Moving in to an « Orwellian » world

When a blasting event occurs, such as Maduro’s capture by the Trump administration last weekend, reactions and analysis grow by the day. I wanted to wait and find what the most relevant that I’ve run across, and share them with you below.

Before looking in to that, I took out George Orwell’s « 1984 » from our book shelf to try to find the sections, that described the endless low-intensity conflict between the three empires that rule the world in his dystopia, Eurasia, Oceania, and Eastasia… Of course, we’re far from there yet, but a « low-intensity war » such as described by Orwell already exists in Ukraine, with the same end game on Russia’s part, that is, in the extension of the present conflict and tensions, a break-up of Europe and a collapse of our democratic values (in « 1984 », Russia had absorbed Europe to form Eurasia, but Orwell’s view, when he wrote it in 1948, was obvioulsy more related to that time’s fears of the Soviet Union). A scenario, that we can imagine, the present US administration would be at best indifferent to, just as China, that might be more prudent considering its more pragmatic view on the market that Europe represents.

The main change in the way the world will function since last week is the confirmation of the supremacy of the big three « spheres of influence ». Tacitly, by claiming supremacy over the « Western hemisphere », Trump and his administration accept and open for Russia to increase pressure on Europe, and for China to act in the same manner in its own surroundings. But one can question if the Trump administration has even thought that far ?

This is how Orwell was describing the State of the World in « 1984 » :

“The division of the world into three superstates was predictable and, moreover, foreseen even before the middle of the 20th century. With the absorption of Europe by Russia and the British Empire by the USA, two of the three, namely Eurasia and Oceania, were already formed. Only ten years later, after indecisive battles, the third, Eastasia, came into being. The borders of these three superpowers are sometimes arbitrary; they can also fluctuate according to the fortunes of war, but most often they follow natural boundaries. (…)”

“Whatever the shifts in alliances, these three superpowers have been in a state of perpetual war against each other for the past twenty-five years. But nowadays, this war is no longer the life-or-death struggle that characterized the early decades of the 20th century. Its objectives are limited, as the belligerents are not capable of annihilating one another, having no material stakes in their confrontations, nor any real ideological differences. One should not conclude from this that the conduct of war, or the very idea of it, has become more chivalrous or less bloodthirsty. On the contrary, a continuous and widespread war hysteria reigns in all countries… (…) However, the war only concerns a small number of people, essentially highly trained experts, and it claims relatively few victims.”

The idea with this state of perpetual war is, of course what is believed to be part of Putin’s strategy to keep his population under a constant grip due to the everlasting external menace and that victimisation in turn leads to a constant justification for territorial expansion. It’s a well-known and utilised method to keep a population’s focus from domestic and interior problems, which Russia has loads of… Is it really a coincidence, timing-wise, that Trump launches his move on Caracas now, when he’s fully aware of the GOP’s risk of losing the midterm elections in november, knowing the low level of satisfaction of Americans towards his policy in recent polls ?

What is the next step ? Planting the US flag on Greenland ?

To illustrate what strategists and analysts are saying about this new situation, I’ve picked three well-known ones (outside mainstream media that you all access) to share some excerpts :

• Anne Applebaum, author and writer in « The Atlantic » has just come out with a piece on the «SPHERES OF INFLUENCE», in which she believes, that focus on the Western hemisphere will be the main factor reshaping US politics and the world order.

• Ian Bremmer, the founder of GZero Media, writes about the US being the biggest geopolitical risk in 2026 in a piece about how America is tearing down the global order it built. He goes further than Anne Applebaum, believing that the Trump administration is just applying « law of the jungle » rules, not, grand strategy… With major risks, particularly for Europe. But Ian Bremmer agrees with Applebaum to the fact, that hitting his own allies will have long-lasting consequences for the US.

• Ben Raderstorf is writer and policy strategist at Protect Democracy. He writes about how to beat authoritarianism in the substack "If you can keep it." His writing has been published in The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Bulwark. In his piece « IS MIGHT RIGHT » (excerpts below) from wednesday jan 7, he assesses that raw power is the Trump administration’s new tool to rule, and questions whether the midterm elections will be held at all… ?

So, yes, we’re already in an « Orwellian » world, from a macro perspective. And of course, the crazy Tech kings over in the Silicon Valley, led by Musk, Thiel and Curtis Yarvin have already the infrastructure in place and are in the full process of anesthestizing people (before controlling them?). But that’s another story, the one of Big Brother, to be followed up upon.

