美国俘获精英与欧洲自我毁灭 跨大西洋霸权的隐秘架构

美国俘获精英与欧洲自我毁灭 跨大西洋霸权的隐秘架构

精英俘获与欧洲自我毁灭：跨大西洋霸权的隐秘架构

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

从北溪管道的破坏到北约5%的军备竞赛：助长跨大西洋疯狂的网络内幕

Nel的头像 NEL 2025年6月28日

奥斯特贝克的彼尔德伯格酒店，为1954年首次彼尔德伯格会议做准备。奥斯特贝克（荷兰）的“彼尔德伯格酒店”，在首次彼尔德伯格会议召开前——1954年5月30日。照片：Anefo / Nationaal Archief（公共领域，CC 0）。

序幕：兰辛备忘录抵达柏林

伍德罗·威尔逊的国务卿罗伯特·兰辛在1924年口述了“雄心勃勃的墨西哥青年”备忘录。你们肯定知道那句话：向他们的精英开放我们的大学，向他们灌输美国价值观，他们就会替我们治理墨西哥：更好、更便宜，而且连一个海军陆战队员都没有。如今，这种方法听起来令人沮丧。

在兰辛勾勒出蓝图一百年后，德国已成为其最完美的典范。当奥拉夫·朔尔茨的内阁批准摧毁北溪2号——这是一种经济上的自我破坏行为，对德国没有任何合理的战略利益——而时任总理的梅尔茨承诺永远不会再次使用它时，他们就是在背叛德国。与此同时，他们也在履行着由有限视野铸就的人生命运，这视野是在常春藤盟校的研讨会、五角大楼的工作室以及大西洋桥天鹅绒装饰的房间里形成的。

 

这是一个精英群体的故事，他们被训练成将大西洋主义视为“西方文明”本身的同义词。而其代价：工业产出的崩溃、能源贫困以及征兵的阴影，则由其他人承担。

 

引言：疯狂及其方法

德国，这个曾经严守经济主权的出口巨头，如今却牺牲能源基础设施，资助远程导弹（包括与乌克兰联合生产远程武器），并重新将战备状态（所谓的“Kriegstüchtigkeit”）视为美德，同时还在演练北约与俄罗斯冲突的动员计划，而这场冲突将首先搅动德国本土，正如《德国作战计划》所阐述的那样。这是意识形态自动化导致的更深层次的战略调整。否则，我们该如何解释公众情绪与精英决策之间持续存在的差距呢？

 

2024年的一项民意调查显示，60%的德国人反对进一步向乌克兰运送武器。然而，德国社会民主党联合领导人、副总理兼财政部长拉尔斯·克林贝尔宣称，德国要想“做好战争准备”，联邦国防军就需要对潜在应征者更具吸引力，例如，允许他们从联邦政府免费获得驾照。此外，执政联盟还在继续推行所谓的战略模糊政策。

 

这些都是柏林正在上演的怪异疯狂的症状。一个从战争和分裂的废墟中重建起来的国家，如今却心甘情愿地与一个拥有核武器的邻国走向冲突。然而，这种疯狂是有方法的。

 

想想北约秘书长马克·吕特最近在2025年峰会上的宣言：

 

“北约是世界历史上最强大的防御联盟——比罗马帝国更强大，比拿破仑的帝国更强大……我们必须阻止俄罗斯的统治，因为我们珍视我们的生活方式。”

 

这种对历史的无知或混淆（取决于我们如何解读吕特的言论）令人震惊。拿破仑，就像今天的北约一样，将欧洲大陆的统治合理化为解放。他对俄罗斯的入侵，一场灾难性的失败，却被描绘成对“侵略性”沙皇扩张的先发制人打击。两者之间的相似之处显而易见。

 

历史学家杰夫·里奇在分析北约在俄罗斯境内进行的“蜘蛛网行动”破坏活动时指出：

 

“北约是精英阶层的权力基础，他们与美国的地缘政治投射步调一致。当吕特将北约与拿破仑相提并论时，他忘记了俄罗斯最终将欧洲从这个帝国手中解放出来。或许，俄罗斯会在这场战争之后将欧洲从美国手中解放出来。”

 

我想说的是，这不是一个阴谋。这是一种制度化的霸权，通过葛兰西所说的统治阶级的“文化领导力”来运作。然而，葛兰西分析的是国家精英与其同胞的关系，而我们现在面对的是一个跨国阶层：像雅各布·施罗特（Jakob Schrot）这样的德国政客（稍后会详细介绍他），像吕特这样的荷兰技术官僚（他最近在北约峰会上称现任美国总统特朗普为“老爹”，该峰会确定了5%的国防开支），以及法国的欧盟官员，他们的履历、教育和职业动机并非与其公民相符，而是与维持美国单极体系的必要性相符。这些精英在地缘政治棋盘上的行动不仅不理性；统治精英只是效忠于另一个参照群体。

 

一、谜题：欧洲精英为何自焚？

 

正如我们开始看到的，答案并非在于纯粹直接的腐败或意识形态狂热。它远比腐败平庸得多，也远比意识形态有效得多。答案也在于传记、网络和机构。它也在于功能性精英层面的霸权：当统治思想成为常识时。在这种情况下，霸权并非仅仅通过暴力来实施，而是通过教育、精英招募和仪式化的重复。

精英知识网络

Inderjeet Parmar（2019）将其称为精英知识网络的软机制：“人员、资金和思想的流动”，将华盛顿到柏林的共识制度化。富布赖特项目、德国马歇尔基金会、大西洋桥计划、慕尼黑安全会议和彼尔德伯格会议都是形成性的生态系统。它们筛选、培养和提升那些能够将世界观发扬光大的人。

 

至关重要的是，这些网络并非被动的论坛。它们是“美国精英的权力技术核心”：一种知识生产和人才选拔模式，在全球范围内极其成功地复制了亲美的世界观。精英社会化本身并非良性过程。它固化了各种假设，定义了政治上的可想象性，并使不对称性自然化。

 

