Welcome To The Fools-Based Order. The New Diplomatic Brutalism. The Quiet Rise of the Global South. Citizen Musk. And The Man Behind The Helmet! #239

Jan 09, 2025

Grüezi!

Trump’s diplomatic brutalism shatters post-WW2 order, creating China openings;
Elon Musk wields a new kind of global power, holding EU regulators hostage;
Xi crafts a systematic response to Trump’s return: retaliate, adapt, diversify;
Indonesia joins BRICS, marking China’s growing pull over the Global South;
And Anglo-Saxon warriors – were they the ancient world’s McKinsey consultants with axes?

1️⃣ The Brutalist – Welcome to the Fools-Based Order

How Trump’s blunt force approach shatters decades of careful pretence

A NATO patrol by a Danish ship… enemy to the west?

When Donald Trump threatened to buy Greenland and seize the Panama Canal, he did more than rattle a few diplomatic cages. He exposed the polite fictions that have kept the post-war order ticking along for 75 years.

NATO has always worked through careful pretence. Denmark ‘controls’ Greenland whilst hosting vital US bases. Panama ‘manages’ its canal while guaranteeing American naval access. Everyone knows the real power dynamics, but nobody says it out loud.

Until now.

By explicitly threatening both an ally (Denmark) and a strategic partner (Panama), Trump hasn’t just broken diplomatic protocol – he’s shattered the careful ambiguity that lets smaller nations maintain dignity whilst accepting American hegemony.

When the dominant power explicitly threatens territorial coercion, it breaks the entire illusion of strategic ambiguity that makes the rules workable.

This matters because:

For China, this isn’t just about territorial acquisition – it’s about the end of post-WW2 diplomatic architecture that allowed unequal power relationships to be managed through face-saving protocols.
Panama may accelerate its pivot to China as US diplomatic restraint evaporates.
Smaller nations lose the diplomatic tools that historically managed fundamental power contradictions.

What to look out for?

NATO attempts to restore diplomatic ambiguity;
New frameworks for managing power disparities;
Chinese exploitation of diplomatic breakdown;
Panama-China relations;
Collapse of other careful diplomatic fictions;
Latin American solidarity responses.

The crisis isn’t the specific territorial ambitions – it’s that Trump’s “diplomatic brutalism” makes it impossible to maintain the careful fictions that allow international order to function despite power inequalities.

For China, this creates openings as the diplomatic architecture restraining raw power politics crumbles.

2️⃣ The World’s First Globalist

Not George Soros. Elon Musk.

When Emmanuel Macron warned this week about “a new international reactionary movement,” he wasn’t just talking about ideology. The French president was acknowledging a new reality – the emergence of a form of private power that can hold Western alliances hostage.

At the centre stands Elon Musk, who has become perhaps the world’s foremost globalist – able to turn corporate influence into geopolitical power beyond any Davos Man’s dreams.

Consider the situation unfolding in Brussels. The European Union, architect of the world’s most sophisticated digital regulations, finds itself paralysed. Why? Because Trump’s team suggested that US support for NATO might depend on how Europe treats Musk’s companies.

When European regulators contemplate fining X (formerly Twitter), they must now weigh not just legal merits, but the potential European security costs.

The result? The EU has paused investigations into American platforms that could result in fines worth billions in global revenue. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen – though ill – has been conspicuously silent.

Meanwhile, Musk plays Europe off against itself. Even as Macron sours on him, Italy’s PM praises Musk’s “genius.” Each response is shaped by national vulnerabilities, undermining any possibility of coordinated action.

Previous corporate titans influenced politics through money or media ownership. Musk has gone further, turning his businesses into pressure points in the Western alliance system itself.

What happens when corporate power exploits geopolitical fault lines? When regulatory decisions become inseparable from security considerations?

One Brussels-based diplomat put it bluntly:

“Musk wants to destroy the European Union.”

Maybe. But his business realpolitik risks weakening US alliances even further... if there is a point, perhaps – say cynics – that is his real aim.

3️⃣ Trump vs Xi – The Rematch.

