Woodrow Wilson’s Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, dictated the 1924 “ambitious young Mexicans” memo. You know the line: open our universities to their élite, drench them in American values, and they’ll govern Mexico for us: better, cheaper, and without a single Marine. The method rings depressingly true today.
One hundred years after Lansing spelled out the blueprint, Germany has become its most perfected specimen. When Olaf Scholz’s cabinet greenlit the destruction of Nord Stream 2, an act of economic self-sabotage with no plausible strategic benefit for Germany, and Merz, now Chancellor, pledged never to use it again, they were betraying Germany. At the same time, they were fulfilling a biographical destiny forged out of their limited horizons, manufactured in Ivy League seminars, Pentagon workshops, and the velvet-lined chambers of the Atlantik-Brücke.
This is the story of an elite cohort trained to regard Atlanticism as synonymous with "Western civilization" itself. The costs: collapsing industrial output, energy poverty, and the specter of conscription, are borne by everyone else.
::: spoiler Introduction: The Madness and Its Method
Germany, an export titan that once closely guarded its economic sovereignty, now sacrifices its energy infrastructure, bankrolls long-range missiles (including the co-production of long-range weapons with Ukraine), and reverts to war-preparedness (so-called Kriegstüchtigkeit) as a virtue, while rehearsing mobilization plans for a NATO-Russia clash that would, first and foremost, churn German soil as the Operationsplan Deutschland lays out. This is a strategic realignment on a deeper level as a result of ideological automation. How else can we explain the enduring gap between public sentiment and elite decision-making?
A 2024 poll shows that 60 percent of Germans oppose further weapons deliveries to Ukraine. Yet Lars Klingbeil, SPD co-leader, vice-Chancellor, and Finance Minister, proclaims that for Germany to be “war-ready,” the Bundeswehr would need to be more attractive for potential conscripts, e.g., through the possibility of getting a driver's license for free from the federal government. Additionally, the coalition presses on with so-called strategic ambiguity.
These are the symptoms of a peculiar madness unfolding in Berlin. A nation that rebuilt itself from the ashes of war and division now willingly marches toward conflict with a nuclear-armed neighbor. The madness, however, follows a method.
Consider NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s recent proclamation at the 2025 summit:
"NATO is the most powerful defense alliance in world history—more powerful than the Roman Empire, more powerful than Napoleon’s empire… We must prevent Russian dominance because we value our way of life."
The historical illiteracy or obfuscation (depending on how we interpret Rutte’s statements) is staggering. Napoleon, like NATO today, justified continental domination as liberation. His invasion of Russia, a catastrophic failure, was framed as a preemptive strike against "aggressive" Tsarist expansion. The parallels write themselves.
Historian Jeff Rich, dissecting NATO’s Operation Spiderweb sabotage campaigns inside Russia, observed:
"NATO is the power base for elites who act in lockstep with U.S. geopolitical projection. When Rutte compares NATO to Napoleon, he forgets that Russia ultimately liberated Europe from that empire. Perhaps Russia will liberate Europe from the United States after this war."
What I’m trying to say is that this is not a conspiracy. It is institutionalized hegemony, operating through what Gramsci called the "cultural leadership" of a ruling class. But where Gramsci analyzed national elites vis-a-vis their fellow citizens, we now confront a transnational caste: German politicians like Jakob Schrot (more on him shortly), Dutch technocrats like Rutte (who recently called the current US president Trump “daddy” at the NATO summit that cements 5% defense spending), and French Eurocrats whose biographies, education, and career incentives align not with their citizens, but with the imperatives of keeping the project of US American unipolarity alive. The actions of these elites on the geopolitical chessboard are not just irrational; the governing elites are simply loyal to a different reference group.
:::
::: spoiler I. The riddle: Why are European elites torching their own house?
As we begin to see, the answer does not lie in pure and straightforward corruption or ideological fervor. It is far more banal and far more effective. The answer also lies in biographies, networks, and institutions. It also lies in hegemony on the level of the functional elite: when ruling ideas become common sense. And in this case, hegemony is not enforced solely through violence but through education, elite recruitment, and ritualized repetition.
