Goodbye Pax Americana 
by Michael Doyle

At war's end and freed from fascism 
Europe breathed with American optimism
Barbarism had been thoroughly defeated
And a brave new world was timidly greeted

The Marshall Plan was the discovery
That would lead to economic recovery
It was a masterstroke of economic strategy
It would restore Europe to liberty and dignity

After  an era of hellish and savage destruction
America reseeded Europe with tools of construction
The goal was Christian moral order as the law
And the rights of mankind was the dutybound call

Like a Phoenix rising from the ashes of disunity
Europe created NATO and founded economic community
It was not just a matter of convenience but duty
But this time seems to have past irresolutely

Europe has sunk to a technocratic apostasy
That has long shunted our commonality of society
It might be that one day we might emerge again as friends
But for now, this common path has its temporal end

Post-national and godlessly secular in its worldview
Our moral grammar no longer finds it passage through
Universalist humanism has strained the welfare state
Until the allies we had seem destined to an unkind fate

Culturally leftward, the EU become also mercantilist
Disadvantaging America, our allies have become protectionist
In treated agreement after agreement, there are costs
All of which comes at America's lost until alliance is lost

Despite Germanic Zeitenwende, inertia has had consequence
Europe continues to be a strategic free rider without recompense
Our so called allies have maintained their soft-power diplomacy 
While America's hard power continues to underwrite the security

In terms of game theory, there has been a loss of equilibrium
The moral-political vision is lost to the point of absurd-ium
An ally who continuously stabs one is the back is not an ally
There is a heavy dose of dysfunction in our once family

America's choices are now conditionality, restructuring or an out
Europe's duplicity has left the US cautious and in doubt
America's security requires shifting eastward for it defense
And requiring old partners to do more than live in pretense

These points made are not the abandonment of solidarity
But a cry into the winds of change and of truest clarity
The spiritual bond has frayed into quiet hostility
Mutual interest and shared assumption are needed for civility

(c) April 19, 2025   Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved