A Republic Imperiled

For years the European Union has struggled to give more coherence to its institutions. Despite the recent economic recovery, these institutions have remained imperfect. They have proved incapable of responding adequately to the refugee crisis, to the rise of populism and nationalism in many EU’s member states, to terrorism and to Russia’s provocations.

This is to name just a few of the challenges that Brussels faces today. Brexit presents another issue for the EU. EU negotiations with the British government are mostly focused on the free movement of people, and Britain’s extrication from the common market. Yet, despite all those challenges, with Brexit on the table, and the Trump administration in the White House, the EU seems to be moving toward more cooperation and coordination in military affairs.

Opinions are split when it comes to the question of whether or not the EU can be successful in its attempts to achieve more military coordination, and, by the same token, more cooperation. Anand Menon of the European Politics and Foreign Affairs department at King’s College London claims that there is “no reason to assume that Brexit offers any real opportunity for an effective relaunch” of Common Security and Defence Policy. A 2017 RAND report makes a similar point with some also Also claiming that neither Brexit, nor Donald Trump will have any significant impact on EU defence. Yet, other analysts are prudently optimistic. Angelini Lorenzo argues that: “the possible revitalisation of the CSDP following Brexit will depend on the political appetite for such a path among the remaining EU member states – in particular France and Germany”. Former US assistant secretary of defence Joseph Nye attributes a potential revival of a European common defence structure to the Trump administration policies.

This article argues that Brexit, and, the Trump administration’s position toward Europe gives the European Union a new opportunity to relaunch the project of deepening military coordination. This is not the first time the European Union has had such an opportunity. The 1998 Saint-Malo initiative was an important moment in European defence where Great Britain, France, and Germany came together to support the creation of an autonomous military arm for Europe. However, in spite of the military developments that followed, the EU’s defence has remained clearly dependent on the U.S.

An interesting and mostly overlooked moment in the development of the European Defence came in 2003 at the Tervuren summit which was triggered by America’s war on Iraq. At Tervuren, France and Germany notably came together and tried to launch a military arm for Europe. Great Britain, backed by Washington, vetoed their efforts. Today, with Great Britain entangled in Brexit, and the Trump administration’s wavering commitment to Europe’s defence, a new Tervuren moment has arrived. The EU has a new opportunity to relaunch its military coordination and create a stronger defence. It has the opportunity to work towards the Tervuren goals: a more coordinated and integrated military defence.

The Tervuren Summit Explained

After the Cold War, the most important development in European security was the 1998 Saint Malo Initiative. The experience of the Kosovo war led directly to the Anglo-French Saint Malo proposal to establish a European Security and Defence Policy. Saint Malo emphasised that the EU must be able to act without U.S. involvement, and it affirmed the creation of an operational European defence capability. The initiative led to the establishment of the European Rapid Reaction Force which was tasked with crisis management operations. Yet, the EU’s dependency on the US in matters of defence has remained.

However, just as Kosovo led to Saint Malo, the beginning of the Iraq war led to the 2003 Tervuren summit. In 2003 disagreements were brewing among EU member states over the Iraq invasion. Discontent with the US action was notably expressed by France and Germany, and, by most accounts, the transatlantic relationship was in trouble. The Tervuren summit took place on April 29, 2003, when the governments of France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg came together in an effort to give Europe an autonomous military arm. French President Jacques Chirac, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, and the leaders of Belgium and Luxembourg pushed for EU military planning and command structures, separate and independent from the US-led NATO alliance. They wanted treaty provisions for “structured cooperation” on defence, which would have allowed a small group of EU nations to forge ahead with military integration, regardless of other member states’ opinions. Chirac insisted that the proposal to create a military centre in Belgium for “planning and command” of joint European operations outside NATO was not “about duplicating SHAPE” (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe) but rather was about “eliminating duplications by national headquarters”.

At Tervuren, the then Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, after stressing that a closer cooperation aimed at making Europe’s defence more coherent “is not directed against NATO”, added that “in NATO we don’t suffer from too much America; we suffer from not enough Europe”. Later, the German Chancellor claimed “that NATO no longer is the primary venue where transatlantic partners discuss and co-ordinate strategies. A reform would be needed to reflect the change in Europe: within the Alliance, increased responsibility needs to equal increasing influence”. Tervuren’s efforts provoked negative reactions in Great Britain and Washington. Sir David Manning, Britain’s ambassador to the U.S., reported back to the Foreign Office that “The chocolate summit [the Tervuren summit] reflected the worst fears of U.S. hardliners about the dangers of ESDP going off in a NATO-incompatible direction”. And on October 23, 2003, The Economist wrote:

“Rather like Frankenstein’s monster, the Franco-German relationship has a habit of appearing dead for long periods, only to spring life and start crashing around once more … In March, they [Chirac and Schröder] put forward joint plans (with Belgium and Luxembourg) to set up a European defence headquarters separate from NATO.”

