The illusion of Europe and the end of the world as we know it

[Skybird]

We have no EU thread, so I post this separately, its a so good eassy that it should not go unnoticed. It explains, in much greater detail but similar thinking like mine, why I sometimes said that the EU and Europe are antagonists and that the term "Europe" always does and must and will imply the plural. The "West" as populists on behalf of the EU and the political left mention it, has never existed in the way they want to make us believe.


[Tichys Einblick] The illusion of Europe and the end of the world as we know it

After the scandal in Washington, the Old Continent is wandering around. In a remarkable comment, Springer boss Döpfner inadvertently demonstrates why the EU as a superpower neither existed nor will exist. The united and strong Europe is the life lie of our time.

The blink of an eye is a really tiny moment in a human life - literally just an instant. The same applies to the lifespan of a person and of humanity: the more or less 80 years that we are currently wandering around this world are a really tiny moment in history.

But we tend to see ourselves as the pinnacle of creation. We tend to exaggerate our own feelings. Accordingly, we consider our lifespan to be the most important in human history. (Spoiler: It is not.) And what we grew up with and what we are used to, we consider to be the norm.

Anyone who dares to take a look at a history book will find that this is not true at all.

*****

Linguistic superlatives and the inflationary use of the word "new" are therefore a good way of recognizing who has a knowledgeable and realistic view of the world - and who does not. Our current Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock states "a new era of ruthlessness":

I agree that content from Twitter will be shown to me.

It is a sign of our times that younger politicians in particular, with little or no experience in real life, refuse to see things as they are (and as they have always been). Instead, they ignore Karl Marx: "Being determines consciousness." And they misinterpret Schopenhauer: "The world as will and imagination."

But the world is as it is - not as we want it to be, and certainly not as we imagine it. “I make the world for myself, just as I like it”: Pippi Longstocking sings that in Astrid Lindgren’s novel. But the red-haired fairytale girl does it in a children’s book and not in a handbook for international politics.

The overwhelming majority of people today in the so-called West were born after the Second World War and have spent their lives in ever-increasing prosperity, in predominantly democratic societies and peacefully – at least in Western Europe. We see reliable prosperity, a stable democracy and the absence of war as the political and social norm.

That has always been a historical error.

Some highly intelligent and educated people have also succumbed to it. Mathias Döpfner, the CEO of the Axel Springer Group, documents his dismay at Donald Trump and his Ukraine policy in an absolutely remarkable commentary.

*****

Presumably unintentionally, Döpfner exposes the great lie that is currently blowing up in Germany and the EU’s faces.

"Almost every hour, the American government crosses red lines that should never be crossed in a constitutional democracy. (...) A trade war is being started against Europe, while at the same time profitable deals are being arranged with the communists in China."

If you are looking for a nice example of an argument that stabs itself in the back, you will find it here. Profitable deals with communists in China have never been a "red line" even for the EU, on the contrary: Germany's export industry in particular has been turning away from the USA for years - and towards Beijing.

The EU itself describes "trade wars" as a possible instrument for asserting its own interests: "The EU uses its trade policy to profit as much as possible from globalization." This is what the EU Parliament writes on its website. And further: "From appealing to the WTO to trade wars: the EU can resort to a whole range of measures to protect itself against unfair trade practices."

And if the USA now "starts a trade war against Europe" because Washington believes it is necessary to protect its economy: where is the red line? How history-less and watered down we have become in the EU is shown by the fact that even a man like Döpfner apparently seriously believes that a "constitutional democracy" can only throw cotton balls to protect its own interests.

Behind this is the false belief that the real EU is a promising concept in world politics. This false belief is a virus, and it has also infected the Springer boss. The most influential publicist in the largest state in the EU cannot even imagine himself outside of EU rituals as an alternative political communication.

"Many transatlanticists - myself included - have been hoping in recent weeks that there is somehow a constructive concept behind provocative speeches and posts. (...) Donald Trump must be taken seriously, but not literally, was the slogan of hope. This hope has been destroyed. Trump means what he says."

