Instead of leading to a sort of a routine finish, the last phase of the US presidential campaign has brought about culminating and almost unprecedented tensions, thereby revealing a plethora of unpalatable truths about America’s public life over the past few decades.
Many things have now become clearer, if they have not been already, especially to the common observer and—hopefully—the innumerable liberal cynics across the globe. (Counter-)coup or not, the factions and infighting within the Anglo-American elite are real, and like the Brexit referendum has already shown, they only complement the mosaic of Western incoherence: Atlanticists vs Europeanists, a continuing battle mediated by an unstable, fluctuating category, the so-called Euro-Atlanticists, yet with questionable success given the growing US/UK-Germany divide.
Fortunately for the West, and indeed for the world as a whole, much of what has been going on with the Trump vs. Clinton pre-election face-off, and is obviously in Donald’s favour—most notably, the Wikileaks-revealed communication from Hilary’s private e-mail server, the re-opening of the related FBI investigation only days before November 8, and of course, the lately reported swings in US public opinion which are so irresistibly reminiscent of the seesawing polls in the run up to the Brexit referendum—appears to be of a strategic nature, thoroughly contemplated by wise and patriotic forces in Washington and elsewhere (e.g. Israel/Mossad) and aiming to eventually correct and rationalize the US policy course in these daunting times.
In the prelude to an uncertain mulipolar era, what America needs most are not more sophisticated “global strike” weapons and strategies, although the latter’s development remains important as a formidable means of deterrence and intimidation; nor should be that important the containment of Russia and China via physical encirclement. Quite frankly, what Washington needs least is pushing Russia into the hands of China and vice versa, by playing dual brinksmanship games and building, with the help of NATO, near-permanent walls along the lines of Joseph Pilsudski’s intermarium (from the Poland/the Baltic to Turkey/the Black Sea), or even more broadly, from Svalbard to the Bab al- Mandab Strait.
Therefore, the single most important task of the next US president and his successors will be to help their country outsmart and outperform all of its perceived rivals—perhaps, like during different phases of the Cold War—both domestically and internationally, and in a more collaborative fashion. While this might not actually stop the perceived US decline, it must be done as soon as possible, including by taking the initiative within the US-Russia-China strategic triangle and preventing a more genuine Sino-Russian alliance. This is crystal clear to the US intelligence and military echelons backing Donald Trump, if not to all the business and political circles behind the billionaire’s campaign.
Hristijan Ivanovski is Research Fellow at the University of Manitoba (UofM) Centre for Defence and Security Studies (CDSS), Associate Editor of iAffairs Canada, and a former coordination officer with the Secretariat for European Affairs of the Republic of Macedonia.