Though Putin and Trump share a tactical interest in cooperation, Russia remains a strategic adversary for the US imperial state, and Russia knows it, which is why true peace remains out of reach
A great deal of the curent conflict in the world can be boiled down to 500 years of Eurocolonialim or Eurosupremacy, a movement of which the US is the current leader.
Trump cannot be a peacemaker without renouncing this belief system and engaging with the world on terms of equal humanity.
And yet, unlike the past 500 years, technological state of affairs now allows many countries to somewhat defend themselves from Eurocolonialism, or at least have a plausible outlook to try fighting it off.
So no peace is possible now, as The predator remains inchanged and the prey are becoming less huntable.
This can only end with peace on a new equilibrium that features a a shrunken predator, but that evoloution will take tine. And which parts of its own body will the predator evolve to dispense with? Looks to me also like Europe is now the prey of the US also. But no one in the media has stated this to the European people.
As a southeast European I find the "Eurocolonialism" a bit racist and historically lazy, if not illiterate. Half of the Eurocolonialism was against other European nations (Austro-Hungary, Sweden in the Nordics, Russian Empire in central & eastern Europe, the Caucuses & Central Asia...and yet Moscow identifies as BRICS anti-colonialist, like a nationalist-transvestite). The global bit of Eurocolonialism was done by 8 countries, of the more than 40 in Europe.
This perspective also ignores far more brutal and less civilizational fruitful empires: The Ottomans (who enslaved Christians, raided European coasts for harem women and tea boys to sexually exploit); the Moors who attacked Iberia [yes, Muslims attacked Christians first and praised these glorious victories, and when Christians fought back it was evil Crusades and war crimes]; the Moghuls in India, the Mongols across Asia, more recently the Japanese Empire and their deprivations in East Asia; countless warring states and clans in Africa (rounding up the defeated as slaves) and the Americas (eating their opponents organs and playing football with their severed heads).
We're all well aware what the Euro 8 did as colonizers, as well as the excesses of Pax Americana. But anyone dreaming that the world will be Rainbows and Unicorns if the BRICS takes over is in for a rude awakening. We can and should all strive to make the world a better and more peaceful place, but we need to start with an honest understanding of human nature and a diagnosis of the problem.
Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, The UK, and later Italy and Germany set up global colonies (I don't count Denmark). Not as some "United Europe" or Christian West, but in the name of their Kings or Republics for their narrow national interest. Meanwhile the European countries that were themselves colonies were Ireland, Norway, Finland, the 3 Baltic states, Poland, Czech and Slovak republics, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Cyprus, Malta, and the 6 ex-Yugoslav republics were subjects of internal European conquest and empire. The latter last has no business being asked for reparations or sharing the shame or dishonor of the first 8.
At least nine countries: Russia is one of them, it colonized Central Asia, Alaska and participated to the scramble for China.
However, this idea that all problems with the world are a result of colonialism, no, European colonialism is simply ridiculous. It is a simple idea, a gratifying idea, a self-absolving idea, but it is wrong and it diverts attention from the real, underlying, problem of Capitalism and class exploitation.
So first, when you say ( "As a southeast European I find the "Eurocolonialism" a bit racist and historically lazy, if not illiterate." ) that is itself both lazy and illiterate.
First, the Eurocolonial period is a full 500 years now and is STILL ongoing. Where colonization was physical today it is done financially and via structural mechanisms. So Burkina Faso for example frankly just liberated itself from colonialism now. And Kenya when you look closely, you will find it is still right now controlled as a western imperial colony via financial mechansm. Those are just two examples.
Second, when you understand the mechanism of colonialsm today, then you need to understand that any country operating in the EU today benefits from European mechanisms of modern colonialsm. So a Greek farmer today for example is a beneficiary of the European common agricultural mechanism, which in turn is a means of spreading around money some of which is made by locking out African farmers from European markets, and jacking up the prices of food in Austria or Sweden or France or wherever.
And an Albanian or Bulgarian or Romanian is part of NATO....which is the modern day Eurocolonial army. This is the "muscle" by which modern day colonialism is conducted.
