Dumb, dumber, Europe
Harakiri or as the Japanese more commonly call it seppuku has long been abolished…
It was an act of atonement for great mistakes, cowardice or a violation of the bushido code (the samurai code of honor)…
The myth lives on…
A great European nation is on its way to kneeling in a ritual position…
Of course, I am exaggerating…
Germany has managed to make a civilizational somersault that is rarely seen - from a country that designed gas pipelines through half the continent to a country that checks its own citizens' canisters at the border because they went to get fuel in a neighboring country…
Once technology exporters, today gasoline importers in the trunk…
Historical progress, nothing like that…
After years of building an energy system that worked, then dismantling it themselves because it became politically unsuitable, closing nuclear plants because it seemed moral, quarreling with unsuitable suppliers because it seemed principled, and finally deciding that they would guide their energy strategy according to advice from America, they have now reached the stage where the state is persecuting its own drivers for twenty liters of diesel...
Of course, the culprit is not politics...
The culprit is the man who wants to get to work without taking out a fuel loan...
The culprit is the driver who dared to cross the border...
The culprit is the market because it is not behaving properly...
The culprit is the war, the weather, the climate, the stock market, the Russians, Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, everything except decisions made with conferences, applause and moral speeches...
It is especially sad to see how a country that has lectured others about rational economics for decades now has no one at its gas stations and queues on the other side of the border, while customs checks canisters as if it were smuggling gold, and not an attempt to drive a few kilometers longer and under two euros per liter...
A calming message comes from Berlin...
Chancellor Friedrich Merz, full of his own political nothingness, reveals to the nation that prices would be lower than 2.50 euros per liter of diesel on the highway if the war were to end...
And that the best and cheapest fuel is to fill up between 6:00 PM and 10:00 PM…
Filling up early in the morning is expensive…
And then comes a scene that would be tragically funny if it weren't real…
Vladimir calls from Moscow and says that there is gas, there is oil, the pipes existed, the partnership existed, and that Russia is ready to sell energy again to those who want normal cooperation without political theater…
In other words - the fuel exists, but the problem is that it is the wrong fuel, from the wrong country, at the wrong time, for the wrong ideology…
And now we have a perfect picture of 21st century Europe: gas pipelines destroyed, nuclear power plants shut down, fuel the most expensive, industry is moving, customs is counting canisters, and politicians are waiting for 'signals from the capitals' while citizens are already sending a signal - standing in line at the gas station in Poland…
If this was a strategy, then it is ingenious…
If not - it is even more ingenious…
Goethe's country can and must do better…
American policy is emerging from the diplomatic fog and entering a zone of open coercion, while the old order is collapsing faster than Europe seems to notice
Stephen Miller is not the classic behind-the-scenes adviser who occasionally whispers in the president’s ear. In Donald Trump’s second term, he has transformed into a kind of ideologue—a man who openly articulates what Washington has been doing for decades but previously concealed behind rhetoric about human rights, democracy, and alliances.
When Miller coldly declares that the world is ruled by “power and force,” that there are iron laws of power that have “applied since the beginning of time,” he defines a new phase of American policy. Today, words and deeds align.
The context that gives such statements weight stems from the fact that Trump is now in power with the experience of his first term and with people who can more easily bypass the system’s internal restraints. Miller is now deputy chief of staff for policy and is no longer merely the designer of anti-immigration decrees, as he once was. He participates in shaping strategy, drawing on an old 19th-century idea—the Monroe Doctrine—but reinterprets it in the spirit of the present moment.
The Western Hemisphere is imagined as a space in which American will stands hierarchically above the rights of smaller states. Trump adopts this quickly, but it is Miller who dictates the rhetoric, which at times sounds almost like a parody of imperialism, like something dreamed up by the Monty Python team—unfortunately, there is no humor in this story, not even black humor.
When explaining the operation in Venezuela, Miller claims that the United States will run the country until a “new order” is established, thereby showing exactly how his theory of force looks in practice. The sovereignty of a state becomes a variable category. If oil is important and geopolitical position is crucial, and Washington is in a hurry, the role of Congress and international organizations slips into second place (or is no longer mentioned at all).
Miller shows a similar line of thinking when he talks about Greenland. That Arctic island, officially under the Danish crown, is in his eyes the next target. The statement that Greenland should become part of the United States, and the belief that no serious actor would go to war against America over it, reveal the core of Miller’s doctrine. In the background are resources, new Arctic routes, and military positioning vis-à-vis Russia and China. In the foreground appears the message that the U.S. will use its superiority to take what it considers necessary for its “own security.”
