story. The other is the evidence for it, which is inevitably denied. The interference is not announced and there is no way to prove it. Instead, all that can be done is to present the arguments and investigate them for veracity, logical coherence, and motivations. The process is like a jury trial and can easily fail. Bringing the truth to light requires a fair process and an open-minded jury.
The most striking feature of European foreign policy is the enormous self-inflicted damage. Europe has promoted policies that have gone against it and in favor of the US. That is the classic hallmark of interference.
1. Politics in the Middle East
European policy in the Middle East reveals the depth and costs of American interference. This policy is responsible for multiple conflicts in which Europe has had nothing to gain and everything to lose. In particular, they have triggered massive refugee flows that have destabilized European politics. On the contrary, the US has seen practically nothing of that conflict, since it is protected by the Atlantic and the Pacific.
The most striking feature of European foreign policy is the enormous self-inflicted damage
An example of the failure of this policy is European participation in the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 led by the US. The invasion was justified with the falsehood that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The real motivation was the grievance aroused in the US by Saddam Hussein’s independence, his friendship with Russia and his threat to accept payment for oil in a currency other than the dollar. That threatened the hegemony of the dollar, a pillar of American economic and geopolitical power.
Barroso, Blair, Bush and Aznar, meeting during what is known as the Azores Summit. / Sgt. Michelle Michaud (US Air Force)
The Iraq war led to the Syrian civil war of 2011, which the US fomented and in which it has subsequently participated. That war flooded Europe with Syrian refugees, while the Atlantic once again protected the United States. While Europe had no vital interests in Syria, American neoconservatives viewed the Syrian Assad regime as a serious threat to American hegemony in the Middle East due to its alliance with Russia.
Something similar occurs with European participation in the US-led military intervention in Libya in 2011. As in Iraq, the motivation was the grievance aroused in the US by Gaddafi’s long-standing independence, his friendship with Russia and the possibility of accept payment for oil in a currency other than the dollar. That reality was covered up with calls to public opinion to punish the 1988 attack on Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie sponsored by Libya, despite the fact that compensation had already been paid and the main perpetrator had been convicted years before. Once again, the migratory consequences were enormous for Europe and non-existent for the US. Libya was a barrier to African migration and its destruction opened the floodgates.
In summary, the three conflicts have gone against the interests of Europe and in favor of the neoconservative interests of the United States. However, Europe has facilitated or participated in all of them.
2. Expansion and transformation of NATO
NATO is a fundamental channel through which European foreign policy has been supervised. The organization is dominated by the United States, which has used its position to interfere in the military and foreign policy of Europe, thereby dragging the Union into supporting policies that benefit the United States despite harming itself.
The history of NATO has two dimensions: expansion and transformation. The latter has gone unnoticed, but it is also important.
The US has used its position in NATO to interfere in the military and foreign policy of Europe
NATO’s eastward expansion is widely known. The process began almost immediately after the end of the Cold War and violated the US commitment not to expand that it agreed to with President Gorbachev. George Kennan, author of the containment doctrine during the Cold War, pointed out the aggressive and dangerous consequences of this failure in a 1997 op-ed published in The New York Times.
For American neoconservatives, NATO expansion is perfectly understandable. Russia had not suffered any military defeats nor been forced to surrender unconditionally (like Germany and Japan), and neoconservatives considered it a continuing threat to US global hegemony. NATO expansion strengthened the US military position and weakened Russia’s.
However, for Europe everything was inconvenient. The new NATO members added little defensive capability, while bringing multiple pre-existing hostilities and conflict threats. They also lacked a shared political culture. More importantly, any conflict would be fought within Europe. As a result, Europe would bear the brunt, giving American neoconservatives incentives to become more aggressive toward Russia.
The other side of NATO’s history is its transformation, as it went from being a regional defensive alliance (North Atlantic) to being an aggressive interventionist organization on a global scale. That transformation began with the bombing of Belgrade by NATO in 1999, deepened with NATO’s participation in the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and was cemented with the intervention in Libya in 2011, which began under under the auspices of NATO.
Ministry of Defense in Belgrade, after the NATO bombings in 1999. / David Orlovic
As with expansion, from the neoconservative point of view, NATO’s transformation is easily understandable. The US has an agenda to achieve global hegemony, and the transformation of NATO meant that other countries shared the burden of that agenda. It also served to provide multilateral coverage to the US. However, once again, there was nothing for Europe, which has no equivalent agenda.
In short, the expansion and transformation of NATO constitutes a clear sign of interference.
3. The Ukrainian War
The discourse on the Ukraine war is the most extensively manipulated, making it the most difficult to unravel. The best starting point is who has gained and who has lost economically from the war. There, the accounts are clear. The US has been the big winner, while Western Europe (and especially Germany) has been the big loser. German workers have been the most affected.
The US has gained by ending the dependence that Germany and Western Europe had on Russian energy. What’s more, Russian energy has been replaced by expensive energy supplied by the US. This constitutes a triple benefit for the US: it has weakened Russia, it has increased Western Europe’s dependence on the US and it has benefited US producers. The US has also gained because the increase in weapons production has provided a significant fiscal stimulus for its manufacturing industry. This global configuration helps explain why the US has avoided a recession. The only major drawback was the temporary increase in inflation caused by the outbreak of war.
