A leading figure in international relations, Marc Semmo is now a contributor to Le Monde and a columnist for Challenges. On the occasion of the recent release of his book "Geopolitics in 100 Questions", he gave an interview to the French online publication Le Grand Continent, in which he examines the return of geopolitics to the White House and its consequences for Europe.
LE GRAND CONTINENT: Donald Trump's return to the White House has been accompanied by increasingly bellicose and expansionist statements. Is this just empty talk or is it a real strategy?
MARK SEMO: Experience shows that the words of populist leaders should be taken seriously, at least as far as their intentions are concerned, even if they often fail to deliver on all their promises. Trump’s arrival in the White House is not just a change, but a conservative revolution, both cultural and political. It will spread far beyond America’s borders, just as Ronald Reagan did in the 1980s, mixing conservatism with economic liberalism. But this is a conservative revolution in version 2.0, in which liberalism has been replaced by a libertarianism that is even more hostile to any regulation. "Trumpism" won the election, including the popular vote, for the first time in twenty years among Republican candidates. He embodies an unprecedented alliance between the impoverished working and middle classes, including blacks and Latinos, and the tech kings. It is an aggressive technopopulism, an incredible mix of authoritarianism, religious obscurantism, nationalism, economic sovereignty, hatred of intellectual and political elites, and scientific megalomania. Donald Trump and his people are all about money. "Frankly, we are the apex predator," House of Representatives Representative Andy Ogles told Fox News. Other Republican elected officials have spoken out loudly about a strategy of "shock and awe" referring to American military operations, such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq, where the use of massive and concentrated force from the very first days was intended to create a stunning effect on the enemy.
LE GRAND CONTINENT: What is the format of this conservative revolution 2.0 in foreign policy?
M. SEMO: Barely finished with the swearing-in ceremony, Donald Trump launched a barrage of executive orders in front of his supporters, aimed at laying the foundations for his MAGA presidency and the promised "New Golden Age". He is once again leaving the Paris Climate Agreement and the WHO. He has declared a national emergency on the southern border, launched a historic "deportation" campaign (deportation) of illegal immigrants and abolished birthright citizenship. This last measure was immediately blocked by the courts because it contradicts the constitution. A long legal battle is looming, which will be the moment of truth for American democracy and the rule of law. With his control of the Senate, the House of Representatives and the Supreme Court, Trump intends to concentrate all powers to transform the United States internally and in its relations with the rest of the world. With the desire to try to reshape it according to American interests.
LE GRAND CONTINENT: Has his worldview changed since his first term?
M. SEMO: Trump I was above all in a defensive position with isolationist overtones, in particular by promising to build a wall with Mexico. His previous inauguration speech painted a gloomy picture of the state of America. The speech of the second term certainly still speaks of "borders" that must be barricaded, but above all of "the Border" and territorial expansion, including "planting the star-spangled banner on Mars", with all the mythical meaning that the word has in the imagination of his compatriots. This is a supposed return to geopolitics in its most overt and brutal form. In English, the word power means both authority, might and force. His slogan "America first" means both "America first" and America as a leading world power through its military might, economy and capacity for technological innovation, but also through its vast territory, with access to two oceans - the Pacific and the Atlantic. "America will return to its rightful place: the greatest, most powerful, and most respected nation, the awe and wonder of the world," he said in his speech, implying that the United States "is once again an expanding nation."
LE GRAND CONTINENT: Does this resurgence of expansionism mark the return of geopolitics to America?
M. SEMO: Of course, and not only for the United States, even if through its power they are in a better position to impose their interests. If geopolitics originated in Germany, at the end of the 19th century in a land-based version, focused mainly on territory, then an Anglo-Saxon school soon emerged that favored a maritime approach. One of its most famous representatives was Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914), a naval officer and professor at West Point, theorist of "thalassocracy", who argued that the key to world domination was mastering the seas through control of strategic points - islands, straits, bays - and the main sea routes. This is more relevant than ever, since globalization today is above all "maritime". More than 90% of world trade takes place in the seas and oceans, through which about 240 million containers pass every year. More than 98% of digital data is transmitted via submarine cables. Data centers, and this is becoming even more evident with the development of artificial intelligence, are huge and insatiable consumers of energy.
LE GRAND CONTINENT: Donald Trump embodies an American imperialism that is certainly not new, but which seems to have been unblocked for a long time.
M. SEMO: Even before taking office in the Oval Office, he had already demonstrated his imperial ambitions by offering to buy Greenland in order to annex it, without excluding the use of force. An annexation that he considers an "absolute necessity for American national security". For the same reasons, he wants to regain control of the Panama Canal and make Canada - in his words a "subsidized" ally - the 51st American state. Verbal provocation is a way for Trump to initiate public debate and put himself in a strong negotiating position. Greenland, with its mineral resources and its strategic location at the entrance to the Northeast Passage, which global warming will make navigable, is essential to the United States. The Panama Canal is no less important, as 75% of its traffic consists of goods transported from one coast to the other of the United States. In his inaugural address, he openly supported the legacy of American hyper-imperialism from the late 19th century, that of William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, who waged war against Spain, taking from it, among other things, Cuba and the Philippines in the name of peoples’ freedom. Cuban peoples who were then vassalized without being formally annexed. Trump announced that he would rename the highest peak in the United States after McKinley. Theodore Roosevelt, who succeeded him after his assassination in 1901, summed up American policy in his sphere of influence with the shocking phrase: "Speak softly, but carry a big stick". Trump is not a soft-spoken man - quite the opposite - but his threats and verbal provocations are an integral part of his strategy of transactional diplomacy.