世界秩序

构成这些精英世界观基础的自由主义国际秩序远非普世主义，而是建立在双重逻辑之上。正如欧洲理事会前主席唐纳德·图斯克在2017年特朗普第一届政府期间坦诚承认的那样，欧洲-大西洋主义的根本目的就是阻止后西方世界秩序的出现：

明天我将与特朗普总统会面，我将努力说服他，欧洲-大西洋主义主要是自由主义者为了自由而进行的合作；如果我们想要阻止不久前在慕尼黑会议上被我们的对手称为“后西方世界秩序”的局面，我们就应该共同守护我们的自由遗产。

 

在这个体系中，包容是有选择性的。日本和韩国尽管忠诚，但从未像西欧那样受到对待。而新兴大国要么被驯化，要么被哄骗顺从，要么被当作威胁遏制。这种逻辑至关重要：如果包容失败，遏制必然随之而来。

 

然而，遏制始于思想，而非导弹。对外国精英的意识形态同化是帝国防御的第一道防线。因此，维护霸权与其说依赖于胁迫，不如说依赖于软性包容。精英知识网络，植根于大学项目、慈善基金会和智库，充当着这种软实力的载体。它们社交、招募和认证新兴领导者。

 

精英整合机器

正如帕尔马所指出的，这些网络定义了什么是“可思考的思想”和“可提出的问题”。福特基金会和洛克菲勒基金会、兰德公司、布鲁金斯学会、卡内基基金会以及美国进步中心都是精英整合的机器，通过这些整合和社会化过程，某种知识转化为权力。因此，富布赖特基金会或大西洋桥基金会的翻领别针，就成了通往布鲁塞尔和华盛顿的通行证，以及“融入”的最可靠途径。

 

然而，这个生态系统并非整个地球。埃尔克·亨斯科克和弗兰克·泰克斯在2016年进行的一项研究，绘制了40万个董事会成员的联动关系图，结果显示，最密集的跨国精英群体仍然位于北大西洋轴线上。相比之下，亚洲企业精英则形成了一个独立的、关系远不及此的群体，在结构上准备建立自己的权力基础，甚至可能建立一种以中国为中心的资本主义。亚洲的网络越是自我孤立，（在欧洲-大西洋精英看来）出现真正的“后西方世界秩序”的风险就越大。

 

换句话说，西方智库渠道旨在预防这种分歧，并保护其精英圈层。

 

欧洲精英不仅仅受到美国的影响。通过这个体系，他们被塑造成某种模式，在职业上被塑造，并在意识形态上被束缚。当然，这并非完全或彻底地被束缚，仿佛他们完全没有自主权，又仿佛国家历史对这些精英毫无影响，然而，每个欧洲国家的特点都会赋予其影响其政策的跨大西洋世界观独特的色彩。

 

其结果是：美国的外交政策目标并非简单地强加于柏林；而是来自柏林内部的声音。

 

二、霸权架构：精英俘获如何运作

自由秩序标榜自己具有普世性，但加入者必须接受（公开的）不成文的规则。不加入者将被美国永久的军事存在所遏制和包围。换句话说，帝国核心通过将其他精英融入其世界观而非仅仅强迫他们来维护其地位。现在，我们将探讨这些精英整合机制（特别是通过分析德国与德国职能精英的跨大西洋关系）：

 

1 从查塔姆研究所到DGAP：机构简谱

智库wer始于伦敦的皇家联合服务研究所（1831年），由威灵顿公爵创立，是一个研究军事和战略问题的独立专业机构。1919年，查塔姆研究所和卡内基基金会正式确立了精英辩论（Roberts 2015），之后，其范围进一步扩大。在大西洋彼岸，外交关系委员会（1921年）将华尔街的财富与常春藤盟校的学术研究融合在一起，并由福特和洛克菲勒家族提供永久性资助。毕竟，这笔资金来自企业。事实上，这些创始人往往是颇具影响力的精英，他们寻求在国防和战略思想领域协调其政策，先是在大英帝国内部，然后与新兴的美国霸权国家。

 

1945年后，这种架构被输出到满目疮痍的欧洲。私人资助的德国国防政治协会（DGAP，1955年）在波恩复制了外交关系委员会的模式。科学与政治基金会（Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik，1962）则更像是一个政府机构，直接向总理府提供白皮书。然而，重要的是，二战后，英美智库及其人员成为政策制定和长期规划的中心。专门研究国际事务的智库通常被认为是外交政策设计的重要补充。它们也充当着政客和官僚与学术界、媒体界和商界代表以及政府运作的潜在支持者或招募对象互动的平台。

 

20世纪60年代，德国马歇尔基金会、大西洋研究所和大西洋桥社通过举办晚宴、青年领袖联谊会和媒体学习之旅，在政策工作的基础上增强了社会凝聚力，同时也影响了西德的政治精英。蔡澈（2021）记录了“桥社”及其美国兄弟组织美国对德委员会（ACG）如何通过在秘密研讨会上培养党内调解人，确保维利·勃兰特领导的德国社会民主党从中立主义转向不放弃北约。

 

在20世纪70年代和80年代，美国智库已经感受到了日益全球化的世界中“美国的衰落”。在此期间，新的机构性影响力竞争对手出现了，其中包括通常秉持保守观点的智库，其中以美国企业研究所和传统基金会为首。（请记住，传统基金会资助了“2025项目”。这是当今美国政策的入门读物。）

 

到了20世纪90年代，每个德国政党基金会都设立了一个“跨大西洋事务处”。德国社会工人党（SWP）的工作人员在慕尼黑安全会议上轮岗；DGAP研究员担任德国马歇尔基金评选评审团成员； 《明镜周刊》和《时代周刊》（德国重要报纸）的编辑们收集了大西洋桥社的校友徽章。这个网络逐渐发展成为一个无缝衔接的渠道：从大学到党总部，从董事会会议室到北约场外办事处。最终，一旦美国的认可成为衡量职业尊严的标准，偏离轨道几乎就是一种自我伤害。

 

2 智库历史为何在当下如此重要

这种架构使看似自杀式的选择正常化。关闭廉价的俄罗斯管道天然气对巴斯夫来说是痛苦的，但它维护了所有大西洋桥社成员的声誉资本。这种内在激励往往比国家资产负债表逻辑更重要。