Furthermore even in previous centuries small countries like Denmark, Sweden and Norway many of their richest familles are today sitting on wealth and benefits gained from owning their own colonies, as well shipping slaves and colonial goods for other countries. So for example a recetn research based book published in Norway documents how many of Norway's richest and most established familes today for example the Anker family, built up wealth from the era in which you want to excuse Norway as being "colonised by" Denmark.
So its important to understand the shame and dishnour of Eurocolonialism is not merely "stuff from the past" . it is being perpetrated even as we speak.
Look, one of the few good things about the European Union is its policy about food, drinks and agricolture. If anything the EU is too lax about it for economic and political reasons. The EU grants many exceptions, that blatantly violates its own rules, for political reasons, making European farmers very angry (ever heard of the European farmers protests?). E.g. since Tunisia is a trainwreck, the EU actively buys Tunisian farming products, to subsidise Tunisian economy, even if those products are totally illegal in Europe. The same happens with Ukraine and many others.
Yes, this is exactly the situation. However many journalists and authors have published material that speaks about Anglosphere' colonizing the EU and other European countries. Of course we know that. The Anglosphere seeks world hegemony. The fact that you and I speak English, which is not our native language, is already a proof of this global domination.
The technological state of affair in the world, right now, is of an enormous divide, which keeps growing since the end of WWII. Modern technology is so complex, that only a few nations have the means (human resources, financial resources, industrial base) to master it, while the others are left in a state which is worse than it was only a few decades ago. As an example, the technology divide between Europe and Northern Africa&Near East is bigger now than it was in the XIX century. It is bigger now than it was in the '60s during the war in Algeria.
As for Europe and the USA, it is clear that, given the actual state of affair, it will be Europe to outlast the USA: the USA are a military-financial enterprise that is facing both a financial collapse and a military strategical defeat in Ukraine. The debt of the USA is almost out of control, and the USA have very little margin of manoeuvre. Also, the European nations will not let the USA get out of the Ukraine disaster through some emergency exit: they will push the USA to stay in Ukraine until the end, that is until the manifest defeat of the "finest fighting force in the world". Europeans do not care about a military defeat in Ukraine: their politics and economy is not based on, or tuned to, being the military hegemon, and they are not the main stakeholders in NATO. A total military defeat is simply more convenient to them than a half-cooked peace.
"...As an example, the technology divide between Europe and Northern Africa&Near East is bigger now than it was in the XIX century. It is bigger now than it was in the '60s during the war in Algeria...."
Actually this is wrong.
Knowledge is now wide open. The knowledge of how to make consumer goods or farm efficiently is all public more or less. And many industrial goods too. Yemen on a fraction of the resources of the US has been able to build up weaponry sufficient to harm even the US. Iran even under sanctions is on the verge of being a nuclear military powwer. That should tell you what is going on today technologically - it's never been more accessible.
The barriers to freedom for the oppressed countries, are not technological in our time. The barriers they face are in trade mechanism that stop them from building up wealth, financial systems that aim to bleed them dry and to sanction them and steal their money if they disobery, and collaboration by the Eurocolonial empire and collaborators among the global south to betray them. Plus basic subfuterge like brikery, coups, and the flora of fame media and "civil groups" that destabilize them internally on the command of the empire.
Look. That is as neoliberal as it can be. One of the staple of the neoliberal ideology is that workers are just grunts, that can be substituted at will with other grunts, that cost less and have not class consciousness. Nothing is wronger. Workers, especially in the modern industrial environment, are part of the technological and cultural process of production. You cannot have workers without factories, so these technological and cultural components are only available in industrialized countries, and, on top of that, in different degrees according to their level of industrialization. Technological knowledge is based on technological know-how, which is, in turn, based on technological manufacturing. If you do, then you MAY know how to do, and then you MAY know how to improve what you do. Knowledge does not happen in a vacuum.
Now back to Iran: Iran is a technologically developed country (at least in some areas), but it is a cultural (and ethnical) exception in the whole South-Western Asia. Yemen is a proxy of Iran, and it is locked in a situation without a clear exit: Yemen is bound to stay in the condition of a failed state for a long time to come. The fact that it can be a (little) thorn in the US side does not mean much: Northern African regencies harmed for centuries through piracy their much more powerful European neighbors, until those had enough of it...