Very scary for Europe, so dependent on the US, not only from a strategic and defense perspective but even so for our dependence on US tech. Think of the weight of Microsoft in our countries’ administrative, health, corporate systems and each of our daily lives…

And as a final world, no, I’m not turning either conspiration theorist nor paranoid ☺, but fascinated and worried by the speed of the transformation.

o In her recent piece « SPHERES OF INFLUENCE », Anne Applebaum writes :

« Nearly a year ago, I heard an American woman tell a large room full of people that the recently inaugurated US president was going to bring about world peace. Implying that she had special links to the new administration, she explained that Trump, Putin and Xi Jin Ping were going to divide the planet into three spheres of influence. The US would control the Western hemisphere, China would control Asia, Russia would control Europe. A pact between the three great powers would then prevent future war.

This same woman also repeated several conspiracy theories, among them the Russian claim, repeatedly debunked, that the U.S. had biological weapons factories in Ukraine. For that reason, I didn’t believe anything she said. But I did take her seriously. She had spent time inside the information bubble jointly created by Russian propagandists and their MAGA counterparts, and she was repeating stories she had heard there.

That vision, of a world divided into three spheres of influence, run by three great powers, has been kicking around for some time, mostly promoted by Russians who want to exaggerate the strength of their weak economy and justify their bloody war in Ukraine. But as I just wrote in the Atlantic, this idea influences some in the Trump administration now too:

Back in 2019, Fiona Hill, a National Security Council official in the first Trump administration, testified to a House committee that Russians pushing the creation of spheres of influence had been offering to somehow “swap” Venezuela, their closest ally in Latin America, for Ukraine. Since then, the notion that international relations should promote great-power dominance, not universal values or networks of allies, has spread from Moscow to Washington. The administration’s new national-security strategy outlines a plan to dominate the Americas, enigmatically describing U.S. policy in the Western Hemisphere as “Enlist and Expand,” and downplaying threats from China and Russia. Trump has also issued threats to Denmark, Panama, and Canada, all allies whose sovereignty we now challenge.

These ideas place the capture of the Venezuelan president in a new context. Even though the the military raid that took Nicolás Maduro into custody does resemble some past American actions, especially the ouster of the Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega in 1989–90, the use of this new language to explain the Venezuelan raid makes the story very different.

At his press conference on Saturday, Trump did not use the word democracy. He did not refer to international law. Instead, he presented a garbled version of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, a policy originally designed to keep foreign imperial powers out of the Americas, calling it something that sounded like the “Donroe Document”: “Under our new National Security Strategy,” he said, reading from prepared remarks, “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.”

As I wrote in my recent book, Autocracy Inc, Nicolas Maduro was an extraordinarily corrupt, venal, and repressive leader. He was supported by Russian, Chinese, Cuban and Iranian money and weapons. He stayed in power by jailing, killing and exiling his opponents. A case could have been made, not only to Congress but to America’s allies and Venezuela’s neighbors, that his removal would restore democracy to his country and stability to the region. But this is not what the Trump administration chose to do.

Instead, Trump has gone out of his way to portray the capture of Maduro as nothing more than a “win,” for the US president and for US oil. On Saturday, Trump patronized and verbally dismissed the leader of the Venezuelan opposition, Maria Corina Machado (a compelling, dedicated woman, whom I interviewed in December 2024). His administration has half-heartedly justified the raid by indicting Maduro for drug trafficking. Given that Trump himself just pardoned the former president of Honduras, who was indicted on drug charges six years ago, this hardly fits into a broader logic.

But the would-be dominators of the Western Hemisphere have no need for logic:

If might makes right, if the U.S. gets to do what it wants using any tools it wants in its own sphere, then there is no need for transparency, democracy, or legitimacy. The concerns of ordinary people who live in smaller nations don’t need to be taken into account, because they will not be granted any agency. Their interests are not the concern of the imperial companies that want their mineral resources, or the imperial leaders who need the propaganda of conquest to keep power at home.

This is a criminally short-sighted policy. For seventy years, American prosperity and influence have been based on a network of allies who worked with us, not because they were coerced, but because they shared our values. Now those allies will begin to hedge:

Trump’s pursuit of an illusory sphere of influence is unlikely to bring us peace or prosperity—any more than the invasion of Ukraine brought peace and prosperity to Russians—and this might become clear sooner than anyone expects. If America is just a regional bully, after all, then our former allies in Europe and Asia will close their doors and their markets to us. Sooner or later, “our” Western Hemisphere will organize against us and fight back. Far from making us more powerful, the pursuit of American dominance will make us weaker, eventually leaving us with no sphere, and no influence, at all. »

The full piece :

https://anneapplebaum.substack.com/p/spheres-of-influence

• Exerpts from Ian Bremmer’s piece « AMERICA BUILT THE GLOBAL ORDER. NOW IT’S TEARING IT DOWN ».

