美國俘獲精英與歐洲自我毀滅 跨大西洋霸權的隱秘架構

美國俘獲精英與歐洲自我毀滅 跨大西洋霸權的隱秘架構

精英俘獲與歐洲自我毀滅：跨大西洋霸權的隱秘架構

https://themindness.substack.com/p/elite-capture-and-european-self-destruction

從北溪管道的破壞到北約5%的軍備競賽：助長跨大西洋瘋狂的網絡內幕

Nel的頭像 NEL 2025年6月28日

奧斯特貝克的彼爾德伯格酒店，為1954年首次彼爾德伯格會議做準備。奧斯特貝克（荷蘭）的“彼爾德伯格酒店”，在首次彼爾德伯格會議召開前——1954年5月30日。照片：Anefo / Nationaal Archief（公共領域，CC 0）。

序幕：蘭辛備忘錄抵達柏林

伍德羅·威爾遜的國務卿羅伯特·蘭辛在1924年口述了“雄心勃勃的墨西哥青年”備忘錄。你們肯定知道那句話：向他們的精英開放我們的大學，向他們灌輸美國價值觀，他們就會替我們治理墨西哥：更好、更便宜，而且連一個海軍陸戰隊員都沒有。如今，這種方法聽起來令人沮喪。

在蘭辛勾勒出藍圖一百年後，德國已成為其最完美的典範。當奧拉夫·朔爾茨的內閣批準摧毀北溪2號——這是一種經濟上的自我破壞行為，對德國沒有任何合理的戰略利益——而時任總理的梅爾茨承諾永遠不會再次使用它時，他們就是在背叛德國。與此同時，他們也在履行著由有限視野鑄就的人生命運，這視野是在常春藤盟校的研討會、五角大樓的工作室以及大西洋橋天鵝絨裝飾的房間裏形成的。

 

這是一個精英群體的故事，他們被訓練成將大西洋主義視為“西方文明”本身的同義詞。而其代價：工業產出的崩潰、能源貧困以及征兵的陰影，則由其他人承擔。

 

引言：瘋狂及其方法

德國，這個曾經嚴守經濟主權的出口巨頭，如今卻犧牲能源基礎設施，資助遠程導彈（包括與烏克蘭聯合生產遠程武器），並重新將戰備狀態（所謂的“Kriegstüchtigkeit”）視為美德，同時還在演練北約與俄羅斯衝突的動員計劃，而這場衝突將首先攪動德國本土，正如《德國作戰計劃》所闡述的那樣。這是意識形態自動化導致的更深層次的戰略調整。否則，我們該如何解釋公眾情緒與精英決策之間持續存在的差距呢？

 

2024年的一項民意調查顯示，60%的德國人反對進一步向烏克蘭運送武器。然而，德國社會民主黨聯合領導人、副總理兼財政部長拉爾斯·克林貝爾宣稱，德國要想“做好戰爭準備”，聯邦國防軍就需要對潛在應征者更具吸引力，例如，允許他們從聯邦政府免費獲得駕照。此外，執政聯盟還在繼續推行所謂的戰略模糊政策。

 

這些都是柏林正在上演的怪異瘋狂的症狀。一個從戰爭和分裂的廢墟中重建起來的國家，如今卻心甘情願地與一個擁有核武器的鄰國走向衝突。然而，這種瘋狂是有方法的。

 

想想北約秘書長馬克·呂特最近在2025年峰會上的宣言：

 

“北約是世界曆史上最強大的防禦聯盟——比羅馬帝國更強大，比拿破侖的帝國更強大……我們必須阻止俄羅斯的統治，因為我們珍視我們的生活方式。”

 

這種對曆史的無知或混淆（取決於我們如何解讀呂特的言論）令人震驚。拿破侖，就像今天的北約一樣，將歐洲大陸的統治合理化為解放。他對俄羅斯的入侵，一場災難性的失敗，卻被描繪成對“侵略性”沙皇擴張的先發製人打擊。兩者之間的相似之處顯而易見。

 

曆史學家傑夫·裏奇在分析北約在俄羅斯境內進行的“蜘蛛網行動”破壞活動時指出：

 

“北約是精英階層的權力基礎，他們與美國的地緣政治投射步調一致。當呂特將北約與拿破侖相提並論時，他忘記了俄羅斯最終將歐洲從這個帝國手中解放出來。或許，俄羅斯會在這場戰爭之後將歐洲從美國手中解放出來。”

 

我想說的是，這不是一個陰謀。這是一種製度化的霸權，通過葛蘭西所說的統治階級的“文化領導力”來運作。然而，葛蘭西分析的是國家精英與其同胞的關係，而我們現在麵對的是一個跨國階層：像雅各布·施羅特（Jakob Schrot）這樣的德國政客（稍後會詳細介紹他），像呂特這樣的荷蘭技術官僚（他最近在北約峰會上稱現任美國總統特朗普為“老爹”，該峰會確定了5%的國防開支），以及法國的歐盟官員，他們的履曆、教育和職業動機並非與其公民相符，而是與維持美國單極體係的必要性相符。這些精英在地緣政治棋盤上的行動不僅不理性；統治精英隻是效忠於另一個參照群體。

 

一、謎題：歐洲精英為何自焚？

 

正如我們開始看到的，答案並非在於純粹直接的腐敗或意識形態狂熱。它遠比腐敗平庸得多，也遠比意識形態有效得多。答案也在於傳記、網絡和機構。它也在於功能性精英層麵的霸權：當統治思想成為常識時。在這種情況下，霸權並非僅僅通過暴力來實施，而是通過教育、精英招募和儀式化的重複。

精英知識網絡

Inderjeet Parmar（2019）將其稱為精英知識網絡的軟機製：“人員、資金和思想的流動”，將華盛頓到柏林的共識製度化。富布賴特項目、德國馬歇爾基金會、大西洋橋計劃、慕尼黑安全會議和彼爾德伯格會議都是形成性的生態係統。它們篩選、培養和提升那些能夠將世界觀發揚光大的人。

 

至關重要的是，這些網絡並非被動的論壇。它們是“美國精英的權力技術核心”：一種知識生產和人才選拔模式，在全球範圍內極其成功地複製了親美的世界觀。精英社會化本身並非良性過程。它固化了各種假設，定義了政治上的可想象性，並使不對稱性自然化。

 

世界秩序

構成這些精英世界觀基礎的自由主義國際秩序遠非普世主義，而是建立在雙重邏輯之上。正如歐洲理事會前主席唐納德·圖斯克在2017年特朗普第一屆政府期間坦誠承認的那樣，歐洲-大西洋主義的根本目的就是阻止後西方世界秩序的出現：

明天我將與特朗普總統會麵，我將努力說服他，歐洲-大西洋主義主要是自由主義者為了自由而進行的合作；如果我們想要阻止不久前在慕尼黑會議上被我們的對手稱為“後西方世界秩序”的局麵，我們就應該共同守護我們的自由遺產。

 

在這個體係中，包容是有選擇性的。日本和韓國盡管忠誠，但從未像西歐那樣受到對待。而新興大國要麽被馴化，要麽被哄騙順從，要麽被當作威脅遏製。這種邏輯至關重要：如果包容失敗，遏製必然隨之而來。

 

然而，遏製始於思想，而非導彈。對外國精英的意識形態同化是帝國防禦的第一道防線。因此，維護霸權與其說依賴於脅迫，不如說依賴於軟性包容。精英知識網絡，植根於大學項目、慈善基金會和智庫，充當著這種軟實力的載體。它們社交、招募和認證新興領導者。

 

精英整合機器

正如帕爾馬所指出的，這些網絡定義了什麽是“可思考的思想”和“可提出的問題”。福特基金會和洛克菲勒基金會、蘭德公司、布魯金斯學會、卡內基基金會以及美國進步中心都是精英整合的機器，通過這些整合和社會化過程，某種知識轉化為權力。因此，富布賴特基金會或大西洋橋基金會的翻領別針，就成了通往布魯塞爾和華盛頓的通行證，以及“融入”的最可靠途徑。

 

然而，這個生態係統並非整個地球。埃爾克·亨斯科克和弗蘭克·泰克斯在2016年進行的一項研究，繪製了40萬個董事會成員的聯動關係圖，結果顯示，最密集的跨國精英群體仍然位於北大西洋軸線上。相比之下，亞洲企業精英則形成了一個獨立的、關係遠不及此的群體，在結構上準備建立自己的權力基礎，甚至可能建立一種以中國為中心的資本主義。亞洲的網絡越是自我孤立，（在歐洲-大西洋精英看來）出現真正的“後西方世界秩序”的風險就越大。

 

換句話說，西方智庫渠道旨在預防這種分歧，並保護其精英圈層。

 

歐洲精英不僅僅受到美國的影響。通過這個體係，他們被塑造成某種模式，在職業上被塑造，並在意識形態上被束縛。當然，這並非完全或徹底地被束縛，仿佛他們完全沒有自主權，又仿佛國家曆史對這些精英毫無影響，然而，每個歐洲國家的特點都會賦予其影響其政策的跨大西洋世界觀獨特的色彩。

 

其結果是：美國的外交政策目標並非簡單地強加於柏林；而是來自柏林內部的聲音。

 

二、霸權架構：精英俘獲如何運作

自由秩序標榜自己具有普世性，但加入者必須接受（公開的）不成文的規則。不加入者將被美國永久的軍事存在所遏製和包圍。換句話說，帝國核心通過將其他精英融入其世界觀而非僅僅強迫他們來維護其地位。現在，我們將探討這些精英整合機製（特別是通過分析德國與德國職能精英的跨大西洋關係）：

 

1 從查塔姆研究所到DGAP：機構簡譜

智庫wer始於倫敦的皇家聯合服務研究所（1831年），由威靈頓公爵創立，是一個研究軍事和戰略問題的獨立專業機構。1919年，查塔姆研究所和卡內基基金會正式確立了精英辯論（Roberts 2015），之後，其範圍進一步擴大。在大西洋彼岸，外交關係委員會（1921年）將華爾街的財富與常春藤盟校的學術研究融合在一起，並由福特和洛克菲勒家族提供永久性資助。畢竟，這筆資金來自企業。事實上，這些創始人往往是頗具影響力的精英，他們尋求在國防和戰略思想領域協調其政策，先是在大英帝國內部，然後與新興的美國霸權國家。

 

1945年後，這種架構被輸出到滿目瘡痍的歐洲。私人資助的德國國防政治協會（DGAP，1955年）在波恩複製了外交關係委員會的模式。科學與政治基金會（Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik，1962）則更像是一個政府機構，直接向總理府提供白皮書。然而，重要的是，二戰後，英美智庫及其人員成為政策製定和長期規劃的中心。專門研究國際事務的智庫通常被認為是外交政策設計的重要補充。它們也充當著政客和官僚與學術界、媒體界和商界代表以及政府運作的潛在支持者或招募對象互動的平台。

 

20世紀60年代，德國馬歇爾基金會、大西洋研究所和大西洋橋社通過舉辦晚宴、青年領袖聯誼會和媒體學習之旅，在政策工作的基礎上增強了社會凝聚力，同時也影響了西德的政治精英。蔡澈（2021）記錄了“橋社”及其美國兄弟組織美國對德委員會（ACG）如何通過在秘密研討會上培養黨內調解人，確保維利·勃蘭特領導的德國社會民主黨從中立主義轉向不放棄北約。

 

在20世紀70年代和80年代，美國智庫已經感受到了日益全球化的世界中“美國的衰落”。在此期間，新的機構性影響力競爭對手出現了，其中包括通常秉持保守觀點的智庫，其中以美國企業研究所和傳統基金會為首。（請記住，傳統基金會資助了“2025項目”。這是當今美國政策的入門讀物。）