Worst of all—isn’t Miller right? At least when it comes to the claim that “no one would go to war against America.” Would Denmark fight? Even though it could rely on European allies, statements from Copenhagen are, to put it mildly, pathetic. Calling someone who openly threatens you an “important ally” is an amplified signal to Trump’s predatory administration that the moment is ideal for an attack of any kind.
The shameful statements from Denmark are not the beginning; all of Europe has for years been “feeding Washington’s ego,” telling Trump (and Washington in general) just how extremely submissive it really is. NATO’s chief, a former Dutch prime minister, calls him “daddy”; almost all EU countries are frantically increasing military spending in response to Trump’s brazen threats and in some way committing themselves to their own catastrophe by edging toward a direct confrontation with Russia.
For America, that would be a fantastic outcome. Miller and other hawks of the new generation (imperialists replacing interventionists) are one step away from starting to seize parts of Europe even in these supposedly “peaceful times.” And they would get away with it—even now. But it would be even better if Europe were in total chaos, bombed and in direct conflict with nuclear-armed Russia. In such a scenario of complete collapse, America could come and take whatever it wants.
Europe will ultimately prove to be a geostrategic preschooler or first-grader. While repeating every day the danger of the “Russian threat,” the real threat is piling up on the other side of the Atlantic.
Miller’s influence is visible not only in interviews and bombastic formulations. The new National Security Strategy itself (in which, let us recall, Europe is sharply criticized, not Russia) clearly bears the stamp of his way of thinking. In that document, the Monroe Doctrine receives a kind of addendum that codifies the U.S. right to politically, economically, and militarily control the Western Hemisphere (an idea that will likely later be easily expanded to the entire globe). It mentions the need to secure access to energy and minerals, to adjust military presence, and to exploit superior military systems for American goals.
Such a text is hard to imagine in the Obama era, or even in the Bush era, when attention was still paid to linguistic restraints and to the need for actions to appear at least formally consistent with the international order.
In the first phase after the Cold War, Washington liked to present itself as the architect of the liberal order; later as the leader of the global war on terror; and in the Obama period as a power combining hard and soft power. Miller’s era breaks with that style. He openly embraces the logic of great powers, the logic of spheres of influence and raw power. He emphasizes the goal of access to resources, control of space, and the prevention of rivals.
In his formulations there is no illusion that small states decide their own fate; what matters is which great power they align with.
In this story, it is extremely ironic that Europe, which is still asleep when it comes to the American threat, is incapable of noticing anything concrete about the situation in Caracas and instead, like a broken record, keeps returning to Russia. Many thus claim that what Trump has done is a “gift to Putin,” because the Russian president will now feel more “willing” to launch similar attacks himself.
But there is a difference. The Russian leadership, not even the Kremlin’s hawks, engages in rhetoric like that put out by Stephen Miller.
What concrete chances has Washington given Venezuela? And what chances did Russia give Ukraine? Was autumn 2021 really so long ago? Would we have a horrific war in Eastern Europe today if the U.S. had committed not to pull Ukraine into NATO? Did Putin and Biden have a direct video conference where this was discussed? They did. And what did America tell Moscow? No chance. All of these episodes, it seems, Europe slept through and woke up in a hypnotized state in which there is only one threat—the Russian one.
While they look toward Russia, America will take Greenland and, even more devastatingly, all of Europe’s economic competitiveness. Europe, which already has to import expensive American LNG gas and, at Washington’s command, build weapons stockpiles, will remain in this great-power story powerless, non-sovereign, and ripe for complete absorption into the American zone of interest and exploitation. They do not even have the strength to call a single Miller by his proper name, let alone “Daddy” Trump. Such a submissive stance, unfortunately for all of us here, will cost the entire continent very dearly.
These three things need to be preserved from internal and external enemies (with or without the European Union):
- free speech
- private property
- our own culture
It is not useful to be a defeatist and give up on the values that have shaped us in advance.
We need wiser leaders, who are imbued with these values, and I do not see them.
The current leaders do not value freedom, nor the right to property, nor European cultures.
Those who would like to come to power value only European cultures, and despise the #freedom and property of citizens, and love their own.
They are all some kind of social engineers, who want to shape us according to their narrow-minded fantasies, among which the planned #economy and the restriction of personal freedoms play the biggest role.
We should give up on such leaders, not on values.
If enough people know what is good for them, the leaders will show up to implement such policies.
I do not believe in the downfall of #Europe and I think that such talk is shooting itself in the knee. It is not at all clear what those who repeat this mean - the collapse of the #EU or the collapse of European states?
We have nowhere to go, we are from here and it depends on us how things will be for us here - it seems that many Europeans do not understand this, somehow disinterested, discouraged and reactive, instead of active.
Because apparently most do not know how we became one of the best places to live in the world - I blame schools and universities for that - but it is what it is - everyone can and must find out for themselves.
