In order to carry out an analysis, be it military, political or economic, which allows, according to the actions of the subjects involved, to understand reality in the most correct way and possibly to hypothesize its most probable developments with a certain advance, it is necessary, in the preliminary and essential information phase, to acquire objective, significant and reliable elements, which can assume an informative value. But that of the filtered collection of data collected it is not the only necessary ability, the subsequent ability to interpret, evaluate and process them, transforming them into useful ones is needed news to be pigeonholed, correctly and coherently, in order to obtain some information really useful for the analysis. The purpose of the latter, we repeat once again1, it is not about predicting exactly what will happen but in reading reality more clearly in order to then be able to identify the possible actions and strategies of the protagonists in the field, so as to be able to develop the necessary operational, defensive or offensive measures and countermeasures, functional to the pursuit of one's own goals or interests.
This analysis, therefore, and here too we are not afraid to repeat ourselves again, "to be a useful tool, must necessarily be free from ideological and moral conditioning"2, focusing decisively on what is and not on what we would like it to be, unless one wants to deliberately produce illusions or propaganda with manipulative intent.a. This should be an obvious axiom, especially among professional analysts, but we have seen that in reality, as in the case of the ongoing events in Ukraine, it is not a foregone conclusion, not even in the face of the repeated blatant errors that have inevitably grossly ensued.3.
In short, in the geopolitical field, but this approach is valid for any other problem/activity of both a cognitive and practical (operational) nature, the analysis, which Decision Making Process, should be an aseptic rational reasoning path, a discipline that allows one to examine the situation, through the preliminary identification of all its quantitative aspects, in order to logically determine, among a series of compared alternatives, the best course of action (Operations Research), take the related political, economic and military decisions, evaluating their consequences in the short, medium and long term.
This cognitive process, in its systematic analysis, is comparable to an applied science and would seem, apparently, to be exclusively sequential and linear in its reasoning logic, almost assuming the aspect of mere calculation. But the reality of human action, of individuals or human groups, is not made only of quantitative elements but of forces that move by logics other than absolute rationality, not only opportunistic-material (homo economist) but ethical, moral, spiritual, psychological, emotional and even sentimental, up to completely irrational behavioral ones. These are the ones that often really determine events.
In their identification and evaluation there is another cognitive capacity at play, which is rarely mentioned or recognized, that of establishing or seeing connections and different views with respect to the aforementioned linear analytical process, an often intuitive capacity for perception, the result of skill, sensitivity, ability, experience and technical and cultural knowledge and a genius which, compared to the non-measurable, comes into play not only in the phase of Operations Research but also, and perhaps above all, in that of the formation of the understanding of reality and therefore, for those who must, of the decision-making determination. Instead, in the same way as the analysis is often contaminated by a lack of intellectual honesty, by political conditioning or by the search for comfortable and easy consensus, the rational process can be undermined at its foundation by ideological prejudices that overlook non-quantitative elements. One of the most commonly spread is the deterministic belief that everything, even the most apparently complex events, ultimately moves essentially according to strictly material dynamics of an economic nature. This, in reality, is a mere and convenient Interpretative simplification. This is a castrating schematization within which, by force, one tries to enclose the entire phenomenological evolution of human action, from which today neither neo-liberal thought nor Marxist thought can escape, attesting, once again, to their common innate matrix. This basic ideological setting translates into a substantial inadequacy in carrying out a complete reading of reality and human action, from which, consequently, derives an interpretative incapacity that produces, operationally and economically, disastrous social results and, politically, ethical aberrations.
The ability to symbiotically complete quantitative and non-quantitative elements it is not everyone's heritage. Nonetheless, punctually, those apparently immaterial factors, all wrongly branded as irrational, burst into history, which have the capacity to give sudden and unexpected turns to events, opening up scenarios that are difficult to predict and that throw a multitude of analysts and "experts" into crisis. A very current example of this inability to interpret It is the underestimation of the causes that led to the second election of Donald Trump as president of the United States of America.
Trump's victory attests, first of all, to a new chapter in the internal struggle in American society, which in recent years has become increasingly deeply divided, politically, ideologically and ethnically.. Certainly an enormous weight that led to the defeat of the Democratic Party is to be found in the economic factors, derived above all from an unscrupulous neoliberal policy of globalization, which have depressed the well-being and security of the middle class and hit the working class hard. One of the most obvious aspects of the labor crisis has been the sudden deindustrialization that has transformed it into a “rust belt” (rust belt) what was the powerful and proud industrial belt of the north-east of the USA. But Trump's victory is also the victory of silent majority tired of the now evident cultural arrogance of some elite who hold the economic levers, cultural communication and the domination of the mass media. A restricted set (deep state) which not only expressed its power by trying to influence the orientations of public opinion, through the use of all communication channels, but which gradually, starting from the concept of politically correct, has taken to the extreme, in the name of the defense of alleged rights, in an increasingly intolerant and authoritarian way, the imposition of single thought patterns and its own ideological drifts (woke, cancel culture) on a mass made subservient and guilty for its very identity.