Every country has workers capable of learning any of this.
China is a "threat" to the US because it can command that knowledge at even bigger scale. That is why the US wants to break them.
Also Yemen is not a "proxy" of anyone. That is US propaganda. Everyone actualy observing events should know better by now. But even Yemen in deep poverty has people who have build knowledge suffient knowledge that by focusing on military technoogy they can withstand a superpower and its aircraft carrier fleet.
The US is trying to smash all these countries because if left alone, they will be able to flourish outside the Eurocolonial orbit. But its plan B is to simply radically exploit Europe instead if it can no longer control the rest of the world. Good luck.
would you like to explain the slavish devotion by the euro poodles to the usa/uk agenda here in continuing the war on ukraine? this in the face of politicians rating below 25% in their own countries.. i don't think it reflects the will of europeans to continue and yet europe continues to support 5% increase in spending on nato... clearly nato is a usa project as is the european union at this point..
The will of the Europeans was actually to not start it in the first place, back in 2014.
Look, it is so simple, so self-evident that I really feel embarassed every time I have to explain it: for European states continuing this war is much, much, much (did I say much? I'll say it again) much cheaper, than stopping it now. The war could cost 100-200 billion euros more. Rebuilding 80% of Ukraine, denazifying 80% of Ukraine, having to deal with the most corrupt, poorest country in Europe, a huge black market for weapons, a backdoor for the worst US capitalism (Monsanto deal, Blackrock take over, bio-labs collaboration etc.) would cost Europe over 1,000 billion. Better having Russia take it, denazify it and rebuild it. And Russia will take it, unless it wants to have NATO at its doorstep.
i will agree with you the idea europe didn't start it, but it has cost europe much already, not to mention the nordstream sabotage which means the higher energy costs now coming from usa and beyond add to it... europe would be better bailing on nato and gaining sovereignty from the design of the european union which keeps them in a straight jacket under the leadership of ursala von leyen and etc..
essentially you are saying europe is happy to continue to slaughter of ukraine and slavs more generally, then to say no to it.. i don't know if the euro public agree with you... europe suffers from this - yes.. usa - not really... so who are the winners and losers here?? it seems fairly clear that europe is a loser either way..
Good to know (essential, frankly) that others see the world as it is!!! Thomas, I found you on Compact and have followed you ever since. You and your readers (most of them) are spot on regarding the so-called Anglosphere.
Jeff Sachs often speaks to this. How about a column comparing Sachs with the "other" champion of peace in Ukraine, John Mearsheimer? They are often described as of like mind but their differences are profound. Sachs is an idealist (as am I) and Mearsheimer a realist. Sachs thinks multipolarity is the way forward (go BRICS!) and Mearsheimer thinks the U.S. needs to pivot from Russia and Europe to our more powerful (for now) "peer competitor" China.
I think the "realist" view is sublime nonsense. It is UNrealistic. It is anachronistic. Nature is the new sheriff in town, thanks to humans' predatory destruction of our own habitat, a first among species in the history of life on Earth.
Nature is fighting back. (I realize ai am anthropomorphizing here.) Only through an end to war and an unprecedented era of global cooperation among all nations that puts saving our habitat ALONE at the top of the agenda will our species survive the ongoing catastrophe called (euphemistically) "climate change." Sachs gets this. Mearsheimer doesn't.
Some say, bring it on! It's time for H. sapiens to go!
I say, it's time for H. sapiens to change. We must evolve in the way only humans can evolve, by thinking.
I.e., not by sacrificing our intelligence to dumb algorithms. AI hasn't a clue about anything. Rather, what clues it has are capable only of repeating our mistakes.
Homo sap sap is one of the few species, along with the cockroaches, that fouls it's own nest. Are we capable of changing four + million years of precedent just for a crack at survival? Looks like an open question to me...
Absolutely an open question, and the odds aren't good, are they—especially given the power of transhumanists like Peter Thiel who are betting on and heavily investing in a future that requires a mostly depopulated planet?
