With the self-flagellating sanctions upon Russia, and their general Russia-hating discourse, the European elites have committed their nations to a disastrous path. Europe will surely become a sad archipelago on the western borderlands of a unifying Asian land mass. I would have previously referred to EurAsia, but Europe has now cut itself off from Asia and it will suffer the consequences, at the very time that its industry is being directly challenged by a rapidly upgrading Chinese economy (e.g. challenging both the German machine tool industry and the European car industry). All while the European elites have increasingly turned toward the more neoliberal extractive policies that have gutted US productive capacity and caused increasing social, political and economic polarization.
The three larger nations of the EU, Germany, France and Italy, are in differing positions with respect to Russia. Germany is being turned into a fully subservient loyal US vassal, France is attempting to resist US dominance but not succeeding very well, and Italy has no choice given its dependence upon the financial forbearance of the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Federal Reserve (hence Meloni changing her tune rapidly after being elected). The US has an insurance policy with the Baltic States, Poland, Romania and Czechia which are heavily vassalized and have elites that tend to be extremely anti-Russian, in case the Western Europeans get cold feet (the Dutch are also rabidly anti-Russian). Also, the EU senior functionaries are all in with the anti-Russia policies, as with von der Leyen (the EU Commissioner) and Borrell (EU foreign affairs) and have used the crisis to grab significant control of the foreign policy agenda from the national politicians. The UK is carrying out its usual role as the reliable attack dog of the US Empire, while destroying the sterling reputation of its financial system for protecting global ill-gotten gains.
There is some offset to the anti-Russia self-flagellating frenzy, but it is only in pockets. Hungary is the centre of this with the leadership of Orban, and the people of Slovakia may soon return a less Russia-hating government (elections scheduled for September 30th). This does set up the interesting possibility that if the Russians were to advance across southern Ukraine to the Hungarian and Slovak borders, it would be connected to a more pro-Russian area made up of Slovakia, Hungary and Serbia (and Republika Srpska) which would create a barrier between Moldova, Romania and Bulgaria and the rest of the EU and NATO; completely changing the dynamics of the Balkans and possibly the EU. Austria is not part of NATO and may also be more open to mending relations with Russia. With a declining European core (Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Spain and Portugal) will the South East European elites be tempted to turn east and become part of a peaceful and developing Asia? Something to watch as the decade progresses, and especially if Russia achieves a crushing victory in Ukraine (which I consider to be increasingly probable, but it may take years). The US and West Europeans will resist such an outcome as stubbornly as they can.
Germany – Becoming A Loyal US Vassal?
The days of Angela Merkel, who lead Germany from 2005 to 2021, Gerhard Shröder (1998 to 2005), and Helmut Kohl (1982 to 1998) seem to be long gone. All of these leaders tended to lead their nation with the best interests of at least the nation’s elite at heart, while making compromises with the dominant US. This included the “reform” of the domestic labour market to significantly constrain real wages and produce a much more “flexible” workforce. Through these changes, and the exploitation of Eastern Europe as a low-cost production base, German industry successfully maintained its strong manufacturing position. These reforms were part of the overall Agenda 2010 changes that also reduced the welfare state, cut taxes and deregulated significant parts of the economy; German neoliberalism. This was of course not good news for the average German, as detailed by Oliver Nachtwey in Germany’s Hidden Crisis Social Decline in the Heart of Europe. Merkel’s stance on immigration, especially Syrian asylum seekers, worked to provide more workers for the elites while creating more competition for jobs among the poorer levels of society. Shröder saw Germany as a “great power in Europe” and sent German troops to foreign combat missions for the first time since WW2, while at the same time refusing to send German troops to Iraq without a UN mandate. The EU, dominated by the alliance between Germany and France was seen as a bulwark against US dominance, especially with a reunified Germany at its core.
