The Trans-Atlantic partnership and NATO should have died in 1991, and replaced with something that did not give Washington the amount of leverage over European affairs as it ended up having.

A way forward for Europe would have anyway involved this decoupling from the US in favor of a more horizontal relationship.


But that's the end of the good news.

Brussels is one giant Trans-Atlanticist lobby, and the European Union will likely suffer a severe crisis of legitimacy when the Americans stop greasing pockets.

Instead, it appears Washington will start fueling the ensuing political chaos by finally blowing the lid of the grand reservoir of justified criticism of the EU and its leaders which has been bubbling beneath the surface for decades.

The EU is an undemocratic, untransparant abomination (the document is completely right about that) that is then unlikely to be capable of the far-reaching reforms that it requires to become a viable independent European super state.


The more gloomy question to ask however, is 'why' and 'why now'?

It's clear the geopolitical situation in the world is coming to a head, and we must assume this decoupling from Europe is a piece to Washington's puzzle vis-á-vis how it intends to sow chaos in Eurasia, which is its only feasible strategy in maintaining hegemony.

Not only must it seek to defeat China, but it must also stop other Eurasian nations from rising up as 'laughing thirds' - nations like Russia and Europe, for example.

This is of course why the decoupling is taking place - Washington's intention is to embroil Russia and Europe in a war with each other, the rotten seed for which it has diligently started sowing since 2008.


Europe and Europeans on their part are geopolitically completely and utterly ignorant, as evidenced by the war-fueling rhetoric of European leaders (who are just towing the Washington line), and the stark lack of pushback from the European people themselves. This lack of understanding of the risks makes Europe infinitely more vulnerable.


A geopolitical storm is coming, and it will be insitgated by the US as it senses it is losing global control to BRICS. (The idea in the document that US is 'pulling back' is an obvious lie that shouldn't be taken seriously) Europe is not ready for it, but staying under Washington's yoke was no option either, and would have just given the Americans even more freedom to sacrifice Europe in whichever way it saw fit.

If Europe had instead started kowtowing to Washington even harder (I suppose it still might), the price for it will be militarization and fueling nationalism - two obvious ingredients for conflict down the line.

The Trans-Atlantic partnership and NATO should have died in 1991, and replaced with something that did not give Washington the amount of leverage over European affairs as it ended up having. — Tzeentch

Luckily NATO didn't go away, because Russia chose the irrational and destructive path of imperialism and clinging on to a lost empire and not the obvious solution of transforming and adapting to the post-empire situation as UK, France or Spain had. It had the CIS, could have been a stabilizing force, but then came Putin the gambler who saw the collapse of the Soviet Union as an unfortunate accident that could be repaired. Countries like Sweden and Finland would have been all too happy to enjoy their situation between the West and Russia, but Putin's bellicose actions forced them to use the NATO option.

Brussels is one giant Trans-Atlanticist lobby, and the European Union will likely suffer a severe crisis of legitimacy when the Americans stop greasing pockets. — Tzeentch

?
On the contrary.

First of all, Brexit showed every EU member just how much it sucks to go outside the common market. The disaster that faced UK hasn't gone unnoticed in other countries. There's no 'wonderful freedom' and economic bliss out there as an non-EU member, which many EU critical parties have now understood. Other countries aren't so rich as Norway and Switzerland. And if the bellicose actions of Russia have brought NATO countries together and NATO back to it's roots, the vilification of the EU by the US will just strengthen the lines in the EU. Of course they are those clinging on the Trump train, but they are few and have to understand that there's no advantage in having that "special relationship" with Trump.

Washington's intention is to embroil Russia and Europe in a war with each other, the rotten seed for which it has diligently started sowing since 2008. — Tzeentch

Quite a conspiracy theory. In truth Trump is eager to get those big bribes for those lucrative contracts that Kirill Dimitriev is dangling in front of him. It's similar to the promises of a Trump hotel earlier, now just the money is in the billions. The Trump regime is one of the most corrupt administrations (if not the most) that has ever been in power in the US.

The EU is an undemocratic, untransparant abomination (the document is completely right about that) that is then unlikely to be capable of the far-reaching reforms that it requires to become a viable independent European super state. — Tzeentch

Now your confusing. What do you want? An European super state? Jeesh, how undemocratic would that be! First and foremost, EU contrary to it's name is a de facto confederation of independent states and good that it stays so. It will be always a loose confederation and the what I abhor are the lunatic and utterly damaging ideas of it becoming a federation like the US. That will never happen and good so. That we have EU elections is enough, because I don't want the EU to challenge anymore than now the authority of the state Parliament. Yes there should be more transparency, but that's a minor issue.

