‘One Quiet Early Morning in Beijing, the Dollar’s Crown Slipped’

Alastair Crooke, 29 May 2025

“I believe we must start from the notion of defeat leading to revolution - to grasp the Trump revolution”.

“The experience underway in the United States, even if we don't know exactly what it will be, is revolution. Is it a revolution in the strict sense? Is it a counter-revolution?”

So spoke the French philosopher Emmanuel Todd in his April Moscow lecture, From Russia With Love:

“This [Trump revolution] is, in my opinion, linked to defeat. Various people have reported to me conversations between members of the Trump team, and what is striking is their awareness of defeat. People like J.D. Vance, the Vice President, and many others, are people who understood that America had lost this war”.

This American awareness of defeat, however, contrasts markedly with the Europeans' surprising lack of awareness -- rather it is denial -- at their defeat:

“For the United States, it is fundamentally an economic defeat. The sanctions policy showed that the financial power of the West was not omnipotent. The Americans were reminded of the fragility of their military industry. The people at the Pentagon know very well that one of the limits to their action is the limited capacity of the American military-industrial complex”.

“That America is in the midst of a serious revolution, right now - easily comparable to the end of the USSR – is understood by a few”. Yet our preconceptions - political and intellectual – often prevent us from seeing and assimilating the import of this reality”.