Western Europe, and especially Germany, has been the big loser. Cheap Russian energy has been replaced by expensive American energy. This has undermined Germany’s productive competitiveness and contributed to further increases in European inflation. Europe has also lost the huge Russian market, where it sold manufactured goods. Likewise, it has stopped benefiting from the excessive spending of the Russian elite. This combination explains the weakening of the European economy. What’s more, Europe’s economic future has been seriously compromised, as the changes appear permanent.
Image from the Swedish coast guard of the gas leak from the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea, September 29, 2022. / Voice of America
German workers have been even more affected by the massive arrival of Ukrainian refugees. That has increased downward wage competition and created a housing shortage that has driven up rents. It has also caused the saturation of schools and social services. To a lesser extent, the same affects all European workers.
From an environmental point of view, the change in energy supply has been disastrous
Finally, from an environmental point of view, the change in energy supply has been disastrous. The gas from fracking of the USA (Texas) is one of the dirtiest in the world, to which we must add the pollution from maritime transport. War has also been a direct source of enormous environmental and climate damage. That explains the interference in the German Green Party.
The European ruling class’s justification for rejecting any compromise is that Russia represents an existential threat to Europe. That is the argument of the think tanks defended by neoconservative authors such as Anne Applebaum and Timothy Garton Ash, from the Hoover Institution.
The neoconservative argument appeals to prejudices inherited from the Cold War, is riddled with loopholes and lacks content. It ignores the reality of NATO’s eastward expansion, the threat it poses to Russia’s security, and conflicts within Ukrainian civil society, including the oppression of ethnic Russians. More importantly, claiming that there is a Russian threat to Europe does not add up.
Russia is in demographic decline and lacks the resources to reestablish its hegemony in central Europe. Its weakness has been demonstrated on the battlefield, where Ukraine has put it in check with only modest weapons aid from NATO. In fact, that weakness lends legitimacy to Russia’s need for a demilitarized Ukraine as a buffer. The reality is that the American neoconservative project benefits from the continuation of the war, which wears down Russia and weakens its international position.
In short, Europe has lost economically from the war, while the US has benefited. Likewise, geopolitically the conflict benefits the US, but not Europe. Despite this, the establishment European has embraced war. In 2022, Britain torpedoed a peace agreement negotiated shortly after the start of the war. Furthermore, in his 2023 resignation speech, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson openly urged the UK to “stay close to the US”. Once again, the traces of interference are clearly visible.
4. China
Finally, we have European policy towards China, an incipient issue that American neoconservatives also seek to torpedo. They consider China to be the greatest threat to US global hegemony. That threat is economic, geopolitical and military. China’s economy could significantly surpass that of the US in size, allowing it to challenge US global diplomatic influence and military hegemony in the Far East.
Europe faces no such challenge and maintains a strong economic collaboration with China. European companies benefit from investments in China and from the export of investment goods to this country, which China returns with consumer goods.
The world of American think tanks presents China as an enemy of Europe. Part of the argument is that China supports Russia, and Russia is Europe’s enemy. Ergo, China is the enemy of Europe. Once European policy towards Russia is controlled, this gap is used to manipulate European policy towards China.
Likewise, neoconservative think tanks fictitiously present China as part of an authoritarian axis engaged in a global war against democracy. The reality is that China is being attacked by American neoconservatives, who claim their right to world hegemony. The US has a long history of violent interventionist foreign policy and supports authoritarians who accept US hegemony. If China had accepted American hegemony, she would have been accepted as a partner. The same can be said of Russia.
The reality is that China is under attack by American neoconservatives
In short, European policy towards China is an incipient case of interference. By decoupling Europe from China, the US benefits in two ways. First of all, it hurts China. Secondly, it makes Europe weaker and more dependent on the US. However, there is no benefit for Europe or for democracy.
The consequences of interference
The immediate consequences of interference are twofold and disastrous. First, the neoconservative capture of European foreign policy endangers global security. This is because neoconservatives believe that the United States has the right to hold world hegemony, which endangers international security by inevitably creating conflicts with China and Russia.
Pedro Sánchez, Tayyip Erdogan, Boris Johnson, Joe Biden, Jens Stoltenberg and Volodímir Zelenski, at the Madrid NATO summit, 2022. / I’LL TAKE
China and Russia view US intervention on their borders and efforts to change their internal regimes as threats to national security. Border interventions are also an invasion of their regional spheres of influence. The result is a cycle of challenge and response that inexorably leads to conflict.
Second, interference in European foreign policy endangers European democracy as the consequences trickle down to society. That is happening with Ukraine. Working class voters are slowly realizing that they have been sold out, and are bearing enormous economic costs in the name of a conflict that does not interest them. With the involvement of both sides of the ruling political class and a left that suffers from stiffness of deaththe far right is the only place those voters can go.
Conclusion: the challenge ahead
There is strong evidence that European foreign policy has been intervened for the benefit of American neoconservatives. Interferences cannot be repaired until they are recognized. Unfortunately, there is no method to test them and the debate is dense. Furthermore, there is the persistent danger of losing the thread. When a conflict breaks out, the ruling class media presents the story as if it began at that moment and ignores everything that has happened before. What this achieves is to focus attention on the immediate conflict and ignore the causes, which keeps the intervention in place. Fixing it won’t be easy, but failing would be disastrous. The task begins by bringing the problem to light.
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Thomas Palley He has a doctorate in Economics and a master’s degree in International Relations from Yale University. He was chief economist of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
(Reproduced in Ctxt with translation by Paloma Farré. It was originally published in English on thomaspalley.com.)