This has now all changed with the election of the “Traffic Light Coalition” in 2021 with the SPD (25.7% of the vote), the Greens (14.8%) and the FDP (11.5%) combination. The Greens in Germany have always been an upper middle-class party, as are so many other Green parties, and were supportive of Agenda 2010 as well as an aggressive and militarized foreign policy. With the Green’s Annalena Baerbock (WEF Young Leader and member of the George Soros funded European Council of Foreign Relations) as Foreign Minister and Robert Habeck as the Economy & Climate minister, the neoliberal, warmongering and US-vassal like nature of the Green Party has become even more dominant. The FDP are a right-wing neoliberal party, and the SPD very much like the Blairite “third way” of softened neoliberalism. Although the chancellor Scholz (SPD) has previously criticized US pressures against Germany working with Russia, since the beginning of the Ukrainian war he has been on a losing path when faced with US pressure and his own foreign minister. The right-wing AfD is the only major German party that is against the aggressively anti-Russian foreign policies, and has surged to 18% in recent polls, but as with the French National Front it is deemed to be “beyond the pale”; excluding it from any coalition government and thus requiring it to gain a highly improbable majority. In addition, the next German federal elections are not until 2025.
The unwillingness of the German state to properly investigate the destruction of the Nordstream 2 pipeline and the obvious attempts to bury the story (if it had been the Russians that destroyed the pipeline it would have been headline news everywhere), its acceptance of sanctions with large negative impacts upon the German economy, and the incremental escalation of financial aid and arms supplies to Ukraine point to an increasingly vassal status; with a significantly increased military budget that provides many opportunities for US arms suppliers. In addition, the switch from cheap Russian gas to expensive LNG makes the German economy heavily dependent upon US LNG exports while reducing the competitiveness of German industry (at a time when its car industry is rapidly losing market share in China, and is greatly threatened in Europe by a growing EV market share). There has also been a more strident “values” based approach to relations with China, especially from Baerbock, who was deputy chair of the Berlin-Taipei Circle of friends from 2014 to 2017. From an economic point of view, given the relatively balanced nature of trade between the two nations, with some “Chinese” imports being produced by German companies in China, any hardening of stance could have significant negative impacts on the German economy and its corporations (many of the latter also have plants in China serving Chinese customers). This would represent a political and security elite at odds not only with Germany’s national interest but also with the interests of a significant portion of its economic elite.
With German industry heavily focused on machine tools, and with its advanced car industry, Germany benefitted greatly from the industrialization of China and other nations. It did not develop the newer industries such as semiconductors though, and China is now overtaking Germany in the machine tool space. The severe error of its car industry in not focusing on EVs has also placed it at severe risk, as seen in its rapidly falling market share in China. The much higher energy prices driven by the switch to LNG now add to these forces of deindustrialization, with the relative position of industry now falling as the German economy falls into recession – Recession in Germany is a sign of Europe’s deindustrialization.
France, Attempting to Resist Vassalization
Since the 1983 turn away from policies of dirigisme (a strong state role in the economy) with the “austerity turn” under the socialist Francois Mitterand (President from 1981 to 1995), France had generally followed a “third way” approach. With the conservative Jacques Chirac (1995 to 2007), France took a step back toward dirigisme and also refused to be part of the Iraq invasion. It was under the Sarkozy presidency (2007 to 2012) that France took a step toward neoliberalism through tax cuts for the wealthy and a limited deregulation, but this was constrained by the impact of the 2008 GFC. France was very active in the military overthrow of the Libyan government, furthering the interests of the French elite as well as a Sarkozy who had an extremely dubious relationship with the Libyan leader which may have included illegal Libyan political funding for Sarkozy. Under the socialist Hollande (2012 to 2017), there was increased deregulation, including significant changes to employment law, and business tax cuts; a working-class betrayal that doomed the French Socialist Party.
With the presidency of the ex-Rothschild banker Emmanuel Macron (2017 to 2027), France has taken a much more neoliberal turn with changes to labour laws, tax cuts and the pension age which have been met by widespread civil conflict; for example the “yellow vests” from 2018 onwards which have been brutally put down by the security services and the recent pension reform protests. Macron formed his own party En Marche, taking advantage of the general distrust of the traditional French parties, and benefitted greatly from widespread positive media coverage (with a significant share of the media being owned by a personal friend). He has also benefitted twice from a second-round run-off against the right-wing “beyond the pale” National Front candidate, which created an “anyone but the National Front” voter coalescence. From early in his presidency, Macron has taken an aggressive stance against Russia (sanctions, arms and monetary support to Ukraine) while at the same time pushing for a Europe more independent of US security guarantees and attempting to maintain France’s position of influence in Africa and the Middle East (which he is failing miserably at). He has also maintained very positive relations with China and has repeatedly stated that France should not get involved in a China-US conflict. He will be feeling increasing pressure from the US to change this stance, against the interests of the French nation and its elites.