But who’s been training harder?

In 1969, Xi Jinping was in a flea-ridden cave, 500 miles from Beijing. Family connections had made him an internal “exile.” His father – one of China’s original revolutionaries – a victim of the capricious persecution of the Cultural Revolution.

Donald Trump was in Brooklyn, starting work for the real estate empire of his autocratic father Fred, and pulling every string possible to dodge the Vietnam draft.

Soon he returns to the White House, with a bold, tariff-charged plan to confront Xi’s China.

So what’s Xi’s Trump strategy? It’s systematic, determined, and ruthless when needed. Three clear tracks:

Retaliation
Adaptation
Diversification

Track 1 - Retaliation: Beijing’s already firing warning shots:

Blocking chip-making minerals;
Squeezing drone supply chains;
Threatening US clothing companies;
Launching Nvidia probe.

Classic power moves from someone who knows that deterrence requires teeth.

Track 2 - Adaptation: Xi’s pushing major fiscal/monetary stimulus. Why? Because he learned in exile: survive first, thrive later. He’s creating economic resilience to weather potential Trump tariffs.

Track 3 - Diversification: New deep-water ports in Latin America, talks with global economic organisations, potential unilateral tariff cuts for non-US partners. Xi’s building alternatives systematically.

Beijing sees 2025 differently from 2017:

Xi is politically stronger;
Economy is more self-reliant;
US is seen as more divided;
Global South is tilting China’s way.

Xi’s “Marxist Nationalism” (Kevin Rudd’s term) isn’t just rhetoric. It’s a worldview forged by seeing Soviet collapse + experiencing the Cultural Revolution. He believes that ideological weakness is national vulnerability. Stop believing in the Chinese Communist Party and you stop believing in China as it stands today.

What happens when enough people stop believing in the system? Well, he can look warily at the White House and ponder. At least, there you can vote to tear it down.

4️⃣ BRICking It

How Xi’s Global South strategy is paying off

Indonesia’s capital is growing… with help from Chinese cash.

Indonesia’s quiet entry into BRICS is another sleeper success for China’s systematic and patient courtship of the Global South – and Xi Jinping’s long game against Western economic dominance.

With Indonesia’s addition this month, BRICS now represents 45% of global population and a third of world GDP. More tellingly, 95% of Russia-China trade now happens in local currencies, concrete progress for Xi’s de-dollarisation push.

Indonesia – the world’s fourth most populous nation – is a textbook example of China’s economic pull. In 2023, Jakarta got $7.3 billion in Belt and Road funding – making it China’s biggest BRI recipient. The underlying economics helped drive membership under new President Prabowo Subianto.

Malaysia and Thailand have both applied for BRICS membership. Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the UAE joined in 2024. Each addition strengthens China’s alternative to Western-led institutions.

Multi-alignment is the new neutrality in a fragmenting world.

Indonesia’s Foreign Minister insists “It does not mean we are joining a certain camp.” And even NATO member Türkiye partners with BRICS, shows how nations are hedging their bets.

Indonesia’s quiet membership shows how methodically China has constructed parallel economic architecture that appeals to developing nations’ practical needs – from funding to technology sharing – without Western conditions, and beyond US reach.

As Trump plans fresh tariffs, Xi’s systematic cultivation of the Global South may prove his strongest counter.

5️⃣ Silicon Valley VCs Talk Up Tariffs

Let’s hope their investment record is better than their history.

Silicon Valley billionaire Marc Andreessen ended 2024 by highlighting an intriguing chart showing tariffs as a share of federal revenue from 1870-1914.

The suggestion? That this high-tariff period was somehow connected to the remarkable technological progress of the Second Industrial Revolution.

And … he’s right! Yes, tariffs were a huge % of federal revenue from 1870-1914. But the chart tells us nothing about whether the tariff rates were good or bad for industrialisation. It’s just showing us that tariffs were one of the only ways the feds could raise money.

That share dropped off a cliff, because in late 1913 the US got income taxes, not because innovation stopped.

