Woe to the Vanquished

This is to announce publication of my most recent essay with the good people over at Propaganda in Focus (shout-out to Piers Robinson and his colleagues). Please check it out over there, let me know what you think in the comments below, and, if you liked it, share it!

Every now and then, legacy media publishes important articles that are both readable and very much worth your time. This is particularly true in the case of Oskar Lafontaine’s recent op-ed, which appeared under the title ‘In the Ukraine war, Germany acts as US satellite’. Published by the Berliner Zeitung on 30 August 2022, Mr. Lafontaine — once a leading Social-Democratic politician of the Old Labour variety and certainly one of Germany’s most outspoken critics of the ‘New Labour’ politics since Gerhard Schröder’s chancellorship (in office 1998-2005) — is among the few whose opinions are permitted by mainstream outlets.

Citing the recent Consultative Group Meeting, convened by US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin at Ramstein Air Base, Mr. Lafontaine decried Germany’s lack of sovereignty, criticised the recklessness of NATO expansion and adventurism in Eastern Europe, and argued for Europe to ‘decouple from the United States’.

Equally surprising, Vienna-based left-liberal daily Der Standard — so far, a staunch stalwart of anti-Russian sentiment in neighbouring Austria — also published something quite antithetical to the established unconditional pro-Ukraine narrative in mid-July. On the occasion of the publication of the first volume of his memoirs, a reporter was dispatched to the remote corners of Northern Germany for an interview with none other than Egon Krenz, the last Secretary General of the East German Communist Party.

As quoted by Der Standard, according to Mr. Krenz, at the root of ‘this problem is the US and its claim to be the sole hegemon’. Not unlike Mr. Lafontaine, Mr. Krenz too proposed a reasonable way forward to resolve the current Russian-Ukrainian (NATO) conflict:

Just as European politicians went to see Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, they could also go to Washington and seek to convince President Joe Biden to negotiate with Russia on an equal footing on Putin’s December 2021 proposals for safeguarding Russian security interests. That would serve European interests.[1]

Of course, doing so is anathema to European foreign policy elites and their fellow travellers in legacy media—on both sides of the Atlantic. And while it is obvious that no one in the USA would welcome such a move, it is equally obvious that Europe’s leading politicians do not like to pursue foreign policies that serve their own interests.

Thus, one hears and reads daily that European politicians are ready to pay every price, even if the sovereign peoples of Europe would object to, as the example of Germany’s Annalena Baerbock’s comments illustrate. Speaking at the 26th Forum 2000 Conference in Prague, Czechia, the German Foreign Minister said:

We support you [Ukraine] and will support you as long as it takes, no matter what the German electorate thinks.[2]

It is very much obvious that European politicians do not wish to pursue policies that serve the peoples of Europe, to say nothing about any country’s national interest.

Recognition thereof leads inevitably to questions of the deep roots of post-WW2 European integration, which brought forth both the European Union as well as uncompromising support for Transatlanticism, most prominently the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

At this junction, it is well worth remembering that the European Union (EU) is less than thirty years old, as its foundational compact, the Treaty on European Union (also known as the Maastricht Treaty), went into effect on 1 November 1993. Amended repeatedly, most notably by the Treaty of Lisbon (2007), such dense background information is necessary to understand the structural forces underwriting European politics individually and in the aggregate, as well as to drive home the point that continued integration is the main project of all European politicians.

In this sense, all Europeans are sailors sitting in the same boat — yet, the metaphorical ‘SS Europa’ is drifting towards increasingly dangerous waters, steered by the very same politicians who proclaim an utter disrespect for the voting public.

Note that Ms. Baerbock is certainly not alone in her contempt for the electorate, as Chancellor Olaf Scholz’ interview with Time Magazine’s Lisa Abend and Naina Bajekal in April 2022 clearly shows.

Yet, as summer gives way to autumn, with legacy media warning of a ‘Winter of Rage’ (Der Standard), asking, ‘are we facing a winter of extremist protests?’ (German state broadcaster ARD), many Europeans are caught between a rock of rising prices for everything and a hard place of looming energy shortages, which may manifest themselves as blackouts in the depths of winter.

As European politicians and peoples alike ponder the benefits and disadvantages of continued reliance — dependence — on the United States in its multi-pronged quest to extending and eventually defeating Russia, it is well worth taking a look at the deep roots of Europe’s existential predicament.

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Please move over to Propaganda in Focus to read the rest.