 

到了20世紀90年代，每個德國政黨基金會都設立了一個“跨大西洋事務處”。德國社會工人黨（SWP）的工作人員在慕尼黑安全會議上輪崗；DGAP研究員擔任德國馬歇爾基金評選評審團成員； 《明鏡周刊》和《時代周刊》（德國重要報紙）的編輯們收集了大西洋橋社的校友徽章。這個網絡逐漸發展成為一個無縫銜接的渠道：從大學到黨總部，從董事會會議室到北約場外辦事處。最終，一旦美國的認可成為衡量職業尊嚴的標準，偏離軌道幾乎就是一種自我傷害。

 

2 智庫曆史為何在當下如此重要

這種架構使看似自殺式的選擇正常化。關閉廉價的俄羅斯管道天然氣對巴斯夫來說是痛苦的，但它維護了所有大西洋橋社成員的聲譽資本。這種內在激勵往往比國家資產負債表邏輯更重要。

 

更重要的是：智庫代表著推動全球政治經濟的力量，至少在西方是如此。然而，當今的地緣政治分析往往偏向民族國家及其政治行為體。民族國家與全球市場之間的差距往往通過這種由私人資助和影響的治理網絡得到填補（Heemskerk & Takes 2016）。

 

3 智庫作為旋轉門引擎

如果沒有一支在基金會辦公室、有線電視新聞演播室和政府辦公室之間穿梭的專業隊伍，我們迄今為止追蹤的機構版圖將顯得毫無生氣。

在企業捐贈和慈善資助的滋養下，美歐智庫既充當著思想精煉廠，又充當著人才輸送管道：它們預先商定範式，然後將自己的工作人員派往將其付諸實踐的部門。

政治經濟學家納諾·德·格拉夫 (Nano de Graaff) 和巴斯蒂安·範·阿珀爾多倫 (Bastiaan van Apeldoorn) (2021) 將此稱為“政策規劃網絡”：一個將財富500強資金、國會校友和常春藤盟校資曆整合成單一職業階梯的網格：

共識研討會——智庫圓桌會議使精英們能夠在公開場合成為“無黨派專家”之前，私下協調立場。

 

招聘人才庫——同樣的機構也幫助總統和內閣部長填補行政部門的職位 (McGann 2007)。

 

旋轉杠杆——正如約瑟夫·奈所說，最強大的影響力是在共同撰寫簡報後“親手掌握杠杆”的時候 (《與曆史對話》，1998)。

 

這些中心共同充當著當前秩序的跨大西洋人力資源部門，培養將扛起大旗的繼任者。向前。

 

4 傳記層麵的精英俘獲

精英俘獲機製在社會群體層麵和個人傳記層麵運作。它既簡單又有效：從富布賴特獎學金到德國馬歇爾基金會獎學金，再到“大西洋橋”組織和/或智庫成員資格，貫穿一個人的一生和職業生涯，隻有一條聲望通道。這樣的職業階梯壟斷了柏林外交政策精英晉升所需的象征性資本。第一批精英於20世紀60年代進入該體係，但在兩德統一後實現了完全的自我複製。如今，默茨內閣的許多成員都擁有美國國務院資助的獎學金、大使館實習經曆、“大西洋橋”組織成員資格或類似的跨大西洋關係；有些人還在大西洋理事會等與華盛頓結盟的機構中擔任董事。

 

5 布迪厄陷阱

法國社會學家皮埃爾·布迪厄的框架揭示了這些精英們精心設計的人生道路是如何自我延續的：

 

當一條道路（美國獎學金階梯）占據主導地位時，該領域對可能實現的目標（就行動和政策而言）的想象力就會萎縮。體現的文化資本（流利的希爾英語、喬治敦大學的掛繩）轉化為社會資本（校友網絡），而後者又結晶為象征資本（媒體合法性）。

 

異議無人辯論。它被視而不見，隻有當它變得過於顯眼和喧囂時才會被主動排除。這種霸權體係在政治精英中規模較小地運作，其運作方式就像一座神學院，在那裏，偏離就意味著異端，順從則意味著被封聖。

 

6 青少年俘獲

這台精英社會化機器最陰險的特征是什麽？那就是時間問題。理想的道路始於青少年時期，即政治世界觀逐漸凝固的成長期。諸如以下項目：

 

國會-聯邦議院青年交流項目 (CBYX)

 

全球青年領袖大會 (GYLC)

 

麵向16歲的青少年，讓他們沉浸在模擬北約戰爭遊戲和美國大使館的“領導力培訓”中。

 

到這些學生進入大學時，他們的視野已經變得狹窄。一位19歲的年輕人，從美國國務院資助的美國大學暑期項目歸來，英語流利程度有望恢複（但願如此）。最重要的是，他們內化了一種合法性的等級製度：華盛頓的優先事項是中立、普遍和常識。其他關於外交政策的思維模式，例如不結盟、緩和關係和歐亞貿易，則被視為極端主義或幼稚，而被過濾掉。

 

這是意識形態的烙印，也是個人層麵霸權的心理建構。其結果是，一代政治精英的履曆讀起來就像美國國務院的培訓手冊。悲劇的是，當這些被培養出來的精英在政界、媒體或企業中身居要職時，他們的順從似乎成了理所當然。他們服務於美國利益並非出於脅迫，而是因為他們別無選擇。

 

當我們將目光聚焦於一個國家中心時，我剛才提出的抽象模型變得更加清晰。德國的大西洋橋項目提供了一個典型的案例。

 

三、德國案例：大西洋橋作為傳輸帶

安妮·蔡澈（Anne Zetsche）對大西洋橋項目及其美國姊妹機構——美國對德委員會（ACG）的檔案深入研究，揭示了一個表麵上“私人”的友誼協會如何成為戰後精英結盟的精準工具。與智庫一樣，它是精英融合和社會化機製中的關鍵機構。

 

1 創始人與架構

漢堡銀行王朝的繼承人埃裏克·沃伯格 (Eric Warburg) 利用他與約翰·J·麥克洛伊 (John J. McCloy) 在華爾街的關係，將德國金融與美國資本市場重新連接起來；布林克曼·維爾茨公司 (Brinckmann, Wirtz & Co.) 很快促成了大眾汽車 (Volkswagen) 的首筆美國信貸額度。

 

瑪麗安·多恩霍夫 (Marion Dönhoff) 利用《外交事務》雜誌的晚會和喬治·F·凱南 (George F. Kennan) 的指導，將德國中立重新定義為“不負責任的”。

 

這些銀行家、編輯和伯爵們被世界精英的習性所束縛。他們的使命是搶在莫斯科或戴高樂主義的巴黎宣稱擁有西德之前，將其納入美國主導的“國家共同體”。

 

2. 社會民主黨的占領

一個中立或以法國為中心的西德被標記為偏離了所期望的大西洋發展軌跡：例如，埃米特·休斯和ACG特使與漢堡市長馬克斯·布勞爾通信，以弱化社會民主黨的反軍國主義立場（1950-54年）。

 

到1963年，ACG/大西洋橋社聯手以親北約的序言幫助淡化了《愛麗舍宮條約》。

 

維利·勃蘭特的“東方政策”也需要從一項持續的主權和平計劃轉變為一項經北約批準的“緩和政策”。

 

福特基金會的資金（通過中央情報局資助的文化自由大會和美國勞工聯合會-產業工會聯合會）資助了青年研討會，以清除黨內馬克思主義的暗流；這是一個早期的例子，表明慈善事業可以產生深遠的影響，類似於情報工作。

 

3 媒體

橋社每年與北約盟軍最高司令共進晚餐，同時也是編輯部的休養所：奧瑟夫·約菲（《時代報》）、凱·迪克曼（《圖片報》）和斯蒂芬·科內柳斯（《南德意誌報》）都是橋社的長期成員；德國電視二台主持人克勞斯·克萊伯曾是橋社的董事。

 

結果並非強製性規定，而是預期性的結盟：主流媒體很少將德國重新武裝視為可選項。相反，他們將其視為唯一途徑，並確保主流話語始終不偏離大西洋主義的正統觀念。

 

4 董事會協同效應

如今，橋社董事會代表著大西洋資本主義的資產負債表，其中包括美國商會、德意誌銀行、高盛、輝瑞和巴斯夫等知名公司。媒體、法律和製藥行業與基民盟和社民黨重量級人物並肩而立；這證明“兩黨合作”在這裏意味著對共同的跨大西洋商業模式和世界秩序的忠誠。

 

5 共識工程在行動

2009年——弗裏德裏希·梅爾茨（基民盟）出任“大西洋橋”主席，隨後擔任貝萊德德國總裁。

 

2019年——西格瑪·加布裏爾（社民黨）接任；批評人士擔心他會成為“煽動者”，但這項任命主要是為了消除社民黨對北約2%目標（如今已升至5%）的任何疑慮。

 

看似彬彬有禮的沙龍文化，卻像一條跨大西洋的傳送帶，在五角大樓沒有任何指令的情況下，將美國的偏好傳播到德國的政黨平台、董事會和新聞編輯室。

 

在追溯了“大西洋橋”如何幫助德國戰後機構融入更廣泛的跨大西洋關係之後，我們現在將探討彼爾德伯格集團會議作為跨大西洋精英社交的另一個渠道。

 

四、比爾德伯格集團與霸權商業

比爾德伯格集團常被斥為陰謀論者的癡迷，但事實上，它卻是社會學家坎特（2017）所稱的跨國資本家階級（TCC）的一個關鍵節點。對其2010年至2015年會議的分析顯示：

 

1. 誰坐在談判桌旁？

67%的與會者是首席執行官、銀行家或公司董事（德意誌銀行、高盛、英國石油）。

 

沒有一位工會成員受邀。這種“對話”有意將勞工排除在外。

 

企業勢力主導著TCC；政治日益成為資本的服務功能。

 

另一方麵，Gijswijt（2019）的分析向我們展示了1954年至1968年期間比爾德伯格集團初具規模時的後冷戰時期的構成：

 

大約25%的與會者來自美國，14%來自英國，法國和西德各占9%。

 

30%是“商人、銀行家和律師”，20%是“政客和一些工會領袖”，另有16%是外交官，其餘由學者、記者以及來自北約、世界銀行、經合組織和國際貨幣基金組織的高級官員組成。

 

女性“明顯缺席”。

 

核心企業和國家雙雙參會

 

德意誌銀行派出了首席執行官和主席（2016年）；荷蘭派出了首相和國王（2016年）。

 

額外的席位確保了議程設置，並證明了在精英協調下經濟大於政治。

 

這些數字表明，彼爾德伯格集團的重心與冷戰時期自由秩序的核心高度契合，涵蓋了大西洋沿岸的金融、國防和外交，同時又保持了足夠的國家代表性，從而獲得了泛西方授權。

 

2 通過認可招募

組織者“一直在尋找新的人才”，以便融入俱樂部。(Gijswijt 2019) 參與成為了一種資質：比爾·克林頓、托尼·布萊爾和安格拉·默克爾在晉升至高位之前都曾參與其中。其價值遠非煙霧繚繞的王者之爭，而在於聲望管道本身：一條表明意識形態可靠性的簡曆，為華爾街、白廳和德國聯邦總理府打開了大門。

 

