Can Europe be saved?
Professor Glenn Diesen interviewed by Dimitri Lascaris
I was interviewed by Dimitri Lascaris about the future of Europe. I argue that Europe’s decline derives from its inability to adjust to a multipolar international system. Europe can become one of several centres of power by pursuing collective bargaining power based on common interests, diversifying economic partnerships to avoid excessive dependence on the US, and overcoming the Cold War legacy of zero-sum bloc politics.
The Europeans have done the exact opposite. The European security architecture has been built on the premise that expanding a military alliance ever closer to Russian borders would create peace and stability. Relations with Russia have subsequently collapsed and Europe is losing a costly proxy war against the world’s largest nuclear power. Countries in the shared neighbourhood (Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova) are destabilised and their democracy undermined to ensure pro-West/anti-Russia governments take power. These deeply divided societies have become the battleground for drawing new dividing lines in the new Cold War.
European economies are deindustrialising as they cut themselves off from the Russian market, and are also pressured by the US to decouple from the Chinese market. Instead of investing in key technologies and industries, Germany is digging a deeper hole by militarising and sending more weapons to fight Russia. The US Inflation Reduction Act offers subsidies to what remains of struggling European industries if they relocate to the US. Excessive reliance on the US means that Europe cannot even criticise the US for destroying its energy infrastructure after the attack on Nord Stream. After centuries of a Europe-centric international system, the Europeans have not realised that they have been demoted from a subject to an object of security.
Governments that do not represent national interests will eventually be swept away, yet the political elites become increasingly authoritarian to keep their power. In France and Germany, their political opposition is pushed aside with undemocratic means. Hungary and Slovakia are punished by the EU for failing to fall in line. The election results in Romania were overturned after the electorate did not vote for the right candidate.
The continent desperately needs course correction, yet power structure and ideology prevent necessary changes from being implemented. More aggressive means to control the narrative also result in declining freedom of speech.
Energy supply is the key. It underlies all economic activity. The US now is holding the EU by the groin:
https://www.bruegel.org/policy-brief/decarbonising-competitiveness-four-ways-reduce-european-energy-prices
As one can imagine, the US govt svd energy companies will undermine all policies outlined above that could make Europe independent of the US energy-wise. And with that also goes permanent economic and political vassalhood.
No, absolutely not! Europe is far beyond to be saved and has become an extremely loyal flying monkey to the narcissistic and megalomaniac of the USA, NATO, WEF, EU climate panel and energy policy(ACER), WHO agreements and on and on.
We see it in the weaponry support to Ukrainian military, we see it on matters like climate change hoaxes, the new plandemic and vaccination treaty with WHO, the centralized digitalization of money, the hostility against sovereignty of your own body, private property and freedom of decentralized crypto currency, dismantling of basic human rights, freedom of speech and expression and even freedom of movement, and of course the religious and fanatical belief in the NEW WORLD ORDER of the unipolar world in The West as the navel of the new civilization and the forth industrial revolution.
This is far beyond repair.