Yes: Trump means what he says. And now, after the election, he is doing what he announced before the election. That is what distinguishes the US president from the caste of politicians in Brussels and Berlin, who, with cynical routine, break their election promises again and again with a cold smile.

Increasingly aghast, you read on and realize that with every line Döpfner sounds a little more like Annalena Baerbock.

"This (Trump's politics, ed.) has nothing to do with the America that stood by Europe's side for decades, solidified by the rule of law."

Are you serious? America never stood on Europe's side, but the other way round: Europe - and only the EU - stood on the side of the USA. That is an important difference. And they never (never) stood together for any moral reasons.

The Baerbock generation has replaced feeling with thinking. They therefore neither can nor want to understand that politics always takes place in the field of tension between morality and interest.

The USA has supported our continent as long as it served their national interests.

It would be a major misunderstanding to read that as criticism. It is simply a sober statement. This is how great powers have always functioned, this is how they function to this day, and this is how they will continue to function.

Mathias Döpfner knows this too. Nevertheless, he declares the Ukraine war to be a historical special case and derives from this the right not to analyze the conflict politically, but to exaggerate it morally:

"For me, Ukraine was always the test case that shows whether this government (Trump, ed.) follows the law or the opportunity."

But great powers, with all due respect, have never "followed the law" in human history. At most, they have made law here and there, hence the equally nasty but apt term of victor's justice. Otherwise, they have at best taken note of "the law" - or, if it served their own interests, simply ignored it.

We can limit ourselves to recent history: the USA did it (Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq), the Soviet Union and Russia did it (Afghanistan, Ukraine), China did it (South China Sea), NATO did it (ex-Yugoslavia). The list is by no means exhaustive.

The now so outraged Europeans have themselves "followed the opportunity" countless times. Great Britain once badly betrayed the Cossacks in the Second World War, and most recently Germany - together with the USA - abandoned the Afghans against the Taliban (which does not change the fact that we should never have been there in the first place).

The lamentation over the alleged egoism of the USA is a great hypocrisy.

*****

This also reflects a great lack of orientation. It starts on a small scale, funnily enough with Springer's (and Döpfner's) "Welt". There, different camps of the editorial team quarrel openly about the assessment of the world situation in much the same way as Trump quarreled with Selenskyj:

I agree that content from Twitter is shown to me.

They are also visibly confused at Springer's "Bild". Star reporter Paul Ronzheimer first verbally attacks Trump because he allegedly sacrificed Ukraine impulsively and unprofessionally. A day later, the same Paul Ronzheimer suddenly writes that the US president is probably pursuing an elaborate secret plan to replace the unpopular Volodymyr Selenskyj with Kyiv's mayor (and Ronzheimer friend) Vitali Klitschko.

So what now?

Things get really wild when the self-proclaimed experts come into play. The now long-retired political scientist Joachim Krause goes so far as to say that the USA is "no longer part of the Western community".

With all due respect, this is one of the silliest things we have heard about the whole complex so far. "The West" does not exist without the USA. America is the fixed point of "the West" - militarily, economically, demographically, politically and also culturally. If you define the USA as being outside of "the West", then this "West" simply no longer exists.

However, not everyone in politics has noticed this yet. The would-be superpowers France and Great Britain want to present a plan for a ceasefire in Ukraine. Paris and London want to fill the alleged power vacuum in the Western world. They obviously believe in the illusion of their own greatness.

But even if you bind two stones together, they still can't fly.

Paris and London each have the necessary condition to be a leading European power: nuclear weapons. But both countries lack pretty much all other sufficient conditions: President Emmanuel Macron will have a hard time holding on to the end of his regular term of office. Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer has lost the support of voters in record time, and his chair is already wobbling dangerously. He is mainly known for suppressing freedom of speech in the United Kingdom worse than in the days of the dictatorial Puritan Oliver Cromwell.

And Germany?