 

更重要的是：智库代表着推动全球政治经济的力量，至少在西方是如此。然而，当今的地缘政治分析往往偏向民族国家及其政治行为体。民族国家与全球市场之间的差距往往通过这种由私人资助和影响的治理网络得到填补（Heemskerk & Takes 2016）。

 

3 智库作为旋转门引擎

如果没有一支在基金会办公室、有线电视新闻演播室和政府办公室之间穿梭的专业队伍，我们迄今为止追踪的机构版图将显得毫无生气。

在企业捐赠和慈善资助的滋养下，美欧智库既充当着思想精炼厂，又充当着人才输送管道：它们预先商定范式，然后将自己的工作人员派往将其付诸实践的部门。

政治经济学家纳诺·德·格拉夫 (Nano de Graaff) 和巴斯蒂安·范·阿珀尔多伦 (Bastiaan van Apeldoorn) (2021) 将此称为“政策规划网络”：一个将财富500强资金、国会校友和常春藤盟校资历整合成单一职业阶梯的网格：

共识研讨会——智库圆桌会议使精英们能够在公开场合成为“无党派专家”之前，私下协调立场。

 

招聘人才库——同样的机构也帮助总统和内阁部长填补行政部门的职位 (McGann 2007)。

 

旋转杠杆——正如约瑟夫·奈所说，最强大的影响力是在共同撰写简报后“亲手掌握杠杆”的时候 (《与历史对话》，1998)。

 

这些中心共同充当着当前秩序的跨大西洋人力资源部门，培养将扛起大旗的继任者。向前。

 

4 传记层面的精英俘获

精英俘获机制在社会群体层面和个人传记层面运作。它既简单又有效：从富布赖特奖学金到德国马歇尔基金会奖学金，再到“大西洋桥”组织和/或智库成员资格，贯穿一个人的一生和职业生涯，只有一条声望通道。这样的职业阶梯垄断了柏林外交政策精英晋升所需的象征性资本。第一批精英于20世纪60年代进入该体系，但在两德统一后实现了完全的自我复制。如今，默茨内阁的许多成员都拥有美国国务院资助的奖学金、大使馆实习经历、“大西洋桥”组织成员资格或类似的跨大西洋关系；有些人还在大西洋理事会等与华盛顿结盟的机构中担任董事。

 

5 布迪厄陷阱

法国社会学家皮埃尔·布迪厄的框架揭示了这些精英们精心设计的人生道路是如何自我延续的：

 

当一条道路（美国奖学金阶梯）占据主导地位时，该领域对可能实现的目标（就行动和政策而言）的想象力就会萎缩。体现的文化资本（流利的希尔英语、乔治敦大学的挂绳）转化为社会资本（校友网络），而后者又结晶为象征资本（媒体合法性）。

 

异议无人辩论。它被视而不见，只有当它变得过于显眼和喧嚣时才会被主动排除。这种霸权体系在政治精英中规模较小地运作，其运作方式就像一座神学院，在那里，偏离就意味着异端，顺从则意味着被封圣。

 

6 青少年俘获

这台精英社会化机器最阴险的特征是什么？那就是时间问题。理想的道路始于青少年时期，即政治世界观逐渐凝固的成长期。诸如以下项目：

 

国会-联邦议院青年交流项目 (CBYX)

 

全球青年领袖大会 (GYLC)

 

面向16岁的青少年，让他们沉浸在模拟北约战争游戏和美国大使馆的“领导力培训”中。

 

到这些学生进入大学时，他们的视野已经变得狭窄。一位19岁的年轻人，从美国国务院资助的美国大学暑期项目归来，英语流利程度有望恢复（但愿如此）。最重要的是，他们内化了一种合法性的等级制度：华盛顿的优先事项是中立、普遍和常识。其他关于外交政策的思维模式，例如不结盟、缓和关系和欧亚贸易，则被视为极端主义或幼稚，而被过滤掉。

 

这是意识形态的烙印，也是个人层面霸权的心理建构。其结果是，一代政治精英的履历读起来就像美国国务院的培训手册。悲剧的是，当这些被培养出来的精英在政界、媒体或企业中身居要职时，他们的顺从似乎成了理所当然。他们服务于美国利益并非出于胁迫，而是因为他们别无选择。

 

当我们将目光聚焦于一个国家中心时，我刚才提出的抽象模型变得更加清晰。德国的大西洋桥项目提供了一个典型的案例。

 

三、德国案例：大西洋桥作为传输带

安妮·蔡澈（Anne Zetsche）对大西洋桥项目及其美国姊妹机构——美国对德委员会（ACG）的档案深入研究，揭示了一个表面上“私人”的友谊协会如何成为战后精英结盟的精准工具。与智库一样，它是精英融合和社会化机制中的关键机构。

 

1 创始人与架构

汉堡银行王朝的继承人埃里克·沃伯格 (Eric Warburg) 利用他与约翰·J·麦克洛伊 (John J. McCloy) 在华尔街的关系，将德国金融与美国资本市场重新连接起来；布林克曼·维尔茨公司 (Brinckmann, Wirtz & Co.) 很快促成了大众汽车 (Volkswagen) 的首笔美国信贷额度。

 

玛丽安·多恩霍夫 (Marion Dönhoff) 利用《外交事务》杂志的晚会和乔治·F·凯南 (George F. Kennan) 的指导，将德国中立重新定义为“不负责任的”。

 

这些银行家、编辑和伯爵们被世界精英的习性所束缚。他们的使命是抢在莫斯科或戴高乐主义的巴黎宣称拥有西德之前，将其纳入美国主导的“国家共同体”。

 

2. 社会民主党的占领

一个中立或以法国为中心的西德被标记为偏离了所期望的大西洋发展轨迹：例如，埃米特·休斯和ACG特使与汉堡市长马克斯·布劳尔通信，以弱化社会民主党的反军国主义立场（1950-54年）。

 

到1963年，ACG/大西洋桥社联手以亲北约的序言帮助淡化了《爱丽舍宫条约》。

 

