The AfD victory in Saxony-Anhalt, even if not absolute, is a natural development of a trend seen across Europe for some years. The East-German past of this region can explain the AfD’s results as may be the case in other eastern German regions. It is, of course, amazing to many given the Nazi past of Germany and its efforts to put it away for decades – even if quite a few AfD supporters would appear to openly share some neo-Nazi feelings. This development should be good to focus on the forces behind this hard-right populist development across Europe and what is needed to stop it for good.
The far-right is doing very well in the polls in most key European countries. France may be the first country to generate a far-right presidential win with Marine Le Pen next April, creating a pan-European shock that would threaten the very existence of the EU. Her antisemitic father, Jean-Marie, who founded the National Front in the late 1960s with former Vichy officials and OAS de facto terrorists, would likely not believe that it could have happened. Britain was also experiencing a rising Reform UK leading in the polls even if ill-fated Brexit-surviving Nigel Farage’s questionable party funding made it slide substantially in recent months. Italy offered Europe a unique case of a far-right leader who, when in power, showed a better understanding of country governance and the need for moderation while belonging to the EU and not showing a pro-Russian stance – unlike Alice Weidel and her AfD. It would be interesting to understand why these parties are leading the polls at around 35 per cent today even if many voters would likely still vote “against” them and not really “for” anyone in the final electoral rounds across Europe.
Immigration, especially of the illegal kind, has been the key focus of all far-right parties across Europe. This focus helped grabbing votes based on genuine exasperation about too many illegals staying in European countries and often disrupting societies, at times violently , even if the cases did not involve most of them. While immigrants were needed to work in many areas where the locals did not wish to work anymore, the influx was at times too big (like with the Merkel open door policy of 2015). Immigration, illegal or not, was not the sole issue at stake and was hard to deal with for liberal governments given the potentially racist nature of the problem at stake. The issue of illegal immigration was also linked to the ethnic origin of the immigrants as they came from black African or Arabic countries, also with a Muslim religion that was not the one of Europe and was sadly tainted by wars and terrorism of all kinds in the 21st century. Liberal governments were simply not able to deal with the sensitive nature of illegal immigration as if still feeling guilty for colonialism and wanting to live in true liberalism in our modern days, thus opening the road for hard-right populist parties to control the topic and indeed eventually win elections on this key matter. Liberal governments did not want to focus on the rising issue of national identity that most of their citizens felt strongly about for fear of being seen as racist. Such a matter became increasingly too hard to manage after years of immigration and some areas being almost entirely populated by non-ethnic Europeans as seen in some suburbs of Paris. The preservation of national or continental identity was not a racist matter but was too hard to manage or even mention for traditional European governments, sadly giving a great podium to far-right parties.
While they can easily secure votes and even win elections across Europe today – indeed their main if only top skillset – far-right parties are not equipped to manage modern governments efficiently and indeed in a democratic manner. The only way for them to eventually stay in power after a while, as their countries and even voters would likely suffer in many ways, especially economically, would be to dismantle the democratic set-up of their countries. History repeats itself and shows us many lessons of that nature. When looking at all the far-right leaders, from Farage, to Le Pen, Bardella or Weidel, they are not equipped with the backgrounds and skills to efficiently manage Britain, France and Germany. They also do not have the teams of ministers and competent public officials that liberal governments usually enjoy, even if they could be used better. A far-right win would eventually create social, economic and political chaos in the key countries of Europe. Looking at the US today and while the Trump administration and “different” Republican party are not yet of a far-right nature (a topic that can be argued at length), it is clear that their country has changed (not to mention the world) and not for the better, including for their own citizens. A lesson to be learned.
Liberal democratic governments of a left or right flavour should clearly seize the topic of illegal immigration and deal with it in a forceful and legal way, no doubt leading to sending back individuals who should not be in their countries. It is a fact that illegal immigration involves many individuals coming from continents like Africa that have different ethnic and cultural features than Europe, making such deportation policies favoured by the far-right tainted with an element of racism. However, illegal immigration is indeed illegal, often accompanied by crime, and should be dealt with efficiently by any European governments, including the liberal democratic ones that still run European countries today. There will always be a clear desire from European populations to protect national and indeed continental identity, which should not be perceived as an expression of racism but a need to keep countries “what they have been for centuries”. Dealing with what is perceived as excessive immigration should also be focused on legality and dealing efficiently with crime that historically has come along with such a trend. Prisons should then be built to deal with crime instead of releasing many inmates as there is no space in current locations. Such policies would make the stay of legal immigrants, many of whom are fine individuals and needed by local economies, much better for all parties. By being tough on illegal immigration and associated crime, democratic politicians and governments will take away the one and at times only policy focus of far-right parties which will become naked and seen for what they are: nothing or bad, especially for managing the future of their countries beyond their strong and indeed key vote grabbing skills. It is time to wake up and stop avoiding focusing on what matters as it is at times too sensitive for the nice liberal mind. Democracy needs to be fought for and hard decisions taken to ensure its future. In this respect and given our times, increased spending on defence, security and sensible immigration management are also key.
As we experience a new world “disorder” of sorts, I thought it would be useful to really see what is happening in today’s world while focusing in a sober manner on two of its key disturbers, who clearly are Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. When looking at their strategies and tactics, these should lead to realising a few key potential facts that are not always mentioned.
In less than two years of his second term, Trump has changed the world we knew as well as America for the much worse, even if its enlightened MAGA hat-wearing supporters at home are taking some time to realise it. On the domestic front, the tragic ICE episodes, White House ballroom project, mail-in voting changes, renaming of the Kennedy Center, planned face on the Dollar bill or his and his constant family self-enrichment showed a consistent careless and egocentric approach unseen in any US presidency in modern history. He was fortunate that the Big Tech and AI-led booming stock market helped him take some easy domestic credit while the sealed Southern border secured his unwavering MAGA support. On the foreign front, he has weakened the Western Alliance with his Greenland offensive and various attacks against European NATO members, even if the latter’s increased autonomy and defence spending was needed. His departure from assisting Ukraine seemed un-American based on post-WW2 and Cold War history, whilst hurting the image of America’s values and principles at the same time. His Iran war and Hollywood-sounding Operation Epic Fury, when he wanted an unlikely regime change by the air and did not take account of the Iranian control of the Straight of Ormuz, showed incompetence and, as always, child-like obstinacy in its management. His renewed tariff attacks against trading partners and close allies like Canada, showed little understanding of the need for a good neighbourhood and the benefits of globalisation and world trade at so many levels, including ensuring a peaceful world. The very long list of his inept domestic and foreign policy moves, flavoured with his back-and-forth approaches, made it impossible to follow them, which gave him some degree of comfort as he could always go forward unchecked while many got used to his erratic and destructive style. After less than two years, his polling rate has gone down to very low levels due to the impact on American pocketbooks. It is then useful to note “who benefits from the crime” as the French would say, which few of us think about, so staggered are we all by all the policies developed by Trump and his career preservation-focused, mostly incompetent and clearly obedient team. Whether for real or not and as I stressed for some time, Trump has de facto acted as a Russian agent or at least a key asset, as Luke Harding recently wrote in the Guardian. This is a fact, regardless of whether or not the Kremlin has a devastating file against him based on his pre-White House Moscow trips, as mentioned years ago. This may sound odd but the main beneficiary of Trump’s domestic and foreign policy today is indeed Russia.