Their plan is to 1) promote the ravages of climate change (e.g., by building massive data centers that suck up fossil fuels); 2) survive the mass near-extinction of humans it causes by building bunkers (or another sort of escape route, though space appears for now to be uninhabitable); 3) extend their lives through GMO and their intelligence through AI, thus turning themselves in gods; and 4) restore Earth's health and turn it into Eden.
I am a farmer and I think they're barking up a soon-to-be extinct tree. My faith is always in nature. I also believe that Darwin (the real Darwin, not the survival-of-the-fittest version promoted by those who would use his theory to enrich themselves) was a genius. He understood nature thoroughly. So did his contemporary, the naturalist and anarchist Prince Kropotkin.
I happen to have a first edition of Kropotkin's masterpiece "Mutual Aid: a Factor of Evolution." It is an his eloquent and minutely detailed answer to the heresies being spread like noxious weeds even in 1908.
The "survival-of-the-fittest" interpretation of evolution sullied Darwin's posthumous reputation and spoiled his legacy. Kropotkin's ideas suffered the same fate. They were buried alive in a frenzy of speculation and industrialization.
The level of understanding of other species that this now very rare book presumes was broad at the time it was written (for a popular audience) destroys any notion that humans have advanced intellectually in our modern, convenience-obsessed age.
The opposite is true. Technology has dumbed us down. It has bifurcated us and put so-called executive function at the top of a neurological hierarchy that does not exist in the real human brain, whose emotional centers are equally if not more important when it comes to understanding the world we live in and who we are. By diminishing the importance of what I call the primal (and they call the reptilian) brain, we have regressed.
Excellent, balanced account of where we are. I have no confidence in the narcissist genocidal Trump, but Thomas’ description of the EU’s predicament is spot on and personally I am impatient for their inevitable proximate humiliation.
The whole policy of Trump is about re-inducing Russia into the West, with a view to somewhat separate it from China. The US and Russia are not adversaries, very few interests that clash. That's what the "Europeans" refuse to understand.
Pascal, Russia and the US are not adversaries and Russia is no one's adversary because it does not have predatory interests. But the US do. Anglosphere interests are precisely conquering Russia and dismembering it for grabs.
This will not change, unless the Anglosphere empire ceases to exist. They WANT Russia. They are furious that after all these years, after CIA and MI6 programs, brainwashing, manufacturing lies about Russia, demonizing it, creating a public consensus that Russia is bears and vodka barbarian country, after their hard work in creating a fifth column in Russia itself, decades of sabotage, terrorism, proxy wars and ideological rot, Russia is still not theirs.
What century are you from? “Anglosphere” is a term related solely to the linguistic realm , the “Anglos” are increasingly irrelevant politically in world affairs. The term is from a by-past era and implies a certain arrogance in those who still employ such a hackneyed term
I disagree. The Brits are irrelevant and the Us main goal is to ensure that Russia does not remain that close to China - which is delusional.
The West tried to "seize" Russia after Sergueï Witte opened it to foreign investment, i.e. plundering. That precipitated the war in the East and the 1917 revolution.
the Brits are irrelevant? The Brits are the main architects of the whole Ukrainian war. Especially if the recent Ukrainian terrorism in Russia. Read Klarenberg. You obviously are not informed. In the 90's Britain and its Jewish elites were the main predators tearing the country apart. Headed by Browder. In the past, Britain conspired with the Third Reich, to conquer the USSR starting with Russia and divide it.
Like I said, they almost succeeded in the 90's - but Putin aborted their plans and they will never forgive that. They are seeking to destroy the county from within: by terrorism from the former Soviet republics, by planting saboteurs and special operation agents inside Russia and using armies of Russian "expats" to brainwash the public spreading lies about Russia and trying to portray the country as "colonialist" and "imperialist" that has to be "dismantled".
Yes, exactly.
A great deal of the curent conflict in the world can be boiled down to 500 years of Eurocolonialim or Eurosupremacy, a movement of which the US is the current leader.
Trump cannot be a peacemaker without renouncing this belief system and engaging with the world on terms of equal humanity.
