1. Rising Apprehensions
- Author:
- Simon Serfaty
- Publication Date:
- 12-2022
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Robert Schuman Foundation (RSF)
- Abstract:
- To the end, Samuel Beckett insisted that he did not know who Godot was, nor what his two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, were waiting for. That was not the least absurdity of his play, which he wrote in French, the Irish author later explained, because he did not know the language well. That is where we all are now: confused over what to expect as we stagger into the second and possibly final half of the Biden presidency. In America, momentarily reset as the leader of the Free World, a democracy at risk; in Europe, an alliance recast by an unwanted war; and elsewhere, a global mutation told in languages we understand poorly even when they carry a slight American accent. This is unchartered territory: across the Atlantic, half the people waiting for Trump to return to the White House and the other half waiting for him to go to prison; around the world, half the people welcoming America’s restored leadership and the other half celebrating its demotion; and all over, rising apprehensions over a war which neither belligerent can realistically win but which both refuse to end.
- Topic:
- NATO, European Union, Geopolitics, and Russia-Ukraine War
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Ukraine, Global Focus, and United States of America