The Next European War

John Michael Greer on the current mess in Europe. Yes, we are heading for another European war (although it may take a few decades before the whole process works itself out). The reason? The United States will sooner rather than later not be capable of defending Europe against Russia. Meanwhile, only France and Britain have *some* kind of credible military defenses. Despite this, the EU is acting as an arrogant bully in select East European theatres. What if somebody in the Balkans decides to play rough, and the United States decides not to intervene? What can the bickering second-rate and third-rates powers of the EU really do in that situation? EU might simply collapse, and then the various ex-EU powers could turn their guns at each other. Or Russia might pick up the pieces, although JMG doesn´t go into that (it´s a blog post, after all, not a book). 

Here is one scenario that came to my mind even before reading JMG´s post. The United States, rather than leaving Europe outright, could create a mini-NATO with Britain, the Nordic countries and the Baltic republics. Meanwhile, France and Germany will become more pro-Russian. Germany is too dependent on Russian energy to just say nyet. And France? They never *really* liked being in the same camp as Perfidious Albion and post-Lafayette America. The problem is "East" Europe, where some nations have a traditionally anti-Russian orientation (Poland, say) while others are just as traditionally pro-Russian (Serbia, Greece, etc). Note also the Ukraine, split between the two camps! This is where shit might get real at some point, unless the great powers come up with some *really* ingenious treaty arrangements. And if the US gets weaker, why should the Russians give a damn? 

I also suspect there are many unknowns that might complicate the situation considerably: the fall out from the COVID pandemic, the migrant crisis, the climate crisis, large scale terrorist operations, something unexpected in Russia or even China, the latest idiosyncratic moves of a guy named Donald, and so on. So I wouldn´t be surprised if the "standard" scenario turns out to be dead wrong. I certainly hope it will turn out much better! As matters stand today, however, I wouldn´t be surprised if freakin´ zombies came crawling out of the sewers even after the Halloween season is over... 

Some quotes. Also, link further below: 

>>>Few other European militaries are quite so comically inept as Germany’s, but many are even smaller, and none outside of France and Britain are prepared to carry out significant military operations on their own. There is of course a reason for that, which is that the United States wanted European militaries small and dependent on the US military machine. Unfortunately for the future of Europe, nobody there seems to have gotten the memo that the US is going to bits.

>>>That’s a problem because there are two very good ways to make war happen. The first is to be arrogant, blustering, and unwilling to compromise.  The second is to be militarily weak. The European Union is both. It does not seem to have occurred to anyone in Brussels that one of these days, when EU officials order one of the nations in its sphere of influence to shut up and do as it’s told, the nation in question might respond in the time-honored way by mobilizing its army and settling the matter by force. Several flashpoints in eastern and southeastern Europe are potentially close to that.  The last few times that happened in the Balkans, of course, the United States was available to do the heavy lifting—but those days, again, are over now.

>>>If Serbia, let’s say, decides to adjust its current borders in its own favor the way that Azerbaijan did a little while ago, by force of arms, is the EU prepared to try to counter that on the battlefield?  If not, the EU may never recover from the loss of prestige; quite a few people remember what happened in the 1930s when the League of Nations failed to back up its demands with anything stronger than verbiage.  (Spoiler: the League of Nations no longer exists.)  If the EU does intervene—well, then it’s up to the fortunes of war, and those may not go the way the EU thinks they should.  

The Next European War