维利·勃兰特的“东方政策”也需要从一项持续的主权和平计划转变为一项经北约批准的“缓和政策”。

 

福特基金会的资金（通过中央情报局资助的文化自由大会和美国劳工联合会-产业工会联合会）资助了青年研讨会，以清除党内马克思主义的暗流；这是一个早期的例子，表明慈善事业可以产生深远的影响，类似于情报工作。

 

3 媒体

桥社每年与北约盟军最高司令共进晚餐，同时也是编辑部的休养所：奥瑟夫·约菲（《时代报》）、凯·迪克曼（《图片报》）和斯蒂芬·科内柳斯（《南德意志报》）都是桥社的长期成员；德国电视二台主持人克劳斯·克莱伯曾是桥社的董事。

 

结果并非强制性规定，而是预期性的结盟：主流媒体很少将德国重新武装视为可选项。相反，他们将其视为唯一途径，并确保主流话语始终不偏离大西洋主义的正统观念。

 

4 董事会协同效应

如今，桥社董事会代表着大西洋资本主义的资产负债表，其中包括美国商会、德意志银行、高盛、辉瑞和巴斯夫等知名公司。媒体、法律和制药行业与基民盟和社民党重量级人物并肩而立；这证明“两党合作”在这里意味着对共同的跨大西洋商业模式和世界秩序的忠诚。

 

5 共识工程在行动

2009年——弗里德里希·梅尔茨（基民盟）出任“大西洋桥”主席，随后担任贝莱德德国总裁。

 

2019年——西格玛·加布里尔（社民党）接任；批评人士担心他会成为“煽动者”，但这项任命主要是为了消除社民党对北约2%目标（如今已升至5%）的任何疑虑。

 

看似彬彬有礼的沙龙文化，却像一条跨大西洋的传送带，在五角大楼没有任何指令的情况下，将美国的偏好传播到德国的政党平台、董事会和新闻编辑室。

 

在追溯了“大西洋桥”如何帮助德国战后机构融入更广泛的跨大西洋关系之后，我们现在将探讨彼尔德伯格集团会议作为跨大西洋精英社交的另一个渠道。

 

四、比尔德伯格集团与霸权商业

比尔德伯格集团常被斥为阴谋论者的痴迷，但事实上，它却是社会学家坎特（2017）所称的跨国资本家阶级（TCC）的一个关键节点。对其2010年至2015年会议的分析显示：

 

1. 谁坐在谈判桌旁？

67%的与会者是首席执行官、银行家或公司董事（德意志银行、高盛、英国石油）。

 

没有一位工会成员受邀。这种“对话”有意将劳工排除在外。

 

企业势力主导着TCC；政治日益成为资本的服务功能。

 

另一方面，Gijswijt（2019）的分析向我们展示了1954年至1968年期间比尔德伯格集团初具规模时的后冷战时期的构成：

 

大约25%的与会者来自美国，14%来自英国，法国和西德各占9%。

 

30%是“商人、银行家和律师”，20%是“政客和一些工会领袖”，另有16%是外交官，其余由学者、记者以及来自北约、世界银行、经合组织和国际货币基金组织的高级官员组成。

 

女性“明显缺席”。

 

核心企业和国家双双参会

 

德意志银行派出了首席执行官和主席（2016年）；荷兰派出了首相和国王（2016年）。

 

额外的席位确保了议程设置，并证明了在精英协调下经济大于政治。

 

这些数字表明，彼尔德伯格集团的重心与冷战时期自由秩序的核心高度契合，涵盖了大西洋沿岸的金融、国防和外交，同时又保持了足够的国家代表性，从而获得了泛西方授权。

 

2 通过认可招募

组织者“一直在寻找新的人才”，以便融入俱乐部。(Gijswijt 2019) 参与成为了一种资质：比尔·克林顿、托尼·布莱尔和安格拉·默克尔在晋升至高位之前都曾参与其中。其价值远非烟雾缭绕的王者之争，而在于声望管道本身：一条表明意识形态可靠性的简历，为华尔街、白厅和德国联邦总理府打开了大门。

 

3 非正式外交，而非正式决策

没有通过任何决议，也没有发布任何会议记录，然而“会议的真正重要性取决于与会者如何运用他们聚集的象征性资本。”（Gijswijt 2019）会议就像一个高度信任的排练室：人们可以尝试各种想法，审查各方声誉，并协调彼此的前提。这种潜在的共识随后在北约公报或欧盟委员会白皮书中重新浮现。

 

4 身份认同工作与联盟管理

彼尔德伯格集团有意培养“一种基于自由世界或西方理念的强烈情感共同体感”。（Gijswijt 2019）仅仅是出席，尤其是出席美国重要人物的会议，“就能激发人们对美国在北约领导地位的接受”。这次会议是一剂抚慰跨大西洋紧张情绪的良药：它提供了一个平台，吸收单边冲击，重新设定谈判要点，最终确立了华盛顿在同侪中依然占据主导地位的等级制度。

 

5 个网络倍增器

其成员资格与外交关系委员会、查塔姆研究所、国际关系研究所、外交政策专家组以及后来的三边委员会重叠，构成了“一个紧密的跨国关系网络：一个非正式联盟”（Gijswijt 2019）。衍生机构也随之增多。丹尼斯·希利在1957年“图片”事件后，为伦敦国际战略研究所争取到了福特基金会的资金。比尔德伯格集团的幕后对话。其他卫星会议，例如慕尼黑安全会议、柯尼希斯温特会议以及ACG/Atlantik-Brücke两年一度的德美会议，都效仿了这种模式，以稳定国家层面的政策共同体。

 

6 旋转门

比尔德伯格集团参与者的另一个特点是他们在政治、商业、媒体和学术等不同领域的“会员资格”相互重叠：

 

彼得·萨瑟兰（比尔德伯格集团的常客）曾在高盛、世贸组织和欧盟委员会之间轮换。

 

罗伯特·鲁宾从美国财政部跳槽到花旗集团，再到外交关系委员会：这完美地展现了精英阶层的相互交织。

 

智库“stammgäste”

 

来自外交关系委员会、卡内基、国际研究所、美国企业研究所和《经济学人》的常客。

 