3 非正式外交，而非正式決策

沒有通過任何決議，也沒有發布任何會議記錄，然而“會議的真正重要性取決於與會者如何運用他們聚集的象征性資本。”（Gijswijt 2019）會議就像一個高度信任的排練室：人們可以嚐試各種想法，審查各方聲譽，並協調彼此的前提。這種潛在的共識隨後在北約公報或歐盟委員會白皮書中重新浮現。

 

4 身份認同工作與聯盟管理

彼爾德伯格集團有意培養“一種基於自由世界或西方理念的強烈情感共同體感”。（Gijswijt 2019）僅僅是出席，尤其是出席美國重要人物的會議，“就能激發人們對美國在北約領導地位的接受”。這次會議是一劑撫慰跨大西洋緊張情緒的良藥：它提供了一個平台，吸收單邊衝擊，重新設定談判要點，最終確立了華盛頓在同儕中依然占據主導地位的等級製度。

 

5 個網絡倍增器

其成員資格與外交關係委員會、查塔姆研究所、國際關係研究所、外交政策專家組以及後來的三邊委員會重疊，構成了“一個緊密的跨國關係網絡：一個非正式聯盟”（Gijswijt 2019）。衍生機構也隨之增多。丹尼斯·希利在1957年“圖片”事件後，為倫敦國際戰略研究所爭取到了福特基金會的資金。比爾德伯格集團的幕後對話。其他衛星會議，例如慕尼黑安全會議、柯尼希斯溫特會議以及ACG/Atlantik-Brücke兩年一度的德美會議，都效仿了這種模式，以穩定國家層麵的政策共同體。

 

6 旋轉門

比爾德伯格集團參與者的另一個特點是他們在政治、商業、媒體和學術等不同領域的“會員資格”相互重疊：

 

彼得·薩瑟蘭（比爾德伯格集團的常客）曾在高盛、世貿組織和歐盟委員會之間輪換。

 

羅伯特·魯賓從美國財政部跳槽到花旗集團，再到外交關係委員會：這完美地展現了精英階層的相互交織。

 

智庫“stammgäste”

 

來自外交關係委員會、卡內基、國際研究所、美國企業研究所和《經濟學人》的常客。

 

展現了跨國公司（TCC）各派係（企業、政治、技術、消費主義）之間的相互滲透，模糊了評論與董事會權力的界限。

 

7 意識形態過濾器

正如研究員盧卡什·坎托爾（Lukáš Kantor）所指出的：“彼爾德伯格集團的常見問題解答聲稱它歡迎‘多元化觀點’，但諾姆·喬姆斯基從未收到過邀請。‘對話’僅限於那些已經達成共識的人。”

 

這就是超帝國主義（考茨基的術語）的體現：各國精英跨境勾結，保護共同的階級利益，即使其公眾為此付出代價。

 

8 為何對德國至關重要

彼爾德伯格集團在德國的配額從未超過10%；然而，它所推動的職業生涯，例如弗裏德裏希·梅爾茨、卡爾-特奧多爾·祖·古騰堡或約瑟夫·阿克曼的職業生涯，卻反饋到了我們剛剛考察的大西洋橋-DGAP-慕尼黑網絡中。換句話說，大西洋橋社是德國的分支；彼爾德伯格集團會議則是橫跨大西洋的根基，讓意識形態的種子滋養土壤。彼爾德伯格集團也是歐洲-大西洋資本主義的質量控製實驗室：篩選人員、協調討論要點，並維護企業派係在更廣泛的大西洋資本主義內部的主導地位。

 

IV-a. 福特基金會：大西洋主義的風險投資

“新一代人將步入權力崗位，但他們對二戰或馬歇爾計劃毫無個人記憶。為了維持聯盟，他們首先必須被社會化融入其中。”——蔡澈 (2015)

 

1 公私合營的設計

慈善教科書仍然將福特描繪成一個中立的技術官僚慈善機構。安妮·蔡澈（Anne Zetsche）的檔案工作揭示了相反的情況：該基金會位於一個密集的公私三角關係的中心——該三角關係由國務院、財富500強企業和精英學術界組成——旨在管理美國外交政策治理。帕瑪爾將這種聯係稱為將企業財富轉化為戰略知識和人才的“軟機製”。

 

2 資助德國節點

福特的資金資助了大西洋橋基金會早期的德美會議（自1959年起）以及為德國民主黨（DGAP）、德國社會工人黨（SWP）和政黨基金會提供資金的獎學金渠道。當工作人員擔心邀請名單看起來過於陳舊時，他們增加了青年研究員項目和“下一代”學習補助金，以便在沒有經曆過廢墟和反共產主義記憶的群體中複製世界觀。

 

3 戰略目標

福特基金會早期的內部通信指出了兩大意識形態威脅：

 

戴高樂主義的“歐洲-無美國”——一個法國領導的大陸集團。

 

勃蘭特早期的“東方政策”——德國在兩大集團之間保持中立。

 

解決辦法是擴大交流項目、暑期研修班和種子基金的資助範圍，使其隻提供給那些值得信賴、能夠在華盛頓站穩腳跟的候選人。到1970年，西德所有政府部門都聘用了福特基金會的校友；到1980年，《明鏡周刊》、《時代周刊》和《德國之聲》的編輯委員會也開始聘用他們。

 

4 資金作為課程

與彼爾德伯格集團僅限邀請的沙龍不同，基金會的資助帶有教學大綱：大西洋曆史模塊、馬歇爾計劃回顧展以及外交關係委員會的非正式簡報會。因此，資金也兼具了培訓的性質。其結果是，一批骨幹直覺地將歐洲安全與美國主導地位劃等號，並將不結盟和歐洲自治等替代方案視為曆史偏差。

 

時光飛逝，課堂已從常春藤盟校的研討室轉移到了遠離喧囂的會議酒店。同樣的社會邏輯依然存在，但現在的教師要麽身著四星級的製服，要麽運營著雲計算集群，要麽兩者兼而有之。

 

IV-b. 比爾德伯格集團 2025：從宏大戰略到科技戰爭演習

這一傳承仍在延續。2025 年 6 月，比爾德伯格集團的邀請名單進一步轉向將軍、人工智能巨頭和核規劃專家——這表明，如今的“非正式聯盟”與其說是沙龍，不如說更像是一個聯合作戰的作戰室。

 

2025年討論議題：議程涵蓋跨大西洋關係、烏克蘭、美歐經濟平衡、中東、“威權軸心”、國防創新與韌性、人工智能、威懾與國家安全、能源與關鍵礦產地緣政治、人口減少與移民，以及值得一提的核擴散。?? 請注意，常規非核問題（non-distinct）的缺失。

 

誰定下了基調？集群樣本參與者（及當前角色）：

 

硬實力：馬克·呂特（北約秘書長）、延斯·斯托爾滕貝格（前秘書長）、克裏斯·赫裏將軍多納休（美國陸軍歐洲-非洲司令部）、薩姆·帕帕羅上將（美國印太司令部）

 

Survey-Capital：薩蒂亞·納德拉和穆斯塔法·蘇萊曼（微軟AI）、德米斯·哈薩比斯（穀歌DeepMind）、亞曆克斯·卡普（Palantir）、埃裏克·施密特（前穀歌員工）、舍爾夫·岡德伯特（Helsing GmbH）、彼得·泰爾（Thiel Capital）

 

媒體合唱：馬蒂亞斯·多普夫納（Axel Springer）、讚尼·明頓·貝多斯（《經濟學人》）、安妮·阿普爾鮑姆（《大西洋月刊》）

 

議程中最引人注目的詞是：“擴散”。並非指不擴散，而是坦率地承認核共享（波蘭、羅馬尼亞？）正從秘密變為討論話題。幾天之內，GLOBSEC 的 2025 論壇（一個類似比爾德伯格集團的分支機構，由許多相同的公司資助，但更傾向於科技和國防領域）發布了一份政策簡報，敦促北約

 

“明確擴展核威懾的三大基本支柱：能力、決心和溝通。這種整體方法不僅對於在更危險的安全環境中威懾俄羅斯至關重要，而且對於加強北約內部凝聚力、確保公眾信任以及勸阻對手試探北約的紅線也至關重要。”

 

岡伯特·舍爾夫博士（Gundbert Scherf）是科技與國防精英融合的典型代表（他曾參加2025年比爾德伯格集團會議和2024年全球安全會議）：

 

2000年代：劍橋大學/巴黎政治學院/柏林自由大學（標準的跨大西洋培養）

 

2014-2016年：德國國防部特別顧問

 

2017-2020年：麥肯錫航空航天與國防合作夥伴

 

2021年至今：歐洲最熱門的戰場人工智能初創公司Helsing AI聯合創始人兼聯合首席執行官（已在北約試點項目）

 

2024-2025年：在比爾德伯格集團相關論壇以及比爾德伯格集團（全球安全會議、MSC“創新軌道”等）擔任演講嘉賓

 

舍爾夫從未麵對過選民，但他與現任部長一樣，在大西洋聯盟的圈子裏活動：這提醒我們，在2025年，關鍵的政策雲計算初創企業和議會一樣，掌控著權力。當比爾德伯格集團討論“擴散”話題時，赫爾辛的代碼庫幾個月後就已準備就緒，即將成為北約白皮書中新的交戰規則條款。

 

不妨思考一下這一係列政策製定：

 

比爾德伯格集團2025議程：“擴散”

 

GLOBSEC 2025論壇及報告：“北約的核威懾與責任分擔”

 

GLOBSEC在北約2025峰會上的實時推文：

 

“在盟國評估正在進行的#NATOSummit2025峰會之際，@NATO核政策主管吉姆·斯托克斯闡述了北約核共享在不斷變化的歐洲安全態勢和責任分擔辯論中扮演的角色。”

 

這個想法最初誕生於一個不為人知的酒店宴會廳，後來在布拉迪斯拉發以小組討論主題出現，最終在布魯塞爾凝固成一項作戰指令。這些網絡不再僅僅討論宏大戰略；它們會將其原型化，然後將其作為下一步不可避免的步驟賣給國防部。核擴散、高超音速武器、人工智能目標選擇：每個周期都始於“非正式”外交，最終轉化為光鮮亮麗的政策簡報，最後成為某些國家采購預算中的一項。

 

國家層麵的變遷依然存在：融入大西洋從來都不是白板練習；每個國家都融入了各自的曆史沉澱。在德國，這一過程與殘留的西德反共主義和僅部分完成的去納粹化交織在一起，留下了一個可以譴責莫斯科為“永恒敵人”（德國外交部長約翰·瓦德福爾語）的政治階層，同時又能延續曾在布裏隆或布雷斯勞為“大德意誌”遊行的家族血統。因此，當前的升級既是跨大西洋忠誠的表現，也是西德冷戰民族主義（或許還有冷戰前民族主義）的複興（無論其程度如何）。精英網絡中的每個節點都帶有各自的本土特色；然而，最終的配方仍在華盛頓醞釀。

追蹤了維持傳送帶運轉的資金來源，我們現在可以看到這些資助如何轉化為實際的履曆，並追蹤了幾位德國決策者從他們第一個福特資助的海外學期到晉升內閣的曆程。

 

五、傳記流水線：製造共識

審視梅爾茨內閣的簡曆，我們不僅會發現職業裏程碑，還會發現意識形態的烙印，這些烙印貫穿精英社會化的三個不同階段：三個連續的階段，它們共同塑造了共識。雅各布·施羅特和拉爾斯·克林貝爾從兩個角度闡述了這一過程：一個是通過學術快速通道，另一個是通過危機經曆，但他們都展現出了同樣的大西洋反應。

1 習得階段 │ 意識形態的洗禮

世界觀在此逐漸建立。這個過程始於美國資助的項目，這些項目針對的是處於職業生涯甚至個人轉折點的年輕人。

 

