Crusader Trump

Last week, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was blunt in announcing at NATO headquarters in Brussels that, in approaching a peace deal for Ukraine, it was unrealistic to think that Ukraine could return to the pre-2014 borders, nor does the US see NATO membership for Kyiv. Later, the US also boosted that neither Europe nor Zelensky will be having a seat on the negotiation table.

That was a shocker. Since the 2014 Euromaidan, the EU in concert with NATO had been adamant on bringing Ukraine to the EU and NATO folds. And for the last three years of war, there has been a relentless supply of funds, arms and ammunitions from European countries, amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars. Double that with the tremendous negative effect on European economies that came with the discontinuation of Russian gas to Europe and their economic isolation from China - all this was being done atthe behest of the US.

And all of a sudden, the US has made Europe irrelevant.

To rub salt in the wound, US Vice President JD Vance, in the Munich Security Conference, directly attacked Europe for being undemocratic, anti-free speech and anti-free thought. In Europe, this is being seen as the far-right attacking the liberal spectrum of politics in Europe. This is a new type of war that Trump and his administration have no experience of winning. And it seems that the increasingly liberal societies of the West, which have been trying to impose secularism and LGBT rights on states around the world, will now find themselves at war from within.

The US does have an experience of losing all conventional wars, and the Trump administration will be adding flavour by losing all other types of wars, like the trade war and ideology wars.

As for the Trade War and MAGA, these were lost ideas from the onset. It's because trade wars cannot be won by sanctions and tariffs; they have to be won by conquering the markets and having more trade partners and allies. They are not won by isolationism and unilateralism. Trump did that with China and other foes in his last term, now he is doing the same with his friends and allies in America and Europe too.

The last time the US made itself great was post-WWII when it gave away $13.3 billion (same as $173.8 billion in 2024) to the UK, France, Germany and other European nations in the Marshal Plan. Letting these war-torn states stand again by rebuilding their industries meant friendly markets for US products; reliable trade and industry partners; strong allies for containment of communism; and formation of NATO. With a little generosity it secured global supremacy.

This time it's different. The world doesn't want US loans anymore; trust in the US dollar has fallen; friends and foes, alike, are feeling that MAGA is proving to be a non-starter and is going to destroy world economies, upending the prevailing world order. The world does not want to do business with a country that has already eaten up $36 trillion of debt, and instead of presenting a payback plan, is threating others with tariffs and sanctions wherever possible. Everybody is up to the neck with this kind of global bullying.

While the US debt totals $36 trillion, Pakistan's totals $0.225 trillion. And while each Pakistani is under a Rs302,000 debt, each American citizen is under a Rs37,332,767 debt. Every day, the US is paying $2.6 billion in debt servicing, yet the IMF only scrutinises smaller states like ours.

As for the ideology wars, Trump has moved in diverse directions. Trump is talking more about God, which means the US politics is no more secular. He is staunchly anti-immigration, which means racial discrimination and hate for foreigners. He has signed a decree for only the binary sex recognition, male and female, which means LGBT movement will be uprooted.

While all of this may seem good to conservative, religious people, especially in the East, it also brings a sense of fear - the fear of a state, with the biggest appetite for wars, turning into a nation of religious zealots, crusading around the world for white, Christian supremacy.

Elon Musk's Nazi-like salute onstage, which went viral on the internet, is also a signal for collaboration with far-right parties and personalities in Europe. Musk has constantly voiced support for German far-right AFD Party leader Alice Weidel, who is anti-migrants, anti-EU and anti-Euro. Other favourites like Tommy Robinson and Greet Wilders are known for their extremist views against migrants and Muslims. So, if the far-right keeps winning in Europe, the new Europe will be more radical and more white.

This reminds us of Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations hypothesis, wherein he augured that future wars would be fought not between countries, but between cultures. He thought that because of social change due to leaps in industrialisation and modernisation, local identities will be diluted and the universal identities in religion will strengthen. Amazingly, we see, in today's globalised world, a social media that is transcending national boundaries and uniting people previously separated by language, traditions and nationalities.

Huntington's thesis was a response to Francis Fukuyama's The End of History and the Last Man, wherein Fukuyama argued that the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union meant a forever US unipolar supremacy and the ultimate triumph of Western liberal democracy.

Time has proven that the unipolar moment has ended; humanity has become weary of repeatedly failed experiments of democracy and capitalism; and liberalism, at its epitome, is preparing to strangle itself.

Trump wants 'to bring God back' and 'religion back to our lives'. He is befriending Putin, the self-proclaimed guardian of the Orthodox church, while he ditches the Western Protestant states. Simultaneously, he is staunchly unified with the extremist far-right Zionist of Israel.

What of Gaza then?

Trump wants both Gaza and the West Bank cleared of Palestinians. And Netanyahu is so pumped up by his support that he wants to 'finish the job' not just on Gaza but also on Iran.

If the world goes the Trump and Netanyahu way, the modern-day Knights Templar can be imagined blowing the trumpets of war, calling humanity to the great Armageddon, raising hell to its brim, and opening its gates, not just on the Gazans, but on the whole of humanity!