It is well known that it has no nuclear weapons and is otherwise a pitiful candidate militarily. For decades, our influence was based on our undeniably impressive economic power. But that has now also been eliminated after 16 years of Merkel and three years of traffic light coalition. Berlin is no longer even a serious factor in the EU, let alone in world politics.

We are only great when we overestimate ourselves.

We meet with the EU. Its “foreign affairs representative” Kaja Kallas has now made it known that the free world needs a new leader – and that can only be the EU. Until recently, Kallas was Prime Minister of Estonia. This is a tiny state with 1.3 million inhabitants, a little more than Cologne. Now the 47-year-old is cheerfully claiming global political leadership for the EU and thus for herself. This makes her a kind of Annalena Baerbock of the Baltics.

*****

Gerhard Schröder, Germany’s last non-Green Chancellor, once said: “The Federal Republic is a middle power.” That was a true and important sentence. Because overestimating ourselves has never done us any good. The desire to be more than we actually are has caused great suffering twice.

We are about to make the mistake a third time.

It is not just Germany that is a middle power: the EU is one too. It simply lacks the political stature to be a major power - Ms Kallas, von der Leyen and Baerbock can be as loud about that as they like.

The Italians and Hungarians are smarter in this regard. They recognize that the EU is better off alongside the USA than alone - even if Donald Trump does things that they reject. That is why Rome and Budapest are now jointly demanding that the EU does not make the suicidal mistake of trying to break away from the USA. Because that is sometimes how it is as a middle power in the wake of a real major power: there are bitter pills to swallow, and they are sometimes very, very big.

And why will the EU never become a major power in the concert of the other major powers China, Russia and India? Because we have turned Brussels into a centralized bureaucracy instead of the center of a federal union of states. The EU has always been guided by the (dysfunctional) political and administrative model of France rather than the USA.

Most people either overlook it - or don't even know it: In the USA, the federal states have more powers than the member states of the EU now have. In its undemocratic constitution, which has never been legitimized in any way by the citizens, the EU is no better than Russia. But we are governed light years worse than the USA or China.

"If Europe lets Ukraine fall, Europe will fall."

Mathias Döpfner writes this at the very end of his commentary. I don't know whether he really means it. If so, the man is dramatically wrong - not only in his conclusion, but also in his analysis.

Because the EU that Döpfner writes about is a chimera. It never existed in the real world.

[Eichhörnchen]

That cheered me up - anyone coming for a pint?

[Raf1394]

The EU was created to prevent European powers fighting each other again. (Napoleonic wars, WW1, WW2)

If the EU wasn't created. We would have smashed each other up again in the 1960's or 1970's

[Catfish]

^ re Eichhörnchen Depends on how much you have to get completely and utterly stoned.

[Skybird]

He was ironic.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Eichhörnchen

That cheered me up - anyone coming for a pint?

Make mine a pint of dark rum.

[Exocet25fr]

[Raf1394]

There will never be a nuclear war.

I always said this.
Once a country makes a decision to use nuclear weapons on a other country
It also needs to accept the fact, that there own country and population will experience the same nuclear attacks.
Same goes with Putin, Macron or Trump or anybody...
If Trump wants to nuke Moscow. You can be pretty sure New York or other high value targets will be targeted by Russia.
Causing lots of civilian casualties (millions) and nuclear fall out for years on both sides.

I'm not talking about who will take out most of the incoming missiles, and who will cause most damage.

A nuclear war will cause millions of deaths on both sides. And the world leaders know this for damn sure. There will be future wars. But no nation will launch nuclear missiles. Thats why i don't take these political statements for real... When one nuclear missiles is gonna be launched. Our planet is screwed.

The first country who will actually launch nuclear missiles, will create a global shock and condemnation from the entire world. Basically every nation will use all there military force on that guilty nation. That nation will be in ruins and their nuclear armament is seized. Then the world will sign treaties so such things can never happen again. (if the world isn't already completly destroyed )

[Otto Harkaman]

The world is changing, humanity has doubled its population in fifty years what will happen in the next fifty?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Otto Harkaman

The world is changing, humanity has doubled its population in fifty years what will happen in the next fifty?