Elite Knowledge Networks
Inderjeet Parmar (2019) terms this the soft machinery of elite knowledge networks: “flows of people, money, and ideas” that institutionalize consensus from Washington to Berlin. The Fulbright Program, the German Marshall Fund, Atlantik-Brücke, the Munich Security Conference, and the Bilderberg Meetings are formative ecosystems. They sort, school, and elevate those who can carry the worldview forward.
Critically, these networks are not passive forums. They are “American elites’ essential power technology”: a mode of knowledge production and personnel selection that is spectacularly successful at reproducing a pro-U.S. worldview globally. Elite socialization in itself is not a benign process. It hardwires assumptions, defines what is politically imaginable, and naturalizes asymmetry.
The World Order
The liberal international order, which underlies these elites’ worldviews, far from being universalist, is built on a double logic. As Donald Tusk, former president of the European Council, candidly admitted in 2017 during the first Trump administration, the very purpose of Euro-Atlanticism is to prevent a post-West world order:
Tomorrow I am meeting President Trump and I will try to convince him that euroatlantism is primarily cooperation of the free for the sake of freedom; that if we want to prevent the scenario that has already been named by our opponents not so long ago in Munich as the “post-West world order”, we should watch over our legacy of freedom together.
Within this system, inclusion is selective. Japan and South Korea, despite their loyalty, were never treated like Western Europe. And rising powers are either domesticated, coaxed to conform, or contained as threats. This logic is foundational: if incorporation fails, containment must follow.
Yet containment begins with minds, not missiles. The ideological assimilation of foreign elites is the first line of imperial defense. Thus, the maintenance of hegemony relies less on coercion than on soft incorporation. Elite knowledge networks, embedded in university programs, philanthropic foundations, and think tanks, act as vectors for this soft power. They socialize, recruit, and certify rising leaders.
Elite Integration Machines
As Parmar notes, these networks define what counts as “thinkable thought” and “askable questions.” The Ford and Rockefeller foundations, RAND Corporation, Brookings, the Carnegie Endowment, and the Center for American Progress are elite integration machines where, through these processes of integration and socialization, a certain type of knowledge becomes power. Thus, a Fulbright or Atlantik-Brücke lapel pin becomes an all-access badge to Brussels and DC and the surest way to “belong.”
Yet this ecosystem is not the whole planet. A 2016 study by Eelke Heemskerk and Frank Takes, mapping 400,000 board interlocks, shows that the densest transnational elite cluster still resides on the North-Atlantic axis. The Asian corporate elite, by contrast, forms a separate, far less entangled community, structurally poised to build its own power base and perhaps an alternative, Sino-centric capitalism. The more Asia’s networks remain self-insulated, the greater the risk (in Euro-Atlantic elites’ eyes) of a genuine “post-West world order.”
In other words, Western think-tank pipelines are about pre-empting that divergence and protecting their elite sphere.
European elites are not merely influenced by the United States. Through this system, they are formatted, professionally shaped, and ideologically tethered to it. Of course, not wholly or completely, as if they had no autonomy at all or as if national history had no bearing on these elites, yet, each of these European nations' characteristics will give a unique flavor to the transatlantic worldview that informs their policies.
The result: U.S. foreign policy goals are not simply imposed on Berlin; they are voiced from within.
:::
::: spoiler II. The Hegemonic Architecture: How Elite Capture Works
The liberal order sells itself as universal, yet those who join must accept the (publicly) unspoken rulebook. Those who do not join will be contained and encircled by a permanent U.S. military presence. In other words, the imperial core preserves its status by socializing other elites into its worldview rather than merely coercing them. Now, we’ll take a look at those elite integration machines (in particular, by analyzing the transatlantic ties of Germany and German functional elites)
[...]
