Here’s the cold hard truth: Maga America won’t end with Trump, and we will soon fight a war with Russia – and it won’t go well.
Those are the views of one of the UK’s leading specialists in global politics, Professor Michael Clarke, the founding director of the Centre for Defence Studies. In a stark and often chilling talk to The Hexham Debates he spelt out just how bleak the future looks.
But there is hope. And one of them, he said, was that grassroots groups like Hexham Debates, indeed all progressive groups, ARE important – they can help change the world.
Professor Clarke advises both the government and the military. His talk at the first Hexham Debate of a new season was called ‘Five Dimensions of Global Challenge.’
Dangerous times ahead
He outlined dangerous times ahead. “We’re back to great power rivalries,” he said. “The liberal democracies are under pressure in a way I’ve never seen in my lifetime.”
It was clear, Professor Clarke said, that even before Trump’s latest tariffs over Greenland, Europe could no longer rely on America under its present leadership. And that the future of the NATO alliance in its current form was at risk.
“Is the US going to even be a democracy, that is the big question over the next ten years? MAGA Republicanism will go on long after Trump,” he said. “I’m certain America has already given up trying to lead democracies in the world. They’ve a different agenda, it’s Christian nationalism.
“They want a world where men are men and women know their place. And it’s fundamentally about white Americans, because its supporters are mostly white, yearning to be taken back to times like the 1930s and 40s.
“They seem to like Russia a lot. They like the orthodox Christianity they see in Russia and Hungary, or in the far-right in Germany. They’re against all international organisations which they see as too woke.
“They have also turned on Europe. The new US National Defence Strategy, published in November, makes that very clear. They don’t just oppose us and our way of life, they despise us. We’ve got to learn to live with that.”
Speaking about Russia, he said he had briefed both the government and the military that we would almost certainly soon be at war with Russia.
“I tell them we’re going to lose and they don’t like it,” he added. Professor Clarke said it was likely that a conflict would start in a small country such as Estonia, or Moldova.
“I think we are inevitably heading for a military confrontation, maybe it’ll be at sea. Whatever happens, I fear we won’t do very well. Putin will want to demonstrate that NATO is a paper tiger, that it can’t do anything.”
In the meantime, Professor Clarke said Russia would continue subversive tactics.
“They’ve trebled their activity in recent years. Acts of sabotage, cyber-attacks, all types.”
“We have a very timid government”
He continues: “Our government is not doing enough. Partly, I suspect because they don’t want to frighten people. We have a very timid Government.”
Professor Clarke also spoke about AI and robotics; how it was changing warfare and the impact it would have on our economies and jobs.
“Economically robotics linked to AI will make enormous efficiencies and, unless we do something about it, this will lead to structural unemployment. Trump is trying to combat this, as far as the US is concerned, with protectionism, but it will ultimately fail,” he said. He urged governments to take other steps to preserve jobs and re-deploy people.
But Professor Clarke did offer some salvation. He said that things could change for the better if the Democrats in America could win back seats in the US mid-term elections.
“If they can win the Senate and even the House of Representatives, that could make a big difference.”
Details of the next online Hexham Debate can be found on the Hexham Debates Facebook page here.
