. . . In this discussion as well as in countless others the common thread is a tone of anti-Americanism. This is an unfortunate turn of events but is self-inflicted. At the end of the last war America had a lot of political capital, people looked to it as an example, the economy was providing a good life to many people and slogans of freedom and democracy fell on receptive ears everywhere. This has been squandered by the greed and shortsightedness of the ‘elites’, such as they are, as the US has become more openly predatory as it’s capabilities to do so have grown. I don’t even know if the US can continue to be considered to be ‘west’ as it seems to have morphed into some mongrelized hybrid offshoot. There’s no real culture you know, just some commercial junk-mind-rot. Let me point out that most of the anti-American comments here and elsewhere come from Americans themselves, can you believe it?
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It is heading towards a confrontation.
It depends what type of “confrontation”. If we are talking military one – Europe and US have no chance. If it is a cultural clash, what can I say – sad, but then again, is current Europe even worth fighting for? Is it even Europe anymore? That is the main question. As long as Europe buys Russia’s affordable energy and washing machines, among many other things, it is fine with Russians. After 2019 it might not be that crucial altogether. Putin effectively staked Russia as Europe in his speech at Valdai. So, in some cynical sense, it is Europe’s problems not Russia’s. In fact, the number of people in Russia demanding new Iron Curtain is growing. Russia is certainly not intent to “attack” Europe (what for) and she is entirely capable now to defeat any attempt on herself. We’ll see how it plays out in Ukraine and then we will have a larger “data set” to play with.
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Most Western media is in a full yellow journalism mode yelling for a war (‘but not really’, right?). At some point perceptions become reality. It is hard to walk back crazy talk in a crisis. What politician would take a chance?
Culturally, I more or less agree with you. The West has shot itself in the foot. Out of either hubris or desperation, the West has gradually politicised every institution; from Hollywood to the Olympics, from travel advisories to media campaigns and ‘truth agencies’. (By the way, how does a ‘truth agency’ as setup by EU or Nato differ from a simple censorship? Has there ever been a censor who didn’t claim that they were doing it to ‘suppress lies or heresies’?)
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Even cynicism has to have a rational goal. If Western Europe becomes a harder working, colder version of the Third World, it is not good for either Central Europe or Russia. Central Europe due to its size and proximity would eventually follow the West. An isolated Russia is a vulnerable Russia. As many have pointed out, during times of isolation something in the Russian psyche kicks in and starts the mad yearning for the ‘West’, to be like ‘Paris’, to sell it all for a nice smile. It could happen again. And the fact that by then Paris might as well be an Oudagoudou with Metro (decrepit anyway), will not stop the Russian yearning – it is in the soul.
We would all be better off if rationality would prevail and people would go back to mature behaviour and some sense of normalcy. On all sides.
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I think a lesson from history is that it is a self-defeating madness to ‘conquer’ and occupy any Zoo run by recently arrived simians, or a poor shit-hole of any kind. It is stupid. Expanding into a gutter, makes your country into a gutter, your own it.
Reconquista had inquisition and slightly more permissive ‘population’ policies. That is not available today. If Western Europe goes down over the next 25-50 years into Third World squalor, nobody will come to save them. My concern is that before they slide down the garbage shoot into the Third-World multicultural nirvana they will manage to spread it into Central-Eastern Europe. They are certainly trying. And if that happens it is only a question of time before an isolated Russia – with its own internal issues – follows the pattern.
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Britain engineered WWI because of the Berlin Basra railway.
Edward Mead Earle, Ph.D., ‘Turkey, The Great Powers and The Bagdad Railway, A study in Imperialism’, 1923, 1924, New York
The line was to go through Mosul, with a German concession of ten miles at both sides, through the richest then known oilfields.
Lawrence (of Arabia), archeologist, spied on the progress.
The connection to Basra was also feared, the British might lose their monopoly on exporting goods to India, smuggling from Basra to India could not be prevented.
When I visited Aleppo in 1986 the railway station still existed, until the Syrian war tourist trains travelled from Istanbul to Aleppo, or Damascus, forgot which.
In the thirties the British again feared Germany because of economic expansion to the south east:
Lawrence R. Pratt, ‘East of Malta, West of Suez’, London, 1975