Putin, who was welcome as a new, sober and more stable leader of Russia 26 years ago, has shown an unexpected and gradual development into revanchist and aggressive imperialism since 2008 in Georgia and then 2014 in Ukraine, this culminating with a full-scale invasion of the latter in February 2022. Russia is clearly not winning the war that could last forever, even if now a drone-stronger Ukraine would struggle to win. This forever war is impacting both the Russian economy and society, even if the latter has been historically captured and kept quiet by the Kremlin. Putin could not care less that his war would take years so persuaded is he that Ukraine is Russian (even if Kyiv was indeed historically its imperial cradle) and the number of deaths of now well-paid Russian soldiers or quasi-mercenaries, especially from rural areas when not prisons, is not a Kremlin issue. He could clearly rejoice at the Trump administration’s lack of support to Kyiv (hence the above “asset” point) and the focus on the Iran war that lowers the world attention on his own invasion. The problem the world, and especially Europe, faces is that Putin at his increasingly late stage in power (and indeed age) has nothing to lose and would likely resort to any means to finally win, like using tactical nuclear weapons and/or invading small Baltic neighbours, which are all part of NATO. The danger with Putin, as we are in the fifth year of his war from another century, is that he may feel that the overall costs are getting too high for his country while gradually losing his mind dealing with such a challenging situation of his own making, thus leading him to yet unseen war developments and potentially WW3.
The purpose of this short Interlude was to make us step back and take some unusual lateral thinking about two key individuals of our challenging times and their actual and potentially future impacts on the world. On a last point, the real winner of the erratic policies of these two men and countries is China, the rising super-power. Beijing, for all its geopolitical flaws, is still a globalist and trade-focused power on the gradual road to a potential world supremacy. On the good side (with the historical weight of Taiwan put aside), China does not naturally resort to wars à la Putin or tariffs à la Trump, which led many countries (indeed like Canada) to have sought to be closer to it economically in recent times as a reaction to what the world had become. We can hope that America will come back to what we knew, not after the mid-terms, even if the Trump camp loses whole or part of the US Congress this November, but in November 2028 at the next presidential election. As for an increasingly unhappy Russia and given its historical power structure, it looks sadly unlikely that things could change for the better, short of an oligarchic coup driven by wealth preservation with strategic benefits for their country and indeed the world. Time will tell.
Given the challenging geopolitical times we know, there is a new book that all should read. “Ten steps to prevent World War Three” has a clear focus in its title and was written by a man who was UK foreign minister, Defence Minister, Chair of the House of Commons Defence Committee and an officer in the Royal Green Jackets. Tobias Ellwood knows very directly about the matter at hand. The timing of his book reflects a new era of substantial wars led by Trump’s America and Putin’s Russia but also the aggressive Chinese approach to Taiwan and many major (but at times forgotten) conflicts such as Sudan. Existential and revanchist imperialism (with Putin) or the need to bring the focus on other matters (with Trump) are often the conflict drivers and do not result in clear and quick victories but in never-ending wars often with wider regional if not global impacts at all levels. A review of past major regional wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan share the same long waging and unclear outcomes, especially for the West and often for local populations as many in Kabul would secretly concur. More than eighty years after World War Two, many of us in the West have no memory, direct or indirect, of a global war as we now gradually realise the key always-forgotten fact that history can easily repeat itself.
As a senior British politician and geopolitical expert having served in several conservative governments, Ellwood provides us with a real experience and analysis of the impact of these key conflicts to the world and how we – or our Western governments – should deal with them to prevent a descent into what would be World War Three. He sees us in a multi-facetted Cold War of sorts that could slide into a global conflict we have known in the 20th century. Ten steps are then offered over 400 pages to manage and then prevent that potential descent into hell.
In his preface, Ellwood covers three past and future periods such as “a golden age of complacency” (1991–2025), “a world conditioned by insecurity” (2025–2040) and “a new dark age” starting in 2040. He wrote his book as global coordination weakened and instability rose also as the result of a withdrawing Trump 2.0 America that its allies could no longer trust and the rise of a pragmatic but assertive China many countries turned to. His preface showing a gradual descent to hell is not a forecast but a caution about a future that can be avoided if we learn from the past and apply the right steps to prevent the worst future. His subsequent introduction keeps stressing that the global order and indeed globalisation created post-Cold War has gradually weakened (if not yet totally collapsed), recreating a 1930s atmosphere but without a Churchill in the waiting. As Blaise Metreweli, the head of MI6, stressed a few months ago, Britain “is in a space between peace and war” as is the West as a whole. Ellwood’s bleak analysis of our times and the Western slide we all know makes it imperative to raise our game, which his recipe could help achieve.
The ten steps with their sharp headings (“our” and “we” referring to Britain but also the West) are as follows:
Step 1: Stand for something
We need to know what we believe in and are willing to stand for.
Step 2: Know your enemies
We need to understand the goals, fears and resentments of our enemies.
Step 3: Stop repeating history
We need to learn from wars won and lost.
Step 4: Spot the new battlefields
We need to understand where conflicts will grow and how they will be fought.
Step 5: Regroup with our allies
We need to back old friends and make new ones.
Step 6: Get stronger and smarter
We need to rebuild our soft and hard power.
Step 7: Move to a war footing
We need to align security and defence strategy while preparing society.
Step 8: Put our house in order
We need to strengthen democracy at home to counter growing authoritarianism abroad.
Step 9: Build the off-ramps
We need to halt the slide toward conflict and create conditions for co-existence.
Step 10: Reassert statecraft
We need to lead or we will drift into conflict.
This very rich book is drawn from Ellwood’s experience, but also from the accumulated wisdom from many historians, strategists, legislators, diplomats and scholars. It provides a journey into history and the many big wars the world has known for centuries, trying to draw lessons as to how they erupted and what to do to avoid them in the future. The focus is naturally on getting ready for war and its new features like cyber space and trade and information, as rivalries and regional wars will still occur – but also ensuring that overall peace prevails, based on a rejuvenation of the old global order we knew built on the ashes of WW2 with pillars of security, trade, law, and development to prevent a return to chaos.
International institutions like the United Nations and others helped deal with many problems the world faced in the past. Such a global order was never perfect, but avoided major conflicts, all while countries were interacting on key issues, usually in a productive way. There is now a need to update, strengthen and rebalance the world order we enjoyed and which was built on centuries of hard-won experience and too many conflicts. Similarly, Ellwood stresses that the existential danger is not war itself but the unbounded escalation leading to it in a less globalised world. Stability strengthens the positive aspects of world development based on agreed norms, rules and institutions. To Ellwood, the choice is not between peace and conflict but between shaping the next order or inheriting one imposed by others.
While I stressed the ten steps on offer and as the devil is in the detail, I recommend you read the book and enjoy the highly detailed analysis and Ellwood’s very pertinent suggestions to ensure that global peace, even if never very quiet, keeps going and we avoid his “new dark age” in 2040 after years of irresponsible and easier passivity.
I would like to tell you about a recent non-fiction book that could be a great fiction novel but also an amazing sociological and historical piece: “London Falling”, a new opus from Patrick Radden Keefe, who had started covering the story for the New Yorker. It is a sad narrative about Zac Brettler, a nineteen-year-old Londoner, who fell to his death in the Thames in November 2019 following a very strange story of having mingled with extremely wealthy and shady local businessmen as well as potentially dealt with agents of foreign influence. “London Falling”, while gradually covering an amazingly tragic tale built by such a young man, also provides us with a detailed coverage of a unique city that many of us have much enjoyed in our lives and careers.
