Order and justice

Conservatives believe that order comes first, so that justice and freedom can follow. Without the first, second, and third, order are impossible. Churchill expressed this in the 1930s. The political void and disorder from 1914 to 1918 made war inevitable in 1939.

President Wilson came to Paris in 1918 to lay the foundations for peace after the hecatomb of the first modern war, which left millions dead. The principle he brought with him was, in keeping with the American tradition of independence: "If people have been part of an empire and now wish to be free, they have the right to be so." No one can question that, but the "how" is what can bring about the solution or the problem... In any case, a stable frame of reference is necessary.

The war was lost by the Central Powers, the Habsburgs, the Hohenzollerns, and the Wittelsbachs, that is, Austria-Hungary, Prussia, and Bavaria. They were stable and predictable monarchies with democratic shortcomings but a solid and reasonably balanced economic structure. They assumed a certain order based on the stability provided by long-standing political and cultural traditions. The monarchy was the legitimacy, and this suddenly disappeared with the defeat of the empires in 1918. Each state exercised its right to freedom and independence: the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Prussia, all of which were replaced by modern dictatorships, in some cases democracies, which at times proved doubly aggressive and repressive to justify their control of political power. "The problem with politics is not evil, but the lack of restraint that justifies destroying your opponent because, in your eyes, they lack legitimacy," said Henry Kissinger.

The vacuum created by the disappearance of the monarchy in Russia and the fall of the Ottoman Empire increased fragmentation and instability. The opposite of anarchy is hierarchy. The assassination of the Tsar shattered the very reason for the Russian political regime, which, despite its hierarchy and injustice, was a source of stability. Without this structure, as Hobbes says, separating good from evil, the guilty from the innocent, is a challenge for both justice and freedom.

In Germany, a profoundly democratic republic was established, with two chambers: one for the federated states and one for the government. The number of deputies was to be proportional to the number of votes, with broad coalitions always necessary and complex. It was a political regime that was unstructured because it was too egalitarian (Weimar), and was unable to maintain an effective government, which totalitarian political doctrines, communism, and Nazism, simpler and therefore more populist, were able to overwhelm. Without the defeat of 1918 and the agreements promoted by Wilson and Clemenceau at Versailles, neither Lenin nor Hitler would have been possible. A political vacuum necessarily implies instability and paves the way for autocrats and dictatorships. After the French Revolution, Napoleon; after the Russian Revolution, Bolshevism and Stalin; after the failed German Revolution of 1919, which German socialism was unable to contain (Rosa Luxemburg was assassinated), Nazism.

If we apply this idea to the early 21st century, we must conclude that we must prevent the political structures of the past—NATO, the EC, the UN, the G-7 and G-20, and the OECD—from disappearing. The autocrats who want to rule the world—Trump, Putin, and Xi—want to destroy them. They mistakenly believe that without frameworks of reference, they will have more power. And the opposite is happening. Can a state with the economic power of Italy, like Russia, antagonize the US?

There are parallels between the United States today and Germany in the 1930s. It may seem exaggerated, but the way Hitler destroyed the state starting in 1933 and how Trump wants to destroy it now are no different. We've heard them say, "I want to be elected for a third term... and more, the country needs me," or "The Third Reich will last a thousand years." They also resemble each other in their control of the judiciary, in the change of Supreme Court justices, or in their approach to industry to financially support the government—for example, Goering's meeting in the Reichstag and Musk's in the Oval Office. They also share a similarity in the visible police presence—the Gestapo and the National Guard deployed in cities. They also share a similarity in the declaration of rights over territories—then Poland, Ukraine, and the Czech Republic, now Greenland and Panama. They also share a similarity in the expulsion of "undesirable" populations—then Jews and Roma, now South American immigrants. The idea that the military should be offensive rather than defensive—to make this clear, Trump has changed the name of the Department of Defense—or that investments should now be focused on the US and then on Germany.

As for contempt for culture and universities, the Nazis went so far as to burn books, and now economic penalties are applied to universities and research centers, and the presence of foreign students is restricted. They have a great enemy, then the USSR, now China, with whom they believe they must come to an understanding until they can deploy a policy of destruction (then military, now economic). Now Europe is antagonized, the EU is scorned; then it was France and Great Britain.

Churchill's position of denunciation in the 1930s contrasts with the EU's current policy of obedience and subsidiarity toward the US. It goes without saying that Ursula von der Leyen's policy is distinct from Churchill and Roosevelt.