The main axis of revolt against this state of affairs, of which Trump has skillfully made himself the spokesperson, under the slogan Let's make America great again! (MAGA), is above all generational and is made up of that age group that has fully lived its childhood or early youth still within the model of the American dream, the american dream, proud to come from that American way of life which, after the Second World War, was imposed on the whole world as the best for humanity. A generation proud of its origins, daughter, in turn, of the Myth of the Frontier, that dream of WASP origin (White Anglo Saxon Protestant) that persists in the American collective imagination. A representation that, against all odds, has also pushed many members of ethnic minorities to side with Trump, because that was the model of life that they too hoped to achieve and not the extravagant positions on rights of an increasingly extreme progressive left.
Of no lesser impact was the perception that the migratory pressure is irreversibly changing the ethnic and cultural face of the USA, calling into question not only its lifestyle but the very rules of coexistence and security.
All problems that the new president immediately addressed in his inaugural speech, promising to solve them by reviving the American dream in a new golden age: The golden age of America begins right now (America's golden age is just beginning now.) It is no coincidence that Trump has indicated reaching the planet Mars as a goal, dusting off in the collective memory the conquest of the Moon that was symbolically experienced, at the end of the 60s, as the maximum expression of US power.
Many of the crisis points, in reality, are not only the result of incorrect political choices by the ruling classes but also of internal contradictions in the very formative DNA of the USA. Therefore, unless there is a profound and perhaps impossible transformation, even if we were to temporarily plug them, they will inevitably reappear due to the same internal short circuits; political and ideological nonsense, such as the defense of the multi-ethnic society of melting pot and the contemporary desire to remain the nation, fundamentally culturally homogeneous, of one's fathers or like the desire to concentrate on internal well-being, seeking peaceful international coexistence, and at the same time, in order to maintain it through one's own system of economic development, having to necessarily project oneself externally with the imposing grit of an imperial-colonial power.
We would therefore need a courageous and radical reflection in this sense but very few "experts" or analysts grasp the need for it. At this moment the dream relaunched by Trump, the generational memory of reviving the America of the primacy of the thirty years that followed the Second World War, and the decline resulting from the political and ideological choices of the self-styled progressives is stronger than any other consideration and calculation. As, in fact, Trump clearly highlighted in his speech: The American decline is over! (American decline is over!) and again The spirit of the frontier is written into our hearts. (The spirit of the frontier is written in our hearts.) Surely the inaugural speech of January 20, with its surge of pride but also with the weight of those who hope for the future having realized where the present is running, will remain a reference of this historical phase of the USA..
Analysts of various kinds, from geopolitical to economic, commentators and popularizers are mostly taken aback and waiting for events. The same ones who were not able to understand the phenomenon that was maturing overseas, not having been able or willing to perceive those elements that Trump has made himself the spokesperson for, which in Operations Research we could define them as immaterial or non-quantitative.
Currently in the geopolitical field there is a sense of epochal expectation of the first moves of the new American president. In particular, on the international scene, the Ukrainian crisis, the Middle Eastern crisis and the conflict with China seem to await Trump's initiatives while the Biden period has ended, among what many have considered to be ill-advised provocations and ill-conceived attempts at war escalation.
Trump's reference to the 25th president of the USA, William McKinley, elected in 1896 and 1900, characterized by his protectionist policy, colonial expansionism (Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam), with the war against Spain and the annexation of Hawaii but also for careful international agreements, would seem not random if you add to his previous statements on tariffs and the American continental area (Canada, Greenland, Panama and Mexico). But, many have noted, McKinley also casts a shadow over his presidency, since he was assassinated, in 1901, by a left-wing extremist.
In any case, the US will be, willingly or not, forced to seek new balances in the geopolitical field, while new and unexpected polarizations of States are emerging and alternative models of economic development and international relations are being outlined. In this, China and Russia seem to be faster and more flexible in adapting and offering opportunities in seeking new partners in the international field while the United States, also through Trump's declarations of intent, seems more oriented to gain the greatest advantage from those who are officially its historical allies, underlining without discounts their satellite and subordinate roleBut Europe is not new to this.
Yet Tramp's predicted revision of trade and military relations, with the redefinition of NATO's role, could provide Europe with thatincentive to start relaunching its economy, abandoning the ultra-globalist model, reindustrializing, protecting its production and establishing trade and energy supply relationships according to its own interests and, finally, in the military field, starting to conceive a serious common defense. At the moment, however, Europe, both as a whole and in its individual expressions, once again seems incapable of undertaking a decisive internal and international policy that pursues its own interests while passively awaiting events decided outside.
1https://www.difesaonline.it/mondo-militare/il-tracollo-dellucraina-aprirebbe-una-vera-crisi-globale
2 therein