Source: finance.yahoo.com

"Democratic vs. authoritarian" as defined in Western liberalist diction is a false concept that fails to describe the true nature of a government. Politics is an extension of socio-economic power relations. A good government, whether it’s "democratic" (in form) or centralized ("authoritarian"), should be judged by whether it works to bring about and maintain a power balance between the most important two social groups (classes), i.e., those who make a living by providing labor, physical and/or mental, and those who make money mainly by investing money. This commentator does not deny the social function of money investment but, finally speaking, all wealth, material or spiritual, comes from labor, not paper that represents a currency! But when a goverment works to maintain domination by money investors over labor providers instead of regulating and restraining money investors’ unscrupulous profit-seeking without a sense of social responsibility, it IS an authoritarian government -- big capital dictatorship! -- even if it is "democratic" in form. And when labor-capital power relationship is balanced and all political activities are based on such a balance, any centralized government formed through such political activities would not be very far from a genuinely democratic one. Do away with those deceptive liberalist gibberishes!!!

                                                                                    -- The New Legalist editor

(Bloomberg) -- At the close of this year’s annual gathering of the transatlantic security community in Munich Sunday, its organizer Wolfgang Ischinger –- a former German ambassador to the U.S. -- offered a bleak conclusion: “We have a real problem.’’

The nature of that problem was on display throughout the three-day event: The U.S. is at odds with not only its great power rivals Russia and China, but also with its allies in Europe and elements of the international system that Washington itself was largely responsible for building.

Just as tangible was a fear that the glue of shared democratic values that has bound together western countries with historically different economic and security interests is dissolving.

You could trace the divisions through the hands that were and were not clapping during Vice President Mike Pence’s address to a hall packed with some 600 delegates including presidents, prime ministers and defense ministers on Saturday. Pence claimed a renewed U.S. leadership under President Donald Trump to a scattering of applause from mainly U.S. officials.

“We have just seen two days of data that says that is manifestly untrue," said Kori Schake, a former Director for Defense Strategy and Requirements in President George W. Bush’s National Security Council, and now deputy director of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Schake, a Republican, pointed to the awkward silences during pauses in Pence’s two speeches –- German Chancellor Angela Merkel was met with a standing ovation.

Equally jarring for many were the vice president’s demands that France, Germany and the U.K. join the U.S. in withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran –- an agreement the Europeans are instead trying to save with efforts to help their companies avoid U.S. sanctions when trading with Tehran.

Other U.S. positions meeting varying levels of resistance included opposition to German plans for a new natural gas pipeline to Russia and a potential transatlantic trade war if the U.S. Treasury should designate imports of automobiles a threat to U.S. national security. The Commerce Department is due to report on whether Trump can use that justification for tariffs imminently.

“The actions of the U.S. are getting a lot of people worried and they’re thinking, well, what do we do? Do we go it alone?’’ said former Estonian President Toomas Ilves.

Essential Ally

The answer so far is no.

The U.S. security umbrella and its economic pull are simply too great. Even those proposing a new European army acknowledge that without the U.S. and, after Brexit, the U.K. it would be incapable of providing security for the continent.

A large, bi-partisan U.S. turnout, including more than 50 members of Congress, sought to fill the void and former Vice President Joe Biden looked to persuade U.S. allies that normal service would resume as soon as Trump leaves office.

Yet Europeans are divided by the Trump administration, too. Poland, under pressure from the EU for allegedly undermining its democratic institutions, is a particularly strong backer and hosted a U.S.-convened conference on the Middle East last week.

Shared Values

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stressed repeatedly that U.S. spending on Europe’s defense had increased significantly in the last few years, as had Europe’s own defense budgets –- in part due to pressure from Trump.

Two initiatives aimed at rescuing the common values written into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 1949 founding treaty betrayed a wider fear that these are no longer shared.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was among the signatories of a Declaration of Principles for Freedom, Prosperity and Peace which she described in an interview as a "renewal of vows." From Munich she was on her way to Poland and the Czech Republic to persuade the governments there to renew their commitment too.

Another initiative by two former U.S. represenatatives to NATO, Nicholas Burns and Douglas Lute, produced a report –- NATO at 70: An Alliance in Crisis –- which listed 10 challenges to overcome, including the absence of “principled’’ U.S. leadership.

In reality, NATO was always a military alliance first, and one that was happy to accommodate both Turkey and Greece when they were ruled by military juntas. But the values laid out in 1949 became far more important with the collapse of the former Soviet Union, when NATO had to find a new binding principle beyond a common enemy, said Albright.