In recent years, the world has seen the rise of anti-diplomacy occasioned by the appearance on the world stage of political brutes, all operating under the color of “populism.” Aristotle defined a tyrant as someone who rules solely for his own benefit and pleasure. The world has seen the steady rise of such tyrants over the past few decades. What is alarming is that tyranny and anti-diplomacy has flourished in erstwhile democratic nations having traditional presidential-legislative and parliamentary systems of government.

Perhaps it is fitting that Silvio Berlusconi, the media mogul and former Italian prime minister who introduced brutish governance to Europe in the 1990s, has returned to politics after a respite brought about by several indictments and a 2013 conviction for tax fraud. Berlusconi leads his right-wing Forza Italia political party as a member of the European Parliament. Berlusconi’s populism is consistently directed against “Communists.” Berlusconi now directs his ire at the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, which recently forced an old Berlusconi political ally – the right-wing Northern League led by Matteo Salvini – out of a coalition government. Salvini and Berlusconi now vie for the support of some 30 percent of the Italian electorate that continues to admire World War II fascist leader Benito Mussolini.

Berlusconi is recognized more for his crude comments than his neo-fascist policies. In 2003, Berlusconi suggested in the European Parliament that German Social Democratic MEP Martin Schulz play the role of a “kapo,” a concentration camp inmate who was empowered by the Nazi camp officials to enforce rules and labor details, in a forthcoming film. In another reference to German concentration camps that same year, Berlusconi said, “Mussolini never killed anyone, he just sent dissenters abroad for vacation.” Italian relations with Germany and Israel soured. In 2009, at a G20 Summit photo shoot with Queen Elizabeth II and other world leaders, the queen was irritated by Berlusconi’s loud shouting, prompting her to ask Barack Obama – who Berlusconi previously called “sun-tanned,” – “Why does he have to shout?” In 2010, Berlusconi further irritated Israel by telling a joke about a Jew who hid fellow Jews in his basement for money without telling them World War II was over. In 2011, Berlusconi said that German Chancellor Angela Merkel was “an unfuckable lard-ass.” Berlusconi also made crude remarks about Finland’s female president, Tarja Halonen and criticized the Spanish government for having too many women in its Cabinet. Berlusconi insulted China when he claimed that under Mao Zedong, the Chinese government “boiled children to fertilize the fields.” It was a clear sign that the age of modern diplomacy had hit rocky shoals and was about to rapidly sink. In 2011, the worst was yet to come.

Berlusconi’s vulgarity and anti-diplomacy would soon be matched by that of Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines. Duterte called the US ambassador in Manila a “bakla,” which means an effeminate man in the Tagalog language. Duterte also called President Obama a “son of a whore” and Pope Francis a “son of a bitch.” After Iceland criticized Duterte’s human rights record, he responded by stating that Icelanders “go about eating ice” and claimed that Iceland had “no policemen.” He added that Iceland had “too much ice, and there is no clear day or night there.” Duterte’s Foreign Secretary, Teodoro Locsin, Jr., who is nominally in charge of the country’s diplomatic corps, emulated Duterte by referring to Europeans as people “who don’t shower at least once daily and [were] likely on cartel payroll.” Asked about the Philippines and the “international community,” Locsin replied, “Fuck the international community. It can be bought.”

Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack recently insulted South Pacific leaders concerned about the effects of global climate change on their vulnerable nations when he said of Pacific islanders, “They’ll continue to survive because many of their workers come here and pick our fruit.” Tuvalu Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga reacted by threatening to pull his nation’s citizens out of Australia’s seasonal workers program.

Such undiplomatic outbursts were once rare, even at the height of the Cold War. Dwight Eisenhower entertained visiting world leaders, including West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, French President Charles De Gaulle, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, at his Gettysburg, Pennsylvania farm, where, in 1959, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev made a point of inviting Eisenhower’s grandchildren to visit Moscow with their grandparents on a future state visit. The era of diplomacy – both quiet and for public consumption – was one of carefully-written communiqués and protocol-conscious photo opportunities. Four letter epithets were never publicly overheard in matters of diplomatic statecraft.

