If we want to play a role in the world to come, we need to understand the extent of the transformation taking place, as well as the forces that shape them.
Film director Luchino Visconti chose the title of Wagner’s opera Götterdämmerung՚, taken from Norse mythology, for his masterpiece about the collapse of Germany’s traditional political system in 1933 and the rise of the Nazi Party amid a deep social and economic crisis. Ragnarök is an apocalyptic Norse prophecy, including a great battle in which their old world will perish, accompanied by a catastrophic series of natural disasters, that culminate with great fires and the underwater submersion of the world. After these events, the surviving gods will return and life shines again in a world renewed and purified. The event is attested primarily in the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda, referred to as Ragnarøkkr or ՙTwilight of the Gods՚, The Prose Edda relates that “over all the world there shall be mighty battles” and that “brothers shall slay each other for greed’s sake.”
The second presidency of Donald Trump and the high-profile role that Elon Musk is taking in the definition of the global agenda of the new US presidency is creating growing anxiety in the international establishment. There is a feeling of helplessness and distress rapidly spreading among European leaders as the certainties and truths on which EU narratives had been built are challenged as never before. The end of our old political order could be coming very soon to a theatre near us, as the Ragnarök imagined by the Viking sagas.
The scenarios presented in my essay on ՙThe Rise of digital feudalism՚, published in zenith Magazine five years ago, seem to be close at hand with the rise of Elon Musk, the leading example of the power and influence that today՚s Big Tech billionaires wield in the international arena. The alliance between an imperial US presidency and the most powerful non-state actors at a global scale can accelerate a transformation of unprecedented scope of the fundamentals of our society. The rules-based international order may survive the incoming upheaval, but the rules will certainly not be the same.
Elon Musk has taken an unprecedented role, not only in American politics, but in the definition of Trump՚s new international agenda, articulated around a global ideological project of like-minded right-wing libertarians. The fight against the traditional political establishment in Washington, that was the leitmotiv of his first term, has now taken a new international dimension, using the unlimited resources of social media and digital platforms with devastating effectiveness.
What is now terrifying the European establishment is not just the possibility of new tariffs or trade wars with Washington, but the realization that climate change and migration policies are increasingly unpopular among voters and digital transformation programs are being weaponized by new political actors that cannot be confined any more to the far-right corner which kept them far from decision-making positions in government. Elon Musk has brought with him a combination of unlimited wealth and social media power with the political backing of the US Presidency and the determination of a believer in a new political model beyond state controls and stifling regulations. He has chosen Germany and Great Britain as the battlefields for this ideological battle that will redefine the political balance in the Western world for a long time to come.
Yuval Noah Harari has defined the capacity to create and share myths as the driving force of human civilization. Harari argues in ՙSapiens՚ and ՙHomo Deus՚ that all political orders are based on useful fictions which have allowed groups of humans, from ancient Mesopotamia through to the Roman Empire and modern capitalist societies, to cooperate in numbers far beyond the scope of any other species. Our modern Western society has been looking desperately for one undisputed myth to replace the old order since the French Revolution, making Europe a battlefield not just for territorial expansion but for the undisputed narrative that would give purpose and meaning to our lives.
That is closely connected with tour monotheistic worldview that considers truth its exclusive domain, contrary to most Asian beliefs systems that are non-dogmatic in nature and accept that if something is true, the opposite can also be true. The Communist Manifesto and the Bolshevik Revolution, as well as Fascism or Nazism, have been at the centre of the Culture Wars of the 20th century. All of them seemed gone and anachronistic at the beginning of the 21st century, when Francis Fukuyama tried to close that search affirming that with the final triumph of Western liberal democracy, after the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, humanity had reached the endpoint of its ideological evolution.
Obviously, the search continues and well beyond the narrow borders of Western culture, with other alternative world views disputing the narrative of Western liberal democracy, as the successful marketing of prophecies of an Islamic apocalypse propagated by the so-called Islamic State testifies. China and India have developed their own responses, based on their own cultural and political traditions that are much older than the Western models that regulate the existing international order. The unique blend of socialism with digitally powered Confucianism makes the Chinese model difficult to replicate elsewhere, but it remains a reminder of alternative successful models.
In fact, we can argue the Chinese system of a state-controlled AI revolution is the alternative model to the US-led digital libertarian utopia. It would take too long to analyse in detail how the Chinese leadership is designing their strategy to become a global technological empire but it is certainly one of the most relevant questions in the debate that will shape the future international order. In any case, the question is not which narrative will be more convincing but what will define how our future as a species will look like and the answer will probably be the interaction between Artificial Intelligence and the human mind, in the framework of a digitally defined society. The new realities of AI, cloud computing, biometric social control or 5G are erasing the cultural differences between Beijing, Washington, London, Mumbai or Berlin.