Europe and Europeans on their part are geopolitically completely and utterly ignorant, as evidenced by the war-fueling rhetoric of European leaders (who are just towing the Washington line) — Tzeentch

What line are you talking about? The Washington line above sees Europe itself as the obstacle for the surrender peace in Ukraine! Obviously they aren't towing the Washington line. Did you read the National Security Strategy paper???

A geopolitical storm is coming, and it will be insitgated by the US as it senses it is losing global control to BRICS. — Tzeentch

BRICS is even a more loose group than the various G(pick a number 7 to 20) groups. China and India have had border wars and really aren't allies at all (especially when China is the closest ally to Pakistan). Brazil and South Africa have their own problems and have few things in common with China or India. The US can loose it's place a the sole Superpower, but look at the facts @Tzeentch, nothing will replace it. There's just this huge void left, which will create a giant vortex of various players trying to carve their place in the post-US world, but nothing and nobody will replace the US. And "the fall" of the US isn't going to be so dramatic. It won't be the sole Superpower, just the largest Great Power around.

Whoopee.

Just like with Ukraine, time will tell who is right.

Our views are too far apart to have this broad of a discussion, but I've got the following offer: if you have a small, bite-sized subject where you believe our views differ in interesting ways, point it out and we can go into it in detail.

It is good for Europe and the EU to get shaken to the core by all of this. We will all benefit from the EU becoming stronger and more connected as a collaboration. It’s the whole point of the union. So if we focus our attention to security, industry and collaboration between nations in a way that’s better than it is now, the EU will be much stronger in the long run. The US has only been good for military security, much of the industry is globalized today, meaning most production isn’t made within the US regardless of what the christo-fascists believe will happen through tariffs. And even if they bring production back home, it will cost so much compared to globalized production that the US won’t be able to export in competition with other nations. And if the EU regain a focus on actually building better production within the union because of this, unconstrained by nationalist ideologies, the EU could actually become a real power house.

But we also need to see that the republicans and the Trump regime is eating their own tail. They won’t be able to sustain their path for long and Trump will eventually die. Will other republicans be so eager to rely on the other openly white supremacist ghouls who aren’t popular? I think there’s a growing group within the republicans who have recognized that if Trump and his people don’t go away, it will doom the entire party. So I think there’s lots going on behind the curtains of planning to rid the party of all these christo-fascist extremists.

This also means that we will likely go back to a form of healing idea between the EU and the US.

I would bet that campaigns later on will focus much on healing the bad blood, to shake hands and show that we are healing as an Atlantic collaboration. It will be part of the opposition against Trumps type of people, and spawn a new era of the same kind of “hope” posters that boosted Obama into power. It doesn’t matter if there’s actual progressive politics going along with it, but there’s a win for anyone who’s about to fight dirty and point with their whole hand at the problems Trump caused and who speaks for “healing what was lost”.

It’s the kind of shit that gets campaigns exploding and people rallying. Since Trump has moved so hard in this extremist direction, there will be an equally powerful reaction. Politics and sociology works within the same entropic form of energy dispersion. With a lot of powerful actions comes an equally powerful reaction.

It’s why I like the Hegelian political interpretation of society through thesis, antitheses and synthesis, even if it’s a bit cliché. And what has happened is that with the rise of the internet, the polarization has grown more violent and large compared to traditional processes that formed a synthesis in political ideas and previously hold ideologies.

We’ve essentially already entered a World War III in ideas and ideologies. It’s sped up before militaries had time to lock and load. It might even be that the movement of clashing ideologies that previously led to war moves so fast that we already enter a synthesis phase before anyone has properly fired a bullet.

The war in Ukraine is for instance not because of ideology, it’s out of the delusion of a despot. The problems we have are that representatives of the extremes have gained powers through the speed of the internet, but that also means these ideas are all shot at the same time in large quantities of ammunition. Rather than slowly building itself into much more rigid frontlines that usually ends up in actual world war. So actual world wars aren’t really starting because of it, because the ideas are already being tested and dissected on the world stage. The public of the world behaves like the intellectualization after World War II, without the war happening.

We’re already dissecting the problems before they grow.

It might be hard to see in all of the stupid noise we experience today, but I can’t shake the idea that this is a temporary dark point, and we’re letting all these christo-fascists, right wing extremists, and Putinists blow their load all in one go, making them deeply unpopular in the future.

When people get fed up with the current status of things, they want change. And if most things look bad today, people want to change most things.