By the 1990s, every German party foundation ran a “Transatlantic Desk.” SWP staff circulated through the Munich Security Conference; DGAP fellows sat on the German Marshall Fund selection jury; editors at Der Spiegel and Die Zeit (an important newspaper in Germany) collected Atlantik‑Brücke alumni pins. The network matured into a seamless funnel: from university to party headquarters to boardroom to NATO off‑site. Ultimately, once U.S. validation becomes the yardstick of professional esteem, deviation is almost an act of self‑harm.
The architecture normalizes apparently suicidal choices. Shutting down cheap Russian pipeline gas is painful for BASF, but it sustains the reputational capital of everyone who holds an Atlantic fellowship. That internal incentive often outweighs national balance‑sheet logic.
What’s more: the think tank represents the forces that drive the global political economy, at least in its Western iteration. Still, geopolitical analysis today tends to be biased toward nation-states and their political actors. It is often through such networks of privately funded and influenced governance that the gap between the nation-state and global markets is filled
[...]
The machinery of elite capture operates on both the social group level and the individual biography level. And it is both simple and effective: a single prestige pipeline throughout one’s life and career from a Fulbright scholarship to a German Marshall Fund fellowship to an Atlantik-Brücke affiliation, and/or think-tank memberships. Such a career ladder has monopolized the symbolic capital required to ascend in Berlin’s foreign policy elite. The first cohort entered the system in the 1960s, but it achieved full self-replication after reunification. Today, many members of Merz’s cabinet boast U.S. State Department-funded fellowships, embassy internships, Atlantik-Brücke affiliations, or similar transatlantic ties; some hold board seats at Washington-aligned institutions, such as the Atlantic Council.
French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s framework reveals how the engineered life paths of these elites perpetuate themselves:
When one pathway dominates (the U.S. fellowship ladder), the field’s imagination of what is possible (in terms of actions and policies) atrophies. Embodied cultural capital (fluent Hill English, a Georgetown lanyard) converts into social capital (alumni networks), which crystallizes as symbolic capital (media legitimacy).
Dissent isn’t debated. It is rendered invisible and only actively excluded if it becomes too visible and loud. Such a hegemonic system, operating on a smaller scale among political elites, functions like a theological seminary, where deviation marks heresy and compliance brings canonization.
What is the most insidious feature of this elite socialization machine? It’s the question of time. The ideal pathway starts in adolescence, during the formative years when political worldviews congeal. Programs like:
Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange (CBYX)
Global Young Leaders Conference (GYLC)
target teens as young as 16, immersing them in Model NATO war games and U.S. Embassy "leadership training."
By the time these students enter university, their horizons are already narrowed. A 19-year-old returning from a State Department-funded summer at American University brings back English fluency (hopefully). Above all, they internalize a hierarchy of legitimacy: Washington’s priorities are neutral, universal, and common sense. Alternative modes of thinking about foreign policy, such as non-alignment, détente, and Eurasian trade, are filtered out as extremist or naïve.
This is ideological imprinting and the psychological construction of hegemony at the individual level. The result is a generation of political elites whose biographies read like U.S. State Department training manuals. The tragedy is that by the time these groomed elites reach positions of power in politics, media, or corporations, their compliance feels natural. They do not serve American interests because they are coerced; they do so because they cannot conceive of another way.
The abstract models I just presented here become clearer when we zoom out on a single national hub. Germany’s Atlantik-Brücke offers a textbook case
:::
[Parts III-VI Continued in article]
::: spoiler Conclusions & Closing Notes: Hegemony or Survival
The Operational Outcome: A Closed Epistemic Universe
This assembly line produces policy alignment. But more importantly, it manufactures a shared perceptual prison. When a majority of Germany and also Europe’s political elites pass through the same U.S. programs:
Their cognitive boundaries shrink: détente becomes “appeasement.” Neutrality equals "collaboration". Energy deals with Russia are "geopolitical treason"
Their emotional responses are conditioned: A Pentagon official’s frown sparks more fear than voter anger. The Economist’s approval feels more valuable than domestic polling.