雅各布·施羅特（Jacob Schrot，總理幕僚長兼新成立的國家安全委員會主席）——通過以下課程接受大西洋正統思想：

 

跨大西洋碩士，2013-2016：跨大西洋關係聯合碩士學位，使他在大學輪轉學習。先後就讀於北卡羅來納大學教堂山分校、洪堡大學和柏林自由大學。

 

2012-2013年美國大學華盛頓學期：在美國大學華盛頓學期美國外交政策項目進行一年的研究，使他得以深入華盛頓。上午在德國馬歇爾基金會（一個倡導北約的智庫）工作，下午則在國會山擔任眾議員艾略特·恩格爾（眾議院外交事務委員會成員）的實習生，恩格爾也是《通過製裁反擊美國對手法案》（CAATSA）的主要設計者。

 

25歲，非政府組織創始人（2014年）：創立“青少年跨大西洋者”倡議；一年後，擔任德裔美國人俱樂部聯合會（30個校友團體）主席。

 

施羅特30歲回到柏林時，他的世界觀已然成型：北約和大西洋主義已成為唯一合法的世界觀。美國的領導地位是道義上的事實，以至於德國的利益與華盛頓的利益密不可分。

 

拉爾斯·克林貝爾（德國副總理兼財政部長）——在危機和社會化中學習：

 

9/11實習（2001年，曼哈頓）：弗裏德裏希·艾伯特基金會（FES）——德國社會民主黨的政治基金會——在9/11襲擊期間，將這位23歲的政治學學生安置在曼哈頓的一個非政府組織。這段影響深遠的經曆成為他大西洋主義世界觀的情感基石。用他自己的話說：

 

“此後，我非常深入地參與外交和安全政策研究。後來我回到美國華盛頓，並在那裏撰寫了關於美國國防政策的碩士論文。這些可怕的襲擊徹底改變了我與聯邦國防軍和軍事行動的關係。如果沒有9/11，我可能永遠不會發現自己對安全政策的興趣，甚至可能不會進入國防委員會。”

 

喬治城大學交換項目和希爾實習，2002-2003年：拉爾斯·克林貝爾回國後，於2002-2003年參加了華盛頓喬治城大學的美國交換項目，學習美國國防政策；這段美國經曆讓克林貝爾從一開始就擁有了跨大西洋視野，這實際上是一次“軟俘獲”式的美國戰略思維洗禮。在華盛頓期間，他在國會山國會女議員簡·哈曼（當時是眾議院情報委員會成員，後來成為與中央情報局有關聯的智庫伍德羅·威爾遜中心主席）的辦公室實習。哈曼的情報常設特別委員會負責監督：美國國家安全局的大規模監控計劃以及9/11事件後“全球反恐戰爭”的立法。

 

2 轉化階段 │ 網絡化提升

忠誠和順從會獲得歸屬感的回報：

 

在轉化階段，我們可以將施羅特描述為一位具有創業精神的網絡人。如上所述，25歲時，施羅特在學生時代就創立了一個青年非政府組織（Initiative junger Transatlantiker），並擔任德美俱樂部聯合會（擁有30多個校友會）的主席。因此，與大多數人不同，他從內部創建了跨大西洋協會。

 

相比之下，拉爾斯·克林貝爾在這個階段走的是一條更傳統的道路，他是一位董事會成員，略帶進步的外貌，正如他的社民黨成員身份所暗示的那樣。

回到德國後，他開始攀登政治階梯：成為大西洋橋社的成員。有趣的是，在2018年大西洋橋社的一份報告中，克林貝爾與美國大使艾米·古特曼、現任德國總理弗裏德裏希·梅爾茨以及前貝萊德德國負責人一同出現。

 

總而言之，施羅特製造精英社會資本，而克林貝爾則利用它。結果是同樣的花園派對之旅，隻是入場券不同。

 

3 強化階段 │ 係統性複製

畢業生成為守門人；循環閉合。

 

最終，雅各布·施羅特（Jakob Schrot）成為總理默茨的幕僚長兼國家安全委員會協調員。他負責審查顧問的最終名單，並起草每一份安全備忘錄。施羅特如今掌控著總理府的人事渠道；克林貝爾推動了一項1000億歐元的“時間轉型”（Zeitenwende）重整軍備基金，並重啟了TTIP精簡版協議的討論。克林貝爾（以及其他幾位德國政客）參加了2025年的比爾德伯格集團峰會（弗裏德裏希·默茨也參加了2024年的峰會），從而鞏固了自己在與北約秘書長、美國將軍、科技巨頭CEO的私下關係網中的地位，該關係網充當著政策規劃精英的“非正式聯盟”。

 

施羅特負責選擇簡報的撰寫人；克林貝爾負責決定資金的分配。他們共同構建了德國的政策機製。但最重要的是，他們這樣做是按照華盛頓的條件。而且，他們沒有其他辦法來處理這樣的傳記。

 

除了激勵因素之外，還有另一麵：施羅德效應：反對跨大西洋對話的人將麵臨職業毀滅。這位前總理對北溪二號的倡導以及與莫斯科的外交活動，導致他被剝奪了前任總理應享有的官方特權，理由是他拒絕與俄羅斯能源巨頭斷絕關係，未能履行其職責。結果，他幾乎被從媒體討論中抹去。

 

運作結果：封閉的認知宇宙

這條流水線製造著政策的一致性。但更重要的是，它製造了一個共同的感知牢籠。當大多數德國乃至歐洲的政治精英都經曆同樣的美國項目時：

 

他們的認知界限縮小了：緩和變成了“綏靖政策”。中立等同於“合作”。與俄羅斯的能源交易是“地緣政治叛國”。

 

他們的情緒反應是被條件反射的：五角大樓官員的皺眉引發的恐懼多於選民的憤怒。《經濟學人》的認可比國內民調更有價值。

 

他們的想象力萎縮了：他們無法理解像基於歐安組織的安全架構這樣的替代方案。他們認為中國的崛起是對美國單極體係的“暫時偏離”。

 

最糟糕的是，他們（可能）並不認為這是脅迫。到他們上任時，大西洋主義已經成為政治常識，如同呼吸一樣本能。

 

悲劇在於失去了什麽：像維利·勃蘭特這樣的領導人，他多年的流亡經曆教會他，主權始於不服從的勇氣。相比之下，在今天的柏林，幾乎沒有空間留給那些被非正統傳記塑造的政客；這條“管道”培養出的幹部不再需要決定是否服從，因為他們無法想象其他任何可能性。難怪時任德國副總理羅伯特·哈貝克在2022年訪問華盛頓時承諾，德國隨時準備發揮“服務型領導”的作用——這句話本身就邏輯清晰，以至於沒有人費心去問那些顯而易見的問題：領導誰，服務什麽？

 

在我們討論打破僵局之前，值得回顧幾位成功完全超越“管道”的歐洲領導人，以及他們如何拓展了可能性的領域。

 

六、曾經開闊視野、如今可能再次開闊視野的傳記

跨大西洋管道並非總是密不透風。戰後，少數歐洲領導人擺脫了大西洋學派的影響，並由此拓展了其國家所能想象的範圍。他們的人生故事更像是一段以流亡、中立和非殖民化工作為標誌的曲折曆程。他們證明，當一位政治家的形成性人脈建立在以華盛頓為中心的友誼圈之外時，“現實”政策選項的菜單會突然變得豐富起來。

 

下跪的流亡者威利·勃蘭特

 

1933年逃離納粹德國，居住在挪威和瑞典：勃蘭特於1933年逃離納粹德國，並在戰爭年代居住在奧斯陸和斯德哥爾摩，從事記者工作，與納粹和西德的庇護網絡斷絕了聯係。

 

通過斯堪的納維亞社會民主主義和挪威抵抗運動進行政治社會化：他的政治發展受到斯堪的納維亞社會民主主義和與挪威抵抗運動的聯係的影響，而非受到馬歇爾計劃等西方戰後機構的影響。

 

1948年返回西柏林，精通北歐聯盟建設：勃蘭特於1948年恢複德國國籍，並積極參與柏林政壇，帶來了斯堪的納維亞聯盟政治的經驗。

 

將莫斯科視為可談判的鄰居，而非生死攸關的敵人：勃蘭特的“東方政策”（1969-74年）是一項務實的政策，旨在緩和與東歐集團國家的關係並使其恢複正常化，將莫斯科視為談判夥伴而非絕對敵人。

 

奧洛夫·帕爾梅，一位中立的發言者

 

出生於瑞典上層階級，但在勞工運動中走向激進：帕爾梅出身上層階級，但後來成為瑞典社會民主黨的領導人物，擁護進步的勞工政治。

 

瑞典的不結盟政策限製了其與北約或美國建製派的聯係：瑞典的嚴格中立意味著帕爾梅與美國外交政策機構的接觸有限；他唯一值得注意的美國聯係是凱尼恩學院的獎學金（1948-49）。他並沒有通過智庫獎學金的旋轉門成為跨大西洋外交政策機構的一員。

 

師從聯合國秘書長達格·哈馬舍爾德；關注全球南方：帕爾梅職業生涯早期曾在聯合國工作，並與亞洲和非洲新近非殖民化的國家密切接觸，這使他的世界觀形成了一種全球正義而非大西洋聯盟的格局。全球南方會議比大西洋峰會更能塑造他的道德詞匯。

 

對超級大國采取對稱態度；批評美國在河內轟炸等行動：帕爾梅直言不諱地批評美國在越南的行動，將轟炸比作格爾尼卡，甚至在與莫斯科保持對話的同時，暫停了瑞典與美國的關係一年。

 

倡導北約之外的歐洲“共同安全”：帕爾梅主張建立一個獨立於北約的歐洲安全框架，強調緩和與合作。

 

兩人的早期人脈網絡在地理和意識形態上都處於大西洋主要灌輸帶的邊緣：

 

勃蘭特的人脈網絡是北歐反納粹僑民；

 

帕爾梅的人脈網絡是聯合國/非殖民化圈子。

 

因為在美國資助的恐怖主義之前，他們的事業就已經具備了可行性。低級艦艇成為歐盟的默認選擇，它們可以借用大西洋的工具，而無需效仿大西洋的模式。這些異類表明，遠離大西洋社會化網絡並不能保證明智，也不能保證與它們保持絕對距離；然而，擁有本質上局外人的經曆拓寬了思考的視野。它們的通道已經收窄；重新開放這些通道是任何德國或歐洲主權戰略的先決條件。

 

打破束縛：現實的樞紐

我們能做什麽？在某種程度上，這將是、也必須是跨大西洋蛛網中這些西方國家人民以及新興多極世界人民共同努力的成果：

 

聲望競爭：在早期階段，歐盟-金磚國家和平獎學金（或簡稱“金磚國家”）將提供與富布賴特獎學金相同的津貼和拍照機會。因此，年輕的學生們也明白，即使是非北約安全也能對他們的職業生涯有益（甚至對世界更有利）。

 

強製多極借調：未在維也納歐安組織、亞的斯亞貝巴非盟或日內瓦聯合國裁軍研究所輪崗12個月，不得晉升至政府政治職位。

 

外國影響力登記冊：例如，聯邦議院議員已披露其所占份額；將所有基金會資助的旅行、董事會席位以及彼爾德伯格集團（及類似組織）的邀請都計入其中。

 

智庫配套基金：議會研究服務機構將與私人國防工業捐款進行一比一的配套，以稀釋“俘獲”。盡管在這方麵可以做得更多。

 