展现了跨国公司（TCC）各派系（企业、政治、技术、消费主义）之间的相互渗透，模糊了评论与董事会权力的界限。

 

7 意识形态过滤器

正如研究员卢卡什·坎托尔（Lukáš Kantor）所指出的：“彼尔德伯格集团的常见问题解答声称它欢迎‘多元化观点’，但诺姆·乔姆斯基从未收到过邀请。‘对话’仅限于那些已经达成共识的人。”

 

这就是超帝国主义（考茨基的术语）的体现：各国精英跨境勾结，保护共同的阶级利益，即使其公众为此付出代价。

 

8 为何对德国至关重要

彼尔德伯格集团在德国的配额从未超过10%；然而，它所推动的职业生涯，例如弗里德里希·梅尔茨、卡尔-特奥多尔·祖·古腾堡或约瑟夫·阿克曼的职业生涯，却反馈到了我们刚刚考察的大西洋桥-DGAP-慕尼黑网络中。换句话说，大西洋桥社是德国的分支；彼尔德伯格集团会议则是横跨大西洋的根基，让意识形态的种子滋养土壤。彼尔德伯格集团也是欧洲-大西洋资本主义的质量控制实验室：筛选人员、协调讨论要点，并维护企业派系在更广泛的大西洋资本主义内部的主导地位。

 

IV-a. 福特基金会：大西洋主义的风险投资

“新一代人将步入权力岗位，但他们对二战或马歇尔计划毫无个人记忆。为了维持联盟，他们首先必须被社会化融入其中。”——蔡澈 (2015)

 

1 公私合营的设计

慈善教科书仍然将福特描绘成一个中立的技术官僚慈善机构。安妮·蔡澈（Anne Zetsche）的档案工作揭示了相反的情况：该基金会位于一个密集的公私三角关系的中心——该三角关系由国务院、财富500强企业和精英学术界组成——旨在管理美国外交政策治理。帕玛尔将这种联系称为将企业财富转化为战略知识和人才的“软机制”。

 

2 资助德国节点

福特的资金资助了大西洋桥基金会早期的德美会议（自1959年起）以及为德国民主党（DGAP）、德国社会工人党（SWP）和政党基金会提供资金的奖学金渠道。当工作人员担心邀请名单看起来过于陈旧时，他们增加了青年研究员项目和“下一代”学习补助金，以便在没有经历过废墟和反共产主义记忆的群体中复制世界观。

 

3 战略目标

福特基金会早期的内部通信指出了两大意识形态威胁：

 

戴高乐主义的“欧洲-无美国”——一个法国领导的大陆集团。

 

勃兰特早期的“东方政策”——德国在两大集团之间保持中立。

 

解决办法是扩大交流项目、暑期研修班和种子基金的资助范围，使其只提供给那些值得信赖、能够在华盛顿站稳脚跟的候选人。到1970年，西德所有政府部门都聘用了福特基金会的校友；到1980年，《明镜周刊》、《时代周刊》和《德国之声》的编辑委员会也开始聘用他们。

 

4 资金作为课程

与彼尔德伯格集团仅限邀请的沙龙不同，基金会的资助带有教学大纲：大西洋历史模块、马歇尔计划回顾展以及外交关系委员会的非正式简报会。因此，资金也兼具了培训的性质。其结果是，一批骨干直觉地将欧洲安全与美国主导地位划等号，并将不结盟和欧洲自治等替代方案视为历史偏差。

 

时光飞逝，课堂已从常春藤盟校的研讨室转移到了远离喧嚣的会议酒店。同样的社会逻辑依然存在，但现在的教师要么身着四星级的制服，要么运营着云计算集群，要么两者兼而有之。

 

IV-b. 比尔德伯格集团 2025：从宏大战略到科技战争演习

这一传承仍在延续。2025 年 6 月，比尔德伯格集团的邀请名单进一步转向将军、人工智能巨头和核规划专家——这表明，如今的“非正式联盟”与其说是沙龙，不如说更像是一个联合作战的作战室。

 

2025年讨论议题：议程涵盖跨大西洋关系、乌克兰、美欧经济平衡、中东、“威权轴心”、国防创新与韧性、人工智能、威慑与国家安全、能源与关键矿产地缘政治、人口减少与移民，以及值得一提的核扩散。?? 请注意，常规非核问题（non-distinct）的缺失。

 

谁定下了基调？集群样本参与者（及当前角色）：

 

硬实力：马克·吕特（北约秘书长）、延斯·斯托尔滕贝格（前秘书长）、克里斯·赫里将军多纳休（美国陆军欧洲-非洲司令部）、萨姆·帕帕罗上将（美国印太司令部）

 

Survey-Capital：萨蒂亚·纳德拉和穆斯塔法·苏莱曼（微软AI）、德米斯·哈萨比斯（谷歌DeepMind）、亚历克斯·卡普（Palantir）、埃里克·施密特（前谷歌员工）、舍尔夫·冈德伯特（Helsing GmbH）、彼得·泰尔（Thiel Capital）

 

媒体合唱：马蒂亚斯·多普夫纳（Axel Springer）、赞尼·明顿·贝多斯（《经济学人》）、安妮·阿普尔鲍姆（《大西洋月刊》）

 

议程中最引人注目的词是：“扩散”。并非指不扩散，而是坦率地承认核共享（波兰、罗马尼亚？）正从秘密变为讨论话题。几天之内，GLOBSEC 的 2025 论坛（一个类似比尔德伯格集团的分支机构，由许多相同的公司资助，但更倾向于科技和国防领域）发布了一份政策简报，敦促北约

 

“明确扩展核威慑的三大基本支柱：能力、决心和沟通。这种整体方法不仅对于在更危险的安全环境中威慑俄罗斯至关重要，而且对于加强北约内部凝聚力、确保公众信任以及劝阻对手试探北约的红线也至关重要。”

 

冈伯特·舍尔夫博士（Gundbert Scherf）是科技与国防精英融合的典型代表（他曾参加2025年比尔德伯格集团会议和2024年全球安全会议）：

 