Their imagination atrophies: They cannot fathom alternatives like OSCE-based security architectures. They dismiss China’s rise as a "temporary deviation" from U.S. unipolarity.
Worst of all, they (possibly) don’t experience this as coercion. By the time they enter office, Atlanticism has become political common sense, as instinctive as breathing
[...]
The evidence traced across foundations, think-tank pipelines, and invitation-only conclaves leaves little doubt: the trans-Atlantic elite project is hard-wired for self-preservation.
Its cultural hegemony obliges Europe to underwrite a U.S.-centred imperium and the elites of all its allied countries, even when that imperium sabotages Europe’s material interests. Hegemonies rarely collapse out of ethical embarrassment; they yield only when external pressures or domestic ruptures make compliance more costly than defiance. One of three things (or all of these together) could put a dent in this machinery:
Narrative Rupture from Below:
Organised refusal, whether through mass strikes, boycotts, electoral realignments, or sustained media counter-campaigns, can delegitimize the war-economy consensus and make Atlantic allegiance politically toxic.
Systemic Shock from Outside:
A decisive loss of U.S. financial or military primacy (for instance, a petrodollar fracture or a failed proxy war) would compel European elites to reassess their allegiances.
Accountability from Above:
Nuremberg-style tribunals, however improbable today, remain the one mechanism that historically deters elite adventurism by attaching personal risk to strategic folly.
Every rung in their career ladder has normalized the next escalation. Contemporary European leaders do not consciously choose perpetual war; they inherit it as the safest path within an ecosystem that equates Atlantic conformity with professional legitimacy.
Replacing personalities will not suffice. The task is to dismantle the biographical assembly line that begins with foundation-funded youth exchanges, runs through think-tank fellowships, and terminates in cabinet offices or corporate boards. Unless that conveyor belt is broken or at least diversified beyond the Atlantic echo chamber, any “fresh faces” will replicate the same strategic reflexes.
The alternative is stark: witness your nation bleed in service of another’s empire’s elites or reclaim the capacity to decide its own future.
The choice, then, is no longer between status quo and reform, but between hegemony and survival. The window for peaceful de-alignment may be closing, but it has not yet slammed shut. Learning from history offers no guarantees, but it offers opportunities for interruption.
cfgaussian in geopolitics
Elite Capture & European Self-Destruction: The Hidden Architecture of Transatlantic Hegemony
https://themindness.substack.com/p/elite-capture-and-european-self-destructionWoodrow Wilson’s Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, dictated the 1924 “ambitious young Mexicans” memo. You know the line: open our universities to their élite, drench them in American values, and they’ll govern Mexico for us: better, cheaper, and without a single Marine. The method rings depressingly true today.
One hundred years after Lansing spelled out the blueprint, Germany has become its most perfected specimen. When Olaf Scholz’s cabinet greenlit the destruction of Nord Stream 2, an act of economic self-sabotage with no plausible strategic benefit for Germany, and Merz, now Chancellor, pledged never to use it again, they were betraying Germany. At the same time, they were fulfilling a biographical destiny forged out of their limited horizons, manufactured in Ivy League seminars, Pentagon workshops, and the velvet-lined chambers of the Atlantik-Brücke.
This is the story of an elite cohort trained to regard Atlanticism as synonymous with "Western civilization" itself. The costs: collapsing industrial output, energy poverty, and the specter of conscription, are borne by everyone else.
::: spoiler Introduction: The Madness and Its Method
Germany, an export titan that once closely guarded its economic sovereignty, now sacrifices its energy infrastructure, bankrolls long-range missiles (including the co-production of long-range weapons with Ukraine), and reverts to war-preparedness (so-called Kriegstüchtigkeit) as a virtue, while rehearsing mobilization plans for a NATO-Russia clash that would, first and foremost, churn German soil as the Operationsplan Deutschland lays out. This is a strategic realignment on a deeper level as a result of ideological automation. How else can we explain the enduring gap between public sentiment and elite decision-making?
