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Quote of the Day: Is Europe Finished?
Let’s cut through the diplo-speak: If Mr. Biden and the Europeans don’t get Ukraine right, Europe’s future is finished.
Putin is Hitler. He is attempting the extermination of a people and the obliteration of their cities. World War II wasn’t fought in Europe to prevent a future nuclear exchange between Russia and the U.S. It was fought because Europe was experiencing the indiscriminate murder of civilians under Nazi military doctrine, now revived by Mr. Putin and the Russian general staff.— Daniel Henninger
In an ambitious flurry of activity, Europe is speaking out and taking action against Vladimir Putin, canceling some of their commitments to him and stepping in to help Ukraine. Most of the Ukrainian refugees are landing in Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia. The EU has established an emergency protection system, offering jobs, shelter, and medical treatment. They have also worked at streamlining their entry procedures. The invasion of Putin has been criticized harshly, and Europe has stepped up.
But how long will they enthusiastically deal with this new reality?
At this writing, 4 million people have fled Ukraine; another 6.5 million people are displaced. It’s impossible to know how long the conflict will drag on, or whether the EU countries will be able to support millions of refugees, or how many of the Ukrainians will stay. Will they be able to find work? Will they be able to adjust if they choose to stay? Will they be welcomed by the various countries?
And will the U.S. make a sincere and reasonable effort to supply arms and compassionate support, and for how long?
And yet . . . and yet . . .
Does Europe really have a choice? Over time will they try to ignore the threats that Putin poses to the European continent?
Will they realize that helping Ukraine and Ukrainians and standing up to Putin could determine the very future of Europe?
Published in Foreign Policy
Of course, a lot of people may die for those good things.
Trying to rid Ukraine of Ukrainians by all possible means is getting dangerously close to genocide. Maybe Putin thinks it’s more like culturecide, but he isn’t limiting his methods to Russification.
I’d say Europe — especially Western Europe — was finished after WWI. There’s that axiom about anything not explicitly conservative slipping into godless leftism which perfectly encapsulates nihilistic western Europeans. Some of the former Soviet satellites may preserve something of Europe, but I don’t expect to live to see a recovery of Europe qua Europe.
I’m actually puzzled by this Susan. I see nothing that would indicate that Europe or anyone is wavering against Putin and Russia. I think both Europe and even senile old Biden has gotten this one about right. Certainly not perfect, since there are some errors along the way, but mostly right, especially on the big decisions. And I frankly think Putin does have to go. I cannot see how he stays. Of course it is not for any outsider to push him out but Russia herself. Sanctions should stay on Russia until Putin is out. I might even go so far as to say he needs to be delivered for war crimes before sanctions are removed.
Europe…especially Germany…aided and abetted the Biden administration, chose to make themselves dependent on Russia for energy. Someone remarked that it was like a dog rolling over and showing their bellies in submission.
See my post Deliberate Disempowerment.
The Biden administration has clearly not learned its lesson, and I think the rest is true of Europe, with the possible exception of France.
Yes, when they let the US rebuild Europe after WWII, and descended into Socialism while letting their own defenses deteriorate. Western Europe has let the US defend them for way too long, and need to take responsibility for their own defense, and their own existence. President Trump had it right when he insisted that the other NATO countries pay for the defense of Europe. Most Europeans have been fat and happy for decades, and need to get up off the couch, go to work for much longer than they currently do, and reinvigorate their hidebound labor force.
What does that have to do with the current state of the Ukraine war? Of course Germany and Biden were morons for relying on Russian oil but they have both done very well in opposing Russia unconditionally since Russia invaded.
Words are cheap. Serious opposition to Russia would include, for example, announcing a program for a major and accelerated build-out of nuclear power, coupled with expanded oil and gas production.
Maybe so, maybe so.
Yeah so? Europe has lots of nuclear reactors. And Europe can go back to buying Russian oil once Putin is out of power. Again, what does this have to do with the current state of the war? You’re simultaneously thinking from before the war and after the war. Before the war doesn’t matter. After the war we’ll see what the situation on the ground is and go from there.
Continuing European imports of Russian oil and natural gas
The CEO of Germany’s multinational BASF SE, the world’s largest chemical producer, has warned that curbing or cutting off energy imports from Russia would bring into doubt the continued existence of small and medium-sized energy companies, and further would likely spiral Germany into its most “catastrophic” economic crisis going back to the end of World War 2.
and
He explained that higher prices are already having a huge impact on the food supply given at this point BASF has been forced to reduce the production of ammonia for fertilizer production.