Zac was born into a well-off middle class Jewish family with strong historical ties to the Holocaust, who had found Britain as a new country to start anew. While his parents lived in Maida Vale, he went to a private school in the London area in the 2010s when about 20 per cent of their students were Russian and often from very wealthy oligarchic backgrounds. The UK had initially developed a very attractive immigration legal set-up to accept wealthy Russian families (and others) that wanted to invest in the great country to protect their assets and educate while sheltering their children at an uncertain time for a transitioning Russia. Then many came to escape Putin’s Russia starting in the mid-2000s. As such, the right-hand man of Roman Abramovich, the post-Cold War new owner of the world-famous Chelsea Football Club, is also a minor but key part of the story. The Zac experience of dealing with these ultra-privileged Russian children, always chauffeured to school even if living nearby, led to his to getting closer to another system where money was naturally key, making him start building an unusual future. He gradually started to lie about literally everything, including who he was, to everybody but his parents when at home. At some point, he decided to craft an entrepreneurial image à la Mark Zuckerberg in his late teens while approaching very wealthy and powerful, even if debt-ridden, Londoners of South Asian extraction while, it then turned out later, presenting himself as the son of a Russian oligarch with potential co-investment opportunities for the apparently wealthy gentlemen he was approaching. As Zac was a very nice and seemingly caring individual, those potential partners in their forties or fifties, all with a shady low key gangland debt collecting, drug trafficking and crypto-currency trading profile, were also impressed by his unusual acumen for his age and genuinely got close to him. At some point, he artfully said that his would be oligarch father had just died and his pseudo Dubai-born mother, with whom he always had a bad relationship, had told him he could not stay in any of their many residences in upper-crust London, leading one of them to welcome him to stay at his flat in Riverwalk House at a very exclusive London Mayfair address. Having tactically succeeded in stressing he was worth GBP 6bn in appealing inheritance (strangely not checked out by the kind of people who usually should), Zac’s bank account following his diving death only showed four Pounds, showing his story-telling acumen. As the police seemed unable or unwilling to find out what really happened, Zac’s parents then took the investigative lead. I would not want to disclose more of the plot around Zac and his untimely death that could be seen initially as a suicide, even if his face had been hit badly, to let you gradually discover and enjoy a great multi-faceted and dark read.
While the story is clearly about a rarely seen account of such a tragedy and its long and arduous investigation, “London Falling” is also about London itself and how it evolved in the 20th and early 21stcentury. For those like me who lived in London for ten years while working with London firms for twenty-four, the book was very telling. Some parts brought in Margaret Thatcher and her impact on Britain as well as the City of London with her “Big Bang” that changed a leading financial centre that became more global at the cost of many great banking names, like eventually my old SG Warburg, that sadly disappeared. Other parts linked to a key Zac “new old friend and protector” recount the then well-known (also for his name) 1972 Ugandan leader Idi Amin Dada who had suddenly expelled and expropriated all the Ugandan citizens of South Asian origin that had been living there for generations since the heights of the British Empire, many of them thriving, hence the backlash. While the Ugandan economy went down, many of these residents naturally flew to Britain then creating a new career for Enoch Powell, the Nigel Farage of the day, immigration becoming a real political and vote grabbing issue that never died as many future governments (to be fair, across Europe) proved poorly equipped to manage it fairly and efficiently, if it could ever be. We also learn about Spain having become in 1978 and for a few years a haven for British criminals of all sorts, making the Costa del Sol the “Costa del Crime”, following Spain’s ending of its extradition agreement with Britain. A few forgotten dark features of the British banking sector such as the demise of the too shady client flexible Johnson Matthey, that finally collapsed in 1984, are also remembered. London is also portrayed as the theatre of many suicides or likely assassinations of Russian dissidents, not always of the highest quality, by the Kremlin, this following the well-known Litvinenko murder in London in 2006. This new London geopolitical feature of the 2010s with the demise of Berezovsky and others, which we learn was never deeply investigated by the police apparently due to the key focus on energy deals with Russia, also became a rising feature of the Zac investigation given its links to his former Russian schoolmates and hidden dark network. Quite aside from its core story, the book is full of great descriptions of London at many different levels, locations and times from its drastically changing nature as a business hub over the ages to its many key locations including well-known and apparently strongly Russian-frequented Mayfair’s Annabel nightclub. “London Falling” is indeed a rare book that offers a non-fiction that looks like a thriller while providing us with a great coverage of London society and history in its background.
I wish you a great read of this multi-faceted tragedy while being sure that you will still like the great London that enjoys many other beautiful features, as we all know.
Ten years after the Brexit referendum, a clear majority of British citizens regrets its outcome and what it did not bring or indeed brought their country at many economic and social levels, even if many (about 30% so far, broadly reflecting the Farage-led Reform UK party polling, compared with the winning 52% referendum vote) still feel, mostly emotionally, that it was the right move. All public data show today that the UK is worse off economically and socially than it was in 2016 with an estimated GDP decline of 6% to 8% making it the worst-off G7 economy while the much heralded “Singapore-on-Thames” never happened and its global goods exports have seriously declined. Immigration, that was naturally a key feature of Brexit, even surprisingly experienced a major boost during the premiership of Boris Johnson, one of its key architects. Brexit did not help British political leadership and its stability either as seen with the seventh Prime minister arriving at Number Ten in ten years. Emotions put aside and while the EU may be too bureaucratic at times and not enjoying the best of voting rules, which created unanimity havoc too many times, the main EU rationale today, which Britain would agree to, is to be “stronger together”, especially in uncertain Trump geopolitical times and with an existentially driven and lost imperialistic Russia.
While it might make sense for all for Britain to rejoin the EU, this process would be still too arduous and cause painful disagreements at too many levels today both in the UK and many of the EU member states. While the British return could eventually take place in a few years from now as it would make sense and younger voting generations will increasingly support it, it would make more sense for the UK and the EU to work together on sensible partnerships in key areas, defence being an obvious and natural one given our new challenging times created by a more nationalistic America First under Trump 2.0 and its erratic developments.
Many European countries have clearly neglected a focus on defence as the US was providing both the leadership and tools to make them less active in ensuring their own defence through NATO since 1949. The habit perdured following the Cold War as the years went by, also as the threat of Russian aggression was limited until the mid-2010s. The invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, following “the little grey men” raids in the Donbass in 2014, changed the cards. Germany, the leading EU country economically had clearly withdrawn from shaping any defence agenda outside a US-led and powered NATO given its own challenging past. Within continental Europe only France, given its historical roots developed its own defence capabilities and industry even if not the way a superpower or aggressively existential country like Russia would. Britain, due to its history and imperial days, had also developed a strong defence infrastructure post-WW2, which gradually declined in terms of power in the 21st century even if it was able some years ago to lead a victorious and far-away conflict against Argentina in the Malvinas or indeed Falklands – as the World Cup recently reminded us. Today Europe is faced with the clear need to be more independent from the US following the many Trump 2.0 attempts at weakening NATO with a strange and not fully forgotten (clearly on both sides) plan to take over Greenland. While Europe needs to take control of its future with a more independent defence, it is also clear that it should work with London to ensure a sound and powerful coordinated partnership in defence. Such a move would also cement a rapprochement that could eventually lead to a return of Britain into the EU, a step that, even if natural and sensible ten years after a failed Brexit, would again be too challenging to make happening today, both for Britain and the EU.
To make a defence partnership viable and a win-win, Britain will need to focus on redeveloping its defence and related funding, the latter that was not a key matter for too long while other social needs were targeted by various British governments. British defence, while always a quality sector in terms of its leadership and capabilities, is not what it used to be decades ago even if legendary initialisms like SAS and its “who dares wins” motto still resonate well. Britain is currently suffering from an unusual “military unpreparedness” that led its well-respected defence secretary, John Healey, to resign recently as he felt that both Number Ten and the Treasury in Starmer times had not been focused on giving Britain the appropriate defence funding the Strategic Defence Review and our new times required. Defence budgets were continuously delayed despite the gradually approaching NATO summit in Ankara in early July while the military leadership stressed a budget equipment shortfall of GBP28bn (USD 38bn) until 2030. While a new Germany and even Poland would now spend between nearly 3.5% and 5% of GDP on defence, the once powerful British military that used to lead the NATO league table on defence spending, would only reach 2.7% of GDP by 2030, representing an annual increase of 0.08% by 2027, this despite a bold but hard to believe pledge to reach 3.5% by 2035.
