The following is a verbatim transcription of a speech that did not take place today in the U.S. Congress:
"Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Congress of the United States:
The gravity of the situation which confronts the world today necessitates my appearance before a joint session of the Congress. The foreign policy and the national security of this country are involved. One aspect of the present situation, which I present to you at this time for your consideration and decision, concerns Greece and Turkey. The United States has received from the Greek Government an urgent appeal for financial and economic assistance...."
No, that's not a ripped-from-the-headlines account of President Barack Obama speaking about Greece's potential exit from the European Union, or about the rumored Turkish military incursion into Syrian territory. The words belong to President Harry S. Truman, who spoke them in 1947, in a speech laying out what would become known as the Truman Doctrine. They reflected the urgency of extending a financial lifeline to Greece - and to a lesser extent, Turkey - to keep both countries free from encroaching Soviet Communism.
Such were the geopolitics of the day, linking financial collapse to larger issues of global power and pre-eminence. As doctrines go, Truman's was the real deal, enunciating a mission that would unite American partisans and allied politicians for decades to come.
Today, nearly 70 years on, the structures summoned into being to give the Truman Doctrine permanence - NATO; Bretton Woods as the progenitor of the International Monetary Fund; and even the European Coal and Steel Community, the forerunner of the European Union - are creaking and popping under the stress of serial crises.
And today, there is no Truman Doctrine 2.0, no impassioned speech, no bipartisan aid package, no appetite on the part of the United States or of the major European powers - even to use the phrase seems anachronistic - to save the day through unevenly shared sacrifice. The United States is being pulled in too many directions at once - not least the centripetal pull to look inward, away from a world that seemingly grows madder by the day.
And so the pendulum swings from alliances and internationalism to the re-emergence of narcissistic nationalism, one of the ur-texts of the Greek tragedy. Take Greece and the question of whether it will leave the European Union - the worry is less about what will happen to the union absent Greece's rapidly vanishing economy than about the precedent Grexit sets for others to leave the club. Secessionism could unravel the European project; a sobering prospect for a continent that birthed two world wars in the last century.
Greece in Europe's absence
If Europe wanes, who will rise? Russia - whose present leader called the collapse of the Soviet Union and the liberation of 15 former Soviet Republics "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th Century" - is in a different place these days, picking up pieces of its old empire by fiat in Crimea and by force in the rest of Ukraine. Vladimir Putin's Russia can offer little more than crocodile tears at the prospect of Greece leaving the Euro club. For Putin, today's Grexit is from the European Union. Who knows - maybe tomorrow, the Grexit will be from NATO.
"Just because Greece is debt-ridden, this does not mean it is bound hand and foot, and has no independent foreign policy," Putin said, knowing that a newly "independent" Greece will need a powerful patron. Having taught the world to be wary of Greeks bearing gifts, will Athens appreciate the risks of a tighter relationship with Russia? Not judging by the deals already taking place, like the one between the Greek government and Russia's Gazprom on the so-called Turkish Stream natural gas pipeline, part of Russia's plan to create a supply bypass to bring gas to Europe without having to transit Ukraine.
As for toeing the Russian line, Greece did the deal despite the fact that Gazprom is subject of an antitrust action brought by the EU Commission. But then Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, in a spring visit to Moscow, had already called for an end to the sanctions put in place against Russia over its annexation of Crimea. Back in Independence, Missouri, Give ‘Em Hell Harry must be spinning in his grave.
And if Russia hesitates, there is always China, flush with cash and interested in establishing a beachhead into Europe. A Chinese multinational is already invested in Greece's fabled Port of Piraeus, and has been invited by the Greek government to submit a bid for a controlling 51 percent share of the port via a privatization plan. After the Greek government burns through the proceeds, what will be next in the national fire sale?
Then there is Turkey - the second part of Truman's Doctrine. Decisive action brought Turkey into NATO, but not necessarily into Europe, where Turkey's application for accession to the European Union has been pending since 1987. Today's Turkey performs a delicate balancing act, appealing to Western economies even as it appeases the cultural imperatives of Islam. Turkey has instituted its first state-backed Islamic bank, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has become the nation's teacher-in-chief, instructing Turkish schools to teach children about Islam's contribution to the arts and sciences.
If Greece leaves the European Union, and with Turkey refused entry, will we see both withdraw from NATO and chart a course away from Europe, toward the East and the Middle East?