And yet, unlike the past 500 years, technological state of affairs now allows many countries to somewhat defend themselves from Eurocolonialism, or at least have a plausible outlook to try fighting it off.
So no peace is possible now, as The predator remains inchanged and the prey are becoming less huntable.
This can only end with peace on a new equilibrium that features a a shrunken predator, but that evoloution will take tine. And which parts of its own body will the predator evolve to dispense with? Looks to me also like Europe is now the prey of the US also. But no one in the media has stated this to the European people.
As a southeast European I find the "Eurocolonialism" a bit racist and historically lazy, if not illiterate. Half of the Eurocolonialism was against other European nations (Austro-Hungary, Sweden in the Nordics, Russian Empire in central & eastern Europe, the Caucuses & Central Asia...and yet Moscow identifies as BRICS anti-colonialist, like a nationalist-transvestite). The global bit of Eurocolonialism was done by 8 countries, of the more than 40 in Europe.
This perspective also ignores far more brutal and less civilizational fruitful empires: The Ottomans (who enslaved Christians, raided European coasts for harem women and tea boys to sexually exploit); the Moors who attacked Iberia [yes, Muslims attacked Christians first and praised these glorious victories, and when Christians fought back it was evil Crusades and war crimes]; the Moghuls in India, the Mongols across Asia, more recently the Japanese Empire and their deprivations in East Asia; countless warring states and clans in Africa (rounding up the defeated as slaves) and the Americas (eating their opponents organs and playing football with their severed heads).
We're all well aware what the Euro 8 did as colonizers, as well as the excesses of Pax Americana. But anyone dreaming that the world will be Rainbows and Unicorns if the BRICS takes over is in for a rude awakening. We can and should all strive to make the world a better and more peaceful place, but we need to start with an honest understanding of human nature and a diagnosis of the problem.
What do you define as: "The global bit of Eurocolonialism was done by 8 countries, of the more than 40 in Europe."
Explain.
Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, The UK, and later Italy and Germany set up global colonies (I don't count Denmark). Not as some "United Europe" or Christian West, but in the name of their Kings or Republics for their narrow national interest. Meanwhile the European countries that were themselves colonies were Ireland, Norway, Finland, the 3 Baltic states, Poland, Czech and Slovak republics, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Cyprus, Malta, and the 6 ex-Yugoslav republics were subjects of internal European conquest and empire. The latter last has no business being asked for reparations or sharing the shame or dishonor of the first 8.
At least nine countries: Russia is one of them, it colonized Central Asia, Alaska and participated to the scramble for China.
However, this idea that all problems with the world are a result of colonialism, no, European colonialism is simply ridiculous. It is a simple idea, a gratifying idea, a self-absolving idea, but it is wrong and it diverts attention from the real, underlying, problem of Capitalism and class exploitation.
OK.
So first, when you say ( "As a southeast European I find the "Eurocolonialism" a bit racist and historically lazy, if not illiterate." ) that is itself both lazy and illiterate.
First, the Eurocolonial period is a full 500 years now and is STILL ongoing. Where colonization was physical today it is done financially and via structural mechanisms. So Burkina Faso for example frankly just liberated itself from colonialism now. And Kenya when you look closely, you will find it is still right now controlled as a western imperial colony via financial mechansm. Those are just two examples.
Second, when you understand the mechanism of colonialsm today, then you need to understand that any country operating in the EU today benefits from European mechanisms of modern colonialsm. So a Greek farmer today for example is a beneficiary of the European common agricultural mechanism, which in turn is a means of spreading around money some of which is made by locking out African farmers from European markets, and jacking up the prices of food in Austria or Sweden or France or wherever.
And an Albanian or Bulgarian or Romanian is part of NATO....which is the modern day Eurocolonial army. This is the "muscle" by which modern day colonialism is conducted.