這些鉸鏈隻有在外部衝擊撬動它們時才會嘎吱作響：例如，美國債務違約導致烏克蘭資金中斷，或者警方無法控製的抗議浪潮。然而，這些都不會破壞現有的網絡。它們注入了一些多元化。

 

C. Wright Mills 著作《權力精英》的掃描節選。文章寫道：“認為一切都是盲目隨波逐流的觀點，很大程度上是對自身無能感的宿命論式投射，或許，如果一個人曾經以有原則的方式積極參與政治活動，這或許是他內疚感的一種慰藉。認為所有曆史都源於一群容易找到的惡棍或英雄的陰謀，這種觀點也是一種倉促的投射，源於人們難以理解社會結構的變遷如何為各路精英打開機遇，以及各路精英如何利用或未能利用這些機遇。接受任何一種觀點——認為所有曆史都是陰謀，或認為所有曆史都是隨波逐流——都意味著放鬆了理解權力真相和強者行事方式的努力。” C. Wright Mills，《權力精英》（新版，牛津大學出版社，1956/2000），第11頁。米爾斯警告說，“盲目隨波逐流”和“陰謀”都無法取代追蹤變遷的結構如何將新的杠杆賦予舊精英的努力。

 

結語：霸權還是生存

從基金會、智庫渠道到僅限受邀者參加的秘密會議，證據幾乎毋庸置疑：跨大西洋精英計劃的自我保護是其根深蒂固的。

 

其文化霸權迫使歐洲支持以美國為中心的帝國及其所有盟國的精英，即使該帝國損害了歐洲的物質利益。霸權很少會因道德困境而崩潰；隻有當外部壓力或國內裂痕使順從的代價高於反抗時，霸權才會屈服。以下三件事之一（或所有事情共同）都可能對這台機器造成衝擊：

 

自下而上的敘事斷裂

有組織的拒絕，無論是通過大規模罷工、抵製、選舉調整還是持續的媒體反擊運動，都可能使戰時經濟共識失去合法性，並使大西洋聯盟在政治上變得有害。

 

外部係統性衝擊

美國金融或軍事主導地位的徹底喪失（例如，石油美元體係的斷裂或代理人戰爭的失敗）將迫使歐洲精英重新評估他們的忠誠對象。

 

自上而下的問責

紐倫堡式的法庭，無論在今天看來多麽不可能，在曆史上仍然是阻止精英冒險主義的唯一機製，它將個人風險與戰略愚蠢聯係起來。

 

他們職業階梯上的每一級都為下一次升級做好了準備。當代歐洲領導人並非有意選擇持續不斷的戰爭；他們繼承了戰爭的本質，認為這是在一個將大西洋聯盟與職業合法性等同起來的生態係統中最安全的道路。

 

呼籲建立新的體係

僅僅更換人物是不夠的。我們的任務是拆除這條從基金會資助的青年交流項目開始，到智庫獎學金項目，再到內閣辦公室或公司董事會的傳記式流水線。除非這條傳送帶斷裂，或者至少在大西洋回聲室之外實現多元化，否則任何“新麵孔”都會複製同樣的戰略反應。

 

選擇是殘酷的：要麽眼睜睜地看著自己的國家為另一個帝國的精英服務而流血，要麽重新獲得決定自身未來的權力。

 

因此，選擇不再是在維持現狀與改革之間，而是在霸權與生存之間。和平脫鉤的窗口或許正在關閉，但尚未完全關閉。以史為鑒並不能保證一切順利。但它也提供了打斷的機會。

 

如果這篇分析引起了你的共鳴或憤怒，請留言、轉發或翻譯。關於戰爭和職能精英的對話屬於我們所有人，而不僅僅是會議室裏那些督促者。

 

當審查逐漸減弱時，民主就會破裂。通過訂閱或分享，您可以幫助維護能夠打破噪音和教條的獨立新聞報道。

 

Elite Capture & European Self-Destruction: The Hidden Architecture of Transatlantic Hegemony

https://themindness.substack.com/p/elite-capture-and-european-self-destruction

From Nord Stream’s sabotage to NATO’s 5 % arms push: Inside the Networks Fueling Transatlantic Madness

 

 NEL  JUN 28, 2025

Hotel “De Bilderberg,” Oosterbeek (Netherlands), before the inaugural Bilderberg Conference — 30 May 1954. Photo: Anefo / Nationaal Archief (public-domain, CC 0).

Prelude: The Lansing Memo Comes to Berlin

Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, dictated the 1924 “ambitious young Mexicans” memo. You know the line: open our universities to their élite, drench them in American values, and they’ll govern Mexico for us: better, cheaper, and without a single Marine. The method rings depressingly true today.

One hundred years after Lansing spelled out the blueprint, Germany has become its most perfected specimen. When Olaf Scholz’s cabinet greenlit the destruction of Nord Stream 2, an act of economic self-sabotage with no plausible strategic benefit for Germany, and Merz, now Chancellor, pledged never to use it again, they were betraying Germany. At the same time, they were fulfilling a biographical destiny forged out of their limited horizons, manufactured in Ivy League seminars, Pentagon workshops, and the velvet-lined chambers of the Atlantik-Brücke.

This is the story of an elite cohort trained to regard Atlanticism as synonymous with "Western civilization" itself. The costs: collapsing industrial output, energy poverty, and the specter of conscription, are borne by everyone else.

Introduction: The Madness and Its Method

Germany, an export titan that once closely guarded its economic sovereignty, now sacrifices its energy infrastructure, bankrolls long-range missiles (including the co-production of long-range weapons with Ukraine), and reverts to war-preparedness (so-called Kriegstüchtigkeit) as a virtue, while rehearsing mobilization plans for a NATO-Russia clash that would, first and foremost, churn German soil as the Operationsplan Deutschland lays out. This is a strategic realignment on a deeper level as a result of ideological automation. How else can we explain the enduring gap between public sentiment and elite decision-making?

A 2024 poll shows that 60 percent of Germans oppose further weapons deliveries to Ukraine. Yet Lars Klingbeil, SPD co-leader, vice-Chancellor, and Finance Minister, proclaims that for Germany to be “war-ready,” the Bundeswehr would need to be more attractive for potential conscripts, e.g., through the possibility of getting a driver's license for free from the federal government. Additionally, the coalition presses on with so-called strategic ambiguity.

These are the symptoms of a peculiar madness unfolding in Berlin. A nation that rebuilt itself from the ashes of war and division now willingly marches toward conflict with a nuclear-armed neighbor. The madness, however, follows a method.

Consider NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s recent proclamation at the 2025 summit:

"NATO is the most powerful defense alliance in world history—more powerful than the Roman Empire, more powerful than Napoleon’s empire… We must prevent Russian dominance because we value our way of life."

The historical illiteracy or obfuscation (depending on how we interpret Rutte’s statements) is staggering. Napoleon, like NATO today, justified continental domination as liberation. His invasion of Russia, a catastrophic failure, was framed as a preemptive strike against "aggressive" Tsarist expansion. The parallels write themselves.

Historian Jeff Rich, dissecting NATO’s Operation Spiderweb sabotage campaigns inside Russia, observed:

"NATO is the power base for elites who act in lockstep with U.S. geopolitical projection. When Rutte compares NATO to Napoleon, he forgets that Russia ultimately liberated Europe from that empire. Perhaps Russia will liberate Europe from the United States after this war."

What I’m trying to say is that this is not a conspiracy. It is institutionalized hegemony, operating through what Gramsci called the "cultural leadership" of a ruling class. But where Gramsci analyzed national elites vis-a-vis their fellow citizens, we now confront a transnational caste: German politicians like Jakob Schrot (more on him shortly), Dutch technocrats like Rutte (who recently called the current US president Trump “daddy” at the NATO summit that cements 5% defense spending), and French Eurocrats whose biographies, education, and career incentives align not with their citizens, but with the imperatives of keeping the project of US American unipolarity alive. The actions of these elites on the geopolitical chessboard are not just irrational; the governing elites are simply loyal to a different reference group

---

I. The riddle: Why are European elites torching their own house?

As we begin to see, the answer does not lie in pure and straightforward corruption or ideological fervor. It is far more banal and far more effective. The answer also lies in biographies, networks, and institutions. It also lies in hegemony on the level of the functional elite: when ruling ideas become common sense. And in this case, hegemony is not enforced solely through violence but through education, elite recruitment, and ritualized repetition.

Elite Knowledge Networks

Inderjeet Parmar (2019) terms this the soft machinery of elite knowledge networks: “flows of people, money, and ideas” that institutionalize consensus from Washington to Berlin. The Fulbright Program, the German Marshall Fund, Atlantik-Brücke, the Munich Security Conference, and the Bilderberg Meetings are formative ecosystems. They sort, school, and elevate those who can carry the worldview forward.

Critically, these networks are not passive forums. They are “American elites’ essential power technology”: a mode of knowledge production and personnel selection that is spectacularly successful at reproducing a pro-U.S. worldview globally. Elite socialization in itself is not a benign process. It hardwires assumptions, defines what is politically imaginable, and naturalizes asymmetry.

The World Order

The liberal international order, which underlies these elites’ worldviews, far from being universalist, is built on a double logic. As Donald Tusk, former president of the European Council, candidly admitted in 2017 during the first Trump administration, the very purpose of Euro-Atlanticism is to prevent a post-West world order:

Tomorrow I am meeting President Trump and I will try to convince him that euroatlantism is primarily cooperation of the free for the sake of freedom; that if we want to prevent the scenario that has already been named by our opponents not so long ago in Munich as the “post-West world order”, we should watch over our legacy of freedom together.

Within this system, inclusion is selective. Japan and South Korea, despite their loyalty, were never treated like Western Europe. And rising powers are either domesticated, coaxed to conform, or contained as threats. This logic is foundational: if incorporation fails, containment must follow.

Yet containment begins with minds, not missiles. The ideological assimilation of foreign elites is the first line of imperial defense. Thus, the maintenance of hegemony relies less on coercion than on soft incorporation. Elite knowledge networks, embedded in university programs, philanthropic foundations, and think tanks, act as vectors for this soft power. They socialize, recruit, and certify rising leaders.

Elite Integration Machines

As Parmar notes, these networks define what counts as “thinkable thought” and “askable questions.” The Ford and Rockefeller foundations, RAND Corporation, Brookings, the Carnegie Endowment, and the Center for American Progress are elite integration machines where, through these processes of integration and socialization, a certain type of knowledge becomes power. Thus, a Fulbright or Atlantik-Brücke lapel pin becomes an all-access badge to Brussels and DC and the surest way to “belong.”

Yet this ecosystem is not the whole planet. A 2016 study by Eelke Heemskerk and Frank Takes, mapping 400,000 board interlocks, shows that the densest transnational elite cluster still resides on the North-Atlantic axis. The Asian corporate elite, by contrast, forms a separate, far less entangled community, structurally poised to build its own power base and perhaps an alternative, Sino-centric capitalism. The more Asia’s networks remain self-insulated, the greater the risk (in Euro-Atlantic elites’ eyes) of a genuine “post-West world order.”

In other words, Western think-tank pipelines are about pre-empting that divergence and protecting their elite sphere.

European elites are not merely influenced by the United States. Through this system, they are formatted, professionally shaped, and ideologically tethered to it. Of course, not wholly or completely, as if they had no autonomy at all or as if national history had no bearing on these elites, yet, each of these European nations' characteristics will give a unique flavor to the transatlantic worldview that informs their policies.

The result: U.S. foreign policy goals are not simply imposed on Berlin; they are voiced from within.

