Haakon A. Ikonomou
As US Vice President J.D. Vance’s recent speech at the Munich Security Conference made clear, Europe seems to be the new “monster” of the US Presidency – how did this come about? Sometimes it is helpful to engage in a bit of speculative analysis to grasp vast geopolitical changes of baffling complexity, to understand the phenomena in a new way. So, allow me to take you on an alternative journey of what is happening with the United States’ relations to its geopolitical allies and competitors. It is a story of monster creation and monster mirroring, but most importantly how the relationship between the two processes impacts the current US administration.
Creating Monsters
Teratogenesis (the term is borrowed from the medical world, but its Greek components simply means “monster” and “creation/formation of something”) we could imagine as the process through which a state, a group of states, or a complex of polities create a foreign monster “out there”, which it is necessary to mobilise against and fight. It is the discursive construction of a monstrous other – a projection not necessarily strategized into being, but which brings together an image which is rooted both in material interests and historically saturated tropes. It is the combination, that makes it effective.
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