In the first decade of the twentieth century the relationship between the British and German Empires fell apart. Britain had tacitly supported the unification of Germany under Prussian leadership, to the point of sacrificing the Kingdom of Hanover in 1866. This friendly relationship reached its apogee with the short reign of Kaiser Friedrich III in 1888. Liberal, open minded and generally pro British, by virtue of his marriage to Queen Victoria's eldest daughter, Vicky, it seemed that Germany under the new Kaiser was poised to become a progressive ally of the British Empire that would spread democratic rule and liberal prosperity across Europe and the World. As we know, throat cancer put an end to Friedrich III after only a few months, and in the year of Three Emperors, Germany went from the military conservative rule of Wilhelm I to liberal Friedrich III to the unstable and expansionist Wilhelm II. Within a matter of little more of a year the second new Kaiser turned German politics upside down, with his dismissal of the architect of German unity under the Hohenzollerns, Otto von Bismarck.
It would take longer for the British to recognize that the second Wilhelm was not just a disruption in German domestic politics, but also in the international system. Instead of modernizing the German State, Wilhem II reverted to militarism and challenged any constitutional safeguards against his personal rule. This included personal control over German foreign policy. With repeated unflattering commentary, Wilhelm slowly but surely turned the British against both him and his country. Repeated pro-Boer comments during the Boer war, the ill-conceived development of a blue water navy to challenge British Imperial hegemony, and most spectacularly and ineptly with his comments to the Daily Telegraph in October 1908. The "English" did not take too well to being told that they were as "mad, mad, mad as March Hares". By this time, the previous centuries of enmity between Britain and France was being resolved by a set of understandings that became know as the "Entente Cordiale". With repeated blunders, Wilhelm made the unthinkable- a rapprochement between Britain and France- become a geopolitical reality. As early as 1904, the publication of the adventure novel "Riddle of the Sands", alerted the general public to the fact that Germany was a potential direct threat to Britain, and the launch of the Dreadnought in 1906 and the rapid expansion of the Royal Navy was a clear response, not to the perennial threat of France, but the growing threat of Germany.
The point about revisiting the geopolitics of the early twentieth century is to remind ourselves that nations rarely have eternal friends, only eternal interests. Through his ineptness Kaiser Wilhelm II alienated previous allies and created the conditions for the perennial German nightmare of a two front war. By letting Bismarck's Reinsurance treaty with the Russians lapse, Germany almost unwittingly swapped the Three Emperors League alliance with Russia and Austria for a deeper alliance solely with Austria Hungary. Yet Austria and Russia were already on a collision course in the Balkans- an area that Bismarck had once dismissed as "not worth the healthy bones of a single Pomeranian Grenadier." Given the intractable enmity of France, as a result of the German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, Wilhelm had essentially created the conditions for a collapse of German security in the East as well as the West. Accordingly the German general staff, under General von Schlieffen then committed to a strategy that would use Belgium to attack France to counter the new alliance conditions.
This was the point where German perceptions collided with reality. The German high command misunderstood the 1839 Treaty of London as a "scrap of paper", failing to recognize that British security and morality intersected in London's determination to maintain Belgian independence.The result confirmed every single one of the concerns that the British had begun to have about "German Militarism" and ultimately led to the declaration of war. It had taken only a few years for the relationship between Britain and Germany to go from decades of long term friendship to war. The point is that the personality of the Kaiser woke the British up to the fact that a) Germany was potentially the most serious threat to the British Empire, and that b) regardless of interests, Germany and Britain had developed completely different views of geopolitics. Germany had established war as an instrument of policy, whereas Britain had come to see war as a more or less immoral policy.
For about a century Britain and the United States have been allies. This alliance was based on mutual power interests, but it was also based on a set of shared values. The Wilsonian doctrine of international law that emerged in the First World war may have been greeted with a certain amount of cynicism, but the signature of the 1941 Atlantic charter was not merely a statement of alliance, it was a statement of shred values. This charter and the later charter of the United Nations, sets out a view of the world that defies "might makes right" and lives in its place a demand for justice and human rights. The commitment to human rights above greed and power has been a shining star and cemented "the West" as the freest and most prosperous places on the planet. This idealistic view of peace and human rights has been criticized, but it has helped to cement the NATO alliance and to be a stabilizing influence on the international system.
The advent of Donald Trump has challenged conventional wisdom, both in US domestic affairs and in the international system. As with the Kaiser, Trump regards the power of the executive as preeminent in both domestic and international affairs. He has broken constitutional norms across the board, but with compliant justices in the Supreme Court, he has a certain level of immunity from legal push back. Six of the nine justices were appointed by Republicans, including three by Donald Trump himself. The Legislative branch has also been under the control of the GOP for several years. So, as with the Kaiser, the president has been able to rule without many impediments, regardless of the legal conditions of the constitution.
Unfortunately, Trump is at least as impulsive as the Kaiser. he seems just as hypnotized by the power that he possesses over his country, and quite a much of a braggart about his power. The result is that the view of the United States is changing. Whereas the United States was considered as the indispensable cornerstone of the international system, the Trump regime, as with the Kaiser, has emerged as a major disruptor of the system. No longer prepared to offer even lip service to the norms of international law, Trump has been overt in his contempt for the system which the long term allies of the United States regard as critical for their own interests.
However, in the end, the divergence in American and European views of the international system are far more significant than the personality issues of Trump's unlovely personality. As with the Kaiser, the root of Trump's foreign policy lies with the way that he conducts domestic policy. Unlike the Kaiser, Trump does face restraints on his actions under the terms of the US constitution, though those restraints are only valid if the Courts and the Congress are prepared to use them, which so far they have been notably reluctant to use them. Thus the mid terms due in November 2026 are of critical significance. If the House and Senate were taken away from Republican control, then Trump may become the only president in American history to be impeached three times.
If the American voters choose to maintain Trump in office, then the NATO alliance, built on come values will no longer hold. That may ultimately lead the United States not merely into isolation, but potentially into conflict, even conflict with its closest (former) allies. "Move fast, break things", is a dangerous foreign policy, and things, once broken, may never be repaired.
The Trump tech bro oligarchy is sailing into the precise dangers that Imperial Germany- also an innovation leader- faced 150 years ago. The consequences for America in the twenty-first century might be just as brutal as Germany in the twentieth.
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