In the end Tervuren did not amount to too much, although, eventually, a European Union Military Staff (EUMS) was created. EUMS was charged with strategic planning for the Petersberg tasks. The Petersberg tasks include operations such as: humanitarian and rescue tasks; peacekeeping tasks; tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking.

A New Tervuren Moment: New Military Developments

Recently, we have come to a new Tervuren moment. Because of Brexit, and the Trump administration’s ambiguous commitment to NATO’s Article 5, there are new military developments indicating that several EU member states, particularly Germany and France, want “more defence.” Today, Angela Merkel’s words echo those of her predecessor: “We have to know that we must fight for our future on our own, for our destiny as Europeans”. The German Chancellor is not shy in voicing her disappointment with President Trump’s stance on Europe: “The times in which we could rely fully on others — they are somewhat over.”. Those statements illustrate Merkel’s determination to make increasingly active choices on EU military structures, particularly following an era of German defence spending cuts aimed at reducing the German troop numbers to about 180,000 soldiers.

Echoing Chancellor Merkel, the German Defence Minister, Ursula von der Leyen stated that “The Brexit referendum and the U.S. election opened our eyes. Europeans must take more responsibility for our own security”. Referring to Brexit, one other German official voiced his optimism that concrete EU defence efforts could proceed without worrying about a UK veto: “It is a sign to the British. It means ‘you are leaving the EU and we are driving forward. We are no longer interested in you blocking the EU on defence”. Von der Leyen has been at the forefront of increasing the readiness of Germany’s armed forces. She has also been a strong advocate for augmenting Germany’s defence spending “in response to growing global instability”. Germany’s present efforts have been joined by French President Emmanuel Macron, and the two countries are working out specific proposals for a European Union defence fund. Together they have proposed: joint work on drones, military transports, and stabilisation initiatives supported by the defence fund. Furthermore, as reported by Süddeutsche Zeitung, the cooperation between the French and German governments extends to previously off-limits projects: “the establishment of European defence headquarters, a common satellite surveillance system, and the sharing of logistics and military medical resources”.

The creation of a European defence HQ – which was one of the main demands at Tervuren – has always been a contentious topic. The US and Great Britain feared that a defence EU HQ would create a parallel structure that would rival NATO, and damage the transatlantic security relationship. However, recently, with Britain’s exit from the European Union, the context in which the discussion about the proposal is taking place has changed drastically.

On July 13 2017 there was another important development “France and Germany unveiled plans to develop a European fighter jet, burying past rivalries as part of a raft of measures to tighten defence and security cooperation. This move is expected to shape the future of the European fighter industry and its three existing programs – the Eurofighter, France’s Rafale and Sweden’s Gripen”. French President Macron is also taking aim at competing standards within the European Union that impede collective defence efforts and have the effect of creating wasteful competition between member states.

Earlier in 2017, Germany, Romania, and the Czech Republic announced the integration of parts of their militaries (Braw, 2017). They followed the example of parts of the Dutch military—one brigade joining Germany’s Rapid Response Forces, and another one being integrated into the 1st German Armored Division. Those moves represent a new trend in standardizing and integrating Europe’s armed forces. The European Commission also entered the fight. It announced the creation of “a fund with at least 1.5 billion euros a year to enable EU governments to join forces on development and procurement of new weapons, including drones, cyber warfare systems and other hi-tech gear” (Reuters, 2017). In the emerging fields of ‘Warfare 2.0’ such as cyberwarfare and drones, the European Union, uncontestably, sees an opportunity to establish itself as a collective actor.

What do these developments amount to? According to Carlo Masala, professor of international politics at the Bundeswehr University Munich, they amount to a “move towards more European military independence”. To speak of EU military independence is premature. The German-French proposal is aimed at making the European defence “more active and more useful without substituting it for national defence bodies which remain, by definition, the key to the security of EU member states”.

Undoubtedly, Europe is taking steps toward more military coordination and cooperation. Those steps may not be giant, but one should not forget that the European Union’s advancement has been always predicated on small steps. Europe would have never had a CSDP (renamed today CSDP) if were it not for the Maastricht Treaty. Negotiations on the creation of a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) at Maastricht were marginal compared with the negotiations on EURO. In any case, those negotiations opened the door for more coordinated actions on Europe’s foreign policy, as well as for military coordination. Today’s Tervuren moment should not be wasted, if the EU wants to contribute more to its defence, and to become a more powerful actor at the international level.