LE GRAND CONTINENT: Trump has long been portrayed as an isolationist, but he seems determined to play a very active role on the world stage. What do you think about that?
M. SEMO: His vision of the world and the role the United States can and should play in it is part of a long history. In his speech, he referred to the "manifest destiny" of the country. Henry Kissinger once noted that this "exceptionalism" The United States has been constantly vacillating between the position of a "lighthouse" that inspires the rest of the world from afar and a "crusader" that intervenes directly. The greenback still bears the inscription novus ordo seculorum (new order of the ages), reflecting the quasi-messianic vision of the Founding Fathers and since then of many American leaders who want to be the guarantors of the values of liberal democracy at home as well as in the rest of the world. But behind these founding myths lies a harsh realism based on force, where self-interest prevails over the law, and Donald Trump is the perfect illustration of this. First of all, he is "unilateral", that is, America acts alone, for itself and in defense of its interests. "The international order is not only outdated, it is now a weapon used against us (...) and we are once again called upon to create a world without chaos," explained future Secretary of State and head of US diplomacy Marco Rubio during his Senate hearing. Already during his first term, Donald Trump did not hesitate to intervene, for example by bombing Damascus or by eliminating Qassem Soleimani, the legendary head of the Al-Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, in a strike on Baghdad, although he could rightly boast that he is the only American president in the last quarter of a century who has not dragged his country into another war.
LE GRAND CONTINENT: Trump's threats, which do not exclude the use of force to annex Greenland, echo those once made by Vladimir Putin regarding Ukraine. Is Trumpism Putinism?
M. SEMO: This is in fact the "Made in USA" version of a return to imperial policies that have already been carried out in the name of the true historical past or have been largely reinterpreted by authoritarian leaders such as Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping. In an article translated and published by Le Grand Continent, Vladislav Surkov, a former and very sarcastic advisor to Putin, ironizes this imperial plague, saying that "Russia is surrounded by doppelgangers and parodists, with a parade of all possible and imaginable imperialisms", including that of Donald Trump. These leaders share a vision of a world in which the rule of force prevails over the rule of law, with 19th-century categories of territorial expansion or forced population displacement, for example when Trump talks about the possibility of emptying Gaza of its population. Trump's threats violate international law. With his provocative statements, however, the American president wants above all to create a balance of power in the logic of negotiations. This is different from an action like the aggressive war against Ukraine, waged by Russia in the shadow of its nuclear arsenal. Donald Trump is a high-tech Putin, only smarter. His power policy is not based only on the army, although the United States remains the world leader in military spending, but also on the economy, the dollar, technological innovations, culture, etc. In this respect, the United States is much more attractive, including to countries from the Global South, than Russia with its brute force and the raised chin of the Kremlin master.
LE GRAND CONTINENT: Smarter or not than Putin, isn't Trump participating alongside him in the brutalization of international relations - the source of this "savage" of the world, once diagnosed by Therese Delpeche?
M. SEMO: What characterizes the new international situation is in fact "disinhibition", that is, a crime on the part of the autocrats, starting with Putin. They no longer hesitate to break all the rules established after 1945, especially within the framework of the United Nations, in the name of ensuring that this never happens again. In her book "Savagery. The Return of Barbarism in the 21st Century", published in 2005, Therese Delpeche (1948-2012), a famous theorist on strategic issues, actually foresees such a development, imagining what the world will be like twenty years later. "We fear what we are capable of", writes the prematurely deceased philosopher, considered one of the leaders of French neoconservatism. The concept of "brutalization" was introduced by the German-American historian George Mosse, a Berlin Jew who fled Nazism to the United States. In his work "From the Great War to Totalitarianism" he established a strong connection between the experience of war and the emergence of Nazism. The brutality of the battlefield was transmitted throughout German society. The Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe coined the term "brutalism" to describe a world in which, even within liberal democracies, the state of emergency became the norm and where "the state of war spread to the civilian population". The term "savagery" is particularly popular among the right, especially in connection with the divisions in French society that stigmatized the savage, the uncivilized, even the uncivilized. The term "brutalization" is more easily accepted by the left because it denotes violence applied by those in power or by a dominant figure. But above all, this is the feeling of Europeans who, after 1991 and the collapse of the USSR, began to rhyme globalization and demilitarization, believing that war and power had become anachronisms. This is a return to reality. The anarchic nature of international relations has always been evident, because there is no world state capable of imposing rules applicable to everyone and, above all, applicable by everyone. International law takes this into account, based on the primacy of state sovereignty, despite repeated attempts to build multilateral institutions such as the United Nations.
LE GRAND CONTINENT: How does Trump perceive Europe and Europeans? As allies? Competitors? Or as a negligible quantity?