2026 is a tipping point year. The biggest source of global instability won’t be China, Russia, Iran, or the ~60 conflicts burning across the planet – the most since World War II. It will be the United States. That’s the throughline of Eurasia Group’s Top Risks 2026 report: the world’s most powerful country, the same one that built and led the postwar global order, is now itself actively unwinding it, led by a president more committed to and more capable of reshaping America's role in the world than any in modern history.

Last weekend offered a preview. After months of escalating pressure – sanctions, a massive naval deployment, a full oil blockade – US special forces captured Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro in Caracas and flew him to New York City to face criminal charges. A dictator removed and brought to justice with no American casualties, it was President Donald Trump's cleanest military win on the global stage.

(…)

“America First” isolationism, this is not. The United States is simultaneously growing more, not less, entangled with Israel and Gulf states. Trump’s willingness to strike Iran last year and meddle in European politics doesn’t exactly scream retrenchment. The "spheres of influence" frame doesn't fit either. Trump isn't carving up the world with rival powers, each staying in their lane. Washington just sent Taiwan its largest-ever arms package, and the administration’s Indo-Pacific posture does not evince a desire to cede Asia to China.

Trump's foreign policy doesn't run on traditional axes – allies versus adversaries, democracies versus autocracies, strategic competition versus cooperation. It runs on a simpler calculus: Can you hit back hard enough to hurt him? If the answer is no, and you have something he wants, you're a target. If it’s yes, he'll cut a deal.

Trump wanted Maduro gone, and there was nothing Maduro could do to stop him. He had no allies willing to act, no military capable of retaliating, no leverage over anything Trump cared about. So he was removed. Never mind that Venezuela’s entire regime structure remains intact, and any transition to a stable democratic government will be messy, contested, and largely Venezuela's to manage (or mismanage).

Trump is personally content with Venezuela continuing to be run by the same repressive regime, as long as it agrees to do his bidding (indeed, he chose this arrangement over an opposition-led government). The threat of the “or else” appears to be working already, with Trump announcing that Venezuela's new authorities will hand over 30-50 million barrels of oil to the United States, with the proceeds – his words – "controlled by me, as President." Continued success in Venezuela, however narrowly defined, will embolden the president to double down on this approach and push further – whether in Cuba, Colombia, Nicaragua, Mexico, or Greenland.

On the other end of the spectrum is China. When Trump escalated tariffs last year, Beijing retaliated with export restrictions on rare earths and critical minerals – essential ingredients for a broad range of 21st-century consumer and military products. The vulnerability exposed, Trump was forced to back down. Now he’s intent on keeping the détente and securing a deal at all costs.

This is the law of the jungle, not grand strategy: unilateral power exercised wherever Trump thinks he can get away with it, uncoupled from the norms, bureaucratic processes, alliance structures, and multilateral institutions that once gave it legitimacy. As constraints tighten elsewhere – voters angry about affordability, midterm losses looming, trade leverage shrinking – and his urgency to cement his legacy sharpens, the president’s willingness to take risks on the security side, where he remains largely unconstrained, will grow. The Western Hemisphere just so happens to be an especially prey-rich habitat, where the United States has asymmetric leverage no one can counter and Trump can score easy wins with minimal pushback and costs. But America’s immediate neighborhood is not the limit of Trump’s approach.

If it wasn’t already clear, the administration’s threats to Greenland clarify that Europe is now part of America's target set. The UK, France, and Germany, the continent’s three largest economies, all enter the year with weak, unpopular governments besieged by populists, Russia at their doorstep, and an American administration openly backing the far right that would further fragment the continent. Unless Europeans find ways to gain leverage and credibly impose costs Trump cares about – and soon – they will face the same squeeze he's applying across the hemisphere.

For most countries, responding to an unpredictable, unreliable, and dangerous United States is now an urgent geopolitical endeavor. Some will fail; Europe may be too late to adapt. Some will succeed; China is already in a stronger position, content to let its chief rival undermine itself and win by default. Xi Jinping can afford to play the long game. He will be in power long after Trump’s term ends in 2029.

The damage to American power itself will persist past this administration. Alliances, partnerships, and credibility aren’t just nice to have – they are force multipliers, giving Washington leverage that raw military and economic power alone couldn't have sustained. Trump is burning through that inheritance, treating it as constraint rather than asset, governing as though American power operates outside of time and he can reshape the world by force without lasting consequence. But the alliances he's shredding won't snap back when the next president takes office. The credibility takes a generation to rebuild – if it can be rebuilt at all.