Closing Thoughts

Academic honesty requires acknowledging possible factors that can generally weaken processes. The new Tervuren momentum aimed at bringing more coordination to Europe’s military could be delayed or even derailed by several factors. In order for the process to continue: (1) Angela Merkel needs to overcome the resistance of a large segment of German population to be able to increase armament expenditure; (2) French President Emmanuel Macron needs to reboot France’s economy; (3) After Macron’s election, Angela Merkel stated that: “we are ready to activate Franco-German relations with a new impetus”. In the light of her statement the activation of the Franco-German axis needs to hold and, (4) EU states should be willing to spend more on their defence.

On a different note, when it comes to geopolitics, scholars tend to focus on the threat posed by Russia to Europe. It is important to note that not all EU member states perceive Russia as a conventional military threat. The Baltic States see a possible Russian invasion as the main threat to their security. However, Europe’s southern rim, Greece, Italy, and even Spain, is struggling with an increasing flux of refugees. For those countries, Russia does not represent a conventional military threat. A RAND report from 2017 states that “Perceptions of Russia as a Military Threat Differ Sharply Across Europe and Appear to be Heavily Influenced by Geographical Proximity to Russia”.

Similarly, one could argue that Russia does not present a military threat for Germany and France either. Germany has the North-Stream, a set of pipelines which carry natural gas from the Russian Federation to Germany. Therefore Berlin’s reasons to antagonise Russia militarily are very low. Moreover, Germany has only reluctantly agreed to the renewal of sanctions against Russia. However, France and Germany are aware of the cyberthreats coming from Russia and they are in the process of developing stronger cyber-defence. Some Central European states such as Hungary show clear signs of friendship toward Russia. Russia may be at the core of NATO’s exercises, but it is not the main reasons for which the EU is trying to create more military cooperation. The main reasons for which the German-Franco axis is pressing with more integration are similar to the reasons expressed at Tervuren: a EU less militarily dependent on the US and increased EU influence in the international arena.

Co-authored by Tobias J. Oder

This article was first published in E-International Relations and is re-published with permission from the author and under creative commons. 

There exists a pervasive myth in the world of international relations regarding nuclear weapons. It concerns the difference between zero and one. It holds that by acquiring nuclear weapons a state takes a giant leap in terms of its capacity to wield and resist coercive power. That nukes, by way of their incomparable destructive power, are in-and-of themselves a game-changing strategic resource. Kim’s attraction to the myth therefore is obvious. Accelerate the regime’s missile and warhead programs to the point of plausible completion and exempt himself from the fate of Saddam Hussein in 2006 and Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The regular presence of US B-1 Lancers and F-22 Raptors in the skies off the Korean Peninsula of late make such a fate no mere theoretical menace. NK’s lack of situational awareness via long-range radar and airborne early-warning systems would only multiply the regimes fear of these existential threats. The sooner they can convince the world they are a bona fide nuclear state, the sooner these threats should recede. At least that appears to be the working theory.

Kim’s regime is thus not particularly interested in the fracturing of the San Francisco system. It’s behaviour is pure survival instinct, very little strategy. It is China that coverts the breakdown in north-east Asia’s security architecture. Kim’s instinct for survival is a mere instrument of Beijing’s. Beijing continues to calculate that a nuclear NK is a less-bad situation than a unified Korea more-or-less under South Korean leadership. Such is the revealing level of hostility in Beijing regarding the San Francisco system. It appears to them as temporary as it is artificial, and Beijing knows its weakest point is its politics. As NK’s provocations escalate, the tiny but uncomfortable hairline fractures in the system are getting bigger. To be clear, NK just fired a ballistic missile over Japanese territory with impunity. And it appears more is to come. The old questions of trading Tokyo or Seoul for Los Angeles (?) are back in the spotlight. Alliance partners in quiet times tend to gloss over these inconvenient glitches. For Beijing they are beacons of inconsistency. They reiterate the foundational question raised by China’s re-emergence from Beijing’s point-of-view: Why exactly is the United States in East Asia?

