New Red Scare Destroys NATO, US Turns Against Europe, Iran Wins | Pietro Shakarian

## America's Third Red Scare The exchange centers on a striking claim: the United States is experiencing a "third Red Scare" aimed at crushing dissent at home and narrowing acceptable debate on foreign policy. The discussion describes a pattern of political theatre and legal intimidation—public accusations, seizures of devices, and overheated rhetoric—that together produce a chilling effect. This is not framed simply as partisan posturing but as a deliberate instrument for controlling narrative and stifling voices that challenge a hawkish consensus. The contemporary echo of McCarthyism is less about ideological purity than about preserving an imperial posture by delegitimizing critics of intervention and empire. Pietro Shakarian’s contribution sharpens this theme: the campaign is not only aimed at domestic left organizations but also at journalists and analysts who report from or question conflicts abroad. The seizure of phones, public denunciations by influential lawmakers, and branding of civil society actors as subversive operate simultaneously on First Amendment and Fourth Amendment fronts. The result is a politics of fear that discourages independent reporting and analysis—precisely when citizens most need clear-eyed information about foreign entanglements. ## Empire in Decline and the Logic of Overreach Underlying the conversation is a broader structural diagnosis: a declining empire lashes out. The argument presented sees erratic and extreme policy proposals—annexing the Strait of Hormuz, calls to “bomb” small states, talk of lowering nuclear thresholds—not as isolated madness but as classical symptoms of imperial overstretch. When core institutions and narratives that once justified global leadership (the “rules-based order,” promotion of democracy, stewardship of human rights) erode, the response is often a mix of performative toughness and domestic repression. This analysis insists on historicizing the current moment. The triumphalist assumptions that animated US foreign policy after 1991 created a brittle consensus that did not absorb the costs of global entanglements. Rather than adapt, elites doubled down. That failure to engage in substantive reform—socially, politically, strategically—makes political theater and coercion more likely as tools to mask systemic decline. In other words, the show of strength substitutes for the hard work of reassessing strategic aims and reducing exposure to costly conflicts. ## Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Mecca Pact A central axis of the conversation is how US policy toward Iran and the geopolitics of the Strait of Hormuz are accelerating tensions that could reshape regional alignments. The debate highlights a paradox: Iran’s longstanding regional status and civilizational depth are treated by some U.S. actors as threats so extreme that almost any measure, including direct military action against small Gulf states, is contemplated. That rhetoric obscures the real strategic stakes—trade chokepoints, energy flows, and the potential for escalation that would reverberate globally. The discussion also engages the emerging diplomatic architecture in the region, including references to a proposed Mecca Pact and alternative security arrangements that involve Gulf states and Iran. These developments illustrate a region attempting to reduce reliance on external guarantors and negotiate security on its own terms. The more Washington reflexively treats such regional autonomy as a provocation, the more it risks alienating allies and making conflict self-fulfilling. The conversation suggests that a U.S. posture of coercion will only speed the diffusion of regional security arrangements that exclude or counterbalance American influence. ## NATO, Europe, and the Demilitarization by Proxy-War Another strand traces how proxy war dynamics—especially in Ukraine—are altering the military and political calculus of NATO. The discussion argues that an overreliance on proxy strategies can hollow out allied capabilities and political cohesion. Instead of strengthening deterrence, extended support through proxies without a coherent strategic endgame risks demilitarizing the alliance by dissipating resources, eroding public support, and exposing fissures between capitals and publics. European elites, the conversation contends, have often followed U.S. leadership reflexively, driven by institutional ties and ideological alignment rather than sober calculation about national interest. That alignment is now under strain as European populations and certain political figures question the utility and human cost of proxy conflicts. The result is a dangerous combination: elites tethered to an overstretched patron and publics growing skeptical of continued involvement. Over time, this dynamic may force Europe into awkward hedging—seeking ways to protect regional security while distancing itself from the most extreme American