#6 Gray Area

Last week the U.S. government officially “shut down” due to an unresolved budget crisis between Republicans and Democrats. Under Trump’s leadership, Republicans rejected Democrats’ request to extend tax cuts aimed at lowering healthcare costs. As a result, Congress failed to pass legislation funding the new fiscal year, leading to a suspension of government funds.

This development marks the second major shutdown under Trump’s presidency, following the 35-day shutdown in 2018. The Trump faction views this as an opportunity to reduce the state’s “bloated bureaucracy” and fulfill its campaign promise to “downsize government.” This approach demonstrates that the Trump administration is willing to accept a prolonged shutdown and sees the contraction of the bureaucracy as a political gain.

Approximately 750,000 public employees are expected to be placed on mandatory furlough due to the shutdown. For example, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced plans to send 41% of its staff on temporary unpaid leave. The U.S. aviation authority, the Federal Aviation Administration, is also furloughing 11,000 employees because of the shutdown. Although personnel in critical roles related to flight safety will continue working, they will not receive their salaries. Similarly, some military personnel are facing payment suspensions.

Although the term “shutdown” in the U.S. appears to be merely a technical label, it raises a fundamental question: Can a state truly shut down? Can a state, like a building with its lights turned off or a company with its shutters lowered, be halted—or is “state shutdown” merely a metaphor pointing to a different reality?

To answer this question, it is appropriate to return to the most widely accepted definition of the state. According to Max Weber, a state must hold a legitimate monopoly on the use of physical force within a given territory. In other words, the state’s existence depends on its legitimacy in the eyes of society. If public trust in institutions erodes and the state mechanism loses its legitimacy in the public’s perception, what remains is merely an instrument of coercion and an authority confined to paper. Thus, although today’s shutdown appears to be a technical term, the U.S. is in fact confronting the real risk of a “state shutdown”—a gradual erosion of institutional legitimacy.

When we examine state shutdown in this context, data reveals the silent collapse occurring in the U.S. According to an analysis by the Urban Institute, “trust in major institutions” in the U.S. has dropped by 22% since 1979. Moreover, the U.S. today, with a trust level of 49%, is the least trusted country among G7 nations in its institutions. In other words, more than half of the population in a country long regarded as the “democracy model” no longer trusts its own institutions. In Weber’s terms, the monopoly on force has ceased to be legitimate and has become merely a tool of brute power.

In classical Islamic political philosophy, the continuity of the state was explained through the concept of “Daire-i Adliye.” According to this view, without justice, order collapses; without order, the state cannot endure. Today, this understanding of justice appears broken in the U.S. According to Gallup data, only 35% of Americans trust the justice system—the lowest level ever recorded. The Supreme Court’s favorable ratings have declined by 22% since 2020. More importantly, trust in justice has now become not a shared social foundation but a sharp indicator of polarization. While 71% of Republican voters still trust the courts, only 26% of Democratic voters do.

When the circle of justice is broken, the next link in the chain is politics. Today, U.S. politics reveals not a mechanism of representation but a profound legitimacy vacuum. A majority of the public holds unfavorable views: 56% toward the Republican Party and 58% toward the Democratic Party. In other words, most citizens distrust both major parties. Only 34% hold positive views of Congress. Even more alarming, 77% of Americans believe the political system needs fundamental reform, and among those aged 18 to 34, this figure rises to 80%. In other words, Americans, especially the younger generation, desire an entirely different order.

The U.S. government shutdown may appear at first glance to be a technical budget crisis. But the issue is tied to the question of what underpins the state’s existence. Weber’s definition reminds us that the state is a system of legitimacy based on societal consent. Today, signs of its fracture are clear: trust in justice and political systems has plummeted to historic lows. Thus, the shutdown in the U.S. reveals more than a temporary administrative pause—it exposes the fragility of the bond between state and society.

Last week it was revealed that Jian Guo, a Chinese national who served as an assistant to Maximilian Krah, a member of the German parliament from the AfD party, engaged in espionage on behalf of the Chinese state. Guo, who transmitted classified documents to Beijing and monitored Chinese dissidents in Germany during his tenure in the European Parliament, was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison. This case provides the clearest evidence to date of China’s strategy of penetrating Europe beyond traditional diplomatic channels through “infiltration from within.”

The Guo case reflects not just an isolated incident but a manifestation of China’s invisible network of influence in Germany. Yet the threat Germany faces is not solely from China. The country is simultaneously targeted by Russia’s multi-layered hybrid warfare methods. Moreover, the Putin regime now operates beyond conventional espionage, leveraging the tools of the digital age. Agents are recruited from ordinary citizens, often without their awareness, through the dark corners of social media platforms.