The personalized insult rhetoric was normally consigned to Third World firebrand dictators like Uganda’s Idi Amin, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, and Gambia’s Yahya Jammeh. In the current post-diplomacy era, such insults would no longer emanate from well-guarded presidential palaces in Kampala, Harare, or Banjul, but from the White House, Number 10 Downing Street, and Parliament Hill in Canberra. Leaders and their close advisers now sound more like drunken sailors leaving a bar than representatives of nations with long democratic traditions.

Britain’s Boris Johnson has had a non-distinguished history of insulting people, both as Mayor of London, Foreign Secretary, and now as Prime Minister. He once called those in Commonwealth nations, who avidly welcomed the British Queen, “cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies” bearing “watermelon smiles.” Johnson also said the people of Papua New Guinea, a Commonwealth member nation, practiced “orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing.” Johnson also referred to Africa as “that country.” As Foreign Secretary, Johnson was prepared to recite a crude poem, titled the “Road to Mandalay,” written by Rudyard Kipling about colonial era-Burma. Johnson happened to be visiting the most scared Buddhist temple – the Shwedegon Pagoda – in Yangon, Myanmar. Johnson was prepared to utter the following stanza that referred to Buddha: “Bloomin’ idol made o’ mud/ Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd” – before the British ambassador stopped him with a warning that it was definitely not appropriate to recite such words in the Buddhist religious shrine.

Johnson also insulted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – who is no shrinking violet when it comes to his own insults – with a crude limerick he wrote:

“There was a young fellow from Ankara
Who was a terrific wankerer
Till he sowed his wild oats
With the help of a goat
But he didn’t even stop to thankera.”

Not to be outdone, Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu were fond of trading insults, with each calling the other a “terrorist.” Erdogan also insulted Australia, stating that “anti-Muslim Australians” in Turkey would return to Australia in coffins like their grandfathers, a reference to the World War I Gallipoli, Turkey invasion that saw thousands of Australian soldiers killed in battle.

Johnson’s ideological and vulgar doppelganger in Washington, Donald Trump, has similarly disparaged Africa and Africans by calling their nations “shithole countries.” At a Republican Party fundraiser in the millionaire enclave of The Hamptons on Long Island, Trump mimicked South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe by speaking in a mock Asian accent. Trump’s insults of Mexicans resulted in then-Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto canceling a visit to Washington in 2017.

Prior to his love affair with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Trump referred to him as “little rocket man.” Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau was called “very dishonest and weak” after Trump stormed out of the 2018 G-7 summit in Quebec. Trump called Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen as “nasty,” after she rejected as “absurd” Trump’s proposal to buy Greenland from Denmark. Trump also insulted Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II by canceling, at the last minute, a state visit to Denmark, leaving the Danes with pre-purchased state dinner food and drink. Trump insulted Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven after the prime minister informed Trump that he had no power to release from jail a fourth-rate US rapper named A$AP Rocky who was charged with the assault of a man on a Stockholm street.

Others who have fallen victim to Trump’s personal insults include French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Merkel, former British Prime Minister Theresa May, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Montenegro Prime Minister Duško Marković, former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan (who had to arrange for his own transportation to downtown Washington, DC after arriving at Dulles International Airport in Virginia for a visit to the White House),Afghan President Ashraf Ghani (whose only invitation to meet with Trump was to be at an abruptly-canceled “secret” meeting with Taliban leaders at Camp David in Maryland during the same week that marks the 9/11 attack). There have been others similarly insulted.

The schoolyard antics of Trump and Johnson are matched by Brazil’s Adolf Hitler-loving President Jair Bolsonaro. After President Macron criticized Bolsonaro’s handling of Amazon rainforest arson-inducted fires, Bolsonaro criticized the age of Macron’s wife, Brigitte, who is 66, as compared to Bolsonaro’s wife, who is 37. Macron responded, “I think that Brazilians, who are a great people, will probably be ashamed to see this behavior.” In July of this year, Bolsonaro canceled a meeting with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian to get a haircut.