The Second Industrial Revolution was driven by electrification, mass production, standardisation, scientific management, and the spread of railroads.

Attributing it to tariff revenue? It’s like crediting the Internet boom to the price of oat milk lattes in Palo Alto.

6️⃣ Jimmy Carter, Massacres And Morality

What we remember and what we forget: geopolitics and memory.

When Jimmy Carter died, obituaries rightly reflected on his public service and human rights legacy. I spent the holidays reading Korean writer Han Kang’s “Human Acts,” a novel about a very real 1980 massacre in the city of Gwangju.

Carter’s administration was told in advance of the deployment of the soldiers who carried out the massacre that Han Kang so chillingly describes.

To understand what happened, go back to 1979, when South Korea’s dictator was assassinated. Another general, Chun Doo-hwan, seized power. In 1980, when citizens began to protest for democracy, Chun prepared a crackdown. US intelligence knew what was coming.

On May 8, 1980, a US cable detailed the specific units Chun was planning to send to Gwangju – they were special forces “ready and willing to break heads.” The next day, Chun was told Carter’s administration “will not in any way suggest that the US opposes” using the army against protesters.

A US aircraft carrier was sent to the region, when Gwangju’s people heard the news they assumed it was coming to protect them from Chun’s troops. Carter’s White House had prioritised “restoration of order” – the carrier was a signal to North Korea to back off, not for protesters to rise up.

In Gwangju, Chun’s troops beat and murdered protesters. The official death toll was over 200. Locals said more like 2,000.

Publicly, Carter stood by the crackdown. A few days later, visiting Atlanta to see a wounded civil rights activist, he told CNN:

“Maintenance of a nation’s security from Communist subversion... is a prerequisite to the honouring of human rights.”

Reading Han Kang’s novel today, the gaps are revealing. This is how geopolitics shapes our memory. Not through direct censorship – there’s no-one taking down references to Gwangju – but through what stories we choose to recall and what we collectively agree to “disremember.” Gwangju doesn’t exist in Western memory.

We don’t talk about geopolitical ambiguities, we ignore them. Carter died praised for his human rights work and undoubtedly the world’s woes washed upon his desk in 1980. But geopolitics casts its amorality wide. Han Kang won 2024’s Nobel in part illuminating cruelty, but novelists too have little time for international relations..

Between them both lies a truth we’re still happier to forget.

7️⃣ The Man Behind The Iron Mask

What kind of man wore this helmet?

Want to understand Anglo-Saxon warrior elites? Think high-end management consultants:

less finger-jabbing, more actual stabbing.

Instead of a Patagonia gilet, they’re wearing armour. Rather than PowerPoint decks, they’re wielding swords. But the professional model is remarkably similar. Like today’s strategy consultants, Anglo-Saxon warrior kings were:

Highly mobile professionals selling specialist expertise
Commanding premium rates for their services
Working for the most powerful organisations of their day
Building international networks and bringing home innovations...

When the Byzantine Empire needed talent in 575 CE, they did what big companies do today – launched a massive recruitment drive, with premium comp packages. But instead of stock options, you got gold. Instead of signing bonuses, fancy armour.

These Anglo-Saxon warriors were effectively taking international assignments in the Byzantine “firm.” Syria was their Dubai – a prestigious foreign posting where you could make serious money and build your reputation.

The “princely burials” archaeologists find? The 6th century equivalent of a McMansion filled with luxury brands. They’re showing off their international experience and success just like today’s consultancy partners flex their Rolexes and lounge passes.

And just like today’s global consultants form a transnational elite class who have more in common with each other than local populations, these warriors shared a common elite culture across Britain. Like graduate trainees:

They were recruited young
Worked and travelled in teams
~~Wore armour~~

Maybe not that, but even the career path is similar! Serve abroad for 15-20 years, make your money, then return home to leverage your experience and connections into local power and influence.

Next time you see a consultant with their cashmere quarter-zip and lounge pass, remember – they’re carrying on a millennium and a half tradition – and back then, you really could take it with you.

Thanks for reading!

Best

Adrian