So expect nothing more than lip-service and empty gestures from Beijing, it’s not in their self-subscribed strategic interest to intervene – no matter how much Washington, Tokyo, or Canberra would disagree. NK’s recent acceleration toward a nuclear capability combined with President Trump’s rhetorical flair has set off some remarkable reactions from the commentariat. Crispin Rovere is convinced that Trump now faces a terrible binary choice between the acceptance of a nuclear NK, and the ‘mutual vulnerability’ this apparently implies, or war. And Rovere claims that war is now the least-worse option, because mutual vulnerability with NK would be intolerable. NK would be free to wield greater and greater degrees of its new found coercive power on its hapless neighbours, Australia included, while the US commitment to its allies would evaporate, leaving Beijing to set about dominating the Western Pacific into the second half of the 21st century and beyond. So given a choice between that scenario and the horrors of another Korean war, Trump has a terrible choice.

But let’s back up a little bit because a few important points have been glossed over here. Beware axiomatic sequences in IR. Especially when they lead to war.

Firstly, mutual vulnerability is not equal vulnerability. NK’s best-case scenario is a small nuclear arsenal of ground-based and perhaps mobile ballistic missiles. This does not automatically count as a secure second-strike deterrent. Secure second-strike is the level of deterrence needed if NK were to seriously embark on a campaign of wanton coercion of neighbouring states. Recent literature suggests strategic communities have consistently under-played the difficulty of achieving a genuine secure second-strike. Counterforce targeting capabilities pursued during the Cold War left the US in possession of a suite of tools that together raised serious questions about the invulnerability of even the Soviet Union’s massive arsenal. These tools have matured significantly in the years since 1991, and applied against NK’s small, vulnerable ground-based arsenal, mobile or otherwise, suggests secure second-strike status does not come easily or quickly to new nuclear weapons states. It may not come at all, which speaks not only to the myopia of Kim’s quest, but to the calculations of all nuclear aspirants. Is it really worth it? The point is nuclear strategy is defined by uncertainty. Kim doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. The constraints acting on a nuclear aspirant are different than those acting on a nuclear power. Once in possession of these weapons, Kim will find himself incarcerated by his own hubris.

Secondly, the cost of maintaining and securing a sophisticated and growing nuclear weapons regime is massive. If it is to be kept on high alert, the level of alert that makes it secure in the first place, the cost only grows. China, for comparison, does not keep its nuclear arsenal of 200-300 warheads and thousands of ballistic missiles of varying range on alert. The warheads are not coupled to the delivery systems. China has never put a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile to sea in a submarine. The Soviet Union and United States drove each other to the brink of economic ruin competing to prove to the other the hair-trigger alert status of their arsenals, and several times it almost got us all killed. The point here is that to play with the big boys as a genuine nuclear power is exceedingly difficult, dangerous, and expensive. Pyongyang is already impoverished and dependent on others to keep the lights on. How do they seriously think they can sustain a secure second-strike? And how might these new vulnerabilities open up opportunities for counter-coercion? For example, how certain can Kim be that the military’s systems are not riven with zero day exploits? How will the regime pay for the early-warning radar systems required to identify and distinguish threats to the arsenal? What about nuclear accidents, sabotage, espionage?

Which leads to the final point. Joseph Nye made the enduring observation in 1990 that the resources of power, whether they be military, economic, social, or whatever, are not proxies for political outcomes. A power resource is only of value to the extent that the appropriate strategy is implemented that can transform that resource into an outcome. For the Kim regime, acquiring nuclear weapons, undeniably a power resource, will probably stave of an imminent Iraq/Libya style invasion, not that anyone was actually planning one. But the idea that this resource automatically turns NK into an intolerable strategic menace in East Asia and beyond is a massive stretch of credulity. In fact, there are several reasons to suggest the effect of acquiring nuclear weapons may be the acceleration of the real forces actually threatening its downfall. Cost is the obvious one already mentioned. The related exposure to external coercion due to heightened economic dependency another. But perhaps the most interesting and under acknowledged threat is this: With a perceived nuclear deterrent in place, what reason exactly does the regime have to continue the wholesale theft and fear-driven incarceration of its people? When the regime celebrates their new found invulnerability, will the people cheer?

Or will their expectations begin to change? Expectations that the government ought to provide them with the means to a decent, dignified, humane existence, like that of their southern cousins. Expectations that rural families should not be forced into the cruel indignities of starvation-driven slavery, just so the Kim family can continue its criminal plunder. By pursuing his myopic vision of regime survival, Kim Jong-Un has inadvertently sown the seeds of his accelerated demise. The foolish boy-king is terrified. He has lunged for the sword when what he needed was an economic strategy. No war is necessary on the Korean Peninsula. The US and its allies should hold the line and feed a dictator his rope.