Brudermuller called this “a catastrophe and we will feel it even more clearly next year than this one. Because most of the fertilizers that the farmers need this year have already been bought. In 2023 there will be a shortage, and then the poor countries in particular, for example in Africa, will no longer be able to afford to buy basic foodstuffs.” In a very alarming statement and forewarning, he added: “There is a risk of famine.”
Has Germany wavered from supporting Ukraine? I haven’t seen it. Has any European country wavered from supporting Ukraine? I don’t think so.
The question was, “is Europe finished?” not “Is Europe giving up on Ukraine?” Does it really matter if Europe still “supports” Ukraine (whatever that means) if it’s still in the throes of cultural and demographic suicide?
Lacking cultural confidence and accepting thousands of Muslim immigrants with — putting it mildly — non-European values, is Europe finished? I say yes. And the US isn’t far behind. The Trump presidency was a short pause in our self-loathing self-destruction.
Europe is a large, diverse place with dozens of cultures. Some will find their spine; others never lost it; others will sink into a grey ooze of decline for a while, then get slapped awake. Nothing is ever finished.
The ones who flap their jaws the most about things like “Putin has got to go” and “THESE ARE ATROCITIES” are often the ones who are covering up their actions that keep Putin from being driven out.
Dennis Prager used to say – and maybe still does, I haven’t listened to his show since it went paywall – that Europe learned the wrong lesson from WW II, especially. They didn’t learn to fight evil, they learned that fighting IS evil.
Maybe this is shaking them out of their complacency/navel-gazing.
But it could already be too late, demographically speaking. Their native population has been declining for decades, and I doubt European women will suddenly re-discover the virtues of having children. In addition, many of them are already too old.
And have children!
Last I heard, from Mark Steyn, few if any parts of Europe have birth rates anywhere near “replacement.”
The influx of muslims was – and is – primarily due to the lack of native Europeans to have children. The future belongs to those who show up, and Europeans mostly are choosing to not show up.
Maybe one could say that not repopulating a civilization is losing it. Not caring enough to carry on.
I understand your point, Manny. I guess we can decide how to view the current situation. If we see it as a snapshot in time, there are many reasons to hope that Europe will continue to move in a constructive way. But if we look at these times as we would view a movie, the view is much more complicated, with its history, the many circumstances that keep changing, and the willingness to take risks and take the steps that need to be taken, in spite of the pressures of those who will inevitably resist.
Nothing is ever finished?? This is demonstrably, historically untrue. Sure, the land mass remains, but tell it to the Mayans and Aztecs, the Canaanites, the Philistines, the Hittites, the Jebusites, . . . heck, closer to “home” — the Romans, the Angles, the Saxons. . . Bring any one of them back from the dead and have them take a look around and see if they recognize the people or the place — and it won’t be unrecognizable just because of the radically unfamiliar technological changes, but because of what people believe about the fundamental meaning of life and what it is to be human.
Pardon me if I rely on a bit of biblical wisdom instead — all things are passing away. Christendom (by which I mean the Christian West, not Christianity) is dead. Christian Europe has been deader longer than the US, so they’re somewhat more mature in their neo-paganism and maybe they’ll refuse to mutilate and sterilize their children under the guise of “gender identity.” They seem a little less radical than our radicals, but I could be mistaken.
This seems to highlight a major division on the Right. There are those with some kind of (unwarranted, imo) confidence in the ongoing state of affairs and then there are those of us who see it all as fragile and temporary. The former believes the latter to be too negative and at risk of “depressing the turnout.” I believe we’re the realists and we find peace in more permanent, transcendent things — you could say One Eternal thing.
. . . Which is to say. . . I’m not “worried” about Europe or the US. I gave up worry for Lent.
I kind of get what you mean, but the mechanism is not that a lack of native children creates a vacuum that physically sucks unwitting Muslims into Europe. There are immigration, welfare, education and criminal laws, regulations and practices that need to be changed to make immigration and ‘multiculturalism’ (by which I mean a lack of assimilation) possible and attractive. And on this score, the European establishment is as responsive to popular will as the US establishment is.
IIRC Ralph Peters said that the Muslim immigration would eventually get ugly in Europe and the Europeans are really good at ugly
Thought so but the Left is good at selling guilt and shame. It is amazing how we have been able to convince so many to give others stuff they have not worked for.
…and what the Left refuses to recognize is that when we give away stuff and don’t have expectations for people to work for it, we damage their self-respect and debilitate their souls.
Who needs self respect when we have self esteem? And they do not believe in God so thus no soul. Only the now.
The left specializes in that. I suspect the left knows, and even that it is a part of their strategy.