The Loyal, But Increasingly Pathetic, British Vassal
With Germany now seemingly heavily vassalized by the US, and France struggling to maintain some independence, what of the other major European nations? Since the Suez Crisis fiasco of the 1950s, the UK has very much acted as a loyal vassal of the US. With the destruction of UK industrial strength exacerbated by the neoliberalism of the 1970s to the 1990s, (much intensified under Thatcher) the wasting of North Sea oil and gas reserves sold at low prices and thrown away on tax cuts for the rich, and the significant takeover of the UK financial sector by US financial corporations, the subordination has become even deeper. Brexit, the increasingly aggressive UK stance toward China, and the impact of the Russia sanctions have exacerbated the economic issues while also even more deeply subordinating the UK to the US. With respect to Russia and the Ukraine war, the UK may be seen as the most aggressively involved nation. The Russia sanctions, which have included the “freezing” of foreign assets also directly threatens the role of the City of London as a home to global wealth management functions, when the source of much of that wealth is highly questionable. In addition, Brexit has forced some financial functions to move to EU nations. This is all on top of the decade of the 2010s of extensive and destructive cuts to public services and neoliberal welfare and employment law reforms, and the corrosive effects of unbalanced public-private “partnerships”, after the soft neoliberal “third way” of Blair. The increasing crisis of the UK economy and society is shown in its repeated political crises, and a procession of mediocre and in many cases corrupt, Conservative leaders (Sunak, Truss, Johnson, May – all of Oxford University). Any alternative was snuffed out with the political assassination of Jeremy Corbyn (who did not attend university), aided by a “Blairite” Labour headquarters that had worked hard to stop a labour election victory in 1997, and the establishment orchestrated antisemitism “crisis” driven by extremely biased media reporting. His successor, Keir Starmer (an Oxford graduate), moved the Labour Party back to the Blairite “third way” (overturning his own leadership campaign promises), fully supported an aggressive foreign policy stance with respect to Russia and China, and expelled Corbyn from the Party.
The utter incompetence, corruption and bought and paid for by the establishment nature of the Conservative and Labour parties is shown by Keir Starmer going out of his way to block a highly successful left-wing mayor, the ex-PM Johnson having to resign from parliament over his behaviour whilst in office, and working people striking in record numbers in vain efforts to maintain their living standards. With continuing economic and social decline, and obvious elite incompetence, the forces driving for Scottish independence and the merging of Northern Ireland with the South (aided by demographics favouring the Catholic population) may become irresistible; splintering the United Kingdom and reducing it to just England and Wales in a continuation of its long decline from being the largest global empire.
Italy, Under EU and US Domination
Throughout the post-WW2 period, the US interfered in Italian politics to stop the Italian Communist Party from gaining any governmental power, with the Christian Democrats dominating from 1946 to 1994; this included the Years of Lead from the late 1960s to the late 1980s that included extensive social and terrorist violence. The 1990s investigations into widespread political corruption then destroyed the main political parties. This paved the way for the victory of the media-empire owning Silvio Berlusconi who served in office for a total of nine years (1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006, 2008 to 2011), utilizing generally Keynesian policies (e.g. cutting taxes and raising pensions) while not addressing Italy’s structural competitiveness issues. These issues revolved around widespread tax evasion and bribes, a highly inefficient public sector and legal system, a patronage-based banking sector and the appointment of managers based on nepotism and cronyism. With very slow economic growth between 2002 and 2008, and then an economic contraction since then, Italy has been caught in an ongoing debt crisis. Berlusconi had good relations with Russia. After the fall of Berlusconi, a technocratic government was formed under Mario Monti (2011 to 2013), a previous European Commissioner, with a cabinet of unelected officials; neoliberal austerity and labour market deregulation were imposed under threat of a sovereign debt default. After the short-lived Letta government came Matteo Renzi (2014-2016), who implemented a major deregulation of the labour market, and moved foreign policy much more toward the US. He was followed by Paolo Gentiloni (2016-2018) who had good relations with both Russia and China and hoped that Italy would have a significant role in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Giuseppe Conte (2018 to 2021) then followed as a technocratic PM in a hung parliament, with a positive stance toward Russia and a more state interventionist orientation while managing the response to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mario Draghi (2021 to 2022), the ex-head of the European Central Bank, succeeded him as the head of a technocratic government. The criminal and civil justice systems were overhauled, the pension age was raised, business tax cuts and some social payments reduced. Foreign policy moved very much against Russia in a significant shift, with full support for Russian sanctions and support for Ukraine. The election of Giorgia Meloni in 2022 had promised to ease relations with Russia, but this has not proved to be the case, and additionally she also in favour of closer ties between Italy and Taiwan. Italy is in a very weak position given its economic malaise and high debt levels; a position that is being exacerbated by the rise in Italian interest rates back to the levels that precipitated the 2011 debt crisis while growth in 2023 will be at best around 1%. Meloni cannot afford to bite the US and EU financial and economic hands that have keep Italy from financial collapse, even though the anti-Russia stance has significant negative impacts on Italian businesses.
