Europe's Growing Irrelevance: Speaking with the Former Foreign Minister of Austria
Karin Kneissl, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen
I had the great pleasure of speaking with Karin Kneissl and Alexander Mercouris about Europe’s decline and tendency to double down on failed policies. Kneissl is the former Foreign Minister of Austria. We discussed why NATO’s defeat in the Ukraine proxy war will fragment the alliance, why the Europeans are no longer capable of engaging in diplomacy with Russia, how strategic thinking was replaced with ideological slogans, why unity and democracy within the EU is weakening, and why the economic decline will be difficult to reverse. Removing the dividing lines in Europe and restoring peace with Russia, as the largest state in Europe, would be an important part of reversing Europe’s growing irrelevance. However, the Europeans appear to be preparing for a showdown against Russia instead.
The problem is not the replacement of strategic thinking with ideological slogans.
The problem is that the people who're supposed to be doing the strategic thinking seem to be irrationally intellectually wedded to the ideological slogans till death do them part. They've forgotten - if they ever knew - that ideological slogans are merely tools by which one persuades the voters to cooperate with the strategic thinking outputs, i.e. policies.