Europe’s Walk of The Dammed: War Hysteria Today, War Euphoria Tomorrow
The continent is racing in Seven-Mile-Boots toward its next calamity. The Trump-Abandonment shock is stoking a war fever not seen in a century.
Europe is going through one of its worst fits of war hysteria since the early 20th century. The Slovenian historian and journalist, Uroš Lipušcek recently correctly pointed out that much of Europe has been gripped by a new form of pro-war narrative that is posing as a discourse on common defense and “necessary” militarization.
The immediate cause is the recent change in US foreign policy rhetoric, which is finally serving the Europeans big sips of reality, including the admission that the US is not an omnipotent military demigod, capable of conjuring up unlimited resources. Nor is it a benign hegemon that, out of the purity of its heart, takes the feeble under its protective wings. Least of all is the butchery in Ukraine an “unprovoked” war of Russian imperial conquest. The Trump administration made it clear that this travesty is very much a US-Russian Proxy War, fought out over the heads of the Europeans and without concern for their political interests.
While utterly obvious to some outcast realists, this has come as a veritable shock to much of Europe’s trans-atlantically intoxicated defense establishment, who not only took US military support for granted but were living in the blissful illusion that Washington was a “partner” of equal standing to them in this sick, Brzezinski-esque game of thrones.
Recognizing battleground realities (that the war is lost), Trump is trying to extricate the US from its failed Ukrainian adventure. But the rest of NATO is shell-shocked about what hit them. They still believe in a fairy-tale version of world politics, in which this complex 30-year drama of a failed Post-Cold War order can be reduced to a question of “god vs evil”.
Well, tough luck Europe (and Canada), you got plaid. You never were a partner; you were a willing tool. And you were never being protected, you were being used to achieve US goals on the Eurasian continent. Welcome to reality land, suckers.
Peace? Oh No!
While the rapprochement between the US and Russia should be highly welcome news to Europe which, after all, has once more become the battleground for a terrible great-power conflict, de-escalation is in fact the last thing the Europeans anticipated or wanted. The previous US administrations (including Trump 1) had so successfully prepared them for their role as the arm of the empire that will drive the Ukrainian knife into the Russian brown-bear, that this turn of events is simply incomprehensible to them.
Wasn’t this joint commitment supposed to last “as long as it takes” and wasn’t Ukraine’s path into NATO “irreversible”? Well, turns out that all it takes is one press conference of the NATO Secretary General sitting next to the US President to reverse the entire script. And that empty Dutch suit just sat there and smiled, reminiscent of German Chancellor Scholz who, back in 2021, stood there in silence when President Biden announced that the USA would end North Stream in case of a Russian attack on Ukraine.
There you go, Europe, that’s what real power looks like. Compelling your underlings to smile about their own demise. Credit, where credit is due. The USA really perfected the art of satellite management.
The Wrong Lessons
Europe—which includes the UK, the EU, Ukraine, and other third or fourth-tier dependencies like Switzerland—has been caught with its pants down. The new script shatters not only their political approach but their entire war narrative. Everything is upside down. This means a new narrative needs to be constructed, one that incorporates the last one and rationalizes away this unwelcome shift of events. After all, what really needs protection is the fragile European mind. It needs to be sheltered from the inevitable cognitive dissonance that otherwise would lead to much-needed reflective introspection and a reconciliatory correction of its failed policies.
But no, not the old continent of the Grand Nation, the Queen’s Empire, and the Third Reich. That’s not the way Eurasia’s crazy western peninsular operates. Admitting that one did something wrong only happens post-military defeat or 200 years after the fact. Only once the consequences of the admission cannot hurt you anymore, long-dead forefathers will be blamed for a couple of minor excesses like “colonialism” or “genocide”, and redemptive email footers about indigenous lands will be implemented to absolve the guilty minds of the great-grandchildren of the colonial genociders.
Hence, as so often, the Europeans are learning the wrong lessons. A great number of mainstream pundits are blaming Trump and his (supposed) authoritarian tendencies for their shattered worldview. How else to explain that the USA is unwilling to go to a Third World War with the European poodles on the “right side of history” against the Russian devil? Much of Europe has internalized this binary fantasy land so profoundly that they can’t escape its irrational but deadly grip.
Militarizing to Ruins
For now, what this leaves Europe with is a chorus of war and scare-mongering braindead kleptocrats, paying tribute to the newest dictate from Washington: „Thou shalt increase thy defense budget.” Glory Hallelujah.