Projections of global population over the rest of this century have it reaching levels between 7.5 bn and 14.5 bn. Currently birth rates in many countries are dropping and many societies are overaging, with tremendous consequences for economy and thus economic and social stability.

[Dargo]

Europe seems to be more united than ever. 74% of EU citizens think that their country benefits from EU membership, the best result ever recorded since this question was first asked in 1983.



Highest percentage = 92% of Maltese think their country benefits from membership. Lowest percentage = 61% of Bulgarians think their country benefits from membership. 62% of citizens would like to see the European Parliament take on a more prominent role. This figure has risen by six points in the past year, reaching its peak since 2020.

Sources: https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/surveys/detail/3492

And grow a spin we are bigger economical/military than all those whiners cry havoc oh EU is ... or ...

Number of active military and reservists, Eur. NATO 1.864.650, 1.427.900 vs RUS 1.134.000, 1.500.000
Land-based equipment Eur. NATO 62.114 vs RUS 22.801
Airborne equipment Eur. NATO 3.973 vs RUS 1.662
Naval equipment Eur. NATO 209 vs RUS 87

All data comes from the Military Database 2025 of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) a British think tank on international affairs. That produces an annual global inventory of armies and their equipment. They do so on the basis of carefully compiled estimates. Exact numbers are never made public for security reasons. Source: https://www.iiss.org/publications/the-military-balance/

[Gorpet]

Originally Posted by Skybird

We have no EU thread, so I post this separately, its a so good eassy that it should not go unnoticed. It explains, in much greater detail but similar thinking like mine, why I sometimes said that the EU and Europe are antagonists and that the term "Europe" always does and must and will imply the plural. The "West" as populists on behalf of the EU and the political left mention it, has never existed in the way they want to make us believe.


[Tichys Einblick] The illusion of Europe and the end of the world as we know it

After the scandal in Washington, the Old Continent is wandering around. In a remarkable comment, Springer boss Döpfner inadvertently demonstrates why the EU as a superpower neither existed nor will exist. The united and strong Europe is the life lie of our time.

The blink of an eye is a really tiny moment in a human life - literally just an instant. The same applies to the lifespan of a person and of humanity: the more or less 80 years that we are currently wandering around this world are a really tiny moment in history.

But we tend to see ourselves as the pinnacle of creation. We tend to exaggerate our own feelings. Accordingly, we consider our lifespan to be the most important in human history. (Spoiler: It is not.) And what we grew up with and what we are used to, we consider to be the norm.

Anyone who dares to take a look at a history book will find that this is not true at all.

*****

Linguistic superlatives and the inflationary use of the word "new" are therefore a good way of recognizing who has a knowledgeable and realistic view of the world - and who does not. Our current Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock states "a new era of ruthlessness":

I agree that content from Twitter will be shown to me.

It is a sign of our times that younger politicians in particular, with little or no experience in real life, refuse to see things as they are (and as they have always been). Instead, they ignore Karl Marx: "Being determines consciousness." And they misinterpret Schopenhauer: "The world as will and imagination."

But the world is as it is - not as we want it to be, and certainly not as we imagine it. “I make the world for myself, just as I like it”: Pippi Longstocking sings that in Astrid Lindgren’s novel. But the red-haired fairytale girl does it in a children’s book and not in a handbook for international politics.

The overwhelming majority of people today in the so-called West were born after the Second World War and have spent their lives in ever-increasing prosperity, in predominantly democratic societies and peacefully – at least in Western Europe. We see reliable prosperity, a stable democracy and the absence of war as the political and social norm.

That has always been a historical error.

Some highly intelligent and educated people have also succumbed to it. Mathias Döpfner, the CEO of the Axel Springer Group, documents his dismay at Donald Trump and his Ukraine policy in an absolutely remarkable commentary.

