Terje Helland Profile picture
Mar 4 11 tweets 4 min read Read on X
🇺🇸🇪🇺🌎The transatlantic alliance faces an uncomfortable truth: the instability in U.S. politics isn't just about Trump. It’s about the deeper flaws in American democracy itself—flaws that make the U.S. an unreliable pillar of Western security.
🧵A security thread.
1/10 Image
Trump—a convicted fraudster, rapist, and insurrectionist—isn’t an outlier. The fact that he can win power again is a symptom of systemic weakness.
In any functioning democracy, such a figure would be politically extinct.
In the U.S., he was the GOPs first choice.
2/10
How did we get here? Its complicated but two core flaws make American democracy structurally unstable:
1️⃣ Money in politics—Citizens United allows billionaires to buy elections.
2️⃣ Electoral system design—A few swing states decide everything, making it easy to manipulate outcomes Image
Unlike in Europe (at least my country), where politicians resign over minor infractions, the U.S. system enables criminals to return to power.
When legal accountability means nothing, when money outweighs votes, when courts are stacked—how democratic is the U.S., really?
4/11Image
This isn’t just about domestic politics. If the U.S. can’t guarantee stable governance, how can Europe, Canada, Australia, Taiwan, or Japan trust it with their security?
5/11
NATO’s backbone has always been U.S. leadership. But when that leadership can swing between Biden’s internationalism and Trump’s isolationism—on a whim—the alliance itself is on borrowed time.
6/11Image
Europe must wake up. The old assumption—that the U.S. will always be there as a security guarantor—is dead.
A country that can be hijacked by extremists every four years is no foundation for defense and security.
7/11Image
The solution? The West must build an independent security framework.
✅ Europe must expand its defense capacity.
✅ Canada, Australia, Taiwan and Japan must coordinate more closely.
✅ NATO must prepare for a world where U.S. support is conditional—or absent.
8/11 Image
This is not an anti-American argument. It’s about recognizing reality. The U.S. remains a vital partner, but the era of blind dependence is over.
The West needs a backup plan—before it’s too late.
9/11 Image
The biggest threat to the Western alliance isn’t just Russia or China.
It’s the fragility of U.S. democracy itself.
If we don’t prepare for a post-American security order now, we may not get a second chance.
10/11
☕️ If you appreciate this thread, consider supporting my work: .
Your support keeps these insights coming.
Thank you! 🙏

11/11buymeacoffee.com/terjehelland

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More from @terjehelland

Dec 13
🇬🇪Peaceful protesters beaten, journalists assaulted, political prisoners jailed, opposition crushed, and WW1-era chemical agents used against civilians in the streets. This is not Europe🇪🇺. Georgia is not a democracy.
This is authoritarian rule in real time.
📷 Irakli Gedenidze Image
Georgia is witnessing a full-scale power consolidation: repression normalized, courts captured, media weaponized, and violence used as a policy.
Georgian Dream is no longer drifting. It is deliberately choosing the Putin model.
And the West is merely watching. Image
Like Putin’s system, this extreme Georgian Dream regime does not survive on popular support. It survives through elite dependency, business capture, and a loyal propaganda infrastructure. Image
Read 12 tweets
Dec 1
🇬🇪BBC has confirmed that Georgian Dream used a WW1 chemical agent, Bromobenzyl cyanide, against peaceful protesters.
People suffered chemical burns, respiratory distress and long-term injuries.
@GeorgianDream41
📷 Tata Khundadze, David Nebieridze
? bbc.com/news/articles/…Image
The last government documented to have used chemical agents against its own population was Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. That is the historical company Georgian Dream now keeps. This isn’t crowd control. It is state violence of the most alarming kind. Image
And when we now know the regime deployed a WW1 chemical agent against peaceful citizens, their later actions expose the full depth of their intent. Georgian Dream had a plan and they stick to it. Image
Read 4 tweets
Oct 26
🇬🇪Over the past three years, Georgia has transformed from a fragile democracy into a Russian-aligned kleptocracy.
The ruling party, Georgian Dream (GD), isn’t just authoritarian-it’s financially desperate.
Everything it does now revolves around one thing: cash.
1/18Image
GD’s entire system depends on money flows once controlled by oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, who made billions in Russia.
But since 2022, sanctions, asset freezes, and the loss of Western aid have cut the lifelines.
The regime is scrambling to fund itself-and its loyalty network.
2 Image
When the West froze parts of Ivanishvili’s offshore wealth and suspended direct aid, GD pivoted east.
Instead of reforming, it industrialized sanctions evasion, turning Georgia into a logistical back door for Moscow’s war economy.
3/18
Read 21 tweets
Sep 27
🇬🇪Georgia’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) might sound like a graft-busting agency, but under Razhden Kuprashvili it has become a political weapon.
Georgian Dream is using it to wage a repressive crackdown on civil society, silencing NGOs and opposition voices.
1/13Image
Image
In Sept. ´25, Kuprashvili’s bureau moved against 30 NGOs using a new “Law on Grants.” It sent letters demanding every detail of these NGOs’ activities and funding. This law - pushed through by Georgian Dream in April - bans foreign grants without Georgian Dream consent (governm). Image
NGOs called out the legal abuse. They replied that they’d taken no new foreign grants. Kuprashvili’s response? Dragging them to court. On Sept 17, a court obliged 9 NGOs to hand over data. The judge didn’t even cite any evidence – just copy-pasted the ACBs accusations.
3/13
Read 17 tweets
Sep 1
🇺🇸🇬🇪 Oklahomans! In 2020, @SenMullin warned that Georgia’s ruling party was tied to Russia, Iran, and hostile actors.

Today, as a US Senator, he is blocking the bipartisan #MEGOBARIAct- thus protecting the very regime he once called a threat.

What happened?

1/7Image
The #MEGOBARIAct is simple: it holds Georgia’s ruling “Georgian Dream” accountable for democratic backsliding and Russian-style laws and human rights violations.

It passed the House.
It has the backing of 98 Senators.
Only two remain reluctant. Mullin is one of them.
2/7 Image
Blocking MEGOBARI doesn’t just hurt Georgians fighting for democracy.

It helps Moscow, Tehran, and Beijing.
It undermines NATO, US security interests, and our allies in the Black Sea.
This is not “just another bill.” It’s strategic.

3/7 Image
Read 7 tweets
Aug 28
🇬🇪Georgia’s paradox: a government despised by its people, yet firmly in power.
Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream survives not through popularity, but by fusing repression, economic dependency, and rigged institutions.
🧵In this thread I try to explain this paradox.

1/16Image
Polls are clear: Georgians distrust the government, dislike Ivanishvili, and want a European future🇪🇺.
And yet, since 2012, Georgian Dream has ruled without interruption.
Why?
Because the state has been rewired into a machine of loyalty and fear.

2/16 Image
It looks less like a democracy and more like a neo-feudal pyramid.
Ivanishvili sits at the top. Beneath him: ministers, governors, mayors, civil servants - their jobs secured not by merit, but by obedience.

3/16
Read 16 tweets

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