The dark mirror
A growing fear of the future is spreading and not just among the less privileged in our society, but even more among the super-wealthy tech elite. Douglas Rushkoff’s article on super-rich preppers planning to save themselves from an apocalypse of their own creation paints a darker picture of the future of the digital society. Elon Musk’s proposal of interstellar redemption by colonising Mars, Peter Thiel’s obsession with reversing the aging process or Sam Altman’s and Ray Kurzweil’s search for immortality by uploading their minds into supercomputers, reflect the doubts of many of those leading the digital transformation concerning the meaning of human existence. Never before have our society’s most powerful players assumed that the primary impact of their own conquests would be to render the world itself unliveable for a large number of our fellow humans. Nor have they ever before had the technologies through which to imprint their ideas into the very fabric of our society and the power to set the political agenda without challenge.
In fact, the mantra of the power of technology to improve our lives is the dominant narrative that most political leaders remain committed to, without any alternative to offer. Be it the Chinese version of socialism, the Saudi Islamic remix, India’s Hindutva masterplan or Argentina’s libertarian model, Artificial Intelligence is at the centre of it. The question that seems unpolite to ask is how compatible the new digital economy will be with democracy, economic mobility and equal opportunities, wealth redistribution and state-guaranteed social services.
The growing inequalities, climate crises and resource scarcities, unprecedented population displacements and the return of supposedly extinct health hazards are triggering a more pessimistic and inward-looking mindset in our societies. The result is the exponential growth of former fringe groups that propose radical solutions for problems the establishment refuses to deal with. The last EU parliamentary elections saw the share of far-right parties rise to 18% of total votes, reflecting a trend that is already shifting the balance of national governments to the right in most European countries.
The reason for that trend is puzzling for the traditional left, that sees growing numbers of its former electoral base migrating to far-right parties in a highly polarized political environment. Between the financial crisis of 2008 and the pandemic outbreak of 2020, the old international liberal order, based on globalized financial capitalism, started to crack and the new digital revolution triggered by social networks and AI expanded at an unprecedented speed, being hailed from all sides as the painless solution to our impossible contradictions.
Political leaders jumped enthusiastically on the technological train, thrilled with the speed of change without further consideration of its final destination. While a tenth of corporations accumulate 80% of international capitalization, many of which are tech juggernauts, large parts of the traditional productive economy were starved of capital. The ensuing concentration of wealth and political influence in the hands of the owners of the technological corporations has been unprecedented, making Elon Musk, now the richest man in the world, the model of a new technological elite, wielding more power than many national governments.
The domination of the new data economy and information flows was not only a boon for business, but it has also given the owners of these companies uncontrollable influence in world politics, particularly with the unstoppable development of social networks and AI expanding into all domains of economic and social activity. In her book, ‘Don’t Be Evil’, journalist Rana Foroohar argues that our Big Tech overlords are now able to modify the perceptions and behaviour of internet users both for greater profit and social control.
The remarkable truth is that such a transformation is not only failing to provoke a negative backlash, but is actually receiving growing support from public opinion in our democratic societies, that perceive this disruptive transformation as a more desirable future than the stifling regulations imposed by inefficient bureaucracies in an endless search for their own relevance. The EU has become a prime example of such a voracious regulatory appetite, and even if that narrative has been exaggerated considerably as part of the demagogic Brexit campaign, there is an average 1,200 regulations issued per year, dealing with issues such as the mandatory curve of cucumbers or the compulsory attachment of plastic caps in bottles. That is the kind of argument that won the Brexit case and that is now feeding the growth of far-right parties in Europe, laced with the growing rejection of what is perceived as bias in favour of illegal immigrants over tax-paying citizens. Social networks are creating a huge amplifier for the anger and resentment that many feel towards well-meaning but poorly presented positive discrimination policies.
The world’s attention is focused like never before on the second presidency of Donald Trump and his plans of reshaping not just the US political dynamics, but the whole international system. A growing number of analysts are already talking about an imperial presidency that will concentrate unprecedented power in the hands of the president, who has made no secret of his intentions of using it to usher in a new era of ՙAmerican greatness՚ at a global scale. As world leaders rushed to congratulate the president-elect, mixed feelings accompagnied them, particularly in European capitals and at the EU Commission where initial disbelief gave way to growing anxiety.
