We who live in the 2020s certainly live in curious times: exciting and eventful, and yet excruciatingly boring and empty. The Western liberal political class of the present ancièn regime acts out in ever more colourful ways in an illusory spectacle that just looks increasingly forced and repetitive to the theatre audience. To be frank and honest, at this time not a few of us just want the entire charade to end so that we can go home and continue our ordinary lives. Some unpolite members of the audience have even started boing at the actors, and yet nothing happens. It just goes on and on, scene after scene. The star actors may be replaced by lesser and more dull talents, but the show goes on.
Now, it is not surprising that a political class or elite clings to its power and position in society, particularly not one that owes its prestige and legitimacy from the same origin as the Western democracy, in which it was born and which it has heralded since over a century. Furthermore, unlike its aristocratic predecessors, the power claims of the Western political elites rest not only on outer democratic legitimacy, but also on its preference for meritocracy and the impeccable virtues it fosters. One may of course argue that these claims are false, for never in history has a political class risen to power by mere elections and never has pure merit been left untouched by the nepotistic practices of political dynasties. However, these arguments carry no more weight than the objection that theatre actors never are the role characters they are playing. What matters is the ability of Western politicians to act so to keep the democratic political spectacle going.
For generations Western politicians have shown that they are capable of acting convincingly, even in situations of wars and economic crises. In their own eyes this is largely the result of their merits as theatrical performers, but in fact it mostly depends on the qualities of the script that has been handed over to them by their political playwrights and casting directors, people like advisors, media-people, spin-doctors, etc. To the fortunes of any such political script belong that it must allow Western politicians to go to war only to defend democracy. Western wars are fought in the name of democracy, against tyrants, authoritarians, Nazis, communists, Islamists, etc. This is not only a way of preserving the democratic legitimacy of Western political elites, but also a means to keep them united over the Atlantic.
America can of course go to war for any purely “patriotic” reasons, as long as they serve its imperial interests. However, to be perceived as justified in the eyes of Western European allies and their electorates, US wars have to be presented in less parochial and more universalist terms. It is this which gives the Western political script its typical Atlanticist bent. Western Europeans are meant to like, or at least accept, US wars even if they have more to gain from staying neutral or even oppose them. The Atlanticist script is meant to filter out the patriotic dialect of the US wars, so that Western Europeans can read into them what they like to read: a story about a war that is (a) easy to win, (b) fought against an enemy of democracy and human rights, and (c) necessary to restore or preserve peace.
Rewriting US imperial wars looks like a thankless task. Western Europeans joined the war in Afghanistan (2001-2021), but soon found out that it was not easy to win. They were never convinced that the Iraq war (2003-2011) was needed to preserve peace, and they soon found it difficult to perceive Viet Cong as the enemy of democracy and human rights during the Vietnam war (1955-1975). The war in Libya (2011), which only needed slight re-editing to fit the dramaturgical requirements of a successful Atlanticist script, is an exception. US imperial wars are just, so it seems, impossible to stage on the Western political scene, at least not without tearing apart the sacred Atlanticist manuscript.
Yet, we know that Atlanticism was able to survive both the Vietnam war and the Iraq war, perhaps not untainted but still. Not just Atlanticism as a specifically military and political institution, built on a mutual stream of foreign investments, but as a shared sentiment of belonging to the same Western community of democracies. Surprisingly, America has been able to live through the ageing life cycle of its inevitable imperial wars without losing its credentials as star actor on the Western cultural and political scene. On the contrary, both the theatre ensemble and its audience have been steadily growing as a result of the expansion of EU after the downfall of the Berlin wall.
The Atlanticist script has always been able to give leading US politicians a sense of stardom, even when they fight wars that Western Europeans dislike. The key behind the successes of the Atlantic playwrights is their flexibility. Skilled in their trade, they know the art of reframing and darkening the character of their Western heroes. US presidents, which fight imperial wars that look inconvenient or unjust in the eyes of Western Europeans, can always be reframed. Their character is either darker than we first thought, or become darker as the wars unfold. These roles are typically scripted or casted for republican presidents, like Nixon, though occasionally also democratic presidents, like Kennedy, appear in these roles.
