Good post. Looking at the two options you mentioned I wonder if there is a third one.
Namely if I could bet on smaller and historicaly based European nationalism to bring them to fight among themselves again. Granted the historical reasons are very different, colonialism played a big role and ultimately it was indeed America’s WW2 victory that finaly put an end to any hopes of a local EU supremacy fight.
Yet I think this threat still lingers. Look back at the 2008 crisis specificaly and the fallout from Greece, Spain, Italy, Ireland and others, but specialy Greece. I wonder how the EU would have reacted if Greece had indeed taken extreme measures to get the fuck out of the EU and if that could have led to others following. The whole point of the troika was to impose German supremacy to begin with.
Later there was Brexit too but it seems it was far more of a reactionary UK self contained issue rather than a real fight between EU elites. Yet it once again proves the EU is not a sacred concept under certain circunstances.
Historicaly speaking, all major EU countries were at war with each other practically at one point or another. Those old catalysts do not exist anymore obviously, as none of these countries have realistic hopes of (re)building an empire.
Yet I look at climate change as a possible big catalyst. Yes as you note EU and German fascists have it easy by blaming immigrants but I wonder if this will remain as easy if these immigrants are Italian or Polish, heck even Spanish.
I wonder if the next catalyst will simply be the friction between the current EU neoliberals who rely on the concentration of German economic power and dominance over the other members, those who still want to play by the rules of “civilization” while far right starts to look at the EU itself with skepticism and as yet another land to be conquered so that they can be in charge of closing of the borders.
Its why I mention the historical roots because, the modern “western” identity is fickle at best and Germans, French and English have been at war for centuries. I’m not sure how much actual faith there is on true European “unity” as is enforced by German/France under US leadership at this point, this unity and even such concept is an extremely modern concept to begin with and if the EU leadership starts to look increasingly weak and dependent on US leadership than certainly this may well fuel reactionary forces regardless.
On that aspect I don’t think the US “management” of Nazism is the only way out either as an escape valve to blame the Rest of the World(immigrants, Russia etc), the historical precedent would put all these white Europeans fighting each other for centuries earlier too.
So yeah basically for now German’s army is basically just to fuel NATO but in the long term I would grab some popcorn and watch out for future intra-European fighting like the good old days too.
Good post. Looking at the two options you mentioned I wonder if there is a third one.
Namely if I could bet on smaller and historicaly based European nationalism to bring them to fight among themselves again. Granted the historical reasons are very different, colonialism played a big role and ultimately it was indeed America’s WW2 victory that finaly put an end to any hopes of a local EU supremacy fight.
Yet I think this threat still lingers. Look back at the 2008 crisis specificaly and the fallout from Greece, Spain, Italy, Ireland and others, but specialy Greece. I wonder how the EU would have reacted if Greece had indeed taken extreme measures to get the fuck out of the EU and if that could have led to others following. The whole point of the troika was to impose German supremacy to begin with.
Later there was Brexit too but it seems it was far more of a reactionary UK self contained issue rather than a real fight between EU elites. Yet it once again proves the EU is not a sacred concept under certain circunstances.
Historicaly speaking, all major EU countries were at war with each other practically at one point or another. Those old catalysts do not exist anymore obviously, as none of these countries have realistic hopes of (re)building an empire.
Yet I look at climate change as a possible big catalyst. Yes as you note EU and German fascists have it easy by blaming immigrants but I wonder if this will remain as easy if these immigrants are Italian or Polish, heck even Spanish.
I wonder if the next catalyst will simply be the friction between the current EU neoliberals who rely on the concentration of German economic power and dominance over the other members, those who still want to play by the rules of “civilization” while far right starts to look at the EU itself with skepticism and as yet another land to be conquered so that they can be in charge of closing of the borders.
Its why I mention the historical roots because, the modern “western” identity is fickle at best and Germans, French and English have been at war for centuries. I’m not sure how much actual faith there is on true European “unity” as is enforced by German/France under US leadership at this point, this unity and even such concept is an extremely modern concept to begin with and if the EU leadership starts to look increasingly weak and dependent on US leadership than certainly this may well fuel reactionary forces regardless.
On that aspect I don’t think the US “management” of Nazism is the only way out either as an escape valve to blame the Rest of the World(immigrants, Russia etc), the historical precedent would put all these white Europeans fighting each other for centuries earlier too.
So yeah basically for now German’s army is basically just to fuel NATO but in the long term I would grab some popcorn and watch out for future intra-European fighting like the good old days too.