The second Trump presidency begins with an ambitious agenda of national transformation at multiple levels, and sometimes with contradictory goals, that will have severe international repercussions. I believe that its main defining factor will probably be the new alliance between the new president and the Big Tech overlords. Never before such highly disruptive forces have found common ground to work together in a joint global plan, unleashing the power of digital technologies with no hindrance of regulations or controls.
MAGA Tech
The clearest signal that now we are about to embark in a process of historic change is the appointment of Elon Musk to a position of unclear boundaries but with extensive powers, as co-chairman of the ՙDepartment of Government Efficiency՚. The close relationship developed by Trump and Musk on the campaign trail goes beyond personal bonds of friendship and trust, since the now richest man in the world is also the representative of the technological elite at the highest level of political power.
That alliance is already causing frictions within the traditional base of Trump loyalists, and Steve Bannon is clearly resenting the rise of the new best friends of the president, while recognizing the tremendous impact of the mix of technology, wealth and ideology for their political agenda. During his first mandate, Donald Trump had a fraught relationship with Silicon Valley billionaires, that he considered supporters of Hillary Clinton and opponents of his political agenda. Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Sundar Pichai and Sergei Bryn, among others, have all shifted course and rallied behind President Trump.
Silicon Valley’s right-wing libertarians used to orbit around one man: the venture capitalist Peter Thiel and his protégé David Sacks. Their revolutionary, techno-utopian vision began in the early 2000s, after the success of PayPal, in a diaspora of entrepreneurs and investors that expanded across Silicon Valley to build more revolutionary, billion-dollar companies. Most of them were progressive libertarians with sympathies for the Democratic party, but during Biden’s presidency they felt increasingly alienated from the Democrat’s agenda. In the course of the 2024 campaign, that small circle of right-wing libertarians led one of the most significant shifts in contemporary politics, bringing the core of the already disaffected Tech barons into Trump’s camp. That single event may trigger a far-reaching revolution that will not only transform American politics but the global order as a whole.
Donald Trump did not disappoint his audience from the moment of his victory celebration at Mar-a-Lago, announcing some controversial appointments and policy decisions. He declared that he would put an end to the war in Ukraine in line with his long-time goal of putting an end to US involvement in foreign conflicts. At the same time, he also expressed his intentions to incorporate Canada into the United States, take control of the Panama Canal and annex Greenland and made some chilling remarks about NATO allies forfeiting Washington՚s protection lest they foot the bill he considered appropriate.
France, Germany and the EU Commission reacted in shock, issuing the usual statements of hurt feelings of allies in distress considering these remarks “wild hypothetical stuff” that should not be taken seriously. In contrast, international leaders that before Trump՚s victory felt lost in the wilderness of political correctness, such as Javier Milei in Argentina or Giorgia Meloni in Italy, have enthusiastically welcomed the new axis of libertarian disruptiveness, as have other leaders in the Global South that seem to prefer the personal negotiating style of Trump over a political correctness they consider hypocritical.
The Twilight of the (European) gods
The signs are pointing at a very different Trump presidency from his first one, when the buraucracy that he dismissively calls the “deep state” limited the disruptive impact of some of his ideas and policy decisions. Former president of the EU Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, has given some advice on how to approach negotiations with Trump, based on his personal experience, but it remains to be seen if we can swim twice on the same river. To begin with, the size of EU economy and its share in the new digital technologies, particularly AI, has shrunk compared to the US. European political leadership is in disarray and the war in Ukraine has made Europe much more dependent on US military protection than ever. It remains to be seen how the new US administration will approach the ailing multilateral system, and its key institutions such as the UN, NATO, WTO, and so on. So far, those who are finding the doors of the elected president open are leaders previously frowned upon by the political establishment such us Viktor Orban, Giorgia Meloni, or Javier Milei, the only foreign leader invited to the victory celebrations at Mar-a-Lago.
Surprisingly enough, the case of Javier Milei, the Argentinian president that has embarked in a far-reaching process of structural reforms based on ambitious deregulations and economic liberalization, has become the subject of debate in Germany by the hand of Musk՚s aggressive intervention in the campaign. The high-stakes game that the German elections have turned into is a prime example of the ՙbrave new world՚ of European politics, where traditional parties are no match for social media networks owned by Big Tech.
Elon Musk is not the cause of the increasing disaffection of German voters with the traditional parties and the growing support for the ՙAlternative for Germanyՙ, that already has 21% of voter support according to recent polls. But when he entered the election campaign, he broke the tabu that had limited the appeal of such parties for mainstream voters. The efforts of EU regulators to limit the capacity of digital platforms to shape public opinion and influence elections has become the subject of a heated debate as EU authorities try to explain that their decisions sre not meant as retaliation against Elon Musk՚ interference in German elections.
