Why Do Brexit and Trump Still Shock National Security Elites?

LONDON – Are you watching this, today? Does Brexit have your attention? If you’re reading this in Defense One, you’re likely a national security professional of some kind, or at least a fanboy or fangirl of foreign policy. And if you’re scared by the Brexit vote and Trump’s parallel middle-finger message to the world, then it’s time you stop blaming the masses who support them and start blaming yourself.

Here’s a suggestion for you. Read on, and learn why Americans and Britons are feeling so disconnected from your sage national security advice. Then close this page and start talking to your neighbors, your family, your friends about what you do and why it’s important — and why the policies you want will make America great again. Because that’s what Donald Trump is doing. He’s including them. And you’re not. Not well enough, at least.

In London in April, nearly every security leader at the Aspen Security Forum: Global event opposed leaving the European Union, and all but dismissed the prospect. Why would Great Britain give up a seat at the global intelligence and security table and start over on its own? A vote for Brexit would cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face. (The nose being integrated law enforcement, intelligence, and military security operations.)

Sound familiar? In the United States, nearly every serious national security leader in Washington is against a Commander in Chief Donald Trump.

Consequences of Brexit:

Energy -- Since about 2001, OPEC has done its defacto pricing in Euros, in order to keep oil price-stable in Europe, which is by far the nearest large market. Russia supplies about 45 percent of Europe's crude, and the number three supplier is Norway (Norway is NOT an EU member).
- The Euro slipped against the US$, and in case you'd not seen the impact yet, the price of gasoline has slid. Around here the price of gasoline rose from about $2.60 into the $2.90s, then slid back into the $2.70s, then into the $2.50s last week, and yesterday I tanked up at $2.249.
- Venezuela sells into the US market, and a further price declilne of this kind will make their recent months of chaos look like ballet. Let's hope the increased chaos results in regime change and the destruction of the dictatorship. If we HAD a President, US troops would have removed the regime, removed the Iranian thugs, confiscated their advanced Russian fighters, and bulldozed the terrorist training camps.
- Russia's recent escalation against ISIS hasn't proved durable, ISIS has snapped back. Unless that news turd can be polished, Putin will have to increase resources committed to the Syrian theater of war, and will have to try rapprochement with the Saudis, Kuwaitis, and UAE.
- A decline in crude prices has generally led to war in the Middle East between OPEC member countries, but that's already been going on, thanks to Iran, which has terrorist groups operating in Lebanon (for 30 years now), Syria (five years), Yemen (at least three years), Eritrea (at least ten years), Iraq (at least ten years, probably more like 40, reaching back into the Shah's time), Libya...
- Stabilization of the Libyan oil infrastructure (not its political structure, which is now less stable than Lebanon's, Syria's, or Iraq's) is important to the EU, and preventing stabilization of it is important to both Russia and Iran. Let's see also what Turkey does, wouldn't be a surprise to see a summit meeting between Putin, Erdogan, and whatever Shiite-head Iran sends.
The EU needs the UK more than the UK needs the EU.
- The UK rejected the Euro and kept its currency, which now looks like a genius move; the controversy over that issue brought down John Major and the Tories. Major was pro-EU (still is) but in a slick move not unliike Cameron's, wanted the option to keep the Pound, without actually supporting keeping the Pound. Everyone else in UK politics was unable to cross that particular third rail at the time.
- On average, 25 percent of trade between EU countries is with the UK.
- Despite that, the UK runs a trade deficit with other EU countries, Germany runs a trade surplus with them. My wild guess is, a chunk of both figures is due to UK-Germany trade.
- 20 percent of US trade is with the EU.
- 20 percent of US trade with the EU is with the UK (about 4% overall, compared with 25% for the EU with the UK).
- The UK has something like the 5th largest economy in the world. Fox biz (the stream on Roku anyway) has had the best coverage, in that they haven't been carrying water for Remain (because unlike CNBC, they don't carry water for Zero), but also haven't frozen out the talking point demagogues.
- Some talking head on Fox biz news stream noted that Germany sells 850,000 autos into the UK every year and that's a market they don't want to lose; another noted that the tariffs on imports into the EU is only 3 percent.
- The EU as structured by the Lisbon Treaty is finished. The economic reality of domination by the German economy hasn't changed just because a bunch of expense-accounted red tapeworms (coined it!) in Brussels have been trying to "standardize" everything. On the one hand, the attempt to impose fiscal discipline on member states was admirable. On the other hand, that's like saying, the common sense advantages of health care portability makes the entirety of Obamacare a good idea.
Investments.
- that sudden slight slide of the Euro and Pound vs the US$ means a great stock buying opportunity (particularly German stocks), regardless of how long it takes (if ever) for those currencies to recover that lost value.
- Gold will rise a bit (already has) due to investment uncertainty and exchange rates, blah blah blah, that won't last.
- Alan Greenspan showed that he's in his last days when he claimed that the Brexit is at least as big a disaster as the 1987 stock market crash. Smart guy, but clearly not always right; and of course, as bad as that day was (and it was bad) it is obvious that it wasn't as bad as, for example, the 1929 crash, and as you may recall, investment icon Peter Lynch managed to guide the fund he managed -- Fidelity Magellan, which was about twice the size of its nearest rival at that time -- into a very small gain for the year. Marxists of the time regurgitated their talking points, that the 1987 crash showed that capitalism was in its death throes, blah blah blah. [Also goofy -- Alan Greenspan Warns That Venezuelan Style Martial Law Will Soon Come To The US 05/31/2016, Greece: Greenspan predicts exit from euro inevitable 02/08/2015]
Now Switzerland WITHDRAWS its application to join the EU just a week before British vote, Brexit SPREADS across Europe: Italy, France, Holland and Denmark ALL call for referendums, etc.
Northern tier EU members have been bankrolling southern tier members, and the kinds of needed alterations in their outlook and lifestyle in the latter haven't been forthcoming. It doesn't make sense to have a unified currency without an actually unified fiscal policy, and the reception for that idea is basically zero. To make that work, Europe would need a unified, and actually representative, legislative body (the red tapeworms would fight tooth and nail against it; so would current elected leaders who see themselves as the eventual emeritus members of the unelected oligarchy running things) unconstrained by national boundaries (ditto) and central executive branch, and hey, maybe a single supreme court that-- wait a second... all this sounds familiar...
Hitlery is not ahead by double digits, that's so obviously the result of book-cooking and partisan shilling that it makes it more likely that the blood-boiling hasn't reached anything like its eventual peak.
The Demagogic Party must be destroyed.

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