Poland, The Anti-Russia Willing US Vassal
Poland benefitted greatly from the near-shoring of European manufacturing to lower cost countries, together with large amounts of financial aid from the EU; in 2004-2021, Poland received EUR 210 billion and paid just EUR 69 billion to the EU budget. From 2021-2017 Poland will receive a net EUR 80 billion from the EU. From the election of Lech Walesa as president in 1990, Poland has followed a pro-EU, NATO and US foreign policy stance while being increasingly negative toward Russia. This has included firm support for both the Baltic States and Ukraine in their disputes with Russia. Within the EU, Poland very much acts as a US vassal (as do the Baltic States) when it comes to foreign policy aided by the very negative attitudes of its elite toward Russia. Poland has also followed the US lead in banning Chinese networking equipment, and the Chinese alliance with Russia has caused deteriorating relation between the two nations. The role of Eastern Europe in undermining an independent European foreign policy is covered well in the Politico article Europe’s eastern half claps back at Macron: We need the US.
The extreme Russia-hating orientation of much of its elites, together with seeming dreams to recreate the glory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth serve as a block to any rational foreign policy making; reinforced by a Western Polish diaspora heavily consisting of those that fled USSR occupation. Instead of joining the growing Asia, Poland will stick with the declining Europe and the West in general; happily replacing cheap Russian gas with expensive LNG. Any attempt to move into Western Ukraine, as seems possible with the statements and actions of the Polish government (e.g. with large numbers of Polish military being “sheep dipped” as fake mercenaries to serve in Ukraine and cooperation agreements between Poland and Ukraine), would be a huge mistake given the probable Russian response. Hopefully, cooler heads and possibly the Polish population in general (including the serving military) may thwart any such actions.
The ruling Law and Justice Party has recently been taking a more authoritarian stance and is bringing in new laws that seem aimed at its opposition in the face of the looming general elections late this year. The main opposition, Civic Platform, is heavily pro-EU and pro-NATO while representing more socially liberal and affluent constituents. Whichever party wins, policies toward Russia will change little; the real issue may be severe internal conflict between social conservatives and liberals which vary little on economics, echoing the US situation.
A Pro-Russian Wedge?
In Hungary, Prime Minister Orban has resisted repeated attempts by the West and its NGO-complex to remove him and remains as the outlier among the EU political leaders with respect to Russia. He may be joined by a much more balanced leader of Slovakia in September, adding to an Austria that has taken a less aggressive stance toward Russia. When added to Serbia (and Republika Srpska) this area may provide a more pro-Russian wedge between Western Europe and the other Balkan states. In the event of an overwhelming Russian victory that brings Russia to the borders of Hungary and Slovakia, this wedge may both fundamentally change the dynamics of the Balkans and threaten the dominance of the EU and NATO more generally in Europe. With a possibly deep European recession looming, and also the possibility of another severe European debt crisis, the shine of the EU may greatly dim for the Balkan nations. The most important pivot nation would then become Bulgaria, which has a long history of relatively close ties to Russia. If it also turned back toward Russia, Moldova and Romania would be placed in a very problematic position for the West.
The West would fight such a possibility using all the weapons at its disposal, and one could expect increasing escalations of the Kosovo crisis and NGO-complex activities together with more explicit rhetorical threats and economic and financial sanctions. This is why the combination of a crushing Russian victory in Ukraine together with significant economic and political problems in Western Europe and the US would most probably be required for any such eventuality to happen this decade.