2000年代：剑桥大学/巴黎政治学院/柏林自由大学（标准的跨大西洋培养）

 

2014-2016年：德国国防部特别顾问

 

2017-2020年：麦肯锡航空航天与国防合作伙伴

 

2021年至今：欧洲最热门的战场人工智能初创公司Helsing AI联合创始人兼联合首席执行官（已在北约试点项目）

 

2024-2025年：在比尔德伯格集团相关论坛以及比尔德伯格集团（全球安全会议、MSC“创新轨道”等）担任演讲嘉宾

 

舍尔夫从未面对过选民，但他与现任部长一样，在大西洋联盟的圈子里活动：这提醒我们，在2025年，关键的政策云计算初创企业和议会一样，掌控着权力。当比尔德伯格集团讨论“扩散”话题时，赫尔辛的代码库几个月后就已准备就绪，即将成为北约白皮书中新的交战规则条款。

 

不妨思考一下这一系列政策制定：

 

比尔德伯格集团2025议程：“扩散”

 

GLOBSEC 2025论坛及报告：“北约的核威慑与责任分担”

 

GLOBSEC在北约2025峰会上的实时推文：

 

“在盟国评估正在进行的#NATOSummit2025峰会之际，@NATO核政策主管吉姆·斯托克斯阐述了北约核共享在不断变化的欧洲安全态势和责任分担辩论中扮演的角色。”

 

这个想法最初诞生于一个不为人知的酒店宴会厅，后来在布拉迪斯拉发以小组讨论主题出现，最终在布鲁塞尔凝固成一项作战指令。这些网络不再仅仅讨论宏大战略；它们会将其原型化，然后将其作为下一步不可避免的步骤卖给国防部。核扩散、高超音速武器、人工智能目标选择：每个周期都始于“非正式”外交，最终转化为光鲜亮丽的政策简报，最后成为某些国家采购预算中的一项。

 

国家层面的变迁依然存在：融入大西洋从来都不是白板练习；每个国家都融入了各自的历史沉淀。在德国，这一过程与残留的西德反共主义和仅部分完成的去纳粹化交织在一起，留下了一个可以谴责莫斯科为“永恒敌人”（德国外交部长约翰·瓦德福尔语）的政治阶层，同时又能延续曾在布里隆或布雷斯劳为“大德意志”游行的家族血统。因此，当前的升级既是跨大西洋忠诚的表现，也是西德冷战民族主义（或许还有冷战前民族主义）的复兴（无论其程度如何）。精英网络中的每个节点都带有各自的本土特色；然而，最终的配方仍在华盛顿酝酿。

追踪了维持传送带运转的资金来源，我们现在可以看到这些资助如何转化为实际的履历，并追踪了几位德国决策者从他们第一个福特资助的海外学期到晋升内阁的历程。

 

五、传记流水线：制造共识

审视梅尔茨内阁的简历，我们不仅会发现职业里程碑，还会发现意识形态的烙印，这些烙印贯穿精英社会化的三个不同阶段：三个连续的阶段，它们共同塑造了共识。雅各布·施罗特和拉尔斯·克林贝尔从两个角度阐述了这一过程：一个是通过学术快速通道，另一个是通过危机经历，但他们都展现出了同样的大西洋反应。

1 习得阶段 │ 意识形态的洗礼

世界观在此逐渐建立。这个过程始于美国资助的项目，这些项目针对的是处于职业生涯甚至个人转折点的年轻人。

 

雅各布·施罗特（Jacob Schrot，总理幕僚长兼新成立的国家安全委员会主席）——通过以下课程接受大西洋正统思想：

 

跨大西洋硕士，2013-2016：跨大西洋关系联合硕士学位，使他在大学轮转学习。先后就读于北卡罗来纳大学教堂山分校、洪堡大学和柏林自由大学。

 

2012-2013年美国大学华盛顿学期：在美国大学华盛顿学期美国外交政策项目进行一年的研究，使他得以深入华盛顿。上午在德国马歇尔基金会（一个倡导北约的智库）工作，下午则在国会山担任众议员艾略特·恩格尔（众议院外交事务委员会成员）的实习生，恩格尔也是《通过制裁反击美国对手法案》（CAATSA）的主要设计者。

 

25岁，非政府组织创始人（2014年）：创立“青少年跨大西洋者”倡议；一年后，担任德裔美国人俱乐部联合会（30个校友团体）主席。

 

施罗特30岁回到柏林时，他的世界观已然成型：北约和大西洋主义已成为唯一合法的世界观。美国的领导地位是道义上的事实，以至于德国的利益与华盛顿的利益密不可分。

 

拉尔斯·克林贝尔（德国副总理兼财政部长）——在危机和社会化中学习：

 

9/11实习（2001年，曼哈顿）：弗里德里希·艾伯特基金会（FES）——德国社会民主党的政治基金会——在9/11袭击期间，将这位23岁的政治学学生安置在曼哈顿的一个非政府组织。这段影响深远的经历成为他大西洋主义世界观的情感基石。用他自己的话说：

 

“此后，我非常深入地参与外交和安全政策研究。后来我回到美国华盛顿，并在那里撰写了关于美国国防政策的硕士论文。这些可怕的袭击彻底改变了我与联邦国防军和军事行动的关系。如果没有9/11，我可能永远不会发现自己对安全政策的兴趣，甚至可能不会进入国防委员会。”

 

乔治城大学交换项目和希尔实习，2002-2003年：拉尔斯·克林贝尔回国后，于2002-2003年参加了华盛顿乔治城大学的美国交换项目，学习美国国防政策；这段美国经历让克林贝尔从一开始就拥有了跨大西洋视野，这实际上是一次“软俘获”式的美国战略思维洗礼。在华盛顿期间，他在国会山国会女议员简·哈曼（当时是众议院情报委员会成员，后来成为与中央情报局有关联的智库伍德罗·威尔逊中心主席）的办公室实习。哈曼的情报常设特别委员会负责监督：美国国家安全局的大规模监控计划以及9/11事件后“全球反恐战争”的立法。

 

2 转化阶段 │ 网络化提升

忠诚和顺从会获得归属感的回报：

 