II. The Hegemonic Architecture: How Elite Capture Works

The liberal order sells itself as universal, yet those who join must accept the (publicly) unspoken rulebook. Those who do not join will be contained and encircled by a permanent U.S. military presence. In other words, the imperial core preserves its status by socializing other elites into its worldview rather than merely coercing them. Now, we’ll take a look at those elite integration machines (in particular, by analyzing the transatlantic ties of Germany and German functional elites):

1 From Chatham House to DGAP: A Brief Institutional Genealogy

Think?tank power began in London with the Royal United Services Institute (1831), established by the Duke of Wellington as an independent professional body to study military and strategic issues. It broadened after 1919 when Chatham House and the Carnegie Endowment formalized elite debate (Roberts 2015). Across the Atlantic, the Council on Foreign Relations (1921) fused Wall Street wealth with Ivy League scholarship, with Ford and Rockefeller providing permanence. Corporate funding, after all. Indeed, the founders were often influential elites who sought coordination for their policies in the fields of defense and strategic thinking, first within the British Empire and then with the emerging American hegemon.

After 1945, the architecture was exported to a ruined Europe. The privately funded Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik (DGAP, 1955) copied the CFR template in Bonn. The Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP, 1962) offered a more governmental cousin, supplying white papers directly to the Chancellery. However, importantly, after the Second World War, Anglo-American think tanks and their personnel became the center of policy formulation and long-term planning. Think tanks specializing in international affairs were generally considered essential supplements to the design of foreign policy. They also served as forums where politicians and bureaucrats could interact with representatives from the academic, media, and business worlds, as well as potential supporters or recruits for government operations.

In the 1960s, the German Marshall Fund, the Atlantic Institute, and Atlantik?Brücke layered social glue on top of policy work through gala dinners, Young?Leader jamborees, and media study tours but also influenced Western Germany’s political elites. Zetsche (2021) documents how the Brücke and its American sibling, the ACG (American Council on Germany), ensured Willy Brandt’s SPD drifted from neutralism to not abandoning NATO by cultivating party fixers in back?channel seminars.

In the 1970s and 1980s, US think tanks already sensed an “American decline” in an increasingly globalized world. During this time, new institutional rivals for influence emerged, including think tanks committed to usually conservative perspectives, with the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation at the forefront. (Now remember, the Heritage Foundation has funded Project 2025. A primer for today’s US policy.)

By the 1990s, every German party foundation ran a “Transatlantic Desk.” SWP staff circulated through the Munich Security Conference; DGAP fellows sat on the German Marshall Fund selection jury; editors at Der Spiegel and Die Zeit (an important newspaper in Germany) collected Atlantik?Brücke alumni pins. The network matured into a seamless funnel: from university to party headquarters to boardroom to NATO off?site. Ultimately, once U.S. validation becomes the yardstick of professional esteem, deviation is almost an act of self?harm.

2 Why Think?Tank History Matters Now

The architecture normalizes apparently suicidal choices. Shutting down cheap Russian pipeline gas is painful for BASF, but it sustains the reputational capital of everyone who holds an Atlantic fellowship. That internal incentive often outweighs national balance?sheet logic.

What’s more: the think tank represents the forces that drive the global political economy, at least in its Western iteration. Still, geopolitical analysis today tends to be biased toward nation-states and their political actors. It is often through such networks of privately funded and influenced governance that the gap between the nation-state and global markets is filled (Heemskerk & Takes 2016).

3 Think Tanks as the Revolving-Door Engine

The map of institutions we have traced so far would be inert without a circulating cadre of professionals who glide between foundation cubicles, cable-news studios, and government offices.
Nourished by corporate endowments and philanthropic grants, U.S.–European think tanks act as both idea refineries and talent pipelines: they pre-agree the paradigm, then second their own staff to ministries that put it into practice.
Political economists Nano de Graaff and Bastiaan van Apeldoorn (2021) refer to this as the “policy-planning network”: a lattice that combines Fortune 500 funding, congressional alumni, and Ivy League credentialing into a single career escalator:

• Consensus workshop – Think-tank roundtables enable elites to harmonize positions in private before they become “non-partisan expertise” in public.

• Recruitment pool – The same institutes help presidents and cabinet secretaries fill executive-branch positions (McGann 2007).

• Revolving leverage – As Joseph Nye puts it, the most powerful influence is when you “get your own hands on the lever” after co-writing the brief (Conversations with History, 1998).

Together, these hubs function as a transatlantic HR department for the current order, grooming successors who will carry the banner forward.

4 Elite Capture on the Biographical Level

The machinery of elite capture operates on both the social group level and the individual biography level. And it is both simple and effective: a single prestige pipeline throughout one’s life and career from a Fulbright scholarship to a German Marshall Fund fellowship to an Atlantik-Brücke affiliation, and/or think-tank memberships. Such a career ladder has monopolized the symbolic capital required to ascend in Berlin’s foreign policy elite. The first cohort entered the system in the 1960s, but it achieved full self-replication after reunification. Today, many members of Merz’s cabinet boast U.S. State Department-funded fellowships, embassy internships, Atlantik-Brücke affiliations, or similar transatlantic ties; some hold board seats at Washington-aligned institutions, such as the Atlantic Council.

5 The Bourdieu Trap

French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s framework reveals how the engineered life paths of these elites perpetuate themselves:

When one pathway dominates (the U.S. fellowship ladder), the field’s imagination of what is possible (in terms of actions and policies) atrophies. Embodied cultural capital (fluent Hill English, a Georgetown lanyard) converts into social capital (alumni networks), which crystallizes as symbolic capital (media legitimacy).

Dissent isn’t debated. It is rendered invisible and only actively excluded if it becomes too visible and loud. Such a hegemonic system, operating on a smaller scale among political elites, functions like a theological seminary, where deviation marks heresy and compliance brings canonization.

6 The Adolescent Capture

What is the most insidious feature of this elite socialization machine? It’s the question of time. The ideal pathway starts in adolescence, during the formative years when political worldviews congeal. Programs like:

• Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange (CBYX)

• Global Young Leaders Conference (GYLC)

target teens as young as 16, immersing them in Model NATO war games and U.S. Embassy "leadership training."

By the time these students enter university, their horizons are already narrowed. A 19-year-old returning from a State Department-funded summer at American University brings back English fluency (hopefully). Above all, they internalize a hierarchy of legitimacy: Washington’s priorities are neutral, universal, and common sense. Alternative modes of thinking about foreign policy, such as non-alignment, détente, and Eurasian trade, are filtered out as extremist or naïve.

This is ideological imprinting and the psychological construction of hegemony at the individual level. The result is a generation of political elites whose biographies read like U.S. State Department training manuals. The tragedy is that by the time these groomed elites reach positions of power in politics, media, or corporations, their compliance feels natural. They do not serve American interests because they are coerced; they do so because they cannot conceive of another way.

The abstract models I just presented here become clearer when we zoom out on a single national hub. Germany’s Atlantik-Brücke offers a textbook case.

III. The German Case: Atlantik-Brücke as Transmission Belt

Anne Zetsche’s archival deep dive on the Atlantik-Brücke and its U.S. sibling, the American Council on Germany (ACG), shows how an ostensibly “private” friendship society became a precision tool for post-war elite alignment. Like think tanks, it is a key institution in the elite integration and socialization machinery.

1 Founders & Fabric

• Eric Warburg, heir to the Hamburg banking dynasty, leveraged his Wall Street connections with John J. McCloy to reconnect German finance with U.S. capital markets; Brinckmann, Wirtz & Co. soon brokered Volkswagen’s first U.S. credit line.

• Marion Dönhoff leveraged Foreign Affairs soirées and George F. Kennan’s mentorship to rebrand German neutrality as “irresponsible.”

• Cosmopolitan elite habitus bound these bankers, editors, and counts. Their mission was to fold West Germany into a U.S.-led “community of nations” before either Moscow or Gaullist Paris could claim it.

2 The SPD’s Capture

• A neutral or Franco-centric West Germany was flagged as a deviation from the desired Atlantic trajectory: For example, Emmet Hughes and ACG envoys corresponded with Hamburg mayor Max Brauer to soften SPD anti-militarism (1950-54).

• By 1963, the ACG/Atlantik-Brücke tandem helped dilute the Élysée Treaty with a pro-NATO preamble.

• Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik also needed to be shifted away from a sustained and sovereign peace project into a NATO-approved "détente."

• Ford Foundation funds (via the CIA-funded Congress for Cultural Freedom and AFL-CIO unions) underwrote youth seminars that purged the party of its Marxist undercurrents; an early example that philanthropy can have a profound impact, akin to intelligence work.

3 The Media

Annual Brücke dinners with NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander double as editorial retreats:

• Josef Joffe (Die Zeit), Kai Diekmann (Bild), and Stefan Kornelius (Süddeutsche Zeitung) are long-time members; ZDF anchor Claus Kleber once sat on the Brücke trust.

• The result is not a diktat but anticipatory alignment: mainstream outlets rarely frame German rearmament as optional. They frame it rather as the only way and ensure that mainstream discourse never strays from Atlanticist orthodoxy.

4 Boardroom Synergy

The Brücke board today represents a balance sheet of Atlantic capitalism, featuring prominent companies such as the American Chamber of Commerce, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Pfizer, and BASF. Media, law, and pharma sit beside CDU and SPD heavyweights; proof that “bipartisanship” here means fidelity to a shared transatlantic business model and world order.

5 Consensus Engineering in Action

• 2009 – Friedrich Merz (CDU) became the Brücke chair, then Germany’s head of BlackRock.

• 2019 – Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) takes over; critics fear a “provocateur,” but the appointment mainly neutralizes any residual SPD scepticism regarding the NATO 2 % target (which nowadays has become the 5 % target).

What appears to be a polite salon culture functions as a transatlantic transmission belt, diffusing U.S. preferences into German party platforms, boardrooms, and newsrooms without a single Pentagon directive.

Having traced how Atlantik-Brücke helped weld Germany’s post-war institutions into the wider transatlantic circuitry, we will now examine Bilderberg meetings as another conduit for transatlantic elite socialization.

IV. Bilderberg and the Business of Hegemony

The Bilderberg Group, often dismissed as a conspiracy theorists’ obsession, is in fact a critical node in what sociologist Kantor (2017) calls the Transnational Capitalist Class (TCC). An analysis of its 2010–2015 meetings reveals:

1 Who Sits at the Table?

• 67% of attendees were CEOs, bankers, or corporate directors (Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, BP).

• Zero trade unionists were invited. The "dialogue" excludes labor by design.

• Corporate fraction dominates the TCC; politics is increasingly a service function of capital.

On the other hand, an analysis by Gijswijt (2019) shows us the post-Cold War composition of Bilderberg meetings when it was first establishing itself between 1954 and 1968:

• Roughly 25 % of attendees hailed from the United States, 14 % from the United Kingdom, and 9 % each from France and West Germany.

• 30 % were “businessmen, bankers, and lawyers,” 20 % “politicians and some trade-union leaders,” another 16 % diplomats, with the balance made up of academics, journalists, and senior officials from NATO, the World Bank, the OECD, and the IMF.

• Women were “glaringly absent.”

• Double-dipping by core firms & states

  • Deutsche Bank sent both the CEO & chair (2016); the Netherlands fielded the PM & King (2016).

  • Extra chairs secure agenda-setting and serve as evidence that economy > polity within elite coordination.

Those numbers demonstrate how closely Bilderberg’s center of gravity aligned with the Cold War core of the liberal order, encompassing Atlantic finance, defense, and diplomacy, while maintaining sufficient national representation to claim a pan-Western mandate.

