Bloody Hell what happened there.....................! The new Berlin wall.

Those of us who remember the Berlin Wall coming down, will also remember both the shock of the event, but also the hope that it conveyed. The shock stemmed from the belief that the post war, cold war certainties would last for ever. That the tensions between the Eastern block and Nato would not disappear.

We didn't really expect to see the end of it. But we did.

And this brought hope for the whole continent of Europe. Hope that we wouldn't blow each other up. Hope that the citizens of the eastern block would be able to live a free life, where they could express their views as boldly and as loudly they want, as part of the ongoing discussion all democratic societies have with themselves.

Without the fear of the knock on the door at night, to be dragged and beaten and if you were lucky, returned bruised, bloodied and scarred.

Of a new world order, gentler, less fearful of each other. Negotiating solutions to problems, not threatening them.

Ronald Reagan was the American President seen as responsible for engineering this. Many in Europe, particularly on the left distrusted him. They saw him as a bumbler, dangerous, liable to lead the west to a war no one could win. Rightly or wrongly history has been kinder. 

Not that he is now viewed as a political and strategic genius across the political spectrum, but the fall of the "evil empire" was generally seen as an welcome achievement, and one Ronnie helped engineer. 

He also didn't boast of sexually assaulting women.

The issues seemed clear, there were baddies and goodies and although we didn't always agree who they were in the main the Western Alliance remained strong and united. The fall of the Berlin wall seemed to confirm in very stark terms that the western model was the stronger. That the Soviet model was a dead end..

On the other side, leading the Eastern block was a new President, Mikhail Gorbachev, who understood early on that the USSR was not going to win. That its way of operating and controlling both industry, commerce and farming, alongside the oppression of its citizenry, was neither flexible enough or efficient enough to succeed in the longer term. 

So he opened up the country and the world came to understand that this was a new leader, open to modernising the USSR and having friendly relationships with the west. Domestically, his policy of glasnost "openness" allowed for the improvement of freedom of speech and a free press, while his perestroika "restructuring" sought to decentralise economic decision-making to improve its efficiency.

What he didn't understand was that ultimately the one party model of the Soviet Union itself had to change. That glasnost and perestroika were not enough.

And that the wall had to fall.

The world that they jointly bequeathed may not have been the one they expected but it lasted for the next 35 years. The west celebrated.

And a Francis Fukuyama wrote what appeared to some to be a celebratory book, arguing that the west had won because it had the more perfect model. "The end of History" was a title originating from a phrase used by French philosopher Antoine Augustin Cournot 1861 to refer to "the end of the historic dynamic, with the perfection of civil society."

The book immediately caused quite a stir. Many felt it was hubristic, with the author himself saying that those who interpreted his book in those terms were misunderstanding his argument.

The Russian State imploded. The oligarchs and gangsters took over and the population hoped for a new strong leader. And eventually chose Vladimir Putin.

Meanwhile the west faced a new enemy, Islamic fundamentalism and on September 11, 2001, planes full of passengers flew into the world trade centre and thousands of all nationalities were killed.

The USA, the first and only nation to do so, triggered article 5 of the NATO treaty, which called for collective defence and many in the West feel as if its been at war ever since. Another war consuming vast sums and sacrificing large numbers of its young men, not just American ones, in an attempt to beat Islamism.

So when Trump claims that Europe doesn't pull its weight, remember all that the US has contributed is money and weapons, Europe has sacrificed the lives of its young in defence of the USA.

Not everything is measured in Dollars and Cents.

Putin in Russia planned for and on the 22nd February 2022 launched the invasion of Ukraine. And more young men's lives were sacrificed. More women raped, more children killed, but it wasn't the quick victory Putin hoped for. They had underestimated the Ukrainian resolve and overestimated their own, and the war grinded on. It is estimated by the UN that Russia has suffered a million casualties with around 14400 killed.

There seemed no path to end the war.

Then on January 20th a Donald Trump was inaugurated for his second term as President of the United States, the most powerful man on the planet and the world held it's breath.

Trump was and is a thin skinned, morally dubious and not particularly intelligent man, who mocks the disabled and does boast of sexually assaulting women and who happened to be a close friend of Jeffrey Epstein a sex trafficker and convicted sex offender.

He is also a liar on an industrial scale.

He won power on the back of promising to kick out illegal immigrants. To impose Tariffs on nations he identified as trading unfairly with the USA, all supported by statistics that rarely bore any resemblance to the truth.

He termed all this as MAGA or Making America Great Again.

He also promised to stop the Ukrainian war. A war, remember, initiated by the Russians, led by a President careless of the lives of his own citizenry, never mind that of Ukraine.

His first six weeks have been almost unbelievable. He demanded of Denmark that Greenland be handed over to the States. He has tried to coerce Canada into becoming the 51st state of the USA. He now calls its Prime Minister, Governor Trudeau.

As if all this wasn't enough he has dubbed the President of Ukraine to be a Dictator, declared Ukraine to be the cause of the war, has thrown out a visiting head of state, simply because he didn't suck up to the Donald enough and is appearing to align the USA with Russia, including voting with them in the United Nations. He has also hinted that America may leave NATO.

This new world order he is creating is happening at a speed that takes the breath away.

This is a new, metaphorical, wall falling and like the original Berlin wall no one expected it. Unlike the first wall there is no justification for it, no one was asking for it, there was no political need for it. When the first wall fell, the images were of people desperately trying to remove a symbol of division and oppression.

When the second "wall" fell, the image this time was of an orange tinted man with a bad comb-over bullying and lying to a head of state, creating division and taking offence at Vladimir Zelensky's choice of clothes. The actions were unprecedented. Unbelievable.

And totally unjustified and without cause.

The new world order, so it will appear, will be based on the whims of a stupid, thin skinned, failed business man and ultimately it will be the Americans who will pay the price. Tariffs don't make a nation wealthier. Kicking out your workforce doesn't improve the economy. Treating your neighbours and allies as if they were untrustworthy supplicants doesn't make you stronger.

Its just more people will hate you. 

And where in all of this is the UK? Well since taking office in 2010, the Conservative Party, the party traditionally seen as been keen on proper defence, and certainly one that likes to portray itself as such, has been cutting spending on defence to such an extent that we no longer have an army other countries respect, one armed with rifles that are obsolete and ineffective, a navy not able to put together a proper carrier force for its aircraft carriers, or an air force with enough aeroplanes, with in 2023 a Senior American General dismissing the British Army as 'not a top level fighting force'.

And who can argue with that?

So many Americans don't see any particular benefit to the 'Special Relationship" with what they see as another NATO member failing to keep its end of the bargain. So whatever influence the UK believed it once had, has gone. Our opinions are not asked for, with our new PM now having to behave as supplicant when approaching the new Monarch, ready to flatter.

Well I'm going to take cover for the duration. Hope that the US recovers its sanity. Pray that Europe and Britain learn a lesson and prepare for a world without guaranteed US support. That the next Senate and House of Representative Elections in Nov 2026, result in a devastating Trump defeat and a severe curtailing of his authority.

And that Europe and the world doesn't implode into armed conflict.

Is that too much to ask?