*****

Presumably unintentionally, Döpfner exposes the great lie that is currently blowing up in Germany and the EU’s faces.

"Almost every hour, the American government crosses red lines that should never be crossed in a constitutional democracy. (...) A trade war is being started against Europe, while at the same time profitable deals are being arranged with the communists in China."

If you are looking for a nice example of an argument that stabs itself in the back, you will find it here. Profitable deals with communists in China have never been a "red line" even for the EU, on the contrary: Germany's export industry in particular has been turning away from the USA for years - and towards Beijing.

The EU itself describes "trade wars" as a possible instrument for asserting its own interests: "The EU uses its trade policy to profit as much as possible from globalization." This is what the EU Parliament writes on its website. And further: "From appealing to the WTO to trade wars: the EU can resort to a whole range of measures to protect itself against unfair trade practices."

And if the USA now "starts a trade war against Europe" because Washington believes it is necessary to protect its economy: where is the red line? How history-less and watered down we have become in the EU is shown by the fact that even a man like Döpfner apparently seriously believes that a "constitutional democracy" can only throw cotton balls to protect its own interests.

Behind this is the false belief that the real EU is a promising concept in world politics. This false belief is a virus, and it has also infected the Springer boss. The most influential publicist in the largest state in the EU cannot even imagine himself outside of EU rituals as an alternative political communication.

"Many transatlanticists - myself included - have been hoping in recent weeks that there is somehow a constructive concept behind provocative speeches and posts. (...) Donald Trump must be taken seriously, but not literally, was the slogan of hope. This hope has been destroyed. Trump means what he says."

Yes: Trump means what he says. And now, after the election, he is doing what he announced before the election. That is what distinguishes the US president from the caste of politicians in Brussels and Berlin, who, with cynical routine, break their election promises again and again with a cold smile.

Increasingly aghast, you read on and realize that with every line Döpfner sounds a little more like Annalena Baerbock.

"This (Trump's politics, ed.) has nothing to do with the America that stood by Europe's side for decades, solidified by the rule of law."

Are you serious? America never stood on Europe's side, but the other way round: Europe - and only the EU - stood on the side of the USA. That is an important difference. And they never (never) stood together for any moral reasons.

The Baerbock generation has replaced feeling with thinking. They therefore neither can nor want to understand that politics always takes place in the field of tension between morality and interest.

The USA has supported our continent as long as it served their national interests.

It would be a major misunderstanding to read that as criticism. It is simply a sober statement. This is how great powers have always functioned, this is how they function to this day, and this is how they will continue to function.

Mathias Döpfner knows this too. Nevertheless, he declares the Ukraine war to be a historical special case and derives from this the right not to analyze the conflict politically, but to exaggerate it morally:

"For me, Ukraine was always the test case that shows whether this government (Trump, ed.) follows the law or the opportunity."

But great powers, with all due respect, have never "followed the law" in human history. At most, they have made law here and there, hence the equally nasty but apt term of victor's justice. Otherwise, they have at best taken note of "the law" - or, if it served their own interests, simply ignored it.

We can limit ourselves to recent history: the USA did it (Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq), the Soviet Union and Russia did it (Afghanistan, Ukraine), China did it (South China Sea), NATO did it (ex-Yugoslavia). The list is by no means exhaustive.

The now so outraged Europeans have themselves "followed the opportunity" countless times. Great Britain once badly betrayed the Cossacks in the Second World War, and most recently Germany - together with the USA - abandoned the Afghans against the Taliban (which does not change the fact that we should never have been there in the first place).

The lamentation over the alleged egoism of the USA is a great hypocrisy.

*****

This also reflects a great lack of orientation. It starts on a small scale, funnily enough with Springer's (and Döpfner's) "Welt". There, different camps of the editorial team quarrel openly about the assessment of the world situation in much the same way as Trump quarreled with Selenskyj:

I agree that content from Twitter is shown to me.