Norway – There is little to fault on Colin Hagens first EP. Production is tight. Perfectly recorded with imperfections to expose the subtleness of an acoustic guitar. If you listen carefully, you hear the fingers sliding on the strings. Vocally, by the end of the EP Colin will have infected your cerebral cortex in a good way. Tracks are well written. Beautiful mistake opens proceedings with a pop-rock feel. There is space in the music, and a diversity in the guitar tones. From palm muting, to the searing tones of a guitar around 2 minutes. There are not enough solos in modern pop-rock today. Vocals are prominent in the acoustic driven Love So Cold. This is when we first hear Colin’s voice stripped back and begin to appreciate the modulated, pleasant voice. Falling follows, another acoustic/vocal track. By now, the talent and patience Colin has with his song writing is clear.

Buy the Colin Hagen EP on iTunes
Listen on Spotify 
The Official Website of Colin Hagen

Something New continues in the same vein as the previous two tracks. A gentle country fuzz returns and introduces us to I Know You Want It. There is a slight country twang in this country. The shape of the vocals takes a lightly different direction, highlighting the diversity of Colin’s voice. Make You Fall In Love With Me sees the EP out. Down-tempo, and timeless. The intro takes you into tender and well-crafted tune. There are subtle dynamics at times with tempo picking up in some of the vocal lines. As an introductory EP this is high quality. High quality production, song writing and a lot to connect with. This will leave you waiting for the full length follow-up LP.

United States: In October 2015 Bill Clinton, appearing on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, was asked by Colbert to explain the apparent momentum gathering around Donald Trump’s campaign for the Republican nomination. Back when it was still mandatory in polite circles to deride and dismiss the very idea. Clinton’s insightful answer, though, was that Trump was a “Master Brander”, and that the essence of the Trump brand could be a simple, macho, “I make things happen” appeal. Trump’s expert use of his personal brand has since been widely cited in dissecting the reasons for his extraordinary election win.

Think of the US-led international security order, for a moment, as a brand. Like any brand, the post-WWII American security architecture consisted partially of a complex of accepted and reproducible institutional facts. Formal treaties, informal hand-shakes, rhetoric and assurances,  underpinned by the physical presence of US military personnel and hardware which included the existential threat posed by America’s nuclear arsenal. All sitting under the relatively uncomplicated strategic rationale of the threat of Soviet expansionist aggression. Complexes of institutional facts, like brands, always derive at some point from physical facts. The things people accept and reproduce about the world have a strong abiding relationship with the world that just is. It’s just that often that connection is inarticulate. With the passage of enough time, however, that relationship becomes absolute.

The end of the Cold War posed a grave challenge to the American brand of international security leadership. After 1991 the US temporarily recast itself as global security ‘manager’. Not quite the same ring as ‘Defender of the Free World’. The next decade combined a confusing array of branding messages. A display of overwhelming military superiority in defence of Kuwait, while a brutal dictator remained in place. A tactical embarrassment in Mogadishu. A conspicuous non-intervention in Rwanda. The cautious and reluctant application of air-power in the Balkans. It wasn’t until the galvanizing impact of 2001 that some continuity returned, but subsequent events and actions taken by both the Bush and Obama administrations have not forestalled the precipitous corrosion of the brand. America’s allies, competitors, rivals, and enemies have taken note.

The brand analogy is not as trivial as it sounds. Outside of an actual shooting war, contests for influence based on security are essentially narrative wars. The nuclear threat that defined the Cold War was a contest of competing narratives about the capability and will of either side to commit unthinkable destruction, while both were equally horrified at the idea. Still, enormous economic resources were deployed to insure the capability and many a small or proxy war was fought to communicate the will. The post-9/11 international security landscape is now basically a three-pronged narrative contest about counter-terrorism/counter-insurgency, cyber insecurity, and yes, still nukes (more ‘usable’ nukes). This landscape is even more defined by doubt and uncertainty than the previous era. With the advent of cyber, perhaps any era. Cyber weapons, in contrast to nuclear weapons, are at their most powerful when doubt about their existence and capabilities is overwhelming. Don’t hold your breath waiting for the US to deploy its offensive suite because cyber weapons are self-depleting. An exploited vulnerability becomes known and patched very quickly and thus, no longer a vulnerability.