policy impulses. ## Ukraine, the Caucasus Corridors, and Transit Politics The interlocutors move from high politics to geopolitics on the ground: Ukraine’s future, transit routes through the Caucasus, and the strategic calculus linking Europe, Russia, and the Middle East. The discussion sees Ukraine not merely as a battlefield but as a litmus test for how Europe and the United States manage alliances under pressure. A protracted, unsolvable conflict drains resources and political capital; a hurried or poorly conceived exit risks ceding decisive leverage to other actors. Caucasus transit plans—alternate corridors connecting Russia, Iran, and Eurasian markets—are framed as part of a reconfiguration of global trade and influence. As the old unipolar transit architectures fray, regional powers and smaller states are exploring corridors that bypass traditional chokepoints, offering new economic lifelines and political independence. These corridors are not neutral infrastructural projects: they can entrench new alignments that reduce Europe's leverage and complicate NATO’s geographic logic. The conversation implies that geopolitical resilience increasingly depends on recognizing and accommodating these emergent transit politics rather than trying to contain them through coercion. ## Domestic Politics, Neoliberalism, and the AI Backlash Domestic fault lines are central to the analysis. The conversation links neoliberal economic strain and the rise of populist or reformist political figures to foreign policy decisions that alienate broad swathes of the electorate. The notion that the United States can indefinitely export security burdens while neglecting home-front inequalities is increasingly untenable. Political actors promising either a return to triumphant militarism or mild technocratic fixes face voters who want substantive change. An evocative episode in the discussion is the growing local backlash against AI data centers—symbols of techno-capitalism’s extractive tendencies. Communities in states across the Midwest are pushing back against promises of jobs and development when weighed against environmental costs, noise, and resource consumption. The conversation uses these disputes to show how neoliberal development models are under pressure domestically, a vulnerability that interacts with foreign policy: a society exhausted by extractive industries at home is less willing to bankroll foreign adventurism abroad. ## The Multipolar Turn and Limits of U.S. Power Finally, the exchange considers the shape of a world moving away from a U.S.-dominated unipolarity toward a more contested multipolarity. The discussion suggests this is less a catastrophe and more an inevitability that demands strategic humility. As other powers—China, regional blocs, and networked coalitions—expand their influence, the United States must contend with the limits of coercive power and the consequences of clinging to failing narratives of permanent dominance. One clear implication is that alliances and security structures

New Red Scare Destroys NATO, US Turns Against Europe | Pietro Shakarian NATO is being demilitarized by its own Proxy-War. Historian and American University of Armenia lecturer Pietro Shakarian joins Pascal to discuss America’s “third Red Scare,” the Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz, the proposed Mecca Pact, Ukraine’s future, Caucasus transit plans, and why he sees Europe’s elites as tied to US power during a shift toward multipolarity. Links: Pietro Shakarian at The Nation: https://www.thenation.com/authors/pietro-shakarian/ Anastas Mikoyan: An Armenian Reformer in Khrushchev’s Kremlin: https://iupress.org/9780253073556/anastas-mikoyan/ Neutrality Studies substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com Merch: https://neutralitystudies.com/shop Donation: https://neutralitystudies.com/donate Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction and America’s Third Red Scare 04:06 Trump, empire decline, and the Iran war 07:36 War of aggression and US public opinion 15:39 Reform, neoliberalism, and AI data centers 20:31 Iran’s strategy and the Mecca Pact 31:15 US overstretch and Caucasus corridors 39:03 Ukraine, Russia, and Europe’s war strategy 49: 15 Why European elites follow US power 57:15 US limits and the shift to multipolarity #Pascal Welcome back, everybody, to Neutrality Studies. Today, for an update with Pietro Shakarian, a historian and lecturer at the American University of Armenia in Yerevan. Pietro, welcome back. #Pietro Shakarian Pascal, it's great to be here, as always, and I'm looking forward to discussing many, many interesting topics of international significance with you. #Pascal Oh, we will, we will. And, oh yeah, start with your most recent article, “America's Third Red Scare.” You published this one in The Nation, and you're basically making the argument that Trump is reviving the Red Scare at the moment, right? And can you tell us what your take on this kind of new insane idea of Donald Trump's