After United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet criticized police abuse and the killing of Amazon indigenous tribal leaders in Brazil, Bolsonaro replied, “While [Bachelet] says that Brazil is losing democratic space, she forgets that her country is not Cuba thanks only to those who had the courage to put a stop on the left-wing in 1973,” a reference to the 1973 military coup that ousted Chile’s democratically-elected Socialist President Salvador Allende. Bolsonaro added insult to injury by praising the Chilean junta’s execution of Bachelet’s father, Air Force Brigadier General Alberto Bachelet. Bolsonaro bragged that “among the communists during that era was her [Bachelet’s] brigadier father.” Bolsonaro’s Economy Minister, Paulo Guedes, piled on, stating that: “What I see in the newspapers is that he [Bolsonaro] insulted [Michelle] Bachelet, or that he called Macron’s wife ugly . . . He did say that and it’s true – the woman is indeed ugly.”

Too many diplomats, from UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold and UN Middle East mediator Count Folke Bernadotte to Russian ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov, US ambassador to Cyprus Rodger Davies, and UN Commissioner for Namibia Bernt Carlsson, have died in diplomatic service in furtherance of peace to allow low-class ruffians and gangsters to hijack modern diplomacy for their own greedy and extremist purposes.

One can understand his feelings. The leaders of China, India, Egypt, South Africa, Vietnam, Mongolia and many other states came to Moscow on Victory Day. Against this background the absence of those who lead the member states of North Atlantic Alliance became a minor event. It was not as important as Western leaders tried to paint it. 

The agenda of the meetings held by Russian President Vladimir Putin with the leaders of 30 states on May 8-9, 2015 – the days the country marked the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War – was much more diversified than run-of-the mill diplomatic contacts. They became kind of a symbolic starting point for the process of drastic reform changing the contemporary system of international relations. Suffice it to say that during the Cold War years following the end of the Second World War it was the East, not the West, Asia and Africa, not Europe and the United States, who recognized the decisive role of the USSR in liberation of humanity from the Nazi yoke. Mahendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, the King of Nepal, visited the Soviet Union in 1958. Before the voyage he had asked to include Stalingrad into the list of places to see. There he said, «The people of Nepal know about the heroic struggle of Soviet Union against fascism and its ultimate victory. Stalingrad will always remain a great symbol of victory over the aggressor.» 

Jan Christiaan Smuts, a British Field-Marshall and Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa during the war years, made an interesting remark. He pointed out that the USSR bore the bulk of war effort while the allies dodged shouldering a heavier burden. The troops of South Africa fought the enemy in Ethiopia, North Africa, Sicily and Corsica. The South African Air Force supported the Soviet forces during the Lvov-Sandomierz operation in 1944. South African President Jacob Zuma met the Russian President in Moscow on Victory Day. He said it was important for him to be in Moscow at this time. Greeting the South African guest the Russian leader said, «Relations between Russia and South Africa are of a special nature: this is our leading partner on the African continent.» 

During the war and the after-war years the decisive contribution of the Soviet Union into the victory held over fascism was emphasized by Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia, William V. S. Tubman, the President of Liberia, Yahya Muhammad Hamid ed-Din, the Imam of Yemen, King Farouk of Egypt, Zahir Shah, the King of Afghanistan, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran. Haile Selassie said the victory over fascism became possible thanks to the decisive role of Soviet peoples and the huge sacrifices they made to achieve the victory over fascism. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi said commemorative words in 1942. According to him, the Red Army had a decisive role in slowing down the pace of advance and then repulsing the fascist push. It defended Iran and many other countries from a potential aggression. It is especially acute because last year Russia and the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America achieved great progress boosting their comprehensive cooperation. The rapid development of their ties has become a major international trend. 

The rapprochement between Russia and China is the process of special significance. Russia and China signed a number of energy, trade and finance deals on May 8 aimed at strengthening economic ties. The two countries have multiple mutual projects which «achieved a unity of views on a wide range of issues.» China’s National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) signed an agreement on the basic conditions of gas supplies from Russia to China through the Western route. The parties concluded an information security agreement. The landmark became an agreement to join the Eurasian Economic Union with the trans-Eurasian project «Economic line of the Silk Road.» The alliance between Russia and China, according to the chairman of the international affairs committee of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, Alexei Pushkov, is built in response to the expansion of the US and NATO. «The US and NATO lined up the world for themselves for 20 years. In response to the expansion of the western alliance, an alternative alliance is being built by Russia and China,» he told RIA Novosti news agency.