For Western Europe, the Ukraine War threatens a decade of possibly fundamental change that may significantly alter the European political and Economic landscape. Just as in the late 1980s when no-one could envisage the scale of changes about to happen, we may also be surprised by the scale of changes in the balance of this decade. The war in Ukraine is truly existential for Russia but is also extremely threatening to regional US power and the position of the Western European elites. As such, we can expect continued Western escalations flowing Ukrainian failures and an extremely obstinate resistance to any acceptance of defeat. The losers will be the European general populations, and even the Western European elites themselves as they face the reality of a US servitude that is destructive of their own interests.
The Neoliberal EU Bureaucracy Becomes An Instrument of Vassalization
From the implementation of the European single market and a Euro controlled by a financier-dominated European Central Bank, the EU became a tool for the imposition of neoliberalism and the interests of financiers and rentiers from above. This orientation was very much shown in the European Debt Crisis, where creditor interests were protected through the socialization of losses onto member populations and the ECB balance sheet. The extreme case was a Greece where the population was crushed under extreme austerity that lead to a drop in GDP of 25% and neoliberal deregulation and privatization, while the banking sector exchanged their Greek bonds for cash provided by increased Greek sovereign debt owed to the ECB and IMF (90%+ of the Greek bailout monies went to French and German banks). In Spain, the government massively expanded its state debt from relatively low levels to bail out the banks and their bond holders (as also happened in Ireland). The previous short-term profits were privatized, and the resulting longer-term losses were socialized.
With the Russia-Ukraine conflict the unelected European bureaucracy, through the European Commission, has greatly increased its hold over EU foreign policy; with a very tight alignment with US foreign policy toward both Russia and China. Von der Leyen and Borrell have mirrored much of US diplomatic positions, including the civilizational supremacy position given to the “capitalist liberal democratic” West (with Borrell stating this overly bluntly, as shown below). The EU bureaucracy lead the way in imposing sanctions on Russia and also stopping the use of (at least directly, as against indirectly through India and other third parties) Russian fossil fuels. Von der Leyen has also taken a much more aggressive stance toward China than many of the European national leaders.
Excellent summary! The Chinese ambassadors in the EU are publicly telling locals that Europe will get a much better deal from China than they'll get from the USA..
As ever, thanks for this Roger. Your writing is lways provocative-I am duly provoked:
What the 'Rest of the World' sees in the NATO campaign against Russia is something very familiar. So familiar that they don't need to take sides-they already have. They were born on the other side.
I'm referring to the, rarely mentioned fact that NATO is just the old Imperialisms, and sub imperialisms, from the Dutch and the Danes to the Italians and the Germans, the Belgians, the Portuguese and the Spanish, as well as the Top Tier empires, the French, British and US, back at work again-seeking world domination, this time as a collective.
Another aspect of the real NATO, not a defensive alliance but an imperialist vehicle, that has been reinforced almost to the point of parody by the accession of Finland, Sweden and, effectively, Switzerland to the gang, is that this is the White Man's club of nations. Just in case anyone didn't notice that, Canada, New Zealand and Australia are also inseparable partners.
As to Russia-its the exception that proves the rule-as it has been, for the most part, and latterly as a result of US refusal to give it membership of the club, since the 1920s when the Soviet state became the only reliable friend of the anti-colonial movement, including the embattled forces of southern blacks fighting against White Supremacist US governments.
In Brazil, China, Iran, and even Hindutva India its a no brainer- NATO and its forces represent the ancient enemy. As to the propaganda "protecting Ukrainian independence etc" they've heard it all before. And, frankly, it's risibly unconvincing.
In the rest of the world, even in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, there really is not a choice about de-dollarisation. It maybe difficult but it is a must- absolutely necessary and worth short term pain. And it will be here sooner than any of the financial experts think.
Its no accident that, as Russia is pushed out of the White World, the motheaten racvial theories of the Galicians are Scandinacian supermen school are trotted out again- the Russians are Asiatics, sub human etc. Its sad that Canada finances the very worst of these Nazi era propaganda campaigns. I guess its too late now to take the case to the Legion Halls and tell the veterans that we are now literally honouring the Waffen SS.