Thread by @zoe_samuel

OK, here we go on #Trump, #empire, whether this is America's Roman moment, and so on. This is a very good article. But what's missing from its assessment of the world as being 3 empires (Europe, US, and China), is the third empire isn't Europe. /1

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Europe and USA belong to the same empire. The third empire is Russia.
The three spheres of military/economic influence are China, Russia, and the West ie Europe, the USA, other N. American nations, and our protectorates/allies in Pacific/East Asia like Australia, Philippines /2

Regional powers tend to be clients of one or other (Iran to Russia, Israel to the US, etc). Little nations (Taiwan, South Korea, Estonia, Bulgaria, etc) that the US and NATO alliance fail to protect will fall to Russia - openly imperialist, a dying monster lashing out... /3

...in longing for its former glory - or China - less openly imperialist, but with its capacity for forward thinking and emphasis on innovation, potentially not worse for them in the short term (in that day to day, life might not change that much for many people). /4

I don't think Ferguson is wrong about where some of this is potentially going or why it is in the interest of an aspiring imperial class to back a creature like Trump. But I do think in excluding Russia from his assessment that he cannot possibly accurately assess Trump /5

Once you add Russia in, you see that in terms of the long term survival of the USA -whether as a democracy OR an empire - the problem of Trump is not that he serves empire: it's WHICH empire he serves. Because it ain't ours. /6

This isn't to get into which of these is benevolent or good or worth supporting. It is merely to say that if Ferguson wants to simply talk about loyalty to a center of power, noting the existence of relevant power centers is essential. You cannot omit Trump's puppetmaster. /end