How many times in the past 500 years has an increase in defense spending helped the Europeans not to go to war with each other? Honestly. How many times? Can anyone point me to the actual data that shows that militarization did not lead to war on the continent? It didn‘t work in the 1780s, it didn‘t work in the 1900s, it didn‘t work in the 1930s, please anyone, explain to me how it is that the Europeans expect this to work in the 2020s? Fools!
To make matters worse, there are now open calls in Europe to achieve the increase in military expenses by cutting back on social spending. Beyond the already ongoing (civil) deindustrialization of the continent, this will obviously make matters even worse for the lower- and middle-income classes. Research shows that economic hardship only increases the propensity toward militarization and the likelihood for war, which is certainly a welcome implication for Brussels. It is going to speed up the new European war project.
And let me add at this point that defense budget targeting—be it a relative number like a percentage of GDP or a nominal goal—is the most ridiculous and downright stupid way of approaching national security since the invention of suicide bombing. How dumb does one need to get to think that security is best approached by conjuring up a spending target and then somehow justifying a threat to match it?
Obviously, sound security thinking starts with a cool-headed and realistic threat analysis and then reasons backward to come up with needed capabilities and a budget to achieve them. Doing things the other way around is like starting to pee before looking for a toilet. Naturally, you will sully yourself.
Next Stop: War Euphoria
But here we are, at the dawn of “ReArm”, the EU Führerin’s latest idea for achieving peace on the post-American protectorate by way of more arms. For now, the Europeans are caught in a war hysteria of their own making, as they have abandoned the rational thinking needed to realistically assess the actual threats around them. All they see is a Russian Hitler who’ll swallow them whole if they don’t step up to do what the USA is unwilling to deliver; a proper victory of good over evil.
For now, the Europeans are scared and disunited, hence they are weak and powerless. But no one should make the mistake of underestimating this little peninsula’s capacity to great foolishness. If a rational discourse about the actual causes of the Ukraine War does not set in, and the ReArm spirit catches on, the Europeans will, in due time, develop the implements of war needed to once more wreck their homeland for decades to come—and probably other people’s lands, too.
Once the hysteria gives room to euphoria, once the discourse shifts from “fear” to “pride” and the idea that “now is the time”, we will once again see the beaming faces of young men and women on train wagons headed toward the battlefield. They will not only have forgotten the pain and rupture of war, they will be delighted that finally it is happening. The young will believe they are revenging the injustices of the past at the behest of the old who will send them to their graves.
It is going to be the next walk of the damned, for they can’t escape themselves.
A brilliant synopsis, of the degenerate ruling, monied and political class in Europe… a most poignant literary prose, almost prescient I will add extolling the virtues of the aforementioned demented leaders who mistakenly believe they are right to assail Russia, a superpower and far superior than they will ever, ever be, they and their by comparison minuscule little nations that Russia can not only absorb but swallow whenever it decides for it matters not the shiny new toys they are deluding themselves into creating.
By the time their €800,000,000,000.00 eight hundred billion euro’s has been spent and lost through the endemic corruption that abounds, for this class of chattering demented fools cannot help themselves, cannot resist taking what they consider is their due, after-all leading costs does it not mein Herr, Madam, Senor, Senorita, to lead is burdensome and costs plenty, thus it is only proper that first dibs on such a sum ought be the demented compensating themselves, oh, and their children and children’s children must be catered for as well, after all how burdensome for them being the offspring of such great leaders, the image must be maintained…. hence, there goes at least 20-25% of the €800,000,000,000.00 eight hundred billion euro’s, but at least as grift, noses in the public trough, suckling off of the public teat… that percentage wise it’s still a better deal than they have had to swallow from the corrupt of them all, the Ukrainian cross dressing criminal and his band of Nazi Azov thieves… why should Europeans complain, they’ll understand the bargain had… if they don’t…. As Baerbock would opine, to bad we don’t work for them anyways…
Next will be the realisation they are embarking on such a sunken cost fallacy that the weapons to be acquired, procured, built will never ever position them to be able to challenge their imaginary adversary, Russia, the Russians are to far advanced technologically on a military level as well as tactically to render whatever weaponary actually manifests and ultimately comes off of their drawing boards, delivered out of their abysmally slow production lines to the equally moribund Generals who like their forebears, have again proven their complete insouciance whilst if at all possible also contemporaneously displaying a real lack of cognisance of effective modern military doctrine, unable to adapt, unlike their Russian equivalents and even the Russian foot soldiers have shown themselves to be adept at changing and embracing what’s required to win on the modern battlefield, the European flag officers seconded and “snuck” onto the Ukrainian battlefield to surreptitiously ply their craft, have found themselves wanting, their charges being destroyed across the 2,000 km active front, losing in these last months an average of 1600-1800 Kia’s per day on the battlefield.