is? #Pietro Shakarian Well, the whole idea is really, Pascal, to crush dissent. Not only—first of all, I mean, first of all, it's aimed, as everybody can see, against the DSA and Mamdani and all that. I mean, that's kind of, you know, starting off the bat, that's the main target. But another very significant target of Trump's wrath is to try and crush and silence dissent on foreign policy. And that's the other main point I -- 1 of 21 -- raised in this. I highlighted the example of Max Blumenthal, right, and how his reporting from Iran, from the funeral of Ali Khamenei, you know, basically that got him in hot water with Trump's MAGA base. I mean, you know, the looniest of them all, Laura Looney—or, I mean, Loomer. At the end of the day, she was writing that Max Blumenthal was, like, the leading communist in the United States and that, you know, he should be silenced, right? You know, First Amendment be damned, that he should be just, you know, shut up. And his phone—as a consequence, I mean, he had two smartphones that were confiscated. They were held by U.S. Border Protection. And Max Blumenthal, together with the Arab Anti-Discrimination League, right, they basically kind of pushed back against this. And within 24 hours, the phones were returned. But still, there are big questions about what do they actually do with those phones? What do they, you know, look, what do they, like, see inside those phones? What do they, you know, maybe access? What information was there? And so it's also a big issue not only in terms of, like, First Amendment rights, but also Fourth Amendment rights, right? And the chilling effect of this on dissent in foreign policy, it's not only felt in the Max Blumenthal case, as I highlight, but also with Marco Rubio—I mean, what he's doing with Cuba—creating a report basically saying that, you know, there is kind of this effort by Cuba to promote kind of radical left terrorism in the United States, right? This is kind of his point of view. Even he's trying to say Ben and Jerry's ice cream is a subversive organization in the United States. I mean, it's that ridiculous. But this is all part and parcel of the effort by the Trump administration. First of all, because they know that they're in trouble with the midterms. Second of all, they know that they're in trouble with, I guess you could say, this war in Iran, this situation with the Strait of Hormuz. The implications of that on the global economy are tremendous. And what more can you say? It's a way to control the narrative. I mean, even going back to the original—the second Red Scare of Joe McCarthy—that was also an effort, really, to control the narrative, really to kind of silence those who wanted to say that, you know, we should not even be in a Cold War, right? I mean, and that's what we're dealing with here. #Pascal But I mean, it's so interesting. I had right before this one a discussion with a Malaysian scholar, Dr. Oi. And he actually at one point in the discussion said, like, you know, luckily we have Trump now. And what he meant with that was to say that he just makes this so obvious: the neocolonialism, the bullshittery from the West, this entire duplicitous game, the kind of everybody has to pay us back. You know, we are the biggest provider of global goods, therefore everybody has to give us money because we're so good and you're so backward. And he says, like, you know, this actually makes it much easier to communicate in large parts of the world about the lunacy of the West that is going through. And this one Red Scare that they're trying to do at the moment, I mean, it's so blatantly, obviously dumb and a tool of trying to just crack down on society that it seems just too clear to actually then be able to work. Or what's your take? -- 2 of 21 -- #Pietro Shakarian Well, my take is, I mean, that this is what happens when empires begin to fall, Pascal. I mean, they begin to, like, lash out and do crazy things that, you know, make them seem even more irrational than they ever have been, right? I mean, we look at Trump, for example. I mean, every day it's something new. One day he wants to bomb Oman. The next day he wants to annex the Strait of Hormuz to the United States. It gets increasingly, increasingly silly and ridiculous and nonsensical. And that's what I mean, that this is, again, a symptom of a declining empire. But again, it's no longer dressed. And actually, I agree with the gentleman. It's no longer dressed in this idea of, oh yes, human rights and democracy and European values, whatever they are. And that, you know what, we're going to, you know, come in and everything is going to be hunky- dory. And, oh yes, the rules-based order, all those talking points are gone. Now we just see the raw face of the American empire, right? And it's also a face that is even insensitive to, to even, you know, those serving overseas. You know, I mean, look at what's happening with the USS Abraham Lincoln. My God. I mean, that's just, that's just utterly atrocious. And