M. SEMO: Not once during his inaugural speech, which lasted more than thirty minutes, did Donald Trump mention the word "ally". This is important for his vision of transatlantic relations and is quite worrying. For the new American president, there are only opponents - even enemies - and vassals. With the former, like Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping, to whom he tends to be more careful, he wants to negotiate from a position of strength. On the latter, whom he treats much worse, he imposes his law and threatens those who disobey him to suffer all the consequences. Europe is in the firing line, guilty in its own eyes of having a surplus of about 157 billion euros in its trade relations with the United States. Trump denounces it as "little China" and threatens to treat it much harsher than "big". This is a real crash test for the 27. Threatened by technological decline, economic failure and unable to take responsibility for their own security in the face of the Russian threat, they now have their backs to the wall. There have been many trade wars between the United States and the Europeans in the past, but there was a tacit agreement between the two sides of the Atlantic to clearly distinguish European security zones, guaranteed by the United States through NATO, from trade rivalries. Now Trump is mixing the two. Hence the fear of the 27 and the temptation of some capitals to play their part solo with the American administration. Among them are Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whom Trump has long recognized as his privileged European interlocutor, and now Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who attended the inauguration ceremony. There is a strong temptation within the Union to seek compromise at all costs. This is the strategy of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, but also of Germany, which would suffer greatly from a trade war with Washington. On the other hand, France argues that it must stand firm and not give in before the confrontation has begun, offering to buy more shale gas or American weapons.
LE GRAND CONTINENT: What room for maneuver do Europeans have to oppose this confrontation?
M. SEMO: The Union is the United States' leading economic partner and holds the cards with its large and prosperous single market. The real question remains about the political will of Europeans to play their part and remain united in order to preserve their interests in transatlantic relations, which with Trump have become increasingly transactional. Despite the increased activity of the 27 at the beginning of the Russian aggression against Kiev, the Union feels uneasy in the new global situation, fueled by an increasingly acute rivalry between powers. Europe's DNA is peace and prosperity based on norms and law. The war in Ukraine, like the conflicts in the Middle East that are being fought on the periphery of the old continent, has shattered its comparative advantage on the world stage. The Union is deeply shaken by the simultaneous, rapid, unexpected and probably irreversible collapse of all the foundations of yesterday's world. This is especially evident in matters of defense and security.
LE GRAND CONTINENT: What role can Europeans hope to play in ending the war in Ukraine, when Trump may be tempted to make a direct deal with Putin?
M. SEMO: During the election campaign, Donald Trump promised to resolve the conflict "in 24 hours". Now he is talking about "a hundred days" and this is the deadline given to his special envoy for Ukraine, General Keith Kellogg, to lay the foundations for future discussions. The main fear of the 27, as well as of Kiev, is actually that the negotiations will take place without their participation and will lead to a solution that will be imposed on them. We have not yet achieved this goal, even if the Kremlin, betting on Donald Trump's endless vanity, insists on the implementation of such a direct Washington-Moscow dialogue that would create the illusion of Russia's return as a superpower. This worst-case scenario is certainly possible, but it is not yet on the agenda. Donald Trump talks about "peace through force" and cannot accept a solution that sounds like a defeat for Ukraine and therefore provokes a negative reaction from the West. This would mean starting his term with humiliation. This would also be a very bad signal and a dangerous precedent at a time when the conflicts in Ukraine, in the Middle East with Iran, in the Far East with North Korea and especially China are becoming increasingly complex. If the US gives up Ukraine, won’t it do the same with Taiwan? Various test balloons have been launched and all the solutions revolve around the idea of a freeze and a ceasefire, which Kiev could accept in exchange for real and solid security guarantees. In short, joining NATO or something similar. This is even more worrying for the Europeans, since the Americans have already announced that they will not deploy any ground troops to monitor the ceasefire lines. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, however, estimated that at least 200,000 people would be needed.
LE GRAND CONTINENT: Can the Europeans take over from America, obsessed with its rivalry with China?
M. SEMO: They have no choice but to become a strategic, military, economic and technological player. This means that they acquire the means to defend themselves. During the Cold War, their spending on this topic was between 6 and 8%. Today, they barely reach the 2% requested by NATO on average, while 3% or even 5% would already be needed. The USSR of Brezhnev and his successors was a declining power that sought above all to defend the status quo. It was much less threatening than Putin's revisionist and revanchist Russia. But this must also mean that the Europeans must provide themselves with the means to create a real defense industry. The shock of Trump can and should be a catalyst. Unlike in 2017, it is now clear to all Europeans that his election is not a historical accident and that his presidency will not be just a pause before a return to the good old transatlantic relationship. Although they are united in this observation, European capitals draw opposite conclusions. Poles, Baltics and Scandinavians are the most Atlantic-minded and want to ensure that they have all the means to deal with the Russian threat. But there is another East - that of Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia and perhaps soon the Czech Republic and Romania - where populist and nationalist forces believe, on the contrary, that it is better to come to an agreement with the Kremlin. They repeat his version of events and argue that continuing arms supplies to Ukraine only prolongs the war.
The fate of Europe depends on the fate of Ukraine.