this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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The trouble is, when will it ever make economic sense from the perspective of the military industrial complex to turn off the tap? Even if Ukraine offers nothing in payment the European countries sending all their F16s about to become new customers for F35s...
Indeed, now that there's a credible enemy and NATO was forced to dump a whole bunch of its existing stock, there's going to be an unlimited tap to produce and sell new weapons. Micheal Hudson loves to talk about the protection racket US managed to setup in Europe.
Yeah to me this is why I think people saying the collective west (chimerical) is getting "owned" because tens of thousands of Ukrainians (also Russians) are getting thrown into a meat grinder are wrong. Unless you mean countries like Germany are getting ripped off by the Failed States of America for monopoly priced energy and new weapons. The current state of the board is exactly what the Failed States and its military and energy concerns want. They've planned this shit for a long time.
My impression is that US basically had two objectives. The primary one was to try and collapse Russia. That would've been the big prize because then they were hoping to Balkanize it, and put in puppet regimes that would let US companies exploit them while allowing US to surround China from the west. That goal failed miserably as we're now seeing.
However, the secondary concern was that Europe was increasingly becoming integrated with Russia and China economically and in the long run that would mean that it would shift away from US politically. The war put a stop to all that and forced Europe firmly back into US camp for the time being. Military spending US is going to force on Europe is going to help bolster US economy at the expense of mass austerity in Europe. On top of that, US will get to poach a bunch of European companies which was the purpose of the inflation reduction act.
Finally, US is trying to force Europe to decouple from China which is very important for US as it would mean that Europe would be stuck purchasing goods from US at monopoly prices. It looks like Europe is reluctant to do that at the moment, but the pressure from US is immense.
My view is that this plan is not sustainable long term. Europeans are already starting to realize they got played and we're seeing anti war parties polling increasingly high across all the major European countries. I expect there's going to be a huge backlash against the US as the economic situation continues to unravel in Europe. At that point, it's quite likely that European countries will start patching things up with Russia. Unfortunately, the right were the only ones to take a stance against the war while the left sided with the liberal war mongers. So, now we're seeing a huge political surge of the right in Europe.
I also expect that both EU is going to collapse going forward. EU only makes sense when there's economic prosperity, but once the pie shrinks everybody will want to keep their piece of it. I think it's very likely that Hungary will be the first country to exit the EU within the next couple of years.
It's also a question how long NATO can be sustained given that US is the only country in the alliance with any significant military strength or industrial capacity. After the war ends, I expect that US will be increasingly losing interest in Europe and will refocus on China.
Yes, though nearly all this backlash seems to becoming from the far right as the “left” in Europe is 110% on board with supporting Ukraine. So we could see anti-US sentiment take off (good) but from the right (bad).
Indeed
Witch mean that the liberal "left" will have to make a choice: either changing their stance away from pro-US or doubling down, but if the anti-US sentiment start growing from the right, the liberal "left", by contrarian bias, might coose to double down, witch would be it's undoing.
While the fall of the liberal "left" in europe might be an opportunity as desilusioned liberals are typically a fertile ground for the communist ideology, it will be a short lived and risky one, as from there, the only thing that might stop the rise of the far right would be the apperance of a widespread true leftist movement soon enought that the right doesn't completely take over the political landscape among common folks.
If we fail to create such an able leftist movement, europe might see a secound taking over by fascists.
Yeah as someone who migrated from the Failed States to Europe I'm really concerned for the future here. You are correct opposing the war has been perversely painted as a right-wing issue and I have no idea what it's going to take to undo the damage of Failed States propaganda. Germans in particular for understandable historical reasons seem to have an allergy to asserting themselves and fighting for their own national interests, preferring in a way to be suborned to the Failed States. It's possible as a result the AfD will get very dangerous very quickly if the left here remains divided and politically impotent, unable to offer its own clear anti war message.
That's my biggest worry with Europe as well. The left needs to find a consistent position that actually resonates with the broad public, and there isn't much time left to do that. As the economic conditions continue to decline, people are going to be shifting away from the mainstream liberal position, and if the left can't provide a credible platform then they're necessarily going to go to the right.
Great analysis comrade
I would add another short term victory was adding Sweden and Finland to NATO. Its going to hasten the dismantling of their social democratic reforms and becoming neoliberalized.
Excellent point that the left parties played themselves by siding with NATO. Right wing parties in Europe will likely surge on account of being against support for Ukraine and being pro-Russia.
Ive heard about the poaching by the US of European companies, but not the link between that and the inflation reduction act. Could you explain?
Thanks, and basically the inflation reduction act reduces costs of manufacturing in the US which will end up luring companies away from Europe. US already has cheaper energy prices and this is just a cherry on top. This article is a decent summary of it. Europe got played hard by the US.