As of today, the British forces need to secure modern armoured vehicles, replace their old navy (once the symbol of British power as Admiral Horatio Nelson would agree) with new frigates and destroyers that will no longer be docked for repairs while the RAF should be in a position to get its needed F-35A nuclear fighter jets and finally implement its Global Combat Air Programme with Japan and Italy. Many leading strategists share the view that a defence rethink needs to be taken, also in the context of the defence of Europe and knowing that Russia may be able to attack it by 2028 even if still a low probability. The Russian threat and Trump’s relative abandonment of its allies have created the need for a renewed British defence focus that has also stressed a governmental lack of funding abilities. Investments and a budget refocus will be needed, especially given the new faces of warfare and its drone capacity and technology, which would also support a close cooperation with battle-tested Ukraine. It was good news that Keir Starmer tried to focus on the highly sensitive and long-delayed British ten-year defence plan as a key project before he left Number Ten, hoping that a new Burnham administration could finalise it even if they may have different views on its set-up.
There is no doubt that many initiatives, some inconclusive, were developed in Britain in recent times like with the European Rearmament Bank, a project led by General Sir Nick Carter, a former Chief of the Defence Staff, strategic thinkers and even former senior representatives of multilateral financial institutions like my old EBRD. Other projects that were seen starting in Britain migrated to Canada like the DSRB or Defence, Security and Resilience Bank, much funded by leading banks including many Canadian institutions, this reflecting the new times the country is also facing with its Southern neighbour and formerly forever strategic partner. Even specific defence partnerships between Britain and the EU or among key European countries have not been easy to implement as seen with the recent Paris drive to exclude London from Safe, the EU rearmament fund or, even within the EU, Berlin’s rejection of cooperating with Paris on a key joint fighter jet project. Nothing is easy in this field but the imperative is to still work together for Europe to be stronger, regardless of its often sensitive institutions and their complex operational rules.
As the well-known Oxford scholar, Timothy Garton-Arsh recently published, “the Europeanisation of Nato is ever more important”, this also involving Britain working with the EU – 23 countries also belonging to both organisations – on making us “stronger together”. While I would personally prefer Britain back into the unperfect but improvable EU, I realise it is not the right time. Today a new strategic and clear focus on key British military segments that need both time-efficient improvements and funding is needed. The strategic UK-EU alliance would then provide the required momentum for all parties to focus on the best directions to cement a viable collective defence in the right spirit, especially in our challenging geopolitical times. This could be the natural start of a new relationship that could grow over time into a more structured partnership or even membership.
We can now read tonnes of pieces on AI and its revolutionary nature but not much on how to deal with it in a serious manner. I think that it is time to address the matter in a focused way and look at options to manage what is a world-impactful development that some may also rightly see as society-destroying. Here is a concise note, aside from the flurry of technological details, on potentially dealing with AI today and tomorrow.
AI clearly represents the key tool of an industrial revolution akin to, if not actually more impactful than, the introduction of the first automobiles in the early 20th century but also with many potential societal damages (Henry Ford was indeed the earlier Elon Musk or Sam Altman, also at financial levels, while he was already stressing the visionary entrepreneurial drive of America.) While many books can be written about AI and its advantages and drawbacks, the big factor in this new game-changing technological development is not only the tool itself but its type of users. AI users who can “think” and are usually of the educated kind can manage this new tool efficiently and deal with the too many wrong or unfitting answers it can also provide. There is no doubt that AI can help smart and educated users to even become experts on new subject matters while making sure the output is well managed. By the same token, individuals who do not have the tools to “think” (of the critical kind) due to little or no education or suitable background, which the AI industry artfully calls “median persons”, can naturally feel that they have answers to their questions but will often not be able to interpret them or to ensure their veracity (also as AI input will differ depending on the tool used). Many people today use ChatGPT to get quick and practical input on many topics but can hurt themselves, especially in a work or job application context if they do not understand what AI really produces for them. The inability to check what AI really produces has already cost many people their jobs while job applicants who obtain interviews via letters produced by AI may face interviewers easily noticing a human disconnect during actual interviews.
While some workers will adjust to AI changes over time , this new revolution will clearly affect job opportunities for young aspiring professionals of all sorts as many employers, as already seen in the audit and consulting fields, have heavily invested in AI and drastically reduced new hirings over the last two years. The problem society will face is what to do with a rise in unemployment for graduates (with associated mental health and likely rising crime issues) and – not seen as a problem yet – how to find more senior professionals in twenty years from now if they have not been trained to eventually excel in these senior roles. This mass unemployment, that may create a “permanent underclass”, which Silicon Valley is already bracing for, will also need to be funded by the countries where these individuals live.
In addition, AI may put into question the traditional higher educational path taken by many since the 20thcentury in making people feel they do not need formal education when AI is there for them. This approach may hurt, if not destroy, the academic foundations of universities and graduate schools that gave the world its leaders and senior professionals while it would make it challenging for society to select its future leaders. High schools may become focused on how to use AI as opposed to providing basic knowledge in terms of science, languages or history that a laptop could provide in no time and without the soon-to-be-historical years of learning and mind-shaping.
In spite of the rising popular backlash worldwide, it will not be possible to stop AI developments even if they will affect society while also bringing some positive developments like improving work time-efficiency, as mentioned by a few firms already, or help cure untreatable diseases and improve green tech as naturally stressed by the AI sector. This AI development will keep going strongly also led by the quest for profit by the founders, leaders and key staffs of AI companies. Sensible regulations should be naturally put in place to ensure the best management of AI among businesses and society, this being a likely challenge as Big Tech leaders and the likes will fund and support politicians to ensure the lowest regulatory environment as possible, this being seen already with the clear Big Tech courting and funding of grateful and supportive hard right populist leaders in America and across Europe.
There will be a need for society to develop suitable reforms and fund the many jobless individuals that AI will unwittingly but automatically create, this being the key issue for governments globally, which will deal with a much-reduced workforce and thus taxpayers. Short of providing 50% of the equity of AI platforms to the public as the highly progressive Senator Bernie Sanders put forward in the US – and for the US -, taxation of an unusual kind may be an innovative option. Substantial taxation of the Big Tech/AI leaders, their senior management and companies would be the natural option for governments, assuming Big Tech does not first rule the world as a “Technopoly” given the very strong personalities of some of its leaders, many who also view democracy as an inconvenience. Dealing with AI-induced joblessness that would be defended as work efficiency enhancement and staff cost reductions, would require many mega-billions, which the Big Tech and AI leaders are already enjoying as business rewards. Efficient and commensurate taxation would need to be put in place across the world with a sensible cooperation or global programme between governments to ensure a fair and novel redistribution of tax revenues among all users’ markets, so initial joblessness is managed well globally.
Given that most AI companies are US-based and America would initially enjoy a clear product dominance (even if China with DeepSeek is gradually developing a real presence and bringing a geopolitical flavour to the issue), it would be key to ensure American support for this redistributive tax initiative to be coordinated by the like of a World Bank institution for AI. Such an unusual approach, that admittedly reflects my multilateral institutional background, should be a global win-win as it would also guarantee that the US, as the main source of tax-based funding globally, would eventually export its AI products even more widely (though with some likely restrictions regarding national security as we recently saw with Anthropic). While redirecting joblessness funding to all countries that experienced the joblessness impact of US AI products and services, which would involve a tricky negotiation, the US would also benefit from appearing as the AI global winner and saviour while restoring its image as a world leader that has been seriously weakened under Trump 2.0.
