Eighty years ago, Aldous Huxley wrote that “in the field of international politics the gravest decisions are always taken not by reasonable adults but by boy-gangsters.” This metaphor, from his essay Science, Liberty and Peace , implies an immature, yet violent and ruthless approach to power, where political loyalty is enforced through fear rather than democratic consensus.
Nationalist boy-gangsters have always headed up governments. These “adults” have behaved like fourteen-year-old adolescent boys who use their own gangs to elevate themselves to power. Huxley depicts a world where the law of the strongest puts the freedom of everybody else at risk. This “law of the jungle”—paired with the philosophy of “might makes right,” applies everywhere, be it a jungle, a desert, or a city.
Even in 1946, in his exploration of how nationalism and geopolitical games thrive at the expense of democracy and solidarity, Huxley predicts that oligarchs and despots will win over the majority. Rulers, he stresses, can justify imposing the most monstrous tyrannies on their subjects. Such tyrannical behaviour is also at the core of foreign policy today, with autocrats aiming to secure world domination on behalf of themselves and their gangs. “Advanced nations will spend vast sums upon armament research and the manufacture of new weapons capable of more indiscriminate destruction at ever greater distances,” Huxley confidently forecasted, only a year after the end of World War II. New Sheriff in Town In the civilized world, the assumption is that laws can limit force, that democracy must flourish, and some basic rules of conduct must be respected. The evidence today suggests that the world has either not reached that level of civilization or it is backpedalling quickly.
Militarization in Europe is in full swing while the European Union, wholeheartedly and yet abstractedly, speaks of international law without specifically mentioning the very precise laws that could directly sanction genocide in Gaza, the seizure of Palestinian land in the West Bank, Israeli strikes on Lebanon, U.S. attacks and kidnapping in Venezuela, Donald Trump’s threats to Greenland and Cuba, and the most recent attacks on Iran.
Donald Trump, a school example of the boy-gangster’s mentality, has no interest in democracy or with laws, U.S. or international, because they obviously do not reach him. He recognizes only the rules that suit his type of personality. In his own words, limits on his behavior cannot be set from the outside, for example by laws that only annoy him. Rather, he respects only his own personal moral judgments, such that they are. As the “new sheriff in town”—as Vice President JD Vance declared him—Trump is “demolishing the 80-year-old global order set up by Washington in the aftermath of the Second World War.”
After a year dedicated to attacks on his opponents—plus offenses given in all direction, promises offered and broken, contradictions, confusions, lies, blackmails, bullying, and threats—Trump decided to ignore the advice of everyone except his closest buddies in order to use a large portion of the U.S. arsenal to attack Iran. Those buddies have their own agendas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gets from Trump whatever he wants. JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are playing wait-and-see. And Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is enjoying every moment of his role playing the arrogant tough guy. The rest of the MAGA zombies are in a frenzy of adoration for their sheriff, in the blind way that only social psychology can explain. Toying with Cuba Cuba has been an ideological problem for the United States for decades. Today, its ties with Russia and China have frayed, and it poses no threat to anybody. But as an independent socialist country, it questions the doctrine that there is no alternative to capitalism. The country is portrayed as a dictatorship that constitutes an extraordinary threat to the United States because it sponsors or finances terrorism. However, U.S. intelligence claims otherwise. There is no credible evidence that Cuba hosts foreign military fighters.
Before he announced that he will control Cuba, one way or another, Trump demanded that South American states maintain a decisive blockade of the island, or else. In the past, when Che Guevara’s spirit was still alive in the region, his demand would be futile in many of these states. But today, a new set of right-wing leaders are in charge, and they willingly accepted Trump’s order. Other options exist for securing change in Cuba and improving its relationship with United States. Why they are not pursued is anybody’s guess.
Instead, the U.S. president is clear: “I’ll be having the honor of taking Cuba,” he said from the Oval Office. “That’s a big honor. Taking Cuba in some form.” He avoids “we” in favor of the omnipresent “I.”
Although many Americans still believe they live in the stronghold of democracy, the latest report from the Sweden-based Varieties of Democracy Institute argues that “The speed with which American democracy is currently dismantled is unprecedented in modern history… suppression and intimidation of media and dissenting voices is a key reason for the derailment of democracy.” According to the report, four of the five most populous countries in the world are autocracies (India, China, Indonesia, and Pakistan). And the fifth, the United States, is now an “electoral democracy,” having lost its status as a liberal democracy due to changes during President Donald Trump’s first year back in office. Bullies around the Gulf Pete Hegseth is guiding the U.S. military in its latest conflict in the Middle East. In an astonishing rejection of cool-headed diplomacy, he roars : Death and destruction from the sky all day long…This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be… They are toast and they know it. Or at least soon enough they will know it. America is winning – decisively, devastatingly and without mercy. Trump, of course, recognizes and likes this attitude.
When Israel decided to attack Iran, Trump joined in with a “why the hell not?” attitude. As a result, the Gulf is on fire, people are being killed, boats are stuck or damaged, world trade is endangered, oil and gas prices are soaring, and nobody seems to know what will come next. Like an obedient cheerleader for the boy-gangsters, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told the media: As President Trump has clearly and explicitly stated, he had strong and compelling evidence that Iran was going to attack the United States first. … As someone who witnesses President Trump’s decision-making process on a daily basis, I can attest to the fact that he is always looking to do what’s in the best interest of the United States of America — period. America First. It’s a rare voice that questions these assertions. One recent example is Joseph Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center. He said in his resignation letter to the president: We started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby… Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran. One way or another, he will pay for this. E dge of R eason Many citizens of Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran are unhappy with their regimes. But it is not up to self-proclaimed saviors from the outside to overthrow the leaders of those countries. Nor are Hamas and Hezbollah innocent actors. But that does not excuse the Israeli regime for indiscriminately killing civilians in Gaza, in Lebanon, and now, with the help of United States, in Iran.
Today, the boy-gangsters are playing with bombs. Donald Trump is a fine example of Huxley’s observation, certainly not the first or the only such example, but the one who pushed the concept to its limits.
But Donald Trump is also in a mess, though he’s unwilling to admit it. Netanyahu made him join the attack on Iran. Cuban-American Rubio is twisting his hand concerning his ancestral land. Putin is making a fool out of him in Ukraine.
All in all, Trump should be pitied if not for the fact that he really is a narcisistic, dangerous boy-gangster with a Nero complex. More than one Rome is currently burning, so no pity is due. Best simply to say good riddance to such “leadership,” the sooner the better.
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