that's like, you know, they always would say during the Iraq War. I mean, as soon as I could say this when I was growing up in the States as a teenager and we were talking about the Iraq War, that as soon as we got really critical of the Iraq War or, you know, this whole American imperial project, you know, the New American Century or whatever. The way to silence that was basically to say, you know, well, we, you know, support the troops, right? You know, that was kind of like a way for them to say, you know, support the war. But by putting the troops out there as the face of that and kind of deflecting the criticism of the larger picture, larger context of the war, of course, who would not support the troops who are out there in harm's way? Of course. But it was a way to deflect from the real issue, which is their culpability in putting those troops in harm's way and, you know, creating this, you know, atrocity of a war in Iraq. And the same thing Trump is doing again. This is, again, another atrocity in the Middle East when we see what we see going on now with Iran. It's absolutely... It's a... #Pascal Hey, just a very quick note. The best way to support this channel is by signing up for my free Substack. You can also help with a paid subscription there, or you can get some of our new merch on neutralitystudies.com. Links below. See you there. Because it's so blatantly dumb that it's becoming clear now, luckily. Because, like, you know, the fact 20 years ago, it was kind of—I think a lot of people also bought into the idea that these evil dictators, Hussein and others, and Iran, they threaten our troops, right? Our innocent troops that have to be there in order to be the policemen of the world, right? And they are threatened. Therefore, we need to do something. And by now, it is just so blatant that this is a -- 3 of 21 -- war of aggression against Iran that everybody goes like, why are our people there in the first place? I always tell the story that, you know, Switzerland has been very good at protecting its troops over 200 years. We haven't had a single casualty in the Middle East or in West Asia in 200 years. You know how we did that? We didn't send troops there. #Pietro Shakarian Absolutely. Well, they have that great meme, if you remember a few years ago on the internet, which was that, you know, how dare these countries put themselves so close to our bases? #Pascal Yeah. You know, how dare Iraq put itself so close to our bases? #Pietro Shakarian You know, oh my God. You know, yeah. #Pascal That's becoming quite clear now. You were recently in the States. Did you get a feeling for how the general mood is over there with this war? This war hasn't been popular from the very beginning, right? It's even going down now. #Pietro Shakarian There was a post on Substack a while ago by Trita Parsi, where he said that this was a historically unpopular war. And he was citing, of course, poll data on that. And I can completely verify that in the United States, that is the case, that this is a historically unpopular war. And you know where I was, Pascal? I was visiting family in Cleveland, Ohio. So I was in one of the so-called swing states in the Great Lakes, in the Midwest. #Pascal And #Pietro Shakarian I can tell you there, you know, that it could very well be that the Senate would be flipped in favor of the Democrats, right? Not that, I mean, the Democrats, of course, they have their own problems. I'm not going to say that, oh, you know, they're perfect or whatnot. But you know what? It's not looking very good for Trump in November. I can tell you that much. And not only in Ohio, in Michigan. I mean, you see what's happened. I think, you know, even though there's this kind of, you -- 4 of 21 -- know, controversy about, or there's this talking point that, you know, El-Sayed is unelectable, in truth, I think he is electable, and I think there is a very good possibility that Michigan will go Democrat. I mean, that's what we're going to see. And it's because this war is so catastrophic, right? And he's really, I mean, you could say El-Sayed is on message, absolutely. I mean, he actually probably is one of the—he's probably, I would say, you know, one of the better, you know, politicians, political figures who has emerged from the Democratic Party in recent years. He's very promising. Graduate of the University of Michigan, which I also am a graduate of. You know, go Wolverines, even though I'm from Ohio. It's a complicated situation. But you get the idea that I think it's going to go blue. I mean, and you know what? Trump himself is to blame for that. What I also don't understand, Pascal, for the life of me, is how he, when he needs to get out of a conflict, you know, he jumps right in when there is an out, right? I mean, he was threatening Iran going all the way back to February. Remember all that buildup, all that, you know, people were on the edge of their seats. Iran gave Trump a better deal than they gave Obama with the Oman negotiations