The proposed unusual and bold approach that would be like a global Marshall Plan of our times would not be anti-American in essence but simply targeting AI companies wherever they would be based, so they and their leaderships would contribute to the needed adjustment the world would need. It would naturally not cover all the funding needs faced by governments globally but would be instrumental in assisting them in dealing with the joblessness AI would create. In some ways, such an approach could also be timely, seen as one of the best and new facets of globalisation, knowing that what many saw as a sound “peace through trade” order was not always enjoyed due to heavy job losses in the US and Western manufacturing sectors. Such a move would naturally be sensitive in relation to the US today given that the AI sector not only made fortunes for their corporate founders but also allowed Trump 2.0 to benefit from a thriving stock market, also offsetting a major decline that would have occurred based on the range of poor government policy decisions at all levels, the mismanaged Iran war and its adverse economic impacts globally being a leading example. However, even investors now seem to feel that the AI stock market boom that helped the NASDAQ, Dow Jones and other tech indices beat records is under threat as seen by recent market dives that might herald a forthcoming AI bubble reminiscent of the internet one of the early 2000s as if rationality had finally taken over investor minds.
Similarly, it would be key to ensure that these AI founders, leaders and companies would not use the usual tax avoidance or reduction mechanisms they naturally always seek from expert professional advisers. In addition, they should not exit to jurisdictions offering low if not no taxation, this leading to ensuring pressures of all kinds on tax heavens globally, again assuming a global cooperation can be reached and sensible American support granted. There is little doubt that, after a heavy taxation drive, Big Tech leaders would focus less on money-maximisation (knowing they would still be enormously wealthy) and more on ensuring that AI developments also nurture as many jobs as possible, this to reduce the toxicity of their image and own societal funding burden (not to mention preserving their lives, especially in a wild NRA-friendly America). It should be hoped that the likes of Elon Musk, whose wealth already exceeds his native South African GDP, would see where his true long-term interests lie.
This proposal is potentially too drastic while not reflecting the new world we know today to be implemented in the short term without intense debates but should serve as a conceptual basis for governments to think on how to deal with the impacts of AI, preferably in a productively collective manner. This note should make people think about how AI should be dealt with so it brings to humanity the right answers than can be finally defined as societal progress even if also still destructive or, at best, disruptive in nature. Time will be needed for society to adjust, but capitalism should not reach an overly excessive point when a few benefit mega-financially while most of humanity sinks in despair about what life and work mean going forward. There is no doubt that a huge majority of citizens across the world will back a system when all win from this revolution, also leading Big Tech to join in a sound financial partnership to make AI liveable and become a real progress over time. Some work could then be done to further avoid some serious other AI and Big Tech-induced societal issues like the sadly now old screen-hooked youth “isolation” and the new huge energy-consuming AI data centres.
And as we should always keep a good sense of humour in challenging times, I should stress that I have not used any AI tool to write this piece – something the pure AI-loving opponents of my proposals may indeed amusingly stress. By and large, I think that I will keep to that old-fashioned approach, at least for now.
I was recently watching Chris Murphy, the US Democratic Senator from Connecticut, presenting his new book “Crisis of the Common Good” and thought it was a very timely development given our new era. I always found Chris Murphy not ego-centric and flavoured with common sense, so was delighted he had written a book about the key issues that could potentially destroy America – the focus of his book, but also our world and which I have covered many times since Trump 2.0. In his book, aimed at American voters ahead of the November mid-terms and 2028 presidential race, Murphy promotes finding again the Common Good while stressing the ill-fated cults of profit, “everywhere”, technology, credentialism, consumption and corruption in American society, all furthered by Trump 2.0. Murphy, being a very good communicator, says it all in a useful summary in the first 25 pages with detailed chapters then covering each of the cults with many personal anecdotes.
America, a great country, which was naturally never perfect, has changed in no time much for the worse under Trump 2.0, making it a quasi-combined autocracy-kleptocracy where money and obedience to the leader matter first. The combination of horrific developments under Trump are simply unbelievable and of the never-seen-before-in-a-US-presidential kind. The list is very long, from a billion-dollar ballroom, destruction of the White House East Wing, renaming of key institutions like the Kennedy Center (now soundly rejected by a judge giving America some institutional hope), building of 280-foot-high pharaonic monuments, self-dealing and insider trading (investing prior to enacting key policy decisions) at times driven by a never seen but now very open family enrichment. All while many government officials, who in the main have been selected for their obedience rather than their competence, are often very rich individuals, if not a billionaire club with American policy and personal business naturally combined. The club membership is rather long, with peace deal-maker Steve Witkoff, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum or even the billionaire US Ambassador to Italy who is just doing a mega-deal … for himself. And let’s not forget Jared Kushner’s business father, a former jailed felon, as US Ambassador to France.
And then, as one should not stop given the lack of real opposition, a now abandoned $1.8bn fund that would compensate Trump’s political allies as well as January 6 US Capitol rioters (In fact, $1776m to nicely match the 250th American anniversary which would infuriate my ancestors at Yorktown.) The list of democratic deviations and issues with political sanity under Trump 2.0 cover all aspects of American life as seen with ICE in Minnesota as well as the various gerrymandering efforts and attempts to change the mail-in electoral process. It should be noted that some moves can be funny, like having his face on a $250 bill (Treasury Bessent found it publicly fine), this during his lifetime unlike clear statesmen such as Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant as well as Franklin and Hamilton. One of the key Trump strengths is that there are too many insane decisions taken at the same time at too many levels, making it too hard to follow them. And sheer incompetence is obviously also seen at the geopolitical level. Undermining the Western Alliance and NATO (even if Europeans should be more involved in their defence as they now will) while having threatened to take over Greenland (like he de facto did Canada) or starting an ill-devised Iranian regime change from the air leading Teheran to realise their key advantage in the world-affecting Strait of Hormuz says a lot about the changing times in America and the loss of its sound leadership. And now we enjoy a never ending and always unclear Iranian war peace process (now clearly focused on minimizing the unexpected war costs to American voters ahead of the mid-terms) that shows Trump going back and forth on what it means and even lying to our faces as to its actual conclusion and the fact it stresses a defeat of sorts for America in terms of war aims. This insane flood of developments is also linked to the loss of “common good” that historically defined America, even if never perfect in nature, hence the good timing of Chris Murphy’s book.
In his introduction, Murphy, being on many hockey game journeys with his fourteen-year-old son, tells us about youth sports and how it has been maximised for profit by organisers in recent years making it far away from what it was in his own youth and reflecting our new and sadder times. His book is focused on the crises that American (and to some extent Western) society fell into in developing various bad cults focused on profit, “everywhere”, technology, consumption, credentialism and corruption leading him to hope for a renewed cult of Common Good that made America, even if never perfect, what it was. As a US Senator and a Democrat, Murphy also focuses on the six bad cults naturally being enhanced by the Trump era given the unusual nature and persona of the last US president. To him the 1980s started to reflect a new era of greed, leaving old American values behind, that were personified by the then shockingly grandiose Manhattan Trump Tower in 1983 and Gordon Gekko in the movie “Wall Street” in 1987. TV shows like Dallas or Dynasty glamourised wealth at the highest level. To Murphy, that period, which also saw America becoming wealthier, reflected a shift from the common good to a me-first individualism in most spheres of society. The new era marked a retreat from shared prosperity, social contracts and strong communities with a new focus on profit, efficiency, consumer culture, technology, elite credentialism and corrupt politics leading to many Americans feeling adrift, alone and hopeless; and driving them eventually after short decades to elect a “megalomaniacal con man peddling division and empty promises” if not more.