2 Recruitment Through Recognition

The organizers “were always on the lookout for new talent” who could be socialized into the club. (Gijswijt 2019) Participation became a credential: Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and Angela Merkel each appeared before reaching high office. Far from being a smoky-room king-maker, the value lay in the prestige pipeline itself: a CV line that signaled ideological reliability and opened doors across Wall Street, Whitehall, and the Bundeskanzleramt.

3 Informal Diplomacy, Not Formal Decisions

No resolutions were passed and no minutes released, yet “[t]he real importance of the meetings was determined by what participants did with the symbolic capital they assembled.” (Gijswijt 2019) The conference functioned as a high-trust rehearsal room: ideas could be tried out, reputations vetted, and rival premises harmonized. That latent consensus then resurfaced in NATO communiqués, or EC white papers.

4 Identity Work and Alliance Management

By design, Bilderberg cultivated “a strong sense of emotional community based on conceptions of the Free World or the West.” (Gijswijt 2019) Simply showing up, especially for marquee U.S. figures, “stimulate[d] acceptance of the United States’ leadership role within NATO.” The meeting was therapy for transatlantic nerves: a place to absorb unilateral shocks, reset talking points, and leave with a reaffirmed hierarchy in which Washington remained primus inter pares.

5 Network Multipliers

Membership overlapped with the CFR, Chatham House, IFRI, DGAP, and later the Trilateral Commission, creating “a dense web of transnational relationships: an informal alliance” (Gijswijt 2019). Spin-offs proliferated. Denis Healey secured Ford Foundation money for London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies after a 1957 Bilderberg side-conversation. Other satellites, such as the Munich Security Conference, the Königswinter Conference, and the biannual German-American Conferences of the ACG/Atlantik-Brücke, copied the format to stabilize policy communities at the national level.

6 The Revolving Door

Another characteristic of the Bilderberg participants is their overlapping “memberships” in the different fields of politics, business, media, and academia:

• Peter Sutherland (Bilderberg regular) cycled between Goldman Sachs, the WTO, and the EU Commission.

• Robert Rubin moved from the U.S. Treasury to Citigroup to the CFR: a perfect illustration of interlocking elite fractions.

• Think-tank ‘stammgäste’

  • Regulars from CFR, Carnegie, IFRI, AEI, Economist.

  • Shows inter-permeability of TCC fractions—corporate, political, technical, consumerist—blurring punditry with boardroom power.

7 The Ideological Filter

As researcher Lukáš Kantor notes:

"Bilderberg’s FAQ claims it invites ‘diverse viewpoints,’ yet Noam Chomsky has never received an invitation. The ‘dialogue’ is confined to those who already agree."

This is ultraimperialism (Kautsky’s term) in action: national elites collude across borders to protect shared class interests, even as their publics suffer the costs.

8 Why It Matters for Germany

Bilderberg’s German quota never exceeded ten percent; yet, the careers it turbo-charged, such as those of Friedrich Merz, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, or Josef Ackermann, fed back into the Atlantik-Brücke–DGAP–Munich network we just examined. In other words, Atlantik-Brücke is the German branch; Bilderberg meetings are the transatlantic roots that keep the ideological seeds fertilizing the ground. Bilderberg is also a quality-control lab for Euro-Atlantic capitalism: screening personnel, harmonizing talking points, and safeguarding the corporate faction’s primacy inside the wider TCC.

---

IV-a. The Ford Foundation: Venture Capital of Atlanticism

“New generations would be entering positions of power with no personal memory of World War II or the Marshall Plan. To keep the alliance alive, they first had to be socialised into it.” – Zetsche (2015)

1 Public-Private by Design
Philanthropy textbooks still present Ford as a neutral, technocratic charity. Archival work by Anne Zetsche reveals the opposite: the Foundation sat at the center of a dense public-private triangle—comprising the State Department, Fortune 500 companies, and elite academia—built to manage U.S. foreign policy governance. Parmar refers to this nexus as the “soft machinery” that converts corporate wealth into strategic knowledge and personnel.

2 Financing the German Node
Ford money underwrote Atlantik-Brücke’s early German-American Conferences (from 1959) and scholarship pipelines that fed the DGAP, SWP, and party foundations. When staff worried the invite lists were looking too old, they added Youth Fellows tracks and “next-gen” study grants to replicate the worldview in cohorts with no lived memory of rubble and anti-communism.

3 Strategic Goal-Posts
Internal correspondence within the early Ford Foundation days flagged two ideological threats:

• Gaullist Europe-sans-America—a French-led continental bloc.

• Brandt’s early Ostpolitik—German neutrality between the blocs.

The remedy was to broaden funding for exchange programs, summer institutes, and seed grants only to candidates who could be trusted to keep one foot in Washington. By 1970, every West-German ministry employed Ford alumni; by 1980, so did the editorial boards of Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, and FAZ.

4 Money as Curriculum
Unlike Bilderberg’s invitation-only salons, Foundation grants came with syllabi: Atlantic history modules, Marshall-Plan retrospectives, and off-the-record briefings at the Council on Foreign Relations. Funding thus doubled as orientation. The result was a cadre who intuitively equated European security with U.S. primacy and viewed alternatives, such as non-alignment and European autonomy, as historical aberrations.

Fast-forward a generation, and the classroom has moved from Ivy seminar rooms to off-grid conference hotels. The same social logic persists, but the faculty now wear four stars or run cloud-computing clusters or do both.

---

IV-b. Bilderberg 2025: From Grand Strategy to Tech–War Drill

The lineage continues. This June 2025, the Bilderberg invite list shifted even further toward generals, AI titans, and nuclear planners —a signal that today’s “informal alliance” is less a salon and more a joint-ops war room.

2025 Discussion Topics: The agenda included the transatlantic Relationship, Ukraine, US Economy / Europe balance, Middle East, “Authoritarian Axis”, Defense Innovation & Resilience, AI, Deterrence & National Security, Energy & Critical-Minerals Geopolitics, Depopulation & Migration, and interestingly, Proliferation ?? note the absence of the customary non.

Who set the tone? Cluster Sample participants (and current roles):

Hard Power: Mark Rutte (NATO SG), Jens Stoltenberg (ex-SG), Gen. Chris Donahue (US Army Europe-Africa), Adm. Sam Paparo (US INDOPACOM)

Surveillance-Capital: Satya Nadella & Mustafa Suleyman (Microsoft AI), Demis Hassabis (Google DeepMind), Alex Karp (Palantir), Eric Schmidt (ex-Google), Scherf Gundbert (Helsing GmbH), Peter Thiel (Thiel Capital)

Media Chorus: Mathias Döpfner (Axel Springer), Zanny Minton Beddoes (The Economist), Anne Applebaum (The Atlantic)

The agenda’s most telling word: “Proliferation.” Not non-proliferation, but a frank recognition that nuclear sharing (Poland, Romania?) is moving from hush-hush to a talking point. Within days, GLOBSEC’s 2025 Forum (a Bilderberg-style offshoot funded by many of the same corporations but leaning toward tech and defense) released a policy brief urging NATO to

“explicitly extend to all three essential pillars of nuclear deterrence: capabilities, resolve, and communication. This holistic approach is critical not only for deterring Russia in a more dangerous security environment, but also for strengthening internal Alliance cohesion, ensuring public trust, and dissuading adversaries from testing NATO’s red lines.”

A poster-child for this converging tech–defense elite is Dr Gundbert Scherf ( a participant in 2025 Bilderberg’s meeting and 2024 Globsec conference):

• 2000s: Cambridge / Sciences Po / Free University Berlin (standard transatlantic grooming)

• 2014-16: special adviser, German MoD

• 2017-20: McKinsey partner for aerospace & defence

• 2021- : co-founder & co-CEO, Helsing AI, Europe’s hottest battlefield-AI start-up (already piloting NATO projects)

• 2024-25: speaker slots at Bilderberg-adjacent fora as well as Bilderberg (GLOBSEC, MSC “innovation track”, etc.)

Scherf has never faced an electorate, yet he moves through the same Atlantic Fellowship circuit as sitting ministers: a reminder that, in 2025, key policy levers rest as comfortably in cloud-computing start-ups as in parliaments. When Bilderberg discusses a topic called “Proliferation,” Helsing’s code base is already poised to appear, months later, as the new Rules-of-Engagement paragraph in a NATO white paper.

Consider this cascade of policy-making:

• Bilderberg 2025 agenda: “Proliferation”

• GLOBSEC 2025 forum & report: “NATO’s Nuclear Deterrence and Burden-Sharing”

• Live tweet from GLOBSEC at the NATO 2025 summit:

”As Allies take stock of the #NATOSummit2025 underway, Jim Stokes, Director of Nuclear Policy at @NATO, elaborates on what role NATO’s nuclear sharing plays today amid shifting European security dynamics and burden-sharing debates.”

The idea first emerges in an off-the-record hotel ballroom, reappears as a panel theme in Bratislava, and finally solidifies into an operational directive in Brussels. These networks no longer merely discuss grand strategy; they prototype it and then sell it back to defense ministries as the next unavoidable step. Proliferation, hypersonics, AI target-selection: each cycle begins with “informal” diplomacy, migrates to a glossy policy brief, and finishes as a line item in someone’s procurement budget.

National inflections remain: Atlantic immersion is never a blank-slate exercise; each country imports its own historical sediment. In Germany, the process was intertwined with residual West German anti-communism and only partially completed denazification, leaving a political class that can denounce Moscow as an “eternal enemy” (according to German foreign minister Johann Wadephul) while recycling family lineages that once marched for Großdeutschland in Brilon or Breslau. Thus, the current escalation is simultaneously an act of transatlantic loyalty and a revival, however sublimated, of West German Cold War nationalism (and possibly, pre-Cold War nationalism). Every node in the elite network carries its own local flavor; the recipe, though, is still cooked in Washington.
Having traced the dollars that keep the conveyor belt humming, we can now watch those grants translate into actual résumés, following a few German decision-makers from their first Ford-funded semester abroad to cabinet rank.

V. The Biographical Assembly Line: Manufactured Consensus

Examine the CVs of Merz’s cabinet, and a pattern emerges, not just of career milestones but of ideological imprinting through three distinct phases of elite socialization: three sequential phases that manufacture consensus. Jacob Schrot and Lars Klingbeil illustrate the process from two angles, one through an academic fast-track, the other through an experience of crisis, yet they emerge with the same Atlantic reflexes.

---

1 Acquisition Phase │ Ideological Baptism

Worldviews are gradually established here. The process begins with U.S.-funded programs that target young people at career or even personal inflection points.

Jacob Schrot (Chief of Staff to the Chancellor & Head of the newly established National Security Council) – embraces Atlantic orthodoxy via curricula:

• TransAtlantic Masters, 2013-2016: A joint M.A. in Transatlantic Relations rotated him through the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Humboldt-Universität, and Freie Universität, Berlin.

• Washington Semester, American University 2012-2013: A research year at American University’s Washington-Semester Program in U.S. Foreign Policy dropped him inside the Beltway. Mornings at the German Marshall Fund (a NATO advocacy think tank), afternoons on Capitol Hill as an intern to Rep. Eliot Engel (House Foreign Affairs), who was also the chief architect of CAATSA/Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act.

• Age 25, NGO founder (2014): Founds Initiative junger Transatlantiker; a year later, chairs the Federation of German-American Clubs (30 alumni groups).

By the time Schrot turned 30 and returned to Berlin, his worldview had been cast in concrete: NATO and Atlanticism had become the only legitimate worldview. U.S. leadership was a moral fact, to the extent that German interests became synonymous with those of Washington.