Brands are essentially an aggregation of multiple disparate ideas connecting to reality in sometimes inarticulate ways. That this new era of strategic competition is struck through with doubt may have some interesting ramifications for the American security brand. The Obama doctrine in contrast, and in aggregate, provided US rivals and enemies with a level of certainty about American (in)action. Russia and China took the opportunity, rare in international relations, of a window of increased certainty to take calculated risks from which they have demonstrably benefited. It’s not disputed, on the other hand, that a big part of Trump’s shtick is a manufactured unpredictability. In addition, recent actions in Syria and Afghanistan are clearly designed to signal the United States has dispensed with the Obama era’s overtly prudent stance on the use of demonstrative violence. Obama was no dove, but his brand of violence was one for the shadows.

Proof of the centrality of the narrative war will be evident to anyone following the threads of the online information war that sprung up immediately after the cruise-missile strike in Syria, and the MOAB strike in Afghanistan. This was a demonstration of force by the US Navy and Air Force, with a distinct subtext regarding the level of precision-strike available to US leaders, particularly against hardened and underground targets. Russian media was quick to down-play their efficacy. Half the missiles apparently went astray, and of course the Syrian Air Force was using the base 24 hours later. US forces have used the public domain repeatedly over the last decade or so to showcase their high-tech prowess. In one example, footage was released in 2014 by USCENTCOM of an F-22 striking ISIS targets in Syria with a remarkable level of precision. In the footage, the first two missiles penetrate the target while the following two missiles enter through the apertures created. It was the combat debut of the $150 million Raptor, with the strike that included a Navy cruise-missile barrage reportedly costing $79 million. Media reports questioned the necessity of using the Raptor while other cheaper 4th generation platforms as well as unmanned drones might have sufficed. The fact remains that these demonstrations have a subtext regarding the nuclear counter-force mission, and US capacity to strike hardened and underground targets. The B61-12 was recently tested again for good measure. Nuclear aspirants have been duly advised. Mature nuclear states will have taken note.

Weapons system video of U.S. airstrike against an ISIL compound northwest of Ar Raqqah, Syria, Sept. 23, 2014. U.S. Central Command

If we were to understand US security policy as a branding exercise, how might our assessment of the skill set of Donald Trump, the ‘Master Brander’, and its appropriateness at this particular juncture in history change? In what ways, if at all, did the Syrian and Afghan strikes alter the calculus of the North Koreans regarding their proposed 6th nuclear test? And what do we make of their failed (?) missile test? We’ll likely never pin down these connections. If North Korea tests a bomb or missile in the near term, given the well understood risks of even a limited strike by the US escalating out of control, how might an offensive cyber operation be considered? Is it an ideal alternative to a kinetic strike, given the strategic alcove the Trump administration has talked itself into? Do they even have an option? Or is keeping the cyber powder dry so-to-speak an imperative?

Some are suggesting Trump’s team is actually getting this right. Mattis and McMaster are irreproachable characters. Kissinger has said, somewhat cryptically, that Trump had an ‘extraordinary opportunity’ and could go down as a ‘very considerable President’. He and others have described a security vacuum on the international stage left by the previous administration. If Obama’s cool-headed rationalism regarding the limits of American power, and his determination to resist ascribing a US role in everything amounted to ‘leaving a vacuum’, what does that tell us about the nature of international security? One unchanging observation seems forthcoming. The last thing anyone wants to do is actually test the physical facts that underlie the institutional facts of the security order. Testing it means coming face-to-face with power, not just stories about power. But this means that opting out of aspects of the perpetual narrative war that we find irrational or unnecessary or, as Obama argued, presupposing of endless cycles of violence, is actually an error that could incite worse outcomes. Trump has internalised the lessons of brand success. His career has literally lived, almost died, and been revived by their tenets. He is already flying closer to the sun than any of his predecessors. It’s far too early to assess Trump’s impact on the security order and America’s place in it. The re-branding of American power is nonetheless clearly underway, and its in the hands of somebody who knows a thing or two about it.

Approximately thirty-six newspapers were in circulation during the American Revolution; the Gutenberg press was 300 years old. Using the established technology of the era, the Founding Fathers rhetorically expounded the virtues of their thinking in The Federalist Papers via numerous pamphlets and newspaper articles.  They rhetorically engaged the American colonists in intelligent discourse; first, towards revolution, and, second, towards a federated republic.

By the early 1900s, radio, movie theaters, and color magazines began to appear. In 1926, the Radio Corporation of America, NBCs forefather, was born. Between the 1920s and 1950s, the predominant disruptive communication technology was the radio. With radio and movie theaters, a relatively few people were empowered to disseminate a single message to the masses, resulting in a homogenization of American culture and news. During the World Wars, all belligerents engaged in the dissemination of propaganda using these new technologies of radio and propaganda reels. In this article, we label the rise of radio, color magazines, and moving picture movie theaters as the First Disruption to the established order of newspapers and pamphlets.