在转化阶段，我们可以将施罗特描述为一位具有创业精神的网络人。如上所述，25岁时，施罗特在学生时代就创立了一个青年非政府组织（Initiative junger Transatlantiker），并担任德美俱乐部联合会（拥有30多个校友会）的主席。因此，与大多数人不同，他从内部创建了跨大西洋协会。

 

相比之下，拉尔斯·克林贝尔在这个阶段走的是一条更传统的道路，他是一位董事会成员，略带进步的外貌，正如他的社民党成员身份所暗示的那样。

回到德国后，他开始攀登政治阶梯：成为大西洋桥社的成员。有趣的是，在2018年大西洋桥社的一份报告中，克林贝尔与美国大使艾米·古特曼、现任德国总理弗里德里希·梅尔茨以及前贝莱德德国负责人一同出现。

 

总而言之，施罗特制造精英社会资本，而克林贝尔则利用它。结果是同样的花园派对之旅，只是入场券不同。

 

3 强化阶段 │ 系统性复制

毕业生成为守门人；循环闭合。

 

最终，雅各布·施罗特（Jakob Schrot）成为总理默茨的幕僚长兼国家安全委员会协调员。他负责审查顾问的最终名单，并起草每一份安全备忘录。施罗特如今掌控着总理府的人事渠道；克林贝尔推动了一项1000亿欧元的“时间转型”（Zeitenwende）重整军备基金，并重启了TTIP精简版协议的讨论。克林贝尔（以及其他几位德国政客）参加了2025年的比尔德伯格集团峰会（弗里德里希·默茨也参加了2024年的峰会），从而巩固了自己在与北约秘书长、美国将军、科技巨头CEO的私下关系网中的地位，该关系网充当着政策规划精英的“非正式联盟”。

 

施罗特负责选择简报的撰写人；克林贝尔负责决定资金的分配。他们共同构建了德国的政策机制。但最重要的是，他们这样做是按照华盛顿的条件。而且，他们没有其他办法来处理这样的传记。

 

除了激励因素之外，还有另一面：施罗德效应：反对跨大西洋对话的人将面临职业毁灭。这位前总理对北溪二号的倡导以及与莫斯科的外交活动，导致他被剥夺了前任总理应享有的官方特权，理由是他拒绝与俄罗斯能源巨头断绝关系，未能履行其职责。结果，他几乎被从媒体讨论中抹去。

 

运作结果：封闭的认知宇宙

这条流水线制造着政策的一致性。但更重要的是，它制造了一个共同的感知牢笼。当大多数德国乃至欧洲的政治精英都经历同样的美国项目时：

 

他们的认知界限缩小了：缓和变成了“绥靖政策”。中立等同于“合作”。与俄罗斯的能源交易是“地缘政治叛国”。

 

他们的情绪反应是被条件反射的：五角大楼官员的皱眉引发的恐惧多于选民的愤怒。《经济学人》的认可比国内民调更有价值。

 

他们的想象力萎缩了：他们无法理解像基于欧安组织的安全架构这样的替代方案。他们认为中国的崛起是对美国单极体系的“暂时偏离”。

 

最糟糕的是，他们（可能）并不认为这是胁迫。到他们上任时，大西洋主义已经成为政治常识，如同呼吸一样本能。

 

悲剧在于失去了什么：像维利·勃兰特这样的领导人，他多年的流亡经历教会他，主权始于不服从的勇气。相比之下，在今天的柏林，几乎没有空间留给那些被非正统传记塑造的政客；这条“管道”培养出的干部不再需要决定是否服从，因为他们无法想象其他任何可能性。难怪时任德国副总理罗伯特·哈贝克在2022年访问华盛顿时承诺，德国随时准备发挥“服务型领导”的作用——这句话本身就逻辑清晰，以至于没有人费心去问那些显而易见的问题：领导谁，服务什么？

 

在我们讨论打破僵局之前，值得回顾几位成功完全超越“管道”的欧洲领导人，以及他们如何拓展了可能性的领域。

 

六、曾经开阔视野、如今可能再次开阔视野的传记

跨大西洋管道并非总是密不透风。战后，少数欧洲领导人摆脱了大西洋学派的影响，并由此拓展了其国家所能想象的范围。他们的人生故事更像是一段以流亡、中立和非殖民化工作为标志的曲折历程。他们证明，当一位政治家的形成性人脉建立在以华盛顿为中心的友谊圈之外时，“现实”政策选项的菜单会突然变得丰富起来。

 

下跪的流亡者威利·勃兰特

 

1933年逃离纳粹德国，居住在挪威和瑞典：勃兰特于1933年逃离纳粹德国，并在战争年代居住在奥斯陆和斯德哥尔摩，从事记者工作，与纳粹和西德的庇护网络断绝了联系。

 

通过斯堪的纳维亚社会民主主义和挪威抵抗运动进行政治社会化：他的政治发展受到斯堪的纳维亚社会民主主义和与挪威抵抗运动的联系的影响，而非受到马歇尔计划等西方战后机构的影响。

 

1948年返回西柏林，精通北欧联盟建设：勃兰特于1948年恢复德国国籍，并积极参与柏林政坛，带来了斯堪的纳维亚联盟政治的经验。

 

将莫斯科视为可谈判的邻居，而非生死攸关的敌人：勃兰特的“东方政策”（1969-74年）是一项务实的政策，旨在缓和与东欧集团国家的关系并使其恢复正常化，将莫斯科视为谈判伙伴而非绝对敌人。

 

奥洛夫·帕尔梅，一位中立的发言者

 

出生于瑞典上层阶级，但在劳工运动中走向激进：帕尔梅出身上层阶级，但后来成为瑞典社会民主党的领导人物，拥护进步的劳工政治。

 

瑞典的不结盟政策限制了其与北约或美国建制派的联系：瑞典的严格中立意味着帕尔梅与美国外交政策机构的接触有限；他唯一值得注意的美国联系是凯尼恩学院的奖学金（1948-49）。他并没有通过智库奖学金的旋转门成为跨大西洋外交政策机构的一员。

 