Last month, German authorities warned citizens about Russian intelligence services recruiting “disposable agents” via social media. These individuals are selected for ideological manipulation or material incentives to carry out sabotage, disinformation, and psychological operations. The goal extends beyond intelligence gathering to shaping public perception. Thus, seemingly individual acts become coordinated components of a broader psychological war.

Recent events confirm this pattern. In May, three individuals were arrested in Germany for attempting to send explosive packages to Ukraine on behalf of Russia. In April, two others were detained in Germany for espionage on Russia’s behalf, specifically for planning attacks aimed at undermining Germany’s support for Ukraine. In March, a Bulgarian citizen was convicted in the UK of espionage on Russia’s behalf for surveilling U.S. military bases in Germany.

One of the most striking cases occurred last year, again in Germany. Three individuals of Ukrainian, Russian, and Armenian descent were arrested for plotting to assassinate a Ukrainian fighter on behalf of Russian intelligence. This case reveals that the rising number of espionage incidents in Germany have moved beyond information theft to include assassination operations. Russia’s hybrid strategy in Europe now extends beyond surveillance and manipulation to identifying and eliminating specific targets.

Last year, a German military officer was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for leaking military secrets to the Russian armed forces. This case is a significant indicator of the scale of Russia’s intelligence activities in Germany. Moreover, it signals a crisis of loyalty within Germany’s institutional structure. This situation demonstrates that Russia’s ongoing hybrid war against Europe has penetrated beyond Ukraine’s borders and reached the heart of Germany’s military hierarchy. In this era where everything becomes a weapon, Germany may not yet be under foreign occupation, but it is encircled by espionage activities within its own territory.

In conclusion, war continues beyond traditional battlefields. In Germany, where peace appears to prevail, a silent war rages over control of information flows, digital networks, and public perception. Soldiers have, at least for now, been replaced by spies. The ongoing conflict in Germany is fundamentally about seizing information and minds.

The most dangerous aspect of this invisible war is that most attacks originate from within. The social fabric of trust, belief in institutions, and shared sense of truth are slowly eroding. The situation in Germany is not merely a challenge for intelligence agencies but a sign of a new era testing Europe’s resilience, endurance, and unity. The echoes of weapons exploding on Ukrainian soil continue to reverberate across Europe—in social media, news streams, and everyday conversations.

In recent days, the YouTube account of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was shut down without any stated justification. Before its closure, the channel, which had over 200,000 subscribers, shared Maduro’s addresses to the nation and clips from his weekly program broadcast on Venezuela’s state television. This decision once again demonstrates that YouTube has moved beyond being a platform for content sharing to becoming an active participant in the political arena.

YouTube’s recent practices reveal its transformation from a video-sharing platform into a geopolitical actor. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the platform shut down Russian state media channels such as RT and Sputnik. It also deleted PressTV, Iran’s state-run channel, citing violations of community guidelines, without prior notice. Conversely, YouTube’s recent allowance of advertising campaigns that legitimize Israel’s actions in Gaza has further undermined its claim of neutrality. Together with the Maduro case, these developments show that YouTube has become a tool of digital diplomacy aligned with U.S. foreign policy priorities.

Yet YouTube’s political stance is not consistent but pragmatic, shifting according to changing power dynamics, particularly in domestic politics. After the January 6 Capitol riot, YouTube banned Donald Trump. Two years later, it reinstated his account and reversed its policy of blocking “election lies,” which were predominantly Trump-aligned statements. Last week, the company agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by Trump. This development shows that the platform responds not only to U.S. foreign policy priorities but also to domestic power balances.

Today, U.S.-based tech giants are defining the boundaries of reality. Companies like Google, Meta, and X have become systems that manage global information flows, rising to the status of arbiters of the digital public sphere. These platforms, which decide which news is true and which voice is dangerous, have ceased to be mere technical tools and have become invisible extensions of U.S. foreign policy. Thus, the myth of the “neutral algorithm” conceals a content hierarchy that serves specific interests. Whether a video reaches millions or is buried silently now depends entirely on these companies’ policies.

In this process, states’ political legitimacy is increasingly dependent on the rules set by tech giants. This raises an unavoidable question: If a leader must obtain approval from a private platform to reach their people, where does that nation’s sovereignty begin and end? This situation fundamentally transforms the concept of sovereignty, replacing it with a new form of authority based on data centers, content policies, and invisible algorithmic decisions.

YouTube is one of the most important actors in this new form of sovereignty. Once seen as a symbol of free expression, the platform has now become a global authority that decides who speaks and who is silenced. The silencing of Maduro, the reconciliation with Trump, and the opening of space for Israeli propaganda demonstrate how selectively this power can be wielded. Sovereignty in the digital age is now shared between states and platforms. Beneath the surface of apparent neutrality, the Western world is constructing a new control architecture that centralizes information flows under the guise of protecting its values—systematically filtering out dissenting voices.