Furthermore even in previous centuries small countries like Denmark, Sweden and Norway many of their richest familles are today sitting on wealth and benefits gained from owning their own colonies, as well shipping slaves and colonial goods for other countries. So for example a recetn research based book published in Norway documents how many of Norway's richest and most established familes today for example the Anker family, built up wealth from the era in which you want to excuse Norway as being "colonised by" Denmark.
https://cappelendamm.no/_en-kort-introduksjon-til-danmark-norge-som-kolonimakt-finn-einar-eliassen-9788202696122
So its important to understand the shame and dishnour of Eurocolonialism is not merely "stuff from the past" . it is being perpetrated even as we speak.
Look, one of the few good things about the European Union is its policy about food, drinks and agricolture. If anything the EU is too lax about it for economic and political reasons. The EU grants many exceptions, that blatantly violates its own rules, for political reasons, making European farmers very angry (ever heard of the European farmers protests?). E.g. since Tunisia is a trainwreck, the EU actively buys Tunisian farming products, to subsidise Tunisian economy, even if those products are totally illegal in Europe. The same happens with Ukraine and many others.
Yes, this is exactly the situation. However many journalists and authors have published material that speaks about Anglosphere' colonizing the EU and other European countries. Of course we know that. The Anglosphere seeks world hegemony. The fact that you and I speak English, which is not our native language, is already a proof of this global domination.
The “Anglosphere” is a rotting carcass which will be irrelevant in a short time
The technological state of affair in the world, right now, is of an enormous divide, which keeps growing since the end of WWII. Modern technology is so complex, that only a few nations have the means (human resources, financial resources, industrial base) to master it, while the others are left in a state which is worse than it was only a few decades ago. As an example, the technology divide between Europe and Northern Africa&Near East is bigger now than it was in the XIX century. It is bigger now than it was in the '60s during the war in Algeria.
As for Europe and the USA, it is clear that, given the actual state of affair, it will be Europe to outlast the USA: the USA are a military-financial enterprise that is facing both a financial collapse and a military strategical defeat in Ukraine. The debt of the USA is almost out of control, and the USA have very little margin of manoeuvre. Also, the European nations will not let the USA get out of the Ukraine disaster through some emergency exit: they will push the USA to stay in Ukraine until the end, that is until the manifest defeat of the "finest fighting force in the world". Europeans do not care about a military defeat in Ukraine: their politics and economy is not based on, or tuned to, being the military hegemon, and they are not the main stakeholders in NATO. A total military defeat is simply more convenient to them than a half-cooked peace.
"...As an example, the technology divide between Europe and Northern Africa&Near East is bigger now than it was in the XIX century. It is bigger now than it was in the '60s during the war in Algeria...."
Actually this is wrong.
Knowledge is now wide open. The knowledge of how to make consumer goods or farm efficiently is all public more or less. And many industrial goods too. Yemen on a fraction of the resources of the US has been able to build up weaponry sufficient to harm even the US. Iran even under sanctions is on the verge of being a nuclear military powwer. That should tell you what is going on today technologically - it's never been more accessible.
The barriers to freedom for the oppressed countries, are not technological in our time. The barriers they face are in trade mechanism that stop them from building up wealth, financial systems that aim to bleed them dry and to sanction them and steal their money if they disobery, and collaboration by the Eurocolonial empire and collaborators among the global south to betray them. Plus basic subfuterge like brikery, coups, and the flora of fame media and "civil groups" that destabilize them internally on the command of the empire.
Those are the barriers. Not knowledge.
Look. That is as neoliberal as it can be. One of the staple of the neoliberal ideology is that workers are just grunts, that can be substituted at will with other grunts, that cost less and have not class consciousness. Nothing is wronger. Workers, especially in the modern industrial environment, are part of the technological and cultural process of production. You cannot have workers without factories, so these technological and cultural components are only available in industrialized countries, and, on top of that, in different degrees according to their level of industrialization. Technological knowledge is based on technological know-how, which is, in turn, based on technological manufacturing. If you do, then you MAY know how to do, and then you MAY know how to improve what you do. Knowledge does not happen in a vacuum.
Now back to Iran: Iran is a technologically developed country (at least in some areas), but it is a cultural (and ethnical) exception in the whole South-Western Asia. Yemen is a proxy of Iran, and it is locked in a situation without a clear exit: Yemen is bound to stay in the condition of a failed state for a long time to come. The fact that it can be a (little) thorn in the US side does not mean much: Northern African regencies harmed for centuries through piracy their much more powerful European neighbors, until those had enough of it...