The Cult of Profit is a natural development of the greed era that most of us could see and feel in many areas of life and business, even if America was an entrepreneurial nation with “climbers and doers” that made a difference, also for the common good. Murphy feels, not wrongly, that the drive for wealth changed the nature of the social contract focused on broad prosperity – as seen with the Big Tech mega-billionaires, which are the obvious leading example of this American demise. At the same time, governments stood aside while corporations grew stronger and unions weaker, ensuring a transfer of power with capitalism being mainly if not only focused on maximising profit. It is clear that Murphy’s take on the cult of profit would fit the approach of European socialists and even centrists (the former I have also grown closer to due to this drastic change in capitalism, a step which is odd for a member of a Gaullist family, very involved with Chirac’s party and its national youth team in the early 1980s when my boss was a mid-twenties Nicolas, who unexpectedly then would become President of France.)
The Cult of Everywhere, linked to that of profit, reflects a strong feeling of repulsion against the adverse impact of globalisation that many of us saw as a good thing, also in terms of ensuring global peace indeed through trade. This cult naturally hurt local businesses throughout America, especially in states that were dependant on very local activities for jobs and customers where owners abandoned their moral obligations to local “workers”. Globalisation, which started 25 years ago, was aimed at promising a golden age without actual borders when everybody would benefit as technology and trade would build a more integrated and better world. While this ambitious development never fully and happily happened, this cult led to a loss of national and local identity while jobs were lost, especially in remote American areas while a rising and once forgotten China took advantage of a new manufacturing era.
The Cult of Technology led by strong business leaders brought smartphones, social media and now AI which strongly impacted human relations and likely job prospects for the latter. Americans stopped socialising very fast with friends and started to isolate themselves (a global feature we can all thank Big Tech for), all the more for teenagers (It would not be likely that the Big Tech-captured US administration would pass legislation to keep teenagers away from social media as in the visionary Australia and soon Britain and France.) Murphy also stressed that technology led to a decline of attendance in institutions like churches, unions and civic clubs that once cemented sound collective purposes and shared societal values. While he sees that technology brought many life improvements, he finds this cult as having led the Great Withdrawal also hurting humanity while furthering loneliness and fulfilment at a time when the US was too lax on regulations, a latter feature we can find enhanced by Big Tech’s de facto capture of Trump 2.0 through massive donations and political support.
The Cult of Consumption is exemplified, perhaps unfairly, by George W Bush telling his citizens after 9-11 to go down to Disney World in Florida, this stressing enhanced market participation to deal with huge societal issues if not nightmares at the time. It is clear that this example is targeting a leading GOP man, which might be seen as overly partisan, all the more as George W Bush, while not a perfect leader for many, is not a Trump friend and carries values and principles of US leadership that we always saw in the past (seeing him with Bill Clinton and Barack Obama at the latter’s presidential centre inauguration in Chicago last week made me easily feel that there was another, sounder American leadership at some point not so long ago.) Murphy also stresses the change of contactless “buying” with local retailers being forgotten for the likes of Amazon and Walmart while creating huge fortunes for its leaders. He stressed the depersonalisation of commerce with the rise of tens of millions of “influencers”, all while consumption became stratified with the wealthy buying into preferred, easier and faster ways of buying goods and services, this creating a deepening of societal resentment.
The Cult of Credentialism is focused according to Murphy on the divide between those with college degrees and those without, as society increasingly rewarded the former while neglecting the latter. A degree has become essential to achieve societal well-being and has become challenging to secure at many levels. According to him, the promise of sharing education costs is one that has been gradually broken as tuition became very expensive in all colleges and especially the top names we know, all while government became disinterested in higher education. To worsen the poor picture, many colleges, also among the top ones, favoured donors (ask Harvard graduate Jared Kushner) and alumni over applicants from modest backgrounds resulting in a monopolisation of access to enrolment opportunity. As a funny side note, I wonder what Murphy’s neighbour, Yale, would think of his approach – even if I agree with him (On a more positive note, let’s not forget that US colleges also introduced “affirmative actions in the 1970s to help minorities access higher education – a policy Trump supporters clearly never liked.) On an additional thought, one can also wonder what the future of higher education will become a few years from now with the rise of AI, which may make Murphy’s points historical in nature or no longer relevant but we should hope that universities keep going in spite of this self-enriching Big Tech-led AI invasion that is changing our world in uncontrollable and potentially terrible ways at too many levels.
The Cult of Corruption is focused on the gradual rise of money in politics which a Supreme Court 2010 Citizens United decision probably unwittingly created by seeing political donations as free speech, which led to a flood of corporate and billionaire cash into campaigns. These donations have had an impact on election results and the legislative process while the common citizen was gradually de facto left on the side and powerless. Over the years, Americans got used to this development that Donald Trump exemplified at many levels including for him and his family’s self-enrichment while in power (How many billions since his second term?). The extent of monetization of political power and the US presidency via the stock market or dealings with business leaders or even foreign countries seeking US support is a clear first in American history.
Having described the five cults and the gradual move from communitarianism to me-first individualism that started in the1980s, Murphy explains how Trump exploited the spiritually disgruntled many and their nostalgia for better times to get into the White House and then worsened the very six cults. Trump tapped into “memories of a time before globalized markets, profit fundamentalism, addictive technologies and corporate-captured government”. He built a new MAGA community for those longing for gatherings and social interactions while tariffs were meant to punish globalization while promoting nationalism first. He stressed that outsiders like immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQ individuals and the traditional elites stole communities from “true Americans” implying that diversity was not compatible with common-good America. He promised to “drain that swamp” to get back to the old America. However, Trump did not curb corporate power or profit-worship nor did he rein in technological excesses while he cut corporate taxes and deregulated industries, also as he was supported by the likes of society-destructive Big Tech. And instead of “draining the swamp” as he had promised his MAGA base, he used it to enrich himself and his family through a long list of avenues from cryptocurrency, Middle Eastern investments to government contracts in ways that had been unseen so far with any US President. In many ways, Trump exemplified the six cults (even if one would argue that he was not an easy friend of globalisation with his never-ending tariff wars).
While his core base does not fully grasp – or does not want to see what he has done, his popularity is clearly and expectedly in great decline today, this regardless of any polls. Were he able to run, he would not win the presidency in 2028, but he and his team are still there for two and half years, even if he does seem to care for what his policies and the state of the GOP are today and is clearly keener on his posterity. This short decline was sadly accompanied by a physical decline as easily seen with his erratic speeches full of words never heard from a US leader. His MAGA base support, largely opposed to wars abroad, appears to still support him “come what may” even with the strategic Iranian disaster as they prefer to follow the leader, while their clout, as a shrinking minority usually not equipped to understand policy impacts, is also declining (all while they are the first to pay for war-related oil and other goods).
Murphy’s book provides the reader with many detailed chapters on each of the six cults while hoping for a challenging return to a sensible sense of communitarianism in US society, if ever possible given the damages done, when Trump and his allies would be gone. Murphy is promoting a dedication to an economy and society focused on dignity and meaning for everyone, this not only via sheer politics but through government reform, corporate accountability and stronger communities, the latter being a key feature also away from technological isolation. As a key side note, non-US readers would sadly easily notice that the book focuses very little on Trump’s destruction of the Western alliance or poor foreign policy developments as these matters are not the prime focus of the American voter unless there is a cost involved.
