Google AI, the 21st Century’s omniscient man on the Clapham omnibus, defines a “rogue state” as: a country that is considered a threat to world peace.” It continues: “Rogue states are often seen as dangerous to other nations, and may disregard international norms.”
Remind you of anyone?
Shockingly Donald Trump’s insane new version of America currently ticks all three of those boxes, and more.
The modern concept of the rogue state was broadly fashioned by US security and defence services who were looking to label the perceived new threats to America as the Cold War certainties came to a close with the fall of the Berlin Wall.
But the phrase really only gained traction in the mouths of George W Bush and his Secretary of State Colin Powell after the 9/11 atrocity in 2001.
It was aimed at the so-called Axis of Evil, Iran, Iraq and of course North Korea. Russia got a bye for a little while as Moscow had, or so we naively thought, clearly been tamed and was obviously going to be joining the happy clappy democratic family of nations.
As it turned out Glasnost was but Russia taking a breath to regroup and turn Bond-villain once more. So she was pretty quickly back on the naughty step and made a permanent member of the Axis of Evil as it became clear murderous genocidal criminal Vladimir Putin was actually intent on rebuilding the old Soviet Union but this time with himself as Tzar.
So that was that – there was “them” and there was “us”.
The bad guys in the East and the good guys in the West – with the USA as the shining light, the mega-money, mega-power with an unerring liberal democracy at its heart.
But after a week of madness, a week which has shaken the civilised world to its core, the USA now has to be added to the Axis of Evil, literally by its own definitions.
Threat to world peace? You better believe it. Trump’s pivot to Red Square over Ukraine makes him a useful idiot beyond Putin’s wildest dreams. Putin is a thousand times smarter than Trump and frankly a thousand times more evil. Every time things get tough at home he reaches for the Machiavelli playbook and starts a war. Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea and Ukraine.
And with Trump having just triggered a new arms race – with Europe and Britain at its heart – things are about to get very tough indeed for Mr Putin.
The Russian economy is in no shape to even begin to compete with the sums being bandied about by European leaders for re-arming- so the next few years might be a very bad time to be Estonia, Latvia, Moldova or Lithuania.
It’s hard to overstate how fundamentally the world has just changed. This is Europe’s Pearl Harbour – a wake-up call that the world is not benign, the “friendly nation” veneer is desperately thin, and the only thing you can depend on with absolute certainty is a nuclear-tipped ICBM.
It is interesting to note however that the massive boost in productivity desperately needed by the UK and Europe – which Rachel Reeves was never going to provide – might just have turned-up courtesy if Mssrs Trump and Vance.
We are going to need weapons – lots of weapons.
And we are going to get them. Ursula von der Leyen has promised an €800bn “Rearm Europe Plan” using emergency powers under Article 122, Germany is reportedly planning €400bn (£330bn) extra spending on national defence, and of course Sir Keir is targeting three percent of our own GDP be spent on our military.
In just a matter of days the talk across Europe has taken on an unlikely 1939 feel, but be assured the money will be found and will be spent.
Markus Söder, president of that most robust of German states Bavaria, has said: “We need a drone force of 100,000 drones, 800 new tanks, 2,000 Patriot missiles and 1,000 Taurus just for Germany as a protective shield like the ‘Iron Dome’. Only the strong will be taken seriously.”
And he’s right.
