Quick Take: The Barycenter Theory of American Geopolitics
Like astral bodies pulling each other gravitationally, the EU & the US are interlocked in a complex geopolitical dance: the EU is not a vassal of the US but a vassal of a specific idea of the US
One of astronomy’s dirty little secrets is that gravity functions much, much differently than most people believe. For example, Earth does NOT orbit around the Sun.
No. It doesn’t. Bear with me: I’m not crazy.
Gravity doesn’t work the way most non-astronomers think: both Earth and the Sun orbit around a barycenter and the location of the barycenter depends on the mass of the two bodies involved.
Let me explain quickly, because this matters for geopolitics. A lot:
A barycenter is the center of mass around which two or more celestial bodies orbit each other. It’s not a physical object but a point determined by the distribution of mass in the system. Every object has a center of mass. When two bodies interact gravitationally, they don’t orbit each other directly; instead, they orbit their shared center of mass, the barycenter.
Importantly, the location of the barycenter depends on the masses and distances. In the case of Earth and the Sun, of course the Sun is much more massive, so the barycenter is not anywhere close to the mid-point between the two bodies. Indeed, the barycenter in the Sun-Earth gravitational system lies inside the Sun, just not exactly at the center of the Sun. The same applies to Mars, Venus, etc.
That’s why it’s correct to state that, generally speaking, Earth orbits around the Sun. You would have to be a huge pedant to go around telling people NO, IDIOT, BOTH BODIES ORBIT AROUND A BARYCENTER THAT HAPPENS TO BE VERY CLOSE BUT NOT EXACTLY IN THE CENTER OF THE SUN.
Now, take Jupiter: the barycenter in between the Sun and Jupiter, the largest planet by mass in the solar system. The barycenter in that case lies very, very close to the sun, but just outside, which is why the wobble caused by Earth on the Sun is near-impossible to detect, but Jupiter has a very slight, and detectable, gravitational effect on the Sun.
The entire concept of barycenter can be easily seen when one describes the Pluto-Charon system. These are two mini-planets not-quite-orbiting each other, and Pluto is slightly bigger than Charon, so the barycenter is closer to Pluto, but still kind of in between the two. Since the the barycenter lies between them, they orbit a point in space. In this picture below, Pluto is the yellow planet and Charon the grey planet.
This GIF below explains the way the system works. Pluto orbits very close to the barycenter, and Charon further away, which is why for an external observer is easy to deduce that they orbit each other (and also around the Sun but, since the combined Pluto-Charon system is so tiny in mass, their barycenter with the Sun is pretty much the center of the Sun).
(Please click here and read this essay in the Substack page if your email reader won’t let you see the GIF animation with the two planets spinning around the barycenter.)
This long explanation about barycenters is here so that I can tell you that barycenters are a great way to visualize vassalage ties, because all vassals have ways to influence larger powers. Yes, they do orbit larger powers and are smaller in mass and influence, but the wobble caused by some vassals (Israel, anybody?) is very easily perceived on the politics of the large power.
This is how it goes with the EU and the US. A few days ago, I published a story about the question whether the EU is an American vassal where I stated, without any hyperbole I believe, that the question whether the European Union is an American vassal or an independent bloc of countries aligned with the US in what we might call “the West” or whatever is one of the most important in modern politics.
I gave a few historical examples of how vassalage ties work between countries, and then I noted that there’s a really simple trick to understand these relations that I would explain to you right after the paywall. This theory of barycenters was first presented behind that paywall, and some paying subscribers gave me comments and suggestions that have helped me finesse its presentation and understand its implications.
Keep in mind that countries like, say, Panama are more like Pluto-Charon: their mass relative to the US is so small that there’s no real influence on American politics or attitudes. But the EU is still big, more like Jupiter, even bigger than that.
Last December’s vote by the EU to seize “frozen” Russian assets was clear evidence: the US, the master, was against the step, as it sabotaged its plan for peace with Russia. And still the EU came close, with many countries voting in favor of displeasing the master.
The naked truth is that the EU doesn’t serve so much the US as the barycenter in between them: one that is almost entirely within the US, but one that is also somewhat influenced by the EU. The EU is not a vassal of the US so much as a vassal of specific idea of the US, of the US as global policeman and “benevolent hegemon” (an expression beloved among European elites), of paladin of globalism. The EU is a vassal of the US as dreamed of by fans of American imperialism, not isolationists: a vassal of a certain idea of history and politics that may, or many not, survive Donald Trump’s presidency.
There are other intriguing results from applying this theory of barycenters to the current geopolitical moment. A reader jokingly commented that the Ukraine “has turned into a black hole” sucking mass, and one that brought the USA-Europe barycenter a little outside the US. True.
Another, Matt L, referred to a historical period that we kids of the 1980s still remember:
I liken this to the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union. When Gorby was trying to reform the Soviet Union some of the most significant resistance came from the leadership of the Warsaw Pact satellite states, who understanding that their survival was contingent on Soviet military power enforcing it were the hardest of hard liners. For Gorbachev’s reforms to work, he has to force the Warsaw Pact governments to change (which caused them to collapse).
