{"id":280812,"date":"2024-11-25T12:00:48","date_gmt":"2024-11-25T12:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=280812"},"modified":"2024-11-21T06:26:39","modified_gmt":"2024-11-21T06:26:39","slug":"trump-will-exploit-fear-of-russia-to-dominate-europes-security-policies-says-academic-maung-zarni","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/11\/trump-will-exploit-fear-of-russia-to-dominate-europes-security-policies-says-academic-maung-zarni\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Will Exploit Fear of Russia to Dominate Europe\u2019s Security Policies, Says Academic Maung Zarni"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><em>\u2018US policy towards Europe will be anchored in the attempt to make Europeans feel insecure about Russia.\u2019 <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Trump will not pull out of NATO because \u2018the American economy is also very much benefiting from massive military and war spending,\u2019 says Zarni.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Aligning with US support for Israel\u2019s genocide in Gaza will cause \u2018major internal societal upheavals\u2019 in some European nations, warns activist.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>18 Nov 2024 &#8211;\u00a0<\/em>US policies toward Europe under President-elect Donald Trump will aim to \u201ccontinue to control, dictate and dominate European politics with respect to security,\u201d according to a British academic and human rights activist.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe new Trump administration is taking its gloves off,\u201d Maung Zarni said in an interview with Anadolu.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe US policy towards Europe will be anchored in the Americans\u2019 attempt to make Europeans feel insecure about Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said there is already a rising \u201csense of anxiety and insecurity\u201d because Russia \u201chas been made to look like a serious threat.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The narrative propagated has been that Russian President Vladimir Putin \u201cwill invade and snatch European countries on the eastern side of Europe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, that is the main driver,\u201d added Zarni.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Will US pull out of NATO?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>One of the main sources of tension between the Trump-led US and Europe could be the future of NATO.<\/p>\n<p>Zarni pointed out that Trump, during his first term from 2017 to 2021, repeatedly threatened to abandon NATO, terming the alliance \u201cobsolete.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, he believes that Trump\u2019s posturing and threats have little substance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTrump\u2019s rhetoric that he will dismantle NATO and let Putin do whatever he wants with Europe is really scaremongering, because the US, its economy and its influence has largely been based on the war machine,\u201d said Zarni.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn his first administration, Trump had to make repeated threats, preying on the European sense of insecurity without the American security umbrella.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Neither of the EU\u2019s two leading members, France and Germany, \u201cfeels capable of defending itself in the unlikely event of war with Russia,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>He said the \u201cAmerican military establishment is too big for Trump and his advisors to come in and say: \u2018We\u2019re going to pull out of NATO, or we will dismantle NATO.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s not going to happen, because \u2026 the American economy is also very much benefiting from massive military and war spending, and so billions and billions of dollars have always come back to the US arms industry,\u201d he asserted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt will be against the American interest to sever ties with NATO.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gaza genocide and \u2018major internal societal upheavals\u2019 in Europe<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Zarni thinks that the situation in Gaza and the ongoing genocide by Israel will be a test for ties between the Trump administration and some European governments facing backlash from their own public.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe conflict is going to be the reality that Israel is making on the ground by expansion of land, and now they\u2019re officially, openly talking about annexing the West Bank,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTrump, we have to remember, is also a businessman. His own family, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has been involved in investing millions and millions of US dollars into real estate developments. This is the guy who talked about Gaza, in the middle of a genocide, as \u2018prime real estate,\u2019 \u2018seafront properties.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, I think Trump is also going to benefit from bringing a brutal end to the Israeli genocide, and letting real estate developers from New York and other places to go in and invest billions of dollars in the land where Palestinians have been killed by the thousands.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Such a policy will \u201ccreate major disruptions across European countries like Germany, Netherlands, France, where there is a sizable population of the Palestinians and other Arab diaspora,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is a considerable segment of Europeans \u2026 who have a conscience and who have compassion for the Palestinian people and what they are going through,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>In countries like the UK, Spain and other Scandinavian nations, there has been a \u201cmassive outpouring of support for Palestinian people\u2019s liberation,\u201d said Zarni.<\/p>\n<p>Those people and civil society networks and movements are \u201cnot going to just simply lie down and let their governments go along with Trump\u2019s authorization or backing of Israel taking over the entire Palestine,\u201d he emphasized.<\/p>\n<p>All these Israeli actions are \u201copenly and blatantly against repeated United Nations resolutions, (UN) General Assembly resolutions that call for a withdrawal from the occupied territories and the removal of all the settlements,\u201d the activist added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s going to create major internal societal upheavals within European society.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>___________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/maung-zarni-e1615263170611.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-165795\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/maung-zarni-e1615263170611.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"113\" \/><\/a> A Buddhist humanist from Burma (Myanmar), Maung Zarni, nominated for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize, is a member of the <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/\" >TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a><em>, former Visiting Lecturer with Harvard Medical School, specializing in racism and violence in Burma and Sri Lanka, and Non-resident Scholar in Genocide Studies with Documentation Center \u2013 Cambodia.\u00a0Zarni is the co-founder of <\/em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/forsea.co\/\" >FORSEA<\/a><em>, a grass-roots organization of Southeast Asian human rights defenders, coordinator for Strategic Affairs for <\/em>Free Rohingya Coalition,<em> and an adviser to the <\/em>European Centre for the Study of Extremism<em>, Cambridge<strong>. <\/strong>Zarni holds a PhD (U Wisconsin at Madison) and a MA (U California), and has held various teaching, research and visiting fellowships at the universities in Asia, Europe and USA including Oxford, LSE, UCL Institute of Education, National-Louis, Malaya, and Brunei. He is the recipient of the &#8220;Cultivation of Harmony&#8221; award from the Parliament of the World&#8217;s Religions (2015). His analyses have appeared in leading newspapers including the <\/em>New York Times, The Guardian <em>and<\/em> the Times<em>. Among his academic publications on Rohingya genocide are <\/em>The Slow-Burning Genocide of Myanmar\u2019s Rohingyas<em> (Pacific Rim Law and Policy Journal), <\/em>An Evolution of Rohingya Persecution in Myanmar: From Strategic Embrace to Genocide<em>, (Middle East Institute, American University), and <\/em>Myanmar\u2019s State-directed Persecution of Rohingyas and Other Muslims<em> (Brown World Affairs Journal). He co-authored, with Natalie Brinham, <\/em>Essays on Myanmar Genocide.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aa.com.tr\/en\/americas\/trump-will-exploit-fear-of-russia-to-dominate-europe-s-security-policies-scholar\/3396802\" >Go to Original &#8211; aa.com.tr<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>18 Nov 2024 &#8211; &#8220;US policy towards Europe will be anchored in the attempt to make Europeans feel insecure about Russia. I think it\u2019s going to create major internal societal upheavals within European society.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":170241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[1268,654,253,278,249,70],"class_list":["post-280812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","tag-european-union","tag-foreign-policy","tag-putin","tag-russia","tag-trump","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280812"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":280814,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280812\/revisions\/280814"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}