Scripting republican presidents for the roles as dark heroes and commanders of “ugly” imperial wars is more an issue of production economy than dramaturgy. Imperial wars that are costly and difficult to win take a lot of effort in terms of preparatory planning and logistics. Their success depends not only on decisions made by politicians and military people in Washington and Pentagon, but on investments by people in the oil, steel and weapons manufacturing industries. These latter people belong to a separate class of tycoon-like capitalists that Carl Oglesby once titled as “Cowboys”. As Cowboys they like republican presidents that are insiders to the oil and weapon industries, which explains why republican presidents more often than not are typecasted as the dark commanders of outdrawn imperial wars.
Nevertheless, none of this makes Democrats and progressives any less important in the Atlanticist script. On the contrary, Democrat Congressmen and progressive activists play a major supporting role in the US imperial war drama. The progressive or leftist students that protested against the Vietnam war and the Democrat Congressmen that voted nay to the Iraq war all contributed to Western European sentiment that “their” America would come back, that these wars were inconsistent with the democratic and humanitarian core values of the empire. On a purely ideal level of images, hopes, and desires, US liberals and progressives have, consciously or unconsciously, made it possible for Atlanticism to survive even under the pressure of such blows as the Vietnam war and the Iraq war. In their indispensable role as supporting actors, war opponents make it possible to put breaks on US imperial war efforts that may harm the interests of those East Coast “Yankee” interests in the high-tech and financial industry that rely on an unscattered Atlanticist relationship with Western Europe.
Superficially the present war in Ukraine (2022- ) looks like the perfect Atlanticist war, a righteous proxy war in which America and its NATO-allies fight against an authoritarian aggressor, namely Russia. The leading war hero of this Atlanticist drama – Volodymyr Zelensky – is even a professional actor. With their impressive display of indignation and moral fervour, it is also easy to cast Western politicians in their roles as supporting heroes. The trouble is that we expect more than verbal bravado from the supporting heroes. We expect that they are able to project physical strength in situations when the leading heroes are outnumbered by their evil enemies and simply cannot win in spite of their superior moral virtues. Without that strength the supporting heroes are no more than despicable weaklings destined to betray the leading heroes in their darkest hour.
The Western leaders’ clumsy and ill-prepared way of handling themselves in the Ukrainian war has certainly made it increasingly difficult to direct the war in according with the Atlanticist manuscript. What should have been the perfect Atlanticist war has become a nightmare, a ticking bomb of stagflation and irrevocable public discontent, ready to explode at any time in the hands of the Western political class.
Preserving the legacy of Atlanticism at this stage thus demands that the Ukrainian war is reframed as a dark war, a war that America perhaps needs to fight but internally revolts against since it contradicts its cultural identity as a Western country. On the dramaturgical premisses of the Atlanticist script, this means that the US president must be recast as a dark hero against which Americas liberals and progressives protest together with the war weary Western Europeans. However, with Joe Biden in the office as president this scenario is simply impossible. Biden has already been cast in the Lincoln-like role as the ultimate hero that stands between the US constitution and the MAGA-hordes of racist insurrectionists. No liberals or progressives will ever rally against a president of that stature, at least not just because of his performance as a war president.
As a result of the twisted dialectical logic of the war, the Atlanticist playwrights thus find themselves at a crossroads: they must either leave the Ukrainian war script as of February 2022, and save themselves from having to contest the beliefs of the angry crowds of anti-Trumpist liberals and progressives, or rewrite it in tune with the sentiments of the Western Europeans. Regardless, there will be large masses of voters and political activists, on either side of the Atlantic, which want to disassociate themselves from Atlanticism and the political class that defends it. The Atlanticist political class and its playwrights will increasingly become aware that they are damned if the do and damned if they don’t – hardly an enviable position.
Unless the Western political class wants to get stuck in a situation where they cannot rule any longer – a situation eerily similar to a revolutionary situation – they will have to push for a change. Only time can tell, but as things look right now, they will sacrifice Zelensky and his regime in Kiev. Far from being a conventional recasting of the Atlanticist war script, it will look less like a dark tragedy and more like a horror story, a story of humiliation, fear, and endless unfathomable anguish. A story that might save Atlanticism for the time being – however only at the expense of Western dignity and international influence.