The US and Europe are in much the same situation today. European elites resemble the Democratic Party in outlook and belief, and are currently struggling the address many of the same problems. They are also both, at heart, very focused on maintaining the status quo. Trump and the MAGA movement are trying to bring change to the US, but also want to force the empire to reform in a similar manner because until they do, nearly all of the old European states will try and influence American domestic politics against them. Can the European project survive a National Rally or AFD government? How far will Reform go in Britain if they win the next election as is very possible?
Gravitational push and pull all over. And a reminder that vassal elites, in particular, tend to become addicted to the relationship because they understand their own local power flows from the empire’s. Yes, I’m looking at you, Ursula, you failed German politician, and at you Kaja Kallas, you quota representative from a tiny country of no global account:
Nobody needs a powerful empire more than smaller countries with an attitude: countries that can spin out of sight and be lost in the darkness, or fall under the attraction of a separate, close body if they lose their attachment to the empire. It’s only when the empire protects them that they can bark at the neighbor. The EU has long been beloved of smaller country politicians, people from places like Luxembourg and Croatia who find themselves striding around the international scene like giants of geopolitics.
Subscriber Odysseus asked what would happen if the US stops exerting its pull and the barycenter disappears, noting that Trump got elected because a good portion of the American elites realized that global hegemony through financialization was not possible anymore. In his view, they “opted to strengthen the imperial core at the expense of the far away provinces or vassals if you will. I think their influence will persist regardless of who is formally in power.”
The question reminds me of a trick question in astronomy: what would happen if the Sun suddenly goes away, if it disappears. How long would Earth take to notice? It turns out that the speed of gravitational effects is the universe’s top speed — what we commonly call “light speed” — so it would 8.3 minutes before we even noticed that the sun is gone, and the gravitational disruption would also start from that point on.
This goes both ways too: since the Barycenter Theory involves the smaller bodies having a small gravitational effect on the larger one, it would be interesting to see how the US would float without that pull on its institutions, military, the whole corrupting effect of foreign lobbies in DC, etc.
The role of North Korea in geopolitics is another fascinating application of the theory. Being trapped in between the masses of China and Russia, one could certainly argue that it’s afflicted by a Three-Body Problem like the one in the famous Chinese sci-fi novel and TV show — which is in full in Youtube for free and is actually pretty good, certainly better than the shitty Western adaptation:
For those who don’t know about the Three-Body Problem, it refers to the perpetual instability of gravitational systems where two bodies exert a large deal of gravitational influence over the other: as in two stars pulling a planet around into unstable orbits, while being themselves subjected to wobble effects in the process.
Isn’t that quite a reasonable description of North Korea’s geopolitical plight? Please make sure to let me know in the comments.
Hmm. North Korea gets to do what it wants in large part because anytime one of the larger powers wants to rein it in, the other doesn't want to concede the loss of influence. As far as that goes, it looks like a three-body problem (I was playing with Universe Sandbox again this weekend, so that had immediate salience).
If both agreed on something, it could go to the West. Also, the nuclear weapons as a last resort and an additional risk for anyone who might wish to 'solve' the problem. That is not related to the three-body problem.
It's really a very unique problem. Try to think of any other country that would get away with mass counterfeiting of US currency, or having its nationals pose as US workers for foreign exchange $$$ and intelligence reasons? With complete impunity, I might add. There is literally almost no NK trade to affect with sanctions, so it's immune to Western threats more or less.
I spent a LOT of time in Korea and marveled at both the problem and our (US) response to it. Baffled policymakers reacting, mostly.
As a resident of a vassal state I think my vassal's leader's point (I live in the one with most polar bears and the best maple syrup) is that the accumulative mass of the densest ("heaviest") of the vassals collectively come close to, essentially equal, or even surpasses, the mass of the U.S. at the best of American times, which these are not.
So while the U.S. sheds mass, with no single one of the heavier vassals still coming close to equalling it, individually at least some of them are gaining mass, and if they can merge that mass with the other of the heavier vassals, the question becomes, to me, can they come close to, equal, or surpass U.S. mass.
Partly the answer depends, I suggest, on definition of "mass", which is usually more or less encapsulated in the concept of national net wealth. But also it depends on the interactions of outside events that can create complexities not previously encountered (so nothing there to guide us, not that we are in the habit of learning from history) that will go in directions as unpredictable as the internet-cell phone connection to a vast tranche of knowledge was to Jules Verne or Nostradamus.
I think your take on North Korea is probably quite accurate, and one can "see" its instability change only if the "unforeseen" occurs, which seems unlikely in my lifetime, for sure, and probably in the lifetimes of contemporaries now in playpens.
And quick reminder, while I lack the expertise, experience, and knowledge on this topic that you and so many others bring to the table, my understanding, again from a perspective outside the U.S. it seems that the U.S. asked for the positions it has taken, to gain mass while dispensing, as an incentive, altruism all too readily, or greedily, or even necessarily (in the case of low-mass vassals -- low net monetary worth) but that long ere Trump an increasing number of American and non-American oligarchs have conspired to suck mass into their own respective beings, more or less secretly, until now. All of this is intertwined with many of the most base of human instincts and value systems, all exposed by Trump to a degree and at a time that was, I posit, unintended by his richest supporters, bringing us full circle to need of the vassals to see if they can assemble a mass greater than that which has abruptly turned on them (and, I think, itself). They needed an incentive to get off paths of least resistance and now they have one.