So yes, 2026 is a tipping point year. Not because we'll know how this ends, but because we'll start to see what happens when the country that wrote the rules decides it no longer wants to play by them.

The full piece :

https://www.gzeromedia.com/by-ian-bremmer/america-built-the-global-order-now-it-s-tearing-it-down

• « IS MIGHT RIGHT ? », a piece by Ben Raderstorf, excerpts…

Three days ago, Donald Trump successfully deposed a head of state by force. Five years ago today, he tried and failed to do the same thing here in the United States.(…)Together, the two events illuminate the core ethos of Donald Trump’s movement:

That power alone should be what matters.

That the right to rule should belong to those willing and able to dominate others by force.

That might is right.

Stephen Miller, Trump’s most powerful aide, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Wednesday Jan 7 :

« We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time. »

Miller was talking about the White House’s new threats to illegally seize and annex Greenland from Denmark, an act of war that could destroy NATO and risk military conflict with our longest-standing allies. The logic, though, explains the entire worldview animating the authoritarian faction. Power is self-justifying.

To believe that strength is an authority in itself — that the right to rule comes simply from the ability to seize it — is, it must be said, contrary to our country’s DNA. The U.S. was explicitly founded as a rejection of the unbroken line of monarchical rulers, stretching into antiquity. All of those kings’ authority rested on their ability to dominate others through strength, force, and power. We sought to assert the opposite, to be “a government of laws, not of men” as John Adams put it.

(…)

Our Constitution was and remains a powerful assertion that might does not make right. That authority comes delegated, temporarily, from the people. And that the legitimacy of our rulers comes not from their ability to dominate the people, but rather from their acquiescence to the limited authority we the people have granted.

Every single president before Donald Trump respected (or at least claimed to respect) that principle.

If Trump and Miller get their way, if they tip the world back into the pre-democracy paradigm of raw power and conflict, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, will die. In fact, we are already seeing the carnage. As Oona Hathaway writes:

Last year marked the 80th anniversary of the 1945 United Nations Charter, a document signed by 51 nations at the close of World War II. The signatories pledged to act “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” The great powers have not gone to war with one another since, and no U.N. member state has disappeared as a result of conquest.

But over the past decade, that peace has begun to unravel. Today, it is on the precipice of collapsing altogether. If that happens, the consequences will be catastrophic. We can already see the devastating cost: According to my calculations, from 1989 to 2014, battle-related deaths from cross-border conflicts averaged less than 15,000 a year. Beginning in 2014, the average has risen to over 100,000 a year. As states increasingly disregard limits on the lawful use of force, this may be just the beginning of a deadly new era of conflict.

At the same time, just because Trump and Miller believe that might is right, that does not make it so. There is a paradox to this view of power, one that makes this administration much weaker than it would appear — or claim — to be.

As much as the president aspires to rule through the right of force, he still does not. The Jan. 6 coup failed. We have reason to believe that similar coup attempts in the future would also fail (at least for now). Trump does not, even today, hold the sort of arbitrary power that he sought five years ago. Trump is in office because he won the 2024 election, not because he used violent force to try to take the 2020 election. This administration’s authority is still entirely on loan from the American people. It is still an administration, not a regency or dictatorship. Its authority comes from law, not force. (One small example: Recent legal wins blocking the administration’s use of force, particularly in Chicago, prove this to still be true.)

Donald Trump may have returned to the White House, but the broader effort to turn democracy into dictatorship is far, far from complete.

The real struggle is still ahead. The most important story of 2026 will be who decides the makeup of Congress starting next year: Will it be the American people, through lawful and democratic means, as it has been for two and a half centuries? Or will it be the people currently in power imposing their will on the rest of us, regardless of how we would vote?

This will be a difficult process. The administration is almost certain to use federal power to attack the midterm elections with the same lawless enthusiasm as the strike on Caracas. Their tactics will likely include — but not be limited to — armed law enforcement, National Guard, and federal troops.

The coming assertion of might over law and elections will only fail if it is resisted by a broad coalition of people committed to the principles of the Constitution.

Our task, the moral struggle of our time, is the same as it was in 1776. To prove that the power of law is greater than the power of men. To maintain our most precious heritage handed down, uninterrupted, for 250 years: a form of government where might does not automatically convey legitimacy. Where the people, not the king, are sovereign.

The full piece :

https://www.ifyoucankeepit.org/p/is-might-right