The Middle East offers a particularly stark example of how this crisis can accelerate a process of authority fragmentation and institutional collapse. Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Libya or Yemen already can be considered test cases of this neo-medieval model, in which non-state actors are already the main decision-makers. The diminishing role of the EU and its member states has become painfully obvious in the recent Middle East conflicts from Gaza to Lebanon or Syria.
None of those conflicts have seen significant diplomatic initiatives from the EU, in contrast to the engagement of Qatar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, UAE, or even China in different mediation initiatives. The disastrous situation in the Sahel after the ill-fated intervention in Libya has taken a toll on French and European international involvement which African leaders blame for their current predicament. The rise in anti-French feelings in Africa is related to a parallel rise in popularity of Russia’s purported underdog resistance against the “Global West” and a deployment of the Wagner Group Africa Corps in several countries of the region to replace French troops.
Paradoxically, Trump’s unorthodox style seems to be more welcomed than the sanctimonious EU well-meaning and ineffective preaching by countries in the region. The Turkish leadership has been signalling that shift since they adopted a decisive role in Syria and in a matter of weeks, cut the Gordian knot the EU has been unable to untie for decades. Recent declarations of Türkiye’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan, warning European countries, such as France, to stop interfering in Syria because his country only recognizes the US as a credible partner, would have been unthinkable a few years ago.
Even the Iranian government is trying to prepare some new negotiating proposals to appease a US President that it does not want to infuriate. According to some sources close to the Iranian leadership, a deal with the new US administration could be seriously considered if there is genuine interest on the other side. The example of the deal with Reagan administration in th 1980s, publicly known as the Iran-Contra Affair, has been mentioned as a blueprint for pragmatic negotiations with the Republican party. The deal-making mantra of Donald Trump may have more traction than traditional diplomacy, even if the scope of the agreements is transactional and limited in scope.
Over the past decade, the trust that citizens have in their leaders, and liberal democracy in general, has been rapidly diminishing as social media has expanded, filling that space. The problem, however, runs deeper than fake news, defective governance, or corruption. The narrative of the international liberal order, based on ever-increasing prosperity fuelled by endless economic growth, is simply not credible anymore. The rules-based international order that the EU has been supporting and that has given the European External Action Service a relevant international voice since the publication of the Global Strategy in 2016, is being irreversibly transformed by international events. The EU has not been able to reformulate a new vision and a plan to implement it given the current volatile global dynamics, refusing to even engage in contingency planning for a Trump return to power, which is a luxury that EU leaders cannot afford anymore.
President Macron gave a premonitory interview to The Economist in November 2019, in which he foretold that Europe would become irrelevant in the new international order if it did not address the structural challenges of the institution-building in process and develop its strategic autonomy. This much-needed progress has not only not taken place but actually regressed in the last five years, widening the gap in productivity and innovation with both China and the US. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has deepened the crisis of the German economic model and put in question the viability of the transition to the Green Deal, already under attack from different sides as a prime example of the “woke economy”.
The sustainability of current migration trends and the limits of the multicultural policies associated with them is becoming the most divisive issue in European politics at the moment, benefitting far-right parties. The political crisis has deepened, as more citizens feel alienated from an agenda disconnected from their daily problems and far-right parties thrive on that resentment. The upcoming German elections will give a sobering diagnosis of where the soul of Europe is heading at this critical moment, but may not offer the solutions we seek. Most likely, election results will offer another warning sign of the waning prestige of the traditional elites and the political establishment they represent.
The Vikings, and Silicon Valley’s leading figures do not consider the destruction of the old order as something negative, but a necessary renewal that would bring about a refreshed and better world. Ragnarök is the opposite of Tomasso di Lampedusa’s famous sentence that everything has to change so that everything remains the same, the motto of traditional politics for a long time. We will certainly witness wondrous transformations in the coming years that will open new and unthinkable possibilities for those that dare to thread this unchartered territory.
Living in a more unstable international order, with an eroded multilateral system and diminished national sovereignty of nation states, as non-state actors become increasingly assertive, will be certainly challenging and it will demand creative initiatives, particularly from the next US administration, the EU Commission or the United Nations. The question of how the international order will adapt to the new realities remains to be seen, since Trump has demonstrated that he is not changed in his disregard for multilateral institutions, in particular the UN system. If we want to play a role in the world to come, we need to understand the extent of the transformations taking place as well as the leading forces shaping them, and a figure like Elon Musk is certainly one of them.
Ramon Blecua is a Spanish diplomat, former EU Ambassador to Iraq and former Ambassador at large for Mediation and Intercultural Dialogue. The opinions in this article are his own.