Thus the U.S led NATO conflict fought on the Ukrainian steppe and again in Europes now familiar Russian hunting grounds of Kursk in Russia, has proven across so many metrics to be a colossal failure, these clowns dressing up to play soldier, servant, oops, Batman or Woman tending their every need and whim in tow, a replay one can imagine of the so called glory days of Europes military when it would trek across vast swathes of Africa, Asia, South America, to all points of the globe, spreading at the point of the sword, atop the thundering hooves of cavalry, latterly at the point of the bayonet, riding atop the hundreds of horses thundering beneath them as they charge along, destroying the indigenous in their path, they who rightfully belong where they do not, yet, spread the good word of progress, of civility they must, for afterall that dear chap is progress.. and we dare not progress say what.. hence, tens of millions murdered, lands plundered, property destroyed, hundreds of millions of lives ruined, all in order they obtained their fix, plundered, stole, raped their way to whatever goal was being pursued, it mattered not, right v wrong, light v darkness, good vs evil, always invoked to wash away their criminality… the stain of the sins both individually and collectively of their turgid actions …
The next iteration will be no different, you have correctly called it, called them, the perpetrators, the criminals … they’ve been called out, this current lot no better than their forebears, Bismarck, Leopold, Napoleon, the Kaiser, Wilhelm, Ferdinand, et al… they’ve whole blood thirsty criminal lot no different to the Scholz’s, Baerbocks, Van der Leyens, Rutte, Merz, Starmer, Johnson, Truss, Sunak, Sanchez, Meloni, the Pole Dancers, they are all the stinking same… they’ve whole blood mindset and thirst for death, destruction, blood, human flesh, still very much evident and uppermost in their collective pea sized minds, yet they espouse peace, the rule of law and that is what makes these fools truly insane and defines them for the miscreants, liars and sociopathic frauds they actually are… pray the citizens of Europe awaken instead of allowing themselves to be led over the cliff as they follow this band of pied pipers… who will do no more than lead them to destruction, to another violent end, I personally pray Russia will so now dominate that in doing so the sweeping victory Russia will enjoy will awaken these fools from the spell, the daze they are in… stopping them before it is to late and they in turn as before need to be stopped… from themselves… just saying
Kia Kaha (stay strong) from New Zealand
Great and insightful piece, Pascal. But do you think if push comes to shove, the fragile Germans, Brits, French, etc who religiously take their vacation, have at least three different streaming subscriptions, fret about their Müsli brand and are constantly uploading ‘content’ to self promote their social media accounts are going to willingly be loaded onto trucks, heading to the battlefield?? The average Wolfgang, Pierre and Nigel?? The millennials?? This is a different generation than the ones with which the two previous world wars were fought.. if conscription is back on, they’ll just dodge it and vote out their governments. They can be shitless-ly scared in Germany from the evil Russians but they still expect the Ukrainians/Americans to do the fighting/dying on their behalf.. I mean even after 9/11 you didn’t have the draft and there’s no way you can fight the Russians by just stock piling (useless) weapons without increasing the size of your military. How are you going to get from zero to hero in the case of Britain, par example?? By the time you get around to it (years of disinformation and recruitment drives), you still won’t be able to amass a serious fighting force (that could be the equivalent of filling a lady gaga/taylor swift stadium with fans).. and the world will have moved on (NATO will be a shell of itself and Europeans will be more divided). Look at all the EU projects that have come to nothing after much fanfare and spending. I see this as just another failed EU grand project that will ultimately fail.. the only thing the Europeans will do successfully is further bankrupt their societies.. and sadly, that’s the best we can hope for.
N.B. The Europeans have rendered themselves irrelevant as even a cultural force.. look how they are allowing (more like aiding and abetting) the most vicious colonizers in modern history, the Zionists, and allowing them to perpetrate a gruesome genocide, all the while providing political and diplomatic (not to mention financial) cover.. Financially, militarily, culturally and even spiritually the Europeans are done and will be a footnote in history. The only thing they have is ‘narrative’ and even that is fraying at the edges..