GEAB 148

For 12 years, the West has been struggling to understand the message of the 2008 crisis: “You are no longer the only ones on the planet!” The dollar, international organisations dominated by the West, Western-centric financial markets, trade flows focused on Europe and the US,… the fantastic global trade network set up during the first half of the 20th century must be replaced as quickly as possible so it doesn’t collapse under the pressure of the gigantic flows running through it.

Which is no tiny matter, especially when you want to remain No 1 and you only represent one tenth of the world’s population (EU+US = about 800 million of a soon-to-be 8 billion people).[1]

In this western camp, however, Europe has learned to stop being No 1 and to do it very well… Switzerland or Luxembourg, to mention just the most obvious, are examples of how size isn’t everything[2].

The US, on the other hand, in response to this need for transformation, has embarked on a delusional headlong rush which, far from helping it to reposition itself, is depleting its last remaining strength. Washington think-tanks and other US power strategy agencies may be very clever, but they seem to be unfamiliar with their classics: there are moments in history when one must avoid trying to keep up with the Joneses. Remember the fable of the Frog and the Ox?

“Back to reality” is the common thread throughout this issue, as it concerns the car industry as well as Brexit and even raw materials. But our focus is particularly on three American psychoses in the last thirty years that fall under this theme:

. the dream of global democratisation

. the fantasy of energy supremacy

. the delusion of digital world domination

These three strategic axes, which have been at work for twenty to thirty years, have literally depleted an America whose produced and captured wealth has only fuelled the megalomania, for a (non-existent) return on its investment. We anticipate a sudden and imminent wake up to the 21st-century realities on all three of these points.

It is always difficult to anticipate the various ways the boomerang could bounce back. But from a systemic (and psychiatric) point of view, awareness of reality is always a good thing… for the person concerned as well as for those around him. American society has been leached dry and badly needs its elites to take an interest in its fate. And the rest of the world needs its former leader to find its place in a recognised and accepted multipolar order.

We’re taking an optimistic stance in this issue intended once again to shed light on the paths to the future and out of the gloom of the dead-end streets.

Join the GEAB Community on LinkedIn for more discussions on this topic.

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[1]   See the World population counter

[2]   Franck Biancheri wrote in 2003: In any case, let’s not forget that if all our states went into building the EU … it is because they all felt too small to face alone both their future and the rest of the world. Source FB Documentation: Size does not matter anymore in the EU