A 2024 poll shows that 60 percent of Germans oppose further weapons deliveries to Ukraine. Yet Lars Klingbeil, SPD co-leader, vice-Chancellor, and Finance Minister, proclaims that for Germany to be “war-ready,” the Bundeswehr would need to be more attractive for potential conscripts, e.g., through the possibility of getting a driver's license for free from the federal government. Additionally, the coalition presses on with so-called strategic ambiguity.
These are the symptoms of a peculiar madness unfolding in Berlin. A nation that rebuilt itself from the ashes of war and division now willingly marches toward conflict with a nuclear-armed neighbor. The madness, however, follows a method.
Consider NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s recent proclamation at the 2025 summit:
The historical illiteracy or obfuscation (depending on how we interpret Rutte’s statements) is staggering. Napoleon, like NATO today, justified continental domination as liberation. His invasion of Russia, a catastrophic failure, was framed as a preemptive strike against "aggressive" Tsarist expansion. The parallels write themselves.
Historian Jeff Rich, dissecting NATO’s Operation Spiderweb sabotage campaigns inside Russia, observed:
What I’m trying to say is that this is not a conspiracy. It is institutionalized hegemony, operating through what Gramsci called the "cultural leadership" of a ruling class. But where Gramsci analyzed national elites vis-a-vis their fellow citizens, we now confront a transnational caste: German politicians like Jakob Schrot (more on him shortly), Dutch technocrats like Rutte (who recently called the current US president Trump “daddy” at the NATO summit that cements 5% defense spending), and French Eurocrats whose biographies, education, and career incentives align not with their citizens, but with the imperatives of keeping the project of US American unipolarity alive. The actions of these elites on the geopolitical chessboard are not just irrational; the governing elites are simply loyal to a different reference group.
:::
::: spoiler I. The riddle: Why are European elites torching their own house?
As we begin to see, the answer does not lie in pure and straightforward corruption or ideological fervor. It is far more banal and far more effective. The answer also lies in biographies, networks, and institutions. It also lies in hegemony on the level of the functional elite: when ruling ideas become common sense. And in this case, hegemony is not enforced solely through violence but through education, elite recruitment, and ritualized repetition.
Elite Knowledge Networks
Inderjeet Parmar (2019) terms this the soft machinery of elite knowledge networks: “flows of people, money, and ideas” that institutionalize consensus from Washington to Berlin. The Fulbright Program, the German Marshall Fund, Atlantik-Brücke, the Munich Security Conference, and the Bilderberg Meetings are formative ecosystems. They sort, school, and elevate those who can carry the worldview forward.
Critically, these networks are not passive forums. They are “American elites’ essential power technology”: a mode of knowledge production and personnel selection that is spectacularly successful at reproducing a pro-U.S. worldview globally. Elite socialization in itself is not a benign process. It hardwires assumptions, defines what is politically imaginable, and naturalizes asymmetry.
The World Order
The liberal international order, which underlies these elites’ worldviews, far from being universalist, is built on a double logic. As Donald Tusk, former president of the European Council, candidly admitted in 2017 during the first Trump administration, the very purpose of Euro-Atlanticism is to prevent a post-West world order:
Within this system, inclusion is selective. Japan and South Korea, despite their loyalty, were never treated like Western Europe. And rising powers are either domesticated, coaxed to conform, or contained as threats. This logic is foundational: if incorporation fails, containment must follow.
Yet containment begins with minds, not missiles. The ideological assimilation of foreign elites is the first line of imperial defense. Thus, the maintenance of hegemony relies less on coercion than on soft incorporation. Elite knowledge networks, embedded in university programs, philanthropic foundations, and think tanks, act as vectors for this soft power. They socialize, recruit, and certify rising leaders.
Elite Integration Machines
As Parmar notes, these networks define what counts as “thinkable thought” and “askable questions.” The Ford and Rockefeller foundations, RAND Corporation, Brookings, the Carnegie Endowment, and the Center for American Progress are elite integration machines where, through these processes of integration and socialization, a certain type of knowledge becomes power. Thus, a Fulbright or Atlantik-Brücke lapel pin becomes an all-access badge to Brussels and DC and the surest way to “belong.”