师从联合国秘书长达格·哈马舍尔德；关注全球南方：帕尔梅职业生涯早期曾在联合国工作，并与亚洲和非洲新近非殖民化的国家密切接触，这使他的世界观形成了一种全球正义而非大西洋联盟的格局。全球南方会议比大西洋峰会更能塑造他的道德词汇。

 

对超级大国采取对称态度；批评美国在河内轰炸等行动：帕尔梅直言不讳地批评美国在越南的行动，将轰炸比作格尔尼卡，甚至在与莫斯科保持对话的同时，暂停了瑞典与美国的关系一年。

 

倡导北约之外的欧洲“共同安全”：帕尔梅主张建立一个独立于北约的欧洲安全框架，强调缓和与合作。

 

两人的早期人脉网络在地理和意识形态上都处于大西洋主要灌输带的边缘：

 

勃兰特的人脉网络是北欧反纳粹侨民；

 

帕尔梅的人脉网络是联合国/非殖民化圈子。

 

因为在美国资助的恐怖主义之前，他们的事业就已经具备了可行性。低级舰艇成为欧盟的默认选择，它们可以借用大西洋的工具，而无需效仿大西洋的模式。这些异类表明，远离大西洋社会化网络并不能保证明智，也不能保证与它们保持绝对距离；然而，拥有本质上局外人的经历拓宽了思考的视野。它们的通道已经收窄；重新开放这些通道是任何德国或欧洲主权战略的先决条件。

 

打破束缚：现实的枢纽

我们能做什么？在某种程度上，这将是、也必须是跨大西洋蛛网中这些西方国家人民以及新兴多极世界人民共同努力的成果：

 

声望竞争：在早期阶段，欧盟-金砖国家和平奖学金（或简称“金砖国家”）将提供与富布赖特奖学金相同的津贴和拍照机会。因此，年轻的学生们也明白，即使是非北约安全也能对他们的职业生涯有益（甚至对世界更有利）。

 

强制多极借调：未在维也纳欧安组织、亚的斯亚贝巴非盟或日内瓦联合国裁军研究所轮岗12个月，不得晋升至政府政治职位。

 

外国影响力登记册：例如，联邦议院议员已披露其所占份额；将所有基金会资助的旅行、董事会席位以及彼尔德伯格集团（及类似组织）的邀请都计入其中。

 

智库配套基金：议会研究服务机构将与私人国防工业捐款进行一比一的配套，以稀释“俘获”。尽管在这方面可以做得更多。

 

这些铰链只有在外部冲击撬动它们时才会嘎吱作响：例如，美国债务违约导致乌克兰资金中断，或者警方无法控制的抗议浪潮。然而，这些都不会破坏现有的网络。它们注入了一些多元化。

 

C. Wright Mills 著作《权力精英》的扫描节选。文章写道：“认为一切都是盲目随波逐流的观点，很大程度上是对自身无能感的宿命论式投射，或许，如果一个人曾经以有原则的方式积极参与政治活动，这或许是他内疚感的一种慰藉。认为所有历史都源于一群容易找到的恶棍或英雄的阴谋，这种观点也是一种仓促的投射，源于人们难以理解社会结构的变迁如何为各路精英打开机遇，以及各路精英如何利用或未能利用这些机遇。接受任何一种观点——认为所有历史都是阴谋，或认为所有历史都是随波逐流——都意味着放松了理解权力真相和强者行事方式的努力。” C. Wright Mills，《权力精英》（新版，牛津大学出版社，1956/2000），第11页。米尔斯警告说，“盲目随波逐流”和“阴谋”都无法取代追踪变迁的结构如何将新的杠杆赋予旧精英的努力。

 

结语：霸权还是生存

从基金会、智库渠道到仅限受邀者参加的秘密会议，证据几乎毋庸置疑：跨大西洋精英计划的自我保护是其根深蒂固的。

 

其文化霸权迫使欧洲支持以美国为中心的帝国及其所有盟国的精英，即使该帝国损害了欧洲的物质利益。霸权很少会因道德困境而崩溃；只有当外部压力或国内裂痕使顺从的代价高于反抗时，霸权才会屈服。以下三件事之一（或所有事情共同）都可能对这台机器造成冲击：

 

自下而上的叙事断裂

有组织的拒绝，无论是通过大规模罢工、抵制、选举调整还是持续的媒体反击运动，都可能使战时经济共识失去合法性，并使大西洋联盟在政治上变得有害。

 

外部系统性冲击

美国金融或军事主导地位的彻底丧失（例如，石油美元体系的断裂或代理人战争的失败）将迫使欧洲精英重新评估他们的忠诚对象。

 

自上而下的问责

纽伦堡式的法庭，无论在今天看来多么不可能，在历史上仍然是阻止精英冒险主义的唯一机制，它将个人风险与战略愚蠢联系起来。

 

他们职业阶梯上的每一级都为下一次升级做好了准备。当代欧洲领导人并非有意选择持续不断的战争；他们继承了战争的本质，认为这是在一个将大西洋联盟与职业合法性等同起来的生态系统中最安全的道路。

 

呼吁建立新的体系

仅仅更换人物是不够的。我们的任务是拆除这条从基金会资助的青年交流项目开始，到智库奖学金项目，再到内阁办公室或公司董事会的传记式流水线。除非这条传送带断裂，或者至少在大西洋回声室之外实现多元化，否则任何“新面孔”都会复制同样的战略反应。

 

选择是残酷的：要么眼睁睁地看着自己的国家为另一个帝国的精英服务而流血，要么重新获得决定自身未来的权力。

 

因此，选择不再是在维持现状与改革之间，而是在霸权与生存之间。和平脱钩的窗口或许正在关闭，但尚未完全关闭。以史为鉴并不能保证一切顺利。但它也提供了打断的机会。

 

如果这篇分析引起了你的共鸣或愤怒，请留言、转发或翻译。关于战争和职能精英的对话属于我们所有人，而不仅仅是会议室里那些督促者。

 

当审查逐渐减弱时，民主就会破裂。通过订阅或分享，您可以帮助维护能够打破噪音和教条的独立新闻报道。

 

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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