The Second Disruption occurred when television became mainstream in America, sometime in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1955, half of American households had a television and by 1962, over 90% of households had a television. By this time, ABC, CBS, and NBC dominated both the radio and television airwaves. This domination represented a mass consolidation of propaganda power. If the United States government needed to get “news” to the people, all they had to do was release the information to one of the major networks. The network that most faithfully presented the government’s view would get the “scoop” on the story.

By 1965 the American people trusted what Walter Cronkite said with absolute certainty. There weren’t any competing voices. In the decades that ensued an order arose in Washington where the government carefully managed access and gave scoop stories to a very select few journalists. Information was power and access to information was money. For those journalists who held good relations with government officials, access coupled with a scarce technology of radio and television broadcasting made them very wealthy from corporate advertising revenue. For government, it gave officials a powerful propaganda tool to shape American opinion. These media entities began to arrogantly refer to themselves as the Fourth Estate, a reference to a caste system from Medieval Europe where people were broken into three social castes: nobility, clergy, and peasantry.

News networks were dependent on advertising revenues from major corporations. Advertising revenue was driven by ratings.  Ratings were driven by whether a news channel had the right news at the right time, whether they “scooped” the story. Government elected officials relied on campaign donations from major lobbying groups, which were also funded by large corporations. A convenient mechanism to shape American opinion was in full force. Government officials managed access to information by speaking to only a few media entities, nobody else had “the story.”

In his farewell address, President Eisenhower warned the American people of the Military Industrial Complex. Nobody warned the American people of the Media-Government-Business Establishment. After all, who would dare tell the American people of such a ghastly creation? Certainly, the media would never utter such an incriminating phrase.

In the decades that followed, America saw an obliteration of small newspapers such that even some of the largest media newspapers weren’t profitable.  As local newspapers failed, power concentrated even further to the major broadcasting networks. Nobody questioned what Dan Rather or Tom Brokaw uttered in the evening news. Their reporting was considered sterling, but was their reporting objective and unbiased?

The rise of cable television saw a loosening of the power that ABC, CBS, and NBC wielded. Fox was founded in 1985, and, later, America saw the broad entry of foreign news services like BBC, Russia Today, Al Jazeera, Reuters, and others. Even the most reputable news organisation had to make decisions about what story to emphasise or in how to cast a controversial story. The internet brought blogs and other foreign websites like the Guardian, Telegraph, Le Monde, etc. The result of so many entrants with slightly different presentations of the news led a significant subset of the American people to wonder about the degree of bias present in news coverage. The entry of cable news and the early internet heralded the beginnings of the Third Disruption.  When the Internet came of age and blogging became popular, established news commentators mused about the chaos and disorder that the internet could bring to the established order, but nothing would prepare the world for the social media fueled 2016 election of Donald Trump.

The biggest election stories from the 2016 American election went largely under analyzed. The first story was when Megyn Kelly, a Fox News commentator, aggressively challenged Mr. Trump during the first GOP debate. Her actions exposed Fox’s loyalty to a group of Establishment Republicans that did not include either Mr. Trump, nor Mr. Rand Paul. If Fox had never attacked Mr. Trump, Mr. Trump might not have become President. Mr. Trump was attacked because he represented an outside entity who was not a real part of the governing Media-Government-Business Establishment.

The second major story that was under analyzed was the collusion between CNN and the DNC to suppress Mr. Sander’s candidacy. CNN went so far as to give Mrs. Clinton’s campaign the debate questions ahead of a prominent democratic debate. The actions of CNN and the DNC represented a clear agenda to destroy Mr. Sanders’s candidacy.  Mr. Sanders, like Mr. Trump, and Mr. Rand Paul, were not an accepted part of the Media-Government-Business Establishment.

The Media-Government-Business Establishment wanted to shape an orderly campaign where the American people were given a choice between two very carefully groomed candidates who understood the rules of the governing establishment, two candidates who would adhere to the establishment rules: Mrs. Hillary Clinton and Mr. Jeb Bush. Meanwhile, the true populist groundswell for the election lay with Trump and Sanders.  In the case of the Democrats, the establishment and Mrs. Clinton prevailed, but something unexpected happen with Mr. Jeb Bush and the Republicans.  The Republican establishment lost control.  The Third Disruption manifested with a vengeance.