Lars Klingbeil (Vice-Chancellor & Finance Minister) – learns through crisis and socialization:

• 9/11 Internship (2001, Manhattan): The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) - the SPD's political foundation - placed the 23-year-old political science student in a Manhattan-based NGO during the September 11 attacks. This formative experience became the emotional cornerstone of his Atlanticist worldview. In his own words:

"After that, I engaged very intensively with foreign and security policy. I later returned to the U.S. to Washington and wrote my master's thesis on U.S. defense policy there. My relationship with the Bundeswehr and military operations changed fundamentally through these terrible attacks. Without 9/11, I might never have discovered my interest in security policy and perhaps wouldn't have ended up on the Defense Committee."

• Georgetown exchange & Hill internship, 2002-2003: Lars Klingbeil returned and took part in a U.S. exchange program in 2002–03 at Georgetown University in Washington to study American defence policy; this U.S. exposure gave Klingbeil a transatlantic outlook from the start, effectively a “soft capture” baptism into American strategic thinking. During his time in Washington, he interned on Capitol Hill in the office of Congresswoman Jane Harman (then a member of the House Intelligence Committee and the future president of the Woodrow Wilson Center, a CIA-linked think tank). Harman’s Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence oversaw: NSA mass surveillance programs and post-9/11 "Global War on Terror" legislation.

---

2 Conversion Phase │ Networked Ascension

Where loyalty and compliance are rewarded with belonging:

In the conversion phase, we could describe Schrot as an entrepreneurial networker. As stated above, at 25, Schrot founded a youth NGO (Initiative junger Transatlantiker) while still a student and chaired the Federation of German-American Clubs (30+ alumni associations). Thus, unlike most, he created transatlantic associations from within.

In contrast, Lars Klingbeil took a more traditional path in this phase as a board climber with a slight progressive veneer, as his SPD membership would suggest.
Back home in Germany, he plugged into legacy ladders: becoming an Atlantik-Brücke member. Interestingly, in a 2018 Atlantik-Brücke report, Klingbeil appears alongside U.S. Ambassador Amy Gutman and Friedrich Merz, now the Chancellor of Germany, as well as the former head of BlackRock Germany.

In summary, Schrot manufactures elite social capital while Klingbeil taps it. The result is the same garden-party circuit but with a different entry ticket.

---

3 Reinforcement Phase │ Systemic Reproduction

Graduates become gatekeepers; the loop closes.

Finally, Jakob Schrot is now Chancellor Merz’s Chief of Staff and National Security Council coordinator. He vets advisers’ shortlists and drafts every security memo. Schrot now controls personnel pipelines in the Chancellery; Klingbeil pushes a €100 billion Zeitenwende rearmament fund and revives talk of a TTIP-lite accord. Klingbeil (among several other German politicians) attended Bilderberg 2025 (as did Friedrich Merz in 2024), securing his place within the whisper network with NATO SecGen, U.S. generals, tech CEOs that functions as an “informal alliance” of policy-planning elites.

Schrot chooses who writes the briefings; Klingbeil decides what gets funded. Together they weld Germany’s policy machinery. But most importantly, they do so on Washington’s terms. And they couldn’t do it any other way with such biographies.

Apart from incentives, there is another side: The Schröder Effect: Dissenters to the transatlantic discourse face professional annihilation. The ex-Chancellor’s advocacy for Nord Stream 2 and diplomacy with Moscow led to him being stripped of the official perks accorded to former chancellors, citing his refusal to sever ties with Russian energy giants as a failure to uphold the obligations of his office. As a result, he was practically erased from media discourse.

---

The Operational Outcome: A Closed Epistemic Universe

This assembly line produces policy alignment. But more importantly, it manufactures a shared perceptual prison. When a majority of Germany and also Europe’s political elites pass through the same U.S. programs:

• Their cognitive boundaries shrink: détente becomes “appeasement.” Neutrality equals "collaboration". Energy deals with Russia are "geopolitical treason"

• Their emotional responses are conditioned: A Pentagon official’s frown sparks more fear than voter anger. The Economist’s approval feels more valuable than domestic polling.

• Their imagination atrophies: They cannot fathom alternatives like OSCE-based security architectures. They dismiss China’s rise as a "temporary deviation" from U.S. unipolarity.

Worst of all, they (possibly) don’t experience this as coercion. By the time they enter office, Atlanticism has become political common sense, as instinctive as breathing.

The tragedy lies in what’s lost: leaders such as Willy Brandt, whose years in exile taught him that sovereignty begins with the courage to disobey. In today’s Berlin, by contrast, there is little space for politicians shaped by unorthodox biographies; the pipeline produces cadres who no longer have to decide to comply, because they cannot imagine anything else. Small wonder, then, that during a 2022 visit to Washington, then-Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck could promise that Germany stood ready to exercise a “serving leadership” — a phrase so sure of its own logic that no one bothered to ask the obvious questions: lead whom, and serve what?

Before we talk about breaking hinges, it’s worth recalling a few European leaders who managed to step outside the pipeline altogether and how that widened the realm of the possible.

---

VI. Biographies that once widened the horizon and could again

The transatlantic pipeline has not always been airtight. A handful of post-war European leaders slipped free of the Atlantic school and, in doing so, expanded the range of what their countries could imagine. Their life stories read more like detours marked by exile, neutrality, and decolonization work. They prove that when a politician’s formative network is built outside Washington-centric fellowship loops, the menu of “realistic” policy options suddenly gets larger.

Willy Brandt, the exile who knelt

• Fled the Reich in 1933 and lived in Norway and Sweden: Brandt fled Nazi Germany in 1933 and lived in Oslo and Stockholm during the war years, working as a journalist and being cut off from Nazi and West German patronage networks.

• Political socialization through Scandinavian social democracy and Norwegian resistance: His political development was influenced by Scandinavian social democracy and contacts with the Norwegian resistance, rather than by Western postwar institutions such as the Marshall Plan network.

• Returned to West Berlin in 1948, fluent in Nordic coalition-building: Brandt regained German citizenship in 1948 and became active in Berlin politics, bringing experience from Scandinavian coalition politics.

• Saw Moscow as a negotiable neighbor, not an existential foe: Brandt’s Ostpolitik (1969–74) was a pragmatic policy of détente and normalization with Eastern Bloc countries, treating Moscow as a partner for negotiation rather than an absolute enemy.

Olof Palme, the neutral who spoke

• Born into Sweden’s upper class but radicalized in the labor movement: Palme came from an upper-class background but became a leading figure in the Swedish Social Democratic Party, embracing progressive labor politics.

• Sweden’s non-alignment limited NATO or U.S. establishment ties: Sweden’s strict neutrality meant Palme had limited engagement with U.S. foreign policy institutions; his only notable U.S. connection was a scholarship at Kenyon College (1948–49). He did not enter the revolving door of think-tank fellowships to become part of the transatlantic foreign policy establishment.

• Mentored by UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld; focus on Global South: Early in his career, Palme worked with the UN and was deeply engaged with newly decolonized states in Asia & Africa, shaping his worldview around global justice rather than Atlantic alliances. Global-South conferences shaped his moral vocabulary more than Atlantic summits.

• Treated superpowers symmetrically; critical of U.S. actions like Hanoi bombings: Palme was outspoken in criticizing U.S. actions in Vietnam, likening the bombings to Guernica, and even suspended Swedish-U.S. relations for a year while maintaining dialogue with Moscow.

• Championed European “common security” outside NATO: Palme advocated for a European security framework independent of NATO, emphasizing détente and cooperation.

Both men acquired their formative networks in settings that were geographically and ideologically peripheral to the main Atlantic indoctrination belt:

• Brandt’s circle was the Nordic anti-Nazi diaspora;

• Palme’s was the UN/decolonization circuit.

Because their careers were already viable before U.S.–funded fellowships became the EU default, they could borrow Atlantic tools without adopting Atlantic reflexes. These outliers demonstrate that distance from the Atlantic socialization network doesn’t guarantee wisdom or an absolute distance from them; yet, having an essentially outsider biography widens the thinkable. Their lanes have since narrowed; reopening them is the precondition for any sovereign German or European strategy.

---

Breaking the grip: realistic hinges

What can be done? In a way, this will be and has to be the labor of both the people within these Western countries within the transatlantic spiderwebs, and of the newly emerging multipolar world:

• Prestige competition: In these early stages, an EU-BRICS Peace Fellowship (or just BRICS) with the same stipend and photo-op pomp as Fulbright. So, young students also understand that even non-NATO security can be good for their career (and even better for the world).

• Mandatory multipolar secondments: No promotion to a governmental-political office without a 12-month rotation at OSCE Vienna, AU Addis, or UNIDIR Geneva.

• Foreign-influence register: Bundestag members, for example, already disclose their shares; add every foundation-funded trip, board seats, and Bilderberg (and similar) invitation.

• Think?Tank Matching Fund: Parliamentary Research Service to match private defense?industry donations euro for euro, diluting capture. Even though more could be done here.

These are hinges that creak open only when exogenous shock pries them: a U.S. debt default that ends Ukraine funding, or a protest wave the police cannot kettle. However, none of these destroy the existing network. They inject some pluralism.

C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite (new ed., Oxford UP, 1956/2000), p. 11. Neither “blind drift” nor “conspiracy,” Mills warns, can substitute for the work of tracing how shifting structures hand new levers to old elites.

---

Closing Notes: Hegemony or Survival

The evidence traced across foundations, think-tank pipelines, and invitation-only conclaves leaves little doubt: the trans-Atlantic elite project is hard-wired for self-preservation.

Its cultural hegemony obliges Europe to underwrite a U.S.-centred imperium and the elites of all its allied countries, even when that imperium sabotages Europe’s material interests. Hegemonies rarely collapse out of ethical embarrassment; they yield only when external pressures or domestic ruptures make compliance more costly than defiance. One of three things (or all of these together) could put a dent in this machinery:

1. Narrative Rupture from Below
   Organised refusal, whether through mass strikes, boycotts, electoral realignments, or sustained media counter-campaigns, can delegitimize the war-economy consensus and make Atlantic allegiance politically toxic.

2. Systemic Shock from Outside
   A decisive loss of U.S. financial or military primacy (for instance, a petrodollar fracture or a failed proxy war) would compel European elites to reassess their allegiances.

3. Accountability from Above
   Nuremberg-style tribunals, however improbable today, remain the one mechanism that historically deters elite adventurism by attaching personal risk to strategic folly.

Every rung in their career ladder has normalized the next escalation. Contemporary European leaders do not consciously choose perpetual war; they inherit it as the safest path within an ecosystem that equates Atlantic conformity with professional legitimacy.

A Call for a New Circuitry

Replacing personalities will not suffice. The task is to dismantle the biographical assembly line that begins with foundation-funded youth exchanges, runs through think-tank fellowships, and terminates in cabinet offices or corporate boards. Unless that conveyor belt is broken or at least diversified beyond the Atlantic echo chamber, any “fresh faces” will replicate the same strategic reflexes.

The alternative is stark: witness your nation bleed in service of another’s empire’s elites or reclaim the capacity to decide its own future.

The choice, then, is no longer between status quo and reform, but between hegemony and survival. The window for peaceful de-alignment may be closing, but it has not yet slammed shut. Learning from history offers no guarantees, but it offers opportunities for interruption.

---

If this analysis resonated or infuriated you, leave a comment, forward it, or translate it. The conversation about war and functional elites belongs to all of us, not just to the taskmasters in conference rooms.

 

Democracies fray when scrutiny fades. By subscribing or sharing, you help sustain independent journalism that cuts through noise and dogma.