Member-only story
Poor Weak Russia Will Conquer Rich Strong Europe
Why Europe’s theoretical advantages turn to dust when you look more closely
Now that we’re entering into the new Age of Tyrants it’s worth considering why the last remaining pockets of civilization are about to fall far more quickly than anyone realizes. The USA ought to be a warning, showing the world how rapidly the supposed “checks and balances” and supposed “rules” that democracies have relied on for their peace and prosperity are in fact chimera. Instead, most Europeans seem to be shaking their heads at the incomprehensible spectacle of the world’s former superpower destroying itself as rapidly as possible but not realizing those very same factors exist within their own nations. Worse yet, Europeans seem not to realize just how fissiparous Europe actually is.
The European Union was the first time in history that trans-national integration occurred voluntarily rather than being imposed by force. It was the consequence of a few thoughtful people looking at the causes of the two preceding World Wars and trying to engineer economic and social structures that would impede the arrival of a third major conflict between European powers. Although we’ve all been fed the fairytale about how democracy is supposedly an adequate system of governance and how it defeated tyranny, the wise founders of what became the EU knew perfectly well that the fairytale was a lie. In reality it was a democracy (Germany) that enabled Hitler’s Nazis to rise to power (just as democracy has enabled the neofascist US Republican Party to take over the USA) and that victory had been a matter of sheer chance. If Germany hadn’t unwisely allied itself with Japan and had Japan not unwisely attacked Pearl Harbor, the USA would never have entered the war against the Axis powers. The founders of what became the EU perfectly understood the fundamental weaknesses of qualification-free representative democracy and thus acted undemocratically to secure Europe’s future peace.
And it worked. Thanks to a variety of factors including rapid economic recovery in the West due to the far-sighted Marshall Plan and the clear threat from the expansionist Soviet Union, Western Europe forged ever-tighter links. Those links in turn enabled prosperity and security never before seen, and the…