Yet this ecosystem is not the whole planet. A 2016 study by Eelke Heemskerk and Frank Takes, mapping 400,000 board interlocks, shows that the densest transnational elite cluster still resides on the North-Atlantic axis. The Asian corporate elite, by contrast, forms a separate, far less entangled community, structurally poised to build its own power base and perhaps an alternative, Sino-centric capitalism. The more Asia’s networks remain self-insulated, the greater the risk (in Euro-Atlantic elites’ eyes) of a genuine “post-West world order.”
In other words, Western think-tank pipelines are about pre-empting that divergence and protecting their elite sphere.
European elites are not merely influenced by the United States. Through this system, they are formatted, professionally shaped, and ideologically tethered to it. Of course, not wholly or completely, as if they had no autonomy at all or as if national history had no bearing on these elites, yet, each of these European nations' characteristics will give a unique flavor to the transatlantic worldview that informs their policies.
The result: U.S. foreign policy goals are not simply imposed on Berlin; they are voiced from within.
:::
::: spoiler II. The Hegemonic Architecture: How Elite Capture Works
The liberal order sells itself as universal, yet those who join must accept the (publicly) unspoken rulebook. Those who do not join will be contained and encircled by a permanent U.S. military presence. In other words, the imperial core preserves its status by socializing other elites into its worldview rather than merely coercing them. Now, we’ll take a look at those elite integration machines (in particular, by analyzing the transatlantic ties of Germany and German functional elites)
[...]
By the 1990s, every German party foundation ran a “Transatlantic Desk.” SWP staff circulated through the Munich Security Conference; DGAP fellows sat on the German Marshall Fund selection jury; editors at Der Spiegel and Die Zeit (an important newspaper in Germany) collected Atlantik‑Brücke alumni pins. The network matured into a seamless funnel: from university to party headquarters to boardroom to NATO off‑site. Ultimately, once U.S. validation becomes the yardstick of professional esteem, deviation is almost an act of self‑harm.
The architecture normalizes apparently suicidal choices. Shutting down cheap Russian pipeline gas is painful for BASF, but it sustains the reputational capital of everyone who holds an Atlantic fellowship. That internal incentive often outweighs national balance‑sheet logic.
What’s more: the think tank represents the forces that drive the global political economy, at least in its Western iteration. Still, geopolitical analysis today tends to be biased toward nation-states and their political actors. It is often through such networks of privately funded and influenced governance that the gap between the nation-state and global markets is filled
[...]
The machinery of elite capture operates on both the social group level and the individual biography level. And it is both simple and effective: a single prestige pipeline throughout one’s life and career from a Fulbright scholarship to a German Marshall Fund fellowship to an Atlantik-Brücke affiliation, and/or think-tank memberships. Such a career ladder has monopolized the symbolic capital required to ascend in Berlin’s foreign policy elite. The first cohort entered the system in the 1960s, but it achieved full self-replication after reunification. Today, many members of Merz’s cabinet boast U.S. State Department-funded fellowships, embassy internships, Atlantik-Brücke affiliations, or similar transatlantic ties; some hold board seats at Washington-aligned institutions, such as the Atlantic Council.
French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s framework reveals how the engineered life paths of these elites perpetuate themselves:
When one pathway dominates (the U.S. fellowship ladder), the field’s imagination of what is possible (in terms of actions and policies) atrophies. Embodied cultural capital (fluent Hill English, a Georgetown lanyard) converts into social capital (alumni networks), which crystallizes as symbolic capital (media legitimacy).
Dissent isn’t debated. It is rendered invisible and only actively excluded if it becomes too visible and loud. Such a hegemonic system, operating on a smaller scale among political elites, functions like a theological seminary, where deviation marks heresy and compliance brings canonization.