Every country has workers capable of learning any of this.
China is a "threat" to the US because it can command that knowledge at even bigger scale. That is why the US wants to break them.
Also Yemen is not a "proxy" of anyone. That is US propaganda. Everyone actualy observing events should know better by now. But even Yemen in deep poverty has people who have build knowledge suffient knowledge that by focusing on military technoogy they can withstand a superpower and its aircraft carrier fleet.
The US is trying to smash all these countries because if left alone, they will be able to flourish outside the Eurocolonial orbit. But its plan B is to simply radically exploit Europe instead if it can no longer control the rest of the world. Good luck.
would you like to explain the slavish devotion by the euro poodles to the usa/uk agenda here in continuing the war on ukraine? this in the face of politicians rating below 25% in their own countries.. i don't think it reflects the will of europeans to continue and yet europe continues to support 5% increase in spending on nato... clearly nato is a usa project as is the european union at this point..
see this pic for more clarity - https://www.moonofalabama.org/20i/humilation.jpg
The will of the Europeans was actually to not start it in the first place, back in 2014.
Look, it is so simple, so self-evident that I really feel embarassed every time I have to explain it: for European states continuing this war is much, much, much (did I say much? I'll say it again) much cheaper, than stopping it now. The war could cost 100-200 billion euros more. Rebuilding 80% of Ukraine, denazifying 80% of Ukraine, having to deal with the most corrupt, poorest country in Europe, a huge black market for weapons, a backdoor for the worst US capitalism (Monsanto deal, Blackrock take over, bio-labs collaboration etc.) would cost Europe over 1,000 billion. Better having Russia take it, denazify it and rebuild it. And Russia will take it, unless it wants to have NATO at its doorstep.
i will agree with you the idea europe didn't start it, but it has cost europe much already, not to mention the nordstream sabotage which means the higher energy costs now coming from usa and beyond add to it... europe would be better bailing on nato and gaining sovereignty from the design of the european union which keeps them in a straight jacket under the leadership of ursala von leyen and etc..
essentially you are saying europe is happy to continue to slaughter of ukraine and slavs more generally, then to say no to it.. i don't know if the euro public agree with you... europe suffers from this - yes.. usa - not really... so who are the winners and losers here?? it seems fairly clear that europe is a loser either way..
Good to know (essential, frankly) that others see the world as it is!!! Thomas, I found you on Compact and have followed you ever since. You and your readers (most of them) are spot on regarding the so-called Anglosphere.
Jeff Sachs often speaks to this. How about a column comparing Sachs with the "other" champion of peace in Ukraine, John Mearsheimer? They are often described as of like mind but their differences are profound. Sachs is an idealist (as am I) and Mearsheimer a realist. Sachs thinks multipolarity is the way forward (go BRICS!) and Mearsheimer thinks the U.S. needs to pivot from Russia and Europe to our more powerful (for now) "peer competitor" China.
I think the "realist" view is sublime nonsense. It is UNrealistic. It is anachronistic. Nature is the new sheriff in town, thanks to humans' predatory destruction of our own habitat, a first among species in the history of life on Earth.
Nature is fighting back. (I realize ai am anthropomorphizing here.) Only through an end to war and an unprecedented era of global cooperation among all nations that puts saving our habitat ALONE at the top of the agenda will our species survive the ongoing catastrophe called (euphemistically) "climate change." Sachs gets this. Mearsheimer doesn't.
Some say, bring it on! It's time for H. sapiens to go!
I say, it's time for H. sapiens to change. We must evolve in the way only humans can evolve, by thinking.
I.e., not by sacrificing our intelligence to dumb algorithms. AI hasn't a clue about anything. Rather, what clues it has are capable only of repeating our mistakes.
Homo sap sap is one of the few species, along with the cockroaches, that fouls it's own nest. Are we capable of changing four + million years of precedent just for a crack at survival? Looks like an open question to me...
