By Yunus Emre Özgün
As the Transatlantic security architecture buckles under the weight of an impending ‘economic tsunami,’ the United States faces a brutal domestic reckoning over its unconditional support for Israel. In an exclusive interview with UWI, former CIA analyst and US State Department’s counterterrorism planner and advisor Larry J. Johnson dissects the shattering of American unipolarity, the devastating ripple effects on global food and energy supply chains, and why Türkiye’s contradictory foreign policy has reduced a regional heavyweight to acting like a geopolitical ‘prisoner subaltern.’
The Eurocentric global order, which has dictated the international system for over five centuries, is actively hemorrhaging. Driven by a lethal cocktail of proxy wars, severe imperial overstretch, and a blind subservience to Israeli regional ambitions, the United States is rapidly draining its geostrategic and domestic capital. Across the Atlantic, an economically hollowed-out Europe watches as its industrial bedrock cracks under the pressure of severed Russian ties and a looming Middle Eastern supply shock.
Known for his unvarnished, realpolitik assessments and decades of intelligence experience, Larry J. Johnson delivers a brutal autopsy of the Transatlantic alliance. He exposes the fatal miscalculations threatening to implode Donald Trump’s political survival, details the rising anti-Zionist revolt within the American public, and offers a stark, unfiltered reality check for a geopolitically gridlocked Ankara.
An Economic Tsunami: Urea, Energy, and the Death of European Sovereignty
Mr. Johnson, looking at the Ukraine war through a realpolitik lens, we see a massive contradiction. The US is essentially profiting, boosting its defense sector and selling expensive LNG to Europe, while the EU faces severe deindustrialization. How much longer can Europe sustain these pro-war policies before its economy completely breaks, and who will be the real geostrategic winners and losers here?
Larry J. Johnson: “If the war with Iran and the shuttering of the Strait of Hormuz continue, the definitive break with Europe could come late this year or early next. I call it an ‘economic tsunami’ that is going to crush Europe. The ripple effects will be global, but Europe is uniquely vulnerable because it possesses almost zero natural resources. It lacks liquid natural gas and has practically no oil, apart from the North Sea reserves.
But it’s not just an energy shock; it is a fundamental survival crisis on the food front. The global reduction in urea and critical fertilizers is going to devastate European crop yields.
Let’s call it what it is: the 80-year experiment of creating NATO, with the United States acting as the ultimate “sugar daddy,” is over. There is no foundational raison d’être holding the alliance together anymore. The Soviet Union collapsed, removing the sole justification for NATO’s existence. Today, the West keeps desperately trying to reinvent modern Russia as the Soviet Union, which it absolutely is not. The post-WWII architecture where the US leads and NATO operates as its vassal is coming to a definitive end.”
The Domestic Fracture and the Fall of the “Zionist Consensus”
This leads us to a massive geoeconomic multiplier. As Europe struggles, the US is fracturing internally. Trump’s pro-Israel policies are facing massive pushback not just from liberals, but from his own base. In response, his administration seems to bypass institutions. Is the United States turning into an institutionalized autocracy at home amid this global energy crisis?
“I’d say not yet, but the trajectory is alarming. The immediate shock hitting the American public is material reality: the price of gas. We saw prices spike 50 cents in a single week in my area. Trump initially tried to artificially suppress this by emptying the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but that reserve is now basically empty. Because paper market prices for domestic oil are low, a massive amount of US oil is being exported overseas for higher profits. This artificially decreases domestic supply, spiking costs for the average American and bringing the entire economy to a screeching halt.
Politically, Trump is in desperate peril. He has sold himself to the Zionist lobby, carrying their water, and it is blowing up in his face. His support has cratered down to roughly 33%, and this foreign policy disaster is going to destroy his presidency.
What the mainstream pundits are missing is the massive disconnect between the establishment and the American populace. A growing number of average Americans are actively turning against this blind support for the Zionist project. You see influential alternative media figures like Tucker Carlson, Doug McGregor, and Scott Ritter openly challenging this subservience. Look at legacy conservative platforms like The Daily Wire, they recently fired half their staff and saw their monthly viewership absolutely crash from 170 million down to 22 million. Why? Because Americans are increasingly fed up with putting Israel’s interests ahead of those of the United States.”
Türkiye’s Strategic Paralysis: The ‘Gender-Confused’ Prisoner Subaltern State
Let’s bring this macro-crisis to Türkiye’s borders. Ankara sits right in the middle of the Ukrainian proxy war and the expanding Middle East conflict. The country faces a severe encirclement: An armed YPG terror threat to the south, and a US-Israeli-Greek military buildup directly challenging Türkiye’s “Blue Homeland” sovereignty to the west. Given this aggressive containment by its own “allies,” does Ankara have the leverage to survive this multi-front crisis?
“I’ll put it bluntly: Türkiye needs to decide what its actual identity is. Right now, on the geopolitical stage, it is acting like someone who is entirely ‘gender-confused’, trying to figure out if it’s transgender or not. It keeps trying to be everything to everyone, and as a result, it serves no one, least of all itself.
Look at the sheer strategic ‘schizophrenia’. Türkiye is a predominantly Muslim nation, the heir to the Ottoman Empire, completely enabling the Zionist regime. Despite explicit threats from the Israeli president implying that Türkiye is their next target, Ankara continues to supply oil and the vital raw materials necessary for Israel’s economic survival and war machine. It is baffling for a sovereign country to work so aggressively against its own survival interests. Türkiye continues to supply oil and facilitate the economic survival of Israel… For a predominantly Muslim country to work against its own interests in such a way is just, to me, shocking… The president of Israel talks about, ‘once we get rid of Iran, our next target is Türkiye.’ I mean, for God’s sake, don’t you guys listen to the news? You know, are you deaf? Pay attention.
And the contradictions don’t stop there. Türkiye collaborated with these same Western and Zionist interests to overthrow Bashar al-Assad, effectively destabilizing its own southern border. Early in the Ukraine conflict, they were supplying drones to Kyiv. Furthermore, Türkiye has spent 30 years standing at the door of the EU, begging to be let in, while Europe treats them as a second-class citizen, essentially saying, ‘You’re too Muslim, we don’t want you.’ Why does Ankara want to be just another vassal in the dying NATO network?
Geographically, Türkiye holds massive leverage. It could do to Russia and NATO what Iran is currently doing to global trade, simply by utilizing its sovereign control over the Bosphorus. Outside of Russia, Türkiye commands the fiercest and largest army in the entire region. Turkish soldiers have a stellar reputation for being highly competent and fierce.
And yet, despite this massive military and geographic leverage, Türkiye is acting like somebody’s prison subaltern, being told exactly what to do and blindly going along with it while hosting assets like the Kürecik radar that actively protect Israel.
The President Erdoğan is a crafty, highly manipulative operator who knows how to work an angle. But the Turkish state apparatus has not fully embraced serving its own sovereign interests. Until Ankara decides whether it wants to be an independent regional leader or remain chained to the dictates of an alliance that actively undermines it, it will remain trapped in this perilous strategic paralysis.
Despite the history with Russia, I think Türkiye would find that Russia would be very, very supportive of a reassertive Türkiye, a Türkiye that actually was genuinely independent.”
*This transcript of the interview has been edited for grammar and style without altering the original context