What is the most insidious feature of this elite socialization machine? It’s the question of time. The ideal pathway starts in adolescence, during the formative years when political worldviews congeal. Programs like:
Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange (CBYX)
Global Young Leaders Conference (GYLC)
target teens as young as 16, immersing them in Model NATO war games and U.S. Embassy "leadership training."
By the time these students enter university, their horizons are already narrowed. A 19-year-old returning from a State Department-funded summer at American University brings back English fluency (hopefully). Above all, they internalize a hierarchy of legitimacy: Washington’s priorities are neutral, universal, and common sense. Alternative modes of thinking about foreign policy, such as non-alignment, détente, and Eurasian trade, are filtered out as extremist or naïve.
This is ideological imprinting and the psychological construction of hegemony at the individual level. The result is a generation of political elites whose biographies read like U.S. State Department training manuals. The tragedy is that by the time these groomed elites reach positions of power in politics, media, or corporations, their compliance feels natural. They do not serve American interests because they are coerced; they do so because they cannot conceive of another way.
The abstract models I just presented here become clearer when we zoom out on a single national hub. Germany’s Atlantik-Brücke offers a textbook case
:::
[Parts III-VI Continued in article]
::: spoiler Conclusions & Closing Notes: Hegemony or Survival
The Operational Outcome: A Closed Epistemic Universe
This assembly line produces policy alignment. But more importantly, it manufactures a shared perceptual prison. When a majority of Germany and also Europe’s political elites pass through the same U.S. programs:
Their cognitive boundaries shrink: détente becomes “appeasement.” Neutrality equals "collaboration". Energy deals with Russia are "geopolitical treason"
Their emotional responses are conditioned: A Pentagon official’s frown sparks more fear than voter anger. The Economist’s approval feels more valuable than domestic polling.
Their imagination atrophies: They cannot fathom alternatives like OSCE-based security architectures. They dismiss China’s rise as a "temporary deviation" from U.S. unipolarity.
Worst of all, they (possibly) don’t experience this as coercion. By the time they enter office, Atlanticism has become political common sense, as instinctive as breathing
[...]
The evidence traced across foundations, think-tank pipelines, and invitation-only conclaves leaves little doubt: the trans-Atlantic elite project is hard-wired for self-preservation.
Its cultural hegemony obliges Europe to underwrite a U.S.-centred imperium and the elites of all its allied countries, even when that imperium sabotages Europe’s material interests. Hegemonies rarely collapse out of ethical embarrassment; they yield only when external pressures or domestic ruptures make compliance more costly than defiance. One of three things (or all of these together) could put a dent in this machinery:
Narrative Rupture from Below: Organised refusal, whether through mass strikes, boycotts, electoral realignments, or sustained media counter-campaigns, can delegitimize the war-economy consensus and make Atlantic allegiance politically toxic.
Systemic Shock from Outside: A decisive loss of U.S. financial or military primacy (for instance, a petrodollar fracture or a failed proxy war) would compel European elites to reassess their allegiances.
Accountability from Above: Nuremberg-style tribunals, however improbable today, remain the one mechanism that historically deters elite adventurism by attaching personal risk to strategic folly.
Every rung in their career ladder has normalized the next escalation. Contemporary European leaders do not consciously choose perpetual war; they inherit it as the safest path within an ecosystem that equates Atlantic conformity with professional legitimacy.
Replacing personalities will not suffice. The task is to dismantle the biographical assembly line that begins with foundation-funded youth exchanges, runs through think-tank fellowships, and terminates in cabinet offices or corporate boards. Unless that conveyor belt is broken or at least diversified beyond the Atlantic echo chamber, any “fresh faces” will replicate the same strategic reflexes.
The alternative is stark: witness your nation bleed in service of another’s empire’s elites or reclaim the capacity to decide its own future.
The choice, then, is no longer between status quo and reform, but between hegemony and survival. The window for peaceful de-alignment may be closing, but it has not yet slammed shut. Learning from history offers no guarantees, but it offers opportunities for interruption.
:::