Chris Murphy would be a great presidential candidate given his sensibly moderate style and the dearth of leading and appealing figures among Democrats today, Governors Gavin Newsom and Abigael Spangerger (the latter a sound potential VC choice) excepted. The other Democratic party leaders are either too old, like US Senate party leader Chuck Schumer, or lacking the persona or profile that would fit a majority of voters (I will avoid stressing names out of courtesy). The Democrats are struggling to find the candidate who could win and be a great President and hopefully be a badly needed old style leader of a returning, post-Trump, Western world we are all missing. It is also clear that Democrats should tactically rethink their strong and at times excessive focus on diversity, that opponents call “woke”, as it also helped Trump and his willingly highjacked GOP (now much less happy) to seize power a second time in 2024 in a scenario few would have thought possible post-Trump 1.0.
As of today, Murphy is not yet seen as a top presidential candidate (even if on the list), though his focus on key societal matters should say a lot to the American electorate as we would hope. In his conclusion, Murphy provides us with no less than 30 proposals for reversing what he sees as a spiritual American decline and focused on dealing with the six cults to go back to a forgotten era of the Common Good. Amusingly, his last chapter starts with the famous Reagan line about America being “the shining city on the hill” that was borrowed from John Winthrop, the first Governor of Massachusetts, making us realise that American politics should not be about partisanship but indeed focused on the Common Good with great leaders that even the world can benefit from.
As it is not healthy to write all the time about Trump and his world destruction , including our old and once essential America (I hope many will see that my pieces in 2025 were sadly right), I thought I should focus on a very clear and additional, if not worse, societal development engineered by Big Tech and many of its leaders.
When I walk or take a tram in my beautiful Prague, it is hard not to see the legions of people, men and women, often young but also older, watching their phones or carrying them while walking or just being outside. While some are rightfuly looking for needed information, many have fallen easy prey to what has become a tech-engineered addiction close to a deep disease over recent years. Youngsters stay in their rooms while watching never ending video games, initially making their parents happy as they seem contentedly busy. There are so many examples of the human mind being highjacked by internet tools which initially were seen as a sign of a great human progress. Many adults are now following gifted podcasters that flood them with what they really want to hear socially and politically while making huge financial returns. The screens have won the allegiance of too many as they are easier to handle (if never manage) and only require a basic watching and listening ability. While isolation and lack of human communication is now the rising impact globally, the key problem is that today very few people are thinking any more, by which I mean in an old fashioned manner. And AI is not helping, while simultaneously worsening poor human habits and not empowering future careers in a soon-to-be job-reduced market that some investors will initially find fine – to a short point. At least most schools have now abandonned graded homework for obvious reasons.
It is clear that many tech addicts, as they grow older, know the problem; but addictions are not easy to manage. There have been healthy reactions recently from country leaderships like in Australia or France to limit the use of some damaging social media by youngsters below the age of 16 or even 15. Other countries like Turkey, Greece or Indonesia have already enacted similar laws while Spain, Austria, Poland, Slovenia, the UK and Malaysia are either about to pass such laws or are considering doing so – thus following Canberra’s lead (while Italy and Germany are introducing parental consent legislations). Schools in Sweden will ban phones, as in many European countries, and – key – will reduce digital learning and reintroduce books in the classroom so students can read (and indeed think). It is good that some countries react, even if similar examples like in the US are naturally not forthcoming (but for a few states that find it challenging, as dealing with the easy historical free speech mantra) given the lobbying weight of Big Tech except for the odd school like one in Florida that was able to see quick positive outcomes of their more controlled acedemic approach.
There may be some deeper rationale (if the word could ever apply) behind this adverse digital societal revolution. Accessing a large number of individuals, young and older, via the new tools provided by the internet (all the more since 2000) is a way to control the minds, also with a political dimension at play. Many in Silicon Valley and especially the Big Tech so-called Bros (names we all know) have been, initially surprisingly, supporting hard right leaders not to say populists or autocrats in the making in America but also in Europe. Being close to and promoting the US president is a useful way to ensure fewer regulations and strong support in dealing with what they perceive as a bureaucratic and financially costly EU. Some populist leaders may not yet see that Big Tech leaders could not care less about any policies or ideological flavour but want to promote their interests first, this seeing the anger-fuelled populist rise as a tactical means to a strategic end. It would not be inconceivable that the main goal of Big Tech would be to eventually rule the world and change democracy as we knew it in the West before the Trump era. It is also clear that such a development is not safe for Big Tech leaders as some have found recently when their main home was attacked or when they do not go out with less than 20 bodyguards, which is also not surprising in the Charlton Heston NRA and weekly mass shooting-friendly and indeed changing America.
It is always good to review where we are and notice serious societal slippages, even if it is easy to get used to them and do nothing – as we see with the current political era in the US (reassuring no Kings marches put aside). If nothing is done to stop this Big Tech-led societal decline (even if money is the key short-term goal), the roots of a revolutionary backlash of a French 1789 kind, this time of a strong anti-capitalist flavour, might be coming at some point. This scenario might also be enhanced by the expected governing incompetence of electorally-savvy and social media/Big Tech-assisted populists after gaining power at the booth, the latter being their main strength in our days. Hence the need to stress what matters very clearly and trying to go back to the relatively sane world we knew only a few years ago.
Having said all this, it should be always stressed that technological advancement is and should be good as long as it benefits society. One should not be against “industrial revolutions” as long as they bring human advancement, which is indeed a clear problem today. Big Tech leaders are also not all bad and only mega-billion-focused as shown with the founder of Anthropic and his recent controlled approach to his tools being indiscriminately used by the highly differentiated US Department of “War” under Trump 2.0. There is still hope in the making but we should ensure passivity does not win the day as we see too often in our societies today.
As there is expectedly a news flood about the ill-fated and poorly managed Iran war, I wanted to review a major but rather uncovered feature related to the changing geopolitical world gradually unfolding as the result of the Trump 2.0 unusual and erratic geostrategic policies. As such, I decided to focus on Canada, a country that was never a key geopolitical actor due to its North American location and powerful free world leader neighbour and security partner.
The relations between America and Canada have become less than friendly since the beginning of Trump 2.0 and his aggressive tariff offensives on the world and its closest Western allies. While many of the less enlightened ones within the MAGA base may have enjoyed Trump’s tough rhetoric about the 51st state to be, Ottawa, especially under Mark Carney, took the view that it was time for more strategic independence and operational autonomy, especially in defence, as did all European NATO allies. One can still wonder what would drive Trump to make such aggressive statements, but the erratic and ill-thought-out Iran war made those almost irrelevant. It is clear, however, that both Canada as well as Europe (Britain and the EU) decided that it was ample time to be more autonomous and independent from the US, especially in terms of defence, while still ensuring that NATO perdures in its challenging times.
Given its proximity to the US, Canada naturally relied historically on its powerful neighbour for its defence. Many did not even realise that Canada was part of NATO, often and justifiably perceived as a defence organisation focused on Europe with Russia as its main potential foe. (Canada has indeed forces in Latvia.) While many European NATO members were driven to reach a 5% GDP target committed to defence as the US justifiably felt their commitment, a fortiori for the defence of Europe, was not enough, Canada, at 1.45% in 2024, was still well below the formally required 2%. This changed under Mark Carney when it finally achieved the 2% goal in 2025, five years ahead of schedule given the challenging times we know. Over 2025-26, CAD 63 billion were committed to the various features of Canada’s defence forces. This investment drive in key military assets, building its industry and dual-use investing are putting Canada on track to meet the new 5% GDP investment by 2035, its biggest military build-up since WW2. Its defence industry provides CAD10 billion to its GDP while supporting 80,000 jobs with expected strong sector growth. Canada will now rebuild, rearm and reinvest in its armed forces in a move to assert its own independence, also as a reliable Western partner. Over the next decade, Canada will commit CAD 500 billion in defence investments via different programmes and investment vehicles.