Absolutely an open question, and the odds aren't good, are they—especially given the power of transhumanists like Peter Thiel who are betting on and heavily investing in a future that requires a mostly depopulated planet?
Their plan is to 1) promote the ravages of climate change (e.g., by building massive data centers that suck up fossil fuels); 2) survive the mass near-extinction of humans it causes by building bunkers (or another sort of escape route, though space appears for now to be uninhabitable); 3) extend their lives through GMO and their intelligence through AI, thus turning themselves in gods; and 4) restore Earth's health and turn it into Eden.
I am a farmer and I think they're barking up a soon-to-be extinct tree. My faith is always in nature. I also believe that Darwin (the real Darwin, not the survival-of-the-fittest version promoted by those who would use his theory to enrich themselves) was a genius. He understood nature thoroughly. So did his contemporary, the naturalist and anarchist Prince Kropotkin.
I happen to have a first edition of Kropotkin's masterpiece "Mutual Aid: a Factor of Evolution." It is an his eloquent and minutely detailed answer to the heresies being spread like noxious weeds even in 1908.
The "survival-of-the-fittest" interpretation of evolution sullied Darwin's posthumous reputation and spoiled his legacy. Kropotkin's ideas suffered the same fate. They were buried alive in a frenzy of speculation and industrialization.
The level of understanding of other species that this now very rare book presumes was broad at the time it was written (for a popular audience) destroys any notion that humans have advanced intellectually in our modern, convenience-obsessed age.
The opposite is true. Technology has dumbed us down. It has bifurcated us and put so-called executive function at the top of a neurological hierarchy that does not exist in the real human brain, whose emotional centers are equally if not more important when it comes to understanding the world we live in and who we are. By diminishing the importance of what I call the primal (and they call the reptilian) brain, we have regressed.
So if AI does take over, that will be why.
Excellent, balanced account of where we are. I have no confidence in the narcissist genocidal Trump, but Thomas’ description of the EU’s predicament is spot on and personally I am impatient for their inevitable proximate humiliation.
Fully agree!
The whole policy of Trump is about re-inducing Russia into the West, with a view to somewhat separate it from China. The US and Russia are not adversaries, very few interests that clash. That's what the "Europeans" refuse to understand.
Pascal, Russia and the US are not adversaries and Russia is no one's adversary because it does not have predatory interests. But the US do. Anglosphere interests are precisely conquering Russia and dismembering it for grabs.
This will not change, unless the Anglosphere empire ceases to exist. They WANT Russia. They are furious that after all these years, after CIA and MI6 programs, brainwashing, manufacturing lies about Russia, demonizing it, creating a public consensus that Russia is bears and vodka barbarian country, after their hard work in creating a fifth column in Russia itself, decades of sabotage, terrorism, proxy wars and ideological rot, Russia is still not theirs.
What century are you from? “Anglosphere” is a term related solely to the linguistic realm , the “Anglos” are increasingly irrelevant politically in world affairs. The term is from a by-past era and implies a certain arrogance in those who still employ such a hackneyed term
I disagree. The Brits are irrelevant and the Us main goal is to ensure that Russia does not remain that close to China - which is delusional.
The West tried to "seize" Russia after Sergueï Witte opened it to foreign investment, i.e. plundering. That precipitated the war in the East and the 1917 revolution.
Russia is impregnable.
the Brits are irrelevant? The Brits are the main architects of the whole Ukrainian war. Especially if the recent Ukrainian terrorism in Russia. Read Klarenberg. You obviously are not informed. In the 90's Britain and its Jewish elites were the main predators tearing the country apart. Headed by Browder. In the past, Britain conspired with the Third Reich, to conquer the USSR starting with Russia and divide it.
Which makes them even more irrelevant as they don't have the means to see anything through by themselves...
Like I said, they almost succeeded in the 90's - but Putin aborted their plans and they will never forgive that. They are seeking to destroy the county from within: by terrorism from the former Soviet republics, by planting saboteurs and special operation agents inside Russia and using armies of Russian "expats" to brainwash the public spreading lies about Russia and trying to portray the country as "colonialist" and "imperialist" that has to be "dismantled".