Today, the governments are not looking that strong in either Spain or Italy. There are still mass protest actions in Spain against the anti-crisis programme of the centreright cabinet, and added to this are the recent accusations of corruption involving ministers. According to The Wall Street Journal, Spain's shadow economy makes up 20-25% of the gross domestic product, which is considerably more than similar indicators in Germany and the USA, for example. Spain's total tax revenue, meanwhile, amounted to 32.1% of the GDP according to 2011 figures, which is substantially lower than the average for a country in the eurozone. 

In recent weeks, however, Spain's problems may be receding into the shadows when compared with Italy's. The upcoming general elections in Italy on 24-25 February may see the removal of the current rightwing coalition headed by Premier Mario Monti, who carried out the anti-crisis policy in line with recommendations from Brussels. The policy is based on cutting back social programmes and payments and an allout tax increase. At present, Pier Luigi Bersani's Democratic Party, which is largely in agreement with the current government's views on economic policy, is leading in the polls However, on a wave of political and financial scandals which have shocked the country, the People of Freedom party headed by former premier Silvio Berlusconi, rallying under the slogans of a tough and largely just criticism of the Brussels bureaucracy with its anti-crisis formulae beneficial to transnational corporations, is rapidly gaining popularly. He has already managed to shock the European Union by promising Italians that the municipal property tax paid in 2012 will be given back. 

First to sound the alarm was the international financial information agency Bloomberg. According to experts at Bloomberg, the fact that Silvio Berlusconi's coalition has noticeably improved its position in the run up to the Italian parliamentary elections is a cause for concern with regard to Italy's budget saving measures in the future. Experts from RGE Monitor have also declared that the Berlusconi coalition's possible victory in the forthcoming elections is a serious risk factor for the entire eurozone. 

In recent days, there have been many indications that the leadership of the European Union and the leaders of its member states, primarily Germany, are trying to interfere directly in the Italian election campaign in order to ensure victory for Mario Monti, regarded by Brussels as a manageable candidate…

This is understandable if you take into account certain statements made by Berlusconi. "Ceding sovereignty to a United States of Europe, to the government of a unified Europe elected by its own people", says Berlusconi, "is not the same as handing it over to the bureaucrats in Brussels". According to the Italian politician, the financial crisis needs to be overcome by stimulating economic growth, something he intends to do should he return to power. Mario Monti's government, meanwhile, has followed a different path by significantly increasing taxes on everything, as a result of which tax levels in Italy have reached 56%. The newspaper La Stampa recalls the shock felt in Germany at Silvio Berlusconi's announcement of his intention to return to mainstream politics. "There was fear discernible in Angela Merkel's words that Italy might abandon the path of reforms begun by Monti and drag the 17 eurozone countries into trouble. After all, elections are coming up which are going to have to take place against internal debates on the instability of the eurozone and the possible interference of the ECB, in which Berlin has increasingly less influence", La Stampa emphasised. 

Similar fears can also be heard in French columnist Jean-Marie Colombani's assessment of the situation. He is convinced that Silvio Berlusconi's return to Italy's political Olympus will be enough to reverse all of the European Union's anti-crisis programmes. "Do not be in any doubt, the elections in Italy are just as important for our future as the German elections planned for September", writes Colombani.

However, it is not just economic considerations that are causing the panic increasingly taking hold of European Union leaders and officials. The strengthening of the Italy-Russia alliance also seems to be on the minds of those in Brussels. And from the point of view of European Union strategists, this is significantly more serious than the fluctuations of global financial indices and the exchange rate of the euro against the dollar. As the Italian publication L'Occidentale points out, Silvio Berlusconi is the one who is able to offer an alternative to the current policy involving the "direct political interference of the European Union" in the affairs of Russia and other Eastern European states. "Only now is it becoming clear", writes L'Occidentale, "that the way suggested by Berlusconi (to cooperate more with Russia in order to achieve greater benefits) may be more effective and would avoid certain developments that have considerably worsened the current situation in the east of Europe and the Caucasus…” 

Of course, Silvio Berlusconi is far too complicated a man to be characterised so definitively. However, the independence he displays and his interest in developing trade and economic relations with Russia allows his possible return to power to be seen as the collapse of the Euro-Atlantic policy. It is also possible to consider the recent victory of Miloš Zeman in the Czech presidential elections as part of this same collapse. It should be said that followers of Euro-Atlanticism view this trend in European politics as even more dangerous than the financial problems in the eurozone.