They are also visibly confused at Springer's "Bild". Star reporter Paul Ronzheimer first verbally attacks Trump because he allegedly sacrificed Ukraine impulsively and unprofessionally. A day later, the same Paul Ronzheimer suddenly writes that the US president is probably pursuing an elaborate secret plan to replace the unpopular Volodymyr Selenskyj with Kyiv's mayor (and Ronzheimer friend) Vitali Klitschko.

So what now?

Things get really wild when the self-proclaimed experts come into play. The now long-retired political scientist Joachim Krause goes so far as to say that the USA is "no longer part of the Western community".

With all due respect, this is one of the silliest things we have heard about the whole complex so far. "The West" does not exist without the USA. America is the fixed point of "the West" - militarily, economically, demographically, politically and also culturally. If you define the USA as being outside of "the West", then this "West" simply no longer exists.

However, not everyone in politics has noticed this yet. The would-be superpowers France and Great Britain want to present a plan for a ceasefire in Ukraine. Paris and London want to fill the alleged power vacuum in the Western world. They obviously believe in the illusion of their own greatness.

But even if you bind two stones together, they still can't fly.

Paris and London each have the necessary condition to be a leading European power: nuclear weapons. But both countries lack pretty much all other sufficient conditions: President Emmanuel Macron will have a hard time holding on to the end of his regular term of office. Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer has lost the support of voters in record time, and his chair is already wobbling dangerously. He is mainly known for suppressing freedom of speech in the United Kingdom worse than in the days of the dictatorial Puritan Oliver Cromwell.

And Germany?

It is well known that it has no nuclear weapons and is otherwise a pitiful candidate militarily. For decades, our influence was based on our undeniably impressive economic power. But that has now also been eliminated after 16 years of Merkel and three years of traffic light coalition. Berlin is no longer even a serious factor in the EU, let alone in world politics.

We are only great when we overestimate ourselves.

We meet with the EU. Its “foreign affairs representative” Kaja Kallas has now made it known that the free world needs a new leader – and that can only be the EU. Until recently, Kallas was Prime Minister of Estonia. This is a tiny state with 1.3 million inhabitants, a little more than Cologne. Now the 47-year-old is cheerfully claiming global political leadership for the EU and thus for herself. This makes her a kind of Annalena Baerbock of the Baltics.

*****

Gerhard Schröder, Germany’s last non-Green Chancellor, once said: “The Federal Republic is a middle power.” That was a true and important sentence. Because overestimating ourselves has never done us any good. The desire to be more than we actually are has caused great suffering twice.

We are about to make the mistake a third time.

It is not just Germany that is a middle power: the EU is one too. It simply lacks the political stature to be a major power - Ms Kallas, von der Leyen and Baerbock can be as loud about that as they like.

The Italians and Hungarians are smarter in this regard. They recognize that the EU is better off alongside the USA than alone - even if Donald Trump does things that they reject. That is why Rome and Budapest are now jointly demanding that the EU does not make the suicidal mistake of trying to break away from the USA. Because that is sometimes how it is as a middle power in the wake of a real major power: there are bitter pills to swallow, and they are sometimes very, very big.

And why will the EU never become a major power in the concert of the other major powers China, Russia and India? Because we have turned Brussels into a centralized bureaucracy instead of the center of a federal union of states. The EU has always been guided by the (dysfunctional) political and administrative model of France rather than the USA.

Most people either overlook it - or don't even know it: In the USA, the federal states have more powers than the member states of the EU now have. In its undemocratic constitution, which has never been legitimized in any way by the citizens, the EU is no better than Russia. But we are governed light years worse than the USA or China.

"If Europe lets Ukraine fall, Europe will fall."

Mathias Döpfner writes this at the very end of his commentary. I don't know whether he really means it. If so, the man is dramatically wrong - not only in his conclusion, but also in his analysis.

Because the EU that Döpfner writes about is a chimera. It never existed in the real world.

This, is why i like your explanations, easey and to the point. I have one question. How many countries in the European Union can launch a Nuclear strike anywhere on their own decision.