It should be clear to all that Mark Carney, who used to be Governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020 and Canadian Prime Minister since 2025, is the man his country needed and, in many ways, the Canadian de Gaulle of our times. His English and Canadian leadership also lends him to be the ideal leader to strengthen his country’s commitment to defence and partnership with Europe to allow the West to be stronger while making sure NATO could go on despite erratic US withdrawal threats. Mark Carney saw the need to focus on defence and increase his country’s commitment, which will lead to massive investments from both the public and private sectors, also internationally. Canadian defence sector projects covering multi-billion dollars will be developed over the next few years via different instruments, including investment funds that will also attract international investors. Many institutional investors are now ready to commit to a segment that once was sensitive in nature but is now a key investment sector where tangible returns will also be seen, both strategically and financially with positive impacts across Western economies and societies.
Many Canadian “defence” companies benefitted from the drastic geostrategic change. Infrastructure giant Atkins Réalis’s share price more than doubled while MDA Space’s more than tripled since 2024. Local companies were to receive 70% of the nation’s military spending, boosting their revenues by more than CAD 3.7 billion a year while creating opportunities for many SMEs. One of Ottawa’s goals will be to bring many suppliers into an end-system integrator like those of Lockheed, Northrop or BAE. In March, Mark Carney announced funding for three “forward operating bases” and other upgrades for the country’s Arctic zone (40% of Canadian land mass with only 150,000 people). Such policy change will have an impact on Canada’s budget deficit that is deemed acceptable given the primary need for security, strength and independence.
When at Davos last January, Mark Carney’s speech heralded new times in stressing “the rupture of the rules-based international order” caused by the new US leadership and the need for middle powers to unite. As such, one of the expected Canadian responses to Trump 2.0’s odd statements and policies was to start shifting away from US arms manufacturers, then representing 80% of Canadian arms procurement funding, many of which focused on fighter jet purchases (also an issue that European countries would like to follow even if challenging given decades of comfortable habits). In February, Carney also stated Canada’s plan to develop “a new, ambitious and comprehensive security partnership with the UK and the EU” as well securing collaborations with partners in Asia-Pacific. This strong declaration came after agreements to increase security cooperation already signed with the UK and the EU in June and May 2025 that reflected an increased unease with the declining US relationship (In May 2025, the UK signed a similar agreement with the EU as the first post-Brexit actual rapprochement).
This new defence drive will ensure that Canada’s Northern/Arctic hemisphere and proximity to strategically sensitive Greenland are better protected while its military autonomy and independence as well as NATO membership are strengthened. Such a transformational move will also provide unique opportunities for workers, businesses and institutional investors at home and abroad. In some ways, Canada and the West should thank a sadly game-changing Trump 2.0 for creating an opportunity to be stronger and more independent, this even if NATO should remain a much-needed Western alliance and one of the most historically successful defence pacts globally (A latter point that the US mid-terms may also start helping with meaningfully.)
As we are flooded with news about the highly questionable Iran war and its many impacts, I thought that it would be healthy to give us a break and focus on something else, even if not always endearing. We live in times when values-flexible Big Tech mega-billionaires are changing our societies while increasing their huge wealth to unprecedented levels and supporting the likes of President Trump to secure a less-regulated environment for their business. This era made me want to read “Backlash Billionaires – The age of corporate scandal and how it could save democracy”, a great book that covers many business scandals over the ages while reviewing their impact on society. This book was written by two academics who have known each other for some years: Pepper Culpepper, who teaches government and public policy at Oxford’s Nuffield College and is a Vice-Dean of the Blavatnik School of Government and Taeku Lee, who is the Bae Professor and Faculty Dean of Dunster House at Harvard and former President of the American Political Science Association. In a differentiated flavour, they make the point that they are “an academic odd couple, prone to disagree on matters both trivial and significant” while, as I read, showing excellence in their joint findings. On a personal note, I once met the great Pepper in Prague as he was visiting my close friend Trev, who is the man dealing with all tech issues of this blog while ensuring all commas are where they should be (On a personal note, I am neither a techie nor a billionaire).
As an introduction, the book goes back to the early 20th century and the first well-known corporate scandal dealing with the unhealthy dealings of the meat industry leading to a book that led to steep declines in meat sales and then drastic regulations for the “Beef Trust” (setting the stage for the US Food and Drug Administration, even if Upton Sinclair, the then early socialist author was focused on the poor working conditions of the sector and not its products). We then read about names we almost forgot like Nelson Rockefeller (the first world billionaire in 1916, richer than Elon Musk today), Cornelius Vanderbilt, Leland Stanford (now we know the origin of the great university) and J.P. Morgan and their business empires while we discover the high level of corruption among American elected officials, who became wealthy by protecting them at a time when mainstream news media in their infancies were not providing any guardrails. Those few who exposed the business titans’ bad practices, likely at great risks for their lives and careers, were then known as the “muckrackers” and eventually led to political change. The authors stressed that they were the ones who helped save democracy in the early days. We then go into many corporate scandals in the 20th century and later that, while being quite bad for the markets and its consumers, led to healthy reactions that helped change things for the better.
Activists matter when changes are badly needed and so are scandals to motivate them. The authors stress the impact of a few individuals, like a forgotten Ralph Nader, who in his 1960s campaigned so carmakers would finally introduce seat belts. They rightly point to the impact today of the digital revolution on business and political power while stressing the huge profits of the mega-banks, the lack of appetite of the oil industry for net zero and the domination of tech companies in our daily lives – all while governments seem unable to always correct any adverse societal developments (note that the EU is known to be keen on regulating Big Tech even if one could argue as it is also American).
Without going into too many details so the book can be fully enjoyed, the authors bring us many examples of corporate scandals that led to change at many levels while others did not lead to much. While starting with the well-known Enron and WorldCom scandals, the latter many of us have forgotten but the former that was probably the most publicised scandal of the 21st century, also leading to the demise of then leading Big6 accounting firm Arthur Andersen in 2002, “Billionaire Backlash” offers very detailed accounts of top corporate scandals involving Goldman Sachs pre-2008 financial crisis, Facebook and its users’ privacy, Cambridge Analytica (the then-famous Oxford Analytica may have disliked), Exxon, Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto FTX and Samsung among other incredible stories. Future likely scandals and reactions to them may be linked to Big Tech and now Artificial Intelligence and its adverse impacts on junior jobs and society, at large (starting with schoolwork at home or mere job applications) also heavily tainted by the amazing personalities involved and their eagerness to amass centi-billions.
The authors finally stress that governments, that are de facto controlled by interest groups, also via their lobbyists, are now unable to deliver, this leading to current extremist populism and easy solutions to complex issues that now resonate well within the electorates of democracies. However, they stress that corporate scandals reveal an undervalued resource via latent opinion for good politics. They then offer an interesting and unusual approach to dealing with corporate greed and its societal harm by way of “Good Populism” which is almost funny at a time when populism is also known as a tool for largely incompetent extremist parties, usually of the hard right kind, to win elections regardless of what would really happen afterwards. However, the additional “Good” says clearly what they really mean and they broadly see as “a programme that makes politics more responsive without undermining the capacity of government to deliver on the things that are vital” while “attacking issues associated with corporate domination of democracy so as to respond to the populist impulses of today”. The innovative case they make, which is not an easy one, is worth thinking about. “Billionaire Backlash” is a great book, requiring some focus given its many details reflecting the strong academic credentials of its authors. It stresses both key historical facts and potential plans for a better future in making sure corporate greed is fully controlled while consumer and indeed citizen needs are nicely met. A very fine book especially in our times of society-harming centi-billionaire Big Tech bros when Upton Sinclair would find a great opportunity to both leading needed regulations in a key sector for sound societal development and hopefully improving our naturally imperfect economic system.
Desperate Measures 
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