The capitulation of the Greek government to Berlin-led finance capital is a daunting watershed moment. It marks the “disciplining” of the wider European electorate under corporatist financier rule. What is happening in Greece is a forerunner for other European Union states.

In that event, widespread social unrest can be expected.

The rapid expansion of American military forces across Europe over the past year has invoked the pretext of “defending” NATO allies from alleged Russian aggression. But an altogether different contingency is that Washington is preparing for a military coup in Europe – in the wake of economic collapse stemming from the Greek debt crisis.

Just last week, American army general Ray Odierno – a member of the US Joint Chiefs of staff – outlined plans for a new battalion of troops in Germany, along with heavy armour and other equipment. Odierno told the Wall Street Journal that the new military installations were to counter “the rising Russian threat”.

Germany is already under de facto US military occupation, since the end of the Second World War, with tens of thousands of American troops and a slew of garrisons. Why the need for more American military, and not in peripheral European states close to Russia, but right in the heart of Europe – Germany?

Similar increasing deployment of American troops, artillery, armour, warplanes and helicopters has taken place in other European NATO members over the past year under the guise of conducting war games.

The result is that US military presence across Europe has never been greater at any time since the Cold War ended with the Soviet Union 25 years ago.

General Odierno said the “prepositioning” of troops and equipment in Germany and neighbouring states, including Poland and the Baltic countries, would allow for the rapid scale-up of American military in Europe “in the event of a crisis”. By “crisis” he was apparently alluding to a possible war with Russia.

But Washington planners may have another crisis in mind – the economic and social meltdown of the European Union.

In that event, the American military would be deployed to shore up fragile, discredited governments amid widespread social turmoil. These “care taker” governments may be similar in personnel to the parties already in power in European capitals. But their administrations will be increasingly autocratic and imposed without popular mandates, as is being evidenced in Greece. If a social crisis of full-blown poverty, soaring unemployment, public protests and industrial disruption were to culminate, then the American military forces in Europe will be in place to enforce the rule of these technocratic “governments”.

American political analyst Randy Martin, who writes at crookedbough.com, reckons that US rulers have anticipated the current turmoil in Europe over Greece.

“The Greek crisis has been going on for five years and more,” says Martin. “You can bet that Washington has already drawn up plans on how to administer Europe politically and financially if the situation demands that intervention. And that situation is becoming more and more apparent almost by the day.”

He added: “Don’t forget that the NATO military alliance of 28 members is really just American military power outsourced in various European disguises. NATO formations across Europe are therefore tantamount to US military occupation of Europe,” says Martin. “This is exactly what Russian government figures have perceptively been saying for a long time.”

Since the Ukraine crisis erupted due to the US-sponsored coup in that country in February 2014, the Western media has been saturated with American claims of Russian aggression toward Europe. But, as Randy Martin points out, the narrative of a Russian threat is becoming increasingly threadbare. There is no evidence of Russian infiltration in Ukraine, no evidence of Russian military aggression toward Europe, and, moreover, Moscow has consistently refuted the allegations as “fantasy”.

Which leads one to conjecture: is the American militarisation across Europe for another purpose – the containment of the European Union as it comes under increasing social pressure from within due to economic collapse?

What is called the “Greek debt crisis” is in reality a symptom of a systemic breakdown in Western capitalism.

Many other countries across the European Union also find themselves in similar condition of chronic fiscal arrears and drowning indebtedness.

Italy, Spain and Portugal come to mind as having precarious debt loads that outstrip their respective economies. France, the second biggest economy in Europe, is also submerged with a total debt exceeding its national economic output.

The austerity measures that EU governments have been imposing on their populations are felt most acutely in Greece, manifested in the scenes of mass queues outside banks for a subsistence daily allowance, or desperate crowds at food stores and pharmacies searching for dwindling supplies of basic essential commodities. With the Greek government of Alexis Tsipras showing itself as a willing instrument of Europe’s banker-oligarchy to apply more austerity, the atmosphere among many ordinary Greeks is increasingly volatile and brooding.

But this scenario of economic collapse and social mayhem seen most vividly in Greece will likely be repeated in other EU countries because of the systemic nature of the crisis. The EU institutional creditors, led by Germany, want to teach the rest of Europe a lesson by disciplining Greece over its national finances.

However, austerity pushed to extreme will result in social revolt, not just in Greece, but across Europe.

Washington is alarmed by the potential meltdown in Europe. Last week, President Barack Obama urged Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel and Greek Premier Alexis Tsipras to come up with a solution to the debt crisis. Obama’s Treasury Secretary Jack Lew echoed the concerns and

warned: “There’s a lot of unknowns if this goes to a place that completely melts down in Greece.”

What we are witnessing in Europe is the emergence of autocratic centralised “government” serving the dictate of finance capital, which imposes austerity on the general population regardless of democratic mandate. The administrative, technocratic centre for this rule-by-banker-oligarchy in Europe is Berlin, which is, in turn, answerable to the technocratic administration in Washington under the control of Wall Street. What we have known up to now as sovereign national governments will henceforth be mere functionaries for the global banker elite.

The control of government by private corporate interests, with no democratic accountability, attests to the definition of fascism. As analyst Randy Martin comments: “What is taking shape in Europe and more so in the United States is the complete subjugation of government by finance capital. It is not an exaggeration or empty jargon to say that we in the West are succumbing to the rule of financial fascism.”

Banker-led technocratic administrations across Europe will engender rising popular protest and civil unrest. When American politicians talk about “meltdown” and their army generals talk about “securing Europe” what they really mean is securing Europe from its own angry people. Russia is but the bogeyman to justify American military occupation of Europe and the imperative of finance capital administered from Berlin.

The irony is that 70 years after the defeat of fascism in Europe, Europe is coming full circle under the same phenomenon. This time instead of Nazi jackboots, we have American ones.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Sputnik.

The views and opinions expressed in the article do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.