To understand what happened, it’s useful to understand how social media had changed the traditional business of information dissemination. In 2016, a single person with 10,000 twitter followers and the right message, could get his message, in the form of a meme, in front of 350,000 people in a matter of minutes and if the message went viral, that meme could, and did, reach millions. That kind of power washed away the stranglehold that the establishment media had on shaping stories and disseminating their version of “news.” Distrust among the GOP electorate grew along with every media attempted to shape the election.

GOP electors began gathering in Closed Facebook Groups, on Twitter, and on Instagram. The actions of Foxnews during the debates created a strong sense of distrust for what they were being told by the media.  The vastly different reporting and emphasis from CNN, MSNBC, Foxnews, Russia Today, BBC, and other news outlets further amplified distrust and drove the electorate into the shadow world of social media, where citizens compared notes and chose to get their news from different venues.

Mr. Bush spent $40 million in New Hampshire and another $40 million in South Carolina on traditional advertising to stop Mr. Trump. Mr. Cruz spent $40 million in Indiana to stop Mr. Trump. In total, Republicans spent hundreds of millions of dollars to stop Mr. Trump. On the other side of the isle, Democrats spent hundreds of millions of dollars to stop Mr. Sanders. In the end, Mrs. Clinton spent $1.2 billion to stop Mr. Trump, but the people were not listening to the media stories nor to those advertisements.

The citizenry was on social media, deliberating and comparing notes in Facebook Closed Groups, streaming the actual words of the candidates and deciding for themselves who to believe. The electorate was pumping out memes on Twitter and posting actual pictures from rallies on Instagram. It was citizens who showed the world that Mrs. Clinton scarcely drew 200 attendees to some of her rallies. It was citizens who showed the world that some of Mr. Jeb Bush’s rallies featured a poster-board cutout audience. The establishment media would have never reported such “alternative facts.” They were too busy “shaping” the candidates for the election.

In 1965, very few citizens could view a full interview from any candidate. They had to trust Walter Cronkite’s reporting at the evening news. Today, virtually every citizen can stream any candidate interview, at their convenience, and make up their own mind about the interview.

This access to the raw materials makes media bias and spin easy to identify. Not only can the average citizens make up their own minds, they can publish their interpretation to 10,000 people on Twitter in short order and if their reasoning is compelling, that one citizen’s interpretation can cut through to millions of people. The average citizen who belongs to a dozen Closed Groups on Facebook can personally put his post in front of 150,000 like-minded people. Fifteen years ago, that kind of power to disseminate information only existed in the hands of media elites.

After the election, the Media-Government-Business Establishment fought back by labeling uncorroborated interpretations as #fakenews. The opposition countered that they were simply presenting #alternativefacts, facts that one media entity simply ignored because those facts did not support a particular “narrative.” The reality is that the American people had already figured it out: it’s always been #fakenews; it’s all propaganda. It has always been propaganda. The world has moved into the era of #UncontrolledNews.

The American people are tired of “news” minted as sterling by willing Armani-clad anchors heading expensively produced shows. Now, each individual can interpret a story, and pump it out to 10,000 twitter followers & 150,000 Facebook Closed Group friends. If their audience agrees, the message will echo through cyberspace, reaching millions of people. It’s not #fakenews, it is just #uncontrollednews. It’s no longer state propaganda.

This Third Disruption represents nothing less than a fundamental break-down of established mechanisms of control that states have employed for generations to shape the will of nations. The world was perhaps exposed to the first shockwaves when people coordinating through social media were able to bring about the Arab Spring throughout parts of the Middle East. Unfortunately such populist uprisings were not always for the betterment of the people from those countries. In other parts of the world, social media is being used to expose government sponsored sectarian genocides and other atrocities. Views into immigrant camps are not carefully controlled by a few media outlets. Every cell phone coupled with social media is a window into the world, itself creating a candid narrative that is compelling and difficult to disprove.

In the United States, populism has ushered in a Trump Presidency. In Britain, Brexit is quickly becoming a reality. In Europe, anti-immigration fever is causing even Germany’s Chancellor to question whether her government will survive for much longer. In France and Italy, the establishment trembles under the countenance of its social-media-enabled masses. Even in Russia, citizens complain on social media that to watch an evening newscast is to listen to “lie, after lie, after lie.” In a social media fueled world even absolute dictators won’t be able to get away with the types of crimes that Hitler and Stalin committed.

The world is in the midst of a fundamental upheaval that is tearing down the established mechanisms of control that world governments have relied upon for generations. The question that remains is whether the world devolves to aberrant forms of government like anarchy, fascism, democracy, or fanatical theocracies? Can the world’s people find it in their will to shelter themselves in constitutional republics, or will the knowledge of the classics be drowned out by the populist mob?