Ask any European about the EU's purpose and you'll hear the standard answers: it prevents war, ensures free movement and trade, standardises chargers and bans US meat. The issue is visa agreements, trade deals and product quality regulations can't justify what is a forever expanding bureaucracy.
So in place of a real vision we have the negative vision of WW2 forever replayed.
This is maybe why the reaction to Ukraine has been so strange. The obsession with WW2 is like a trauma response, with Europe never getting past WWII's ghosts, unable to look at today's challenges with clear eyes. Any whiff of war or popular will or national unity triggers the bad memory and the reaction is hysterical. All of history has been collapsed into the period of WW2, so now all current events are interpreted against it.
The backward gaze is best shown by the 133 WWII films made since 2010 by NATO affiliated countries (as per wikipedia). Until the west, and Europe in particular releases this grip and allows Europe to move on, it will remain as described - a tasteless post-modernist reality (which presents the most credible vision of its future in the city centres of its major cities every day) we will see no change.
The paradox or deliberate hypocrisy lies in the fact that, alongside the official rhetoric claiming "Putin is the new Hitler," the EU supports a political regime in Ukraine that literally rehabilitates Nazism, glorifies Hitler's collaborators, and conducts a widespread campaign to destroy monuments to soldiers who fell fighting Nazi Germany. Moreover, this war was preceded by a policy of imposing a monoethnic, discriminatory agenda on a multilingual country—precisely the kind of thing that is supposedly banned within the EU itself. From the Russian perspective, therefore, the EU's Ukraine policy looks more like revenge against Russians (both Russian nationals and ethnic Russians in Ukraine) for the defeat of the Axis powers (who proclaimed themselves defenders of Europe against the "eastern barbarians" in 1941–1945). Admittedly, this might also be an oversimplification. Still, the combination of the EU's fundamentally anti-nationalist ethos with its support for the most caricatured form of ethnonationalism in Ukraine is striking in its doublethink. Though perhaps there’s nothing accidental about it.
My take on this is that European leaders are cookie-cut out copies of each other and share a common world view and belief system. In the absence now of a defining religion, this has replaced it and now the shared views are held with the same intensity and lack of scrutiny. So they all define certain issues in the same way, and problems all have the same solutions - even if they make no sense at all. This covers climate change and energy policy, the whole gamut of the woke nonesense, economics and trade, political acceptability and the "Overton Window", international relations and "aid" and of course Ukraine and security policy - just to name a few.
This world view is shared by a controlled and tame MSM that does its best to ensure sign up by the masses. And it is pretty successful in all of this - only a fraction of voters in each country actually rebel against the prevailing world view and narrative - maybe 20% to 30% max.
However this world view is so fundamentally flawed that it gives almost always disasterous outcomes. However let me tell you, heresy against the new religion is a dangerous business on many levels for individuals and movements and is becoming increasingly so. They say if something can't go on for ever it eventually stops. Well I'd there is quite a bit of mileage left in the orthodoxy and the counter-reformation inquisition has barely started. And so Europe's decline will continue.
A member of the european political class, whether in government, business, the media or academia, knows full well what views will get you promotions and plum assignments, and what views will get you cast into Outer Darkness.
This is why the answer to everything is "more europe!" and if the Unwashed Masses don't vote the right way, then ignore the unwanted election results.
Europe and its leaders are presented as having much agency. Not to be too conspiratorial here, but the Americans and CIA/NED/USAID/DoD did have a good hand in what has happened and what is happening now in Europe, including the crop of leaders it now has or wants to have.
After the shocking fall of USSR, it took only a couple of years for the Americans to wake up and want the sky - the prostration of Russia wasnot total though since its dissolution and complete disarmament was not achieved, although envisioned and sought. More urgent for men of importance in the US was how to suck dry of wealth the Russian state. CIA is a creation of the Wall Street and its lawyers after all, as a secretive army to smooth the road for the money interst and its freedom of movement (and debt creation and asset stripping). This is not conspiratorial and many weighty and well resourced books have been written so far about the subject.
Some Eastern European countries didn't care about NATO, just wanted in EU. But the US made as condition of joining EU the joining of NATO - nobody cared to explain then why Austria for instance was allowed to be part of EU but wasn't in NATO. But the more sensible ones were brushed aside and the crazy ones, the Balts and the Poles were given pre-eminence - the so called squicky wheel. People with a chip on their sholder, with superiority complexes that ended being dominated by inferior races and cultures (at limit, if you give such peoples too much power you get Israel...).
Then the 9/11 happened. And the Middle East (Western Asia, sorry) could now be re-aranged according to a cabal's wishes (I think the word is well chosen and I don't want to imply anything conspiratorial here). All ME republics could be dismantled and weakened. GCC sheicks, Israel, Wall St would stand to profit, and the US DoD would be in control of the flow of energy and able to choke the uppity ones. Now that plan sputteret a bit, especially politically, since the invasion of Iraq was not sanctioned by Europe.
And as Col. Larry Wilkerson (former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell) confirmed, after 2003, the US poured billions into Europe and the world in general in reshaping the political landscape and create the empty, cookie cutter politicians we have now. Wall Street had a big role to play (Aurelien keeps forgetting the bankers in all his essays and I don't understand this blindspot). And now we have Macron, Merz, likely Carney (please, please, check their background and do imbue yourself with the tidbits provided by Col Smithers from NC), and their ilk, ready to create more debt and privatization, and really kill the state and commonwealth goose for good. And in this case the US seems to be running ahead of the pack, and dreaming of the spoils from killing the Chinese whale.
But that doesn't mean Aurelien's conclusion is not right: "Why anyone should want to defend the Europe we have, is beyond me." Indeed, I have not seen any EU flag in the demonstrations happening now in Romania, who is now primed to join Ukraine for the slaughter. Like in 1941.
Nearly all, both conservative and liberal, nearly all EU leaders went though USA run NGO bootcamps, universities, and other NGO vetting before they were allowed to rise through their respective political party, university administration, news/propaganda organization. They get validation from the same closed circle of friends, cum failures in real life. They must stick together to have any power and any measure of success. They are a cult separate from their people, beholden to the cult leaders in Langley, VA, Foggy Bottom, DC, and London. There is no choice for the people, just like the monoparty in the USA, the differences is window dressing. Get rid of this lot and their replacements are the same.
The historical roots of European conflicts are fascinating and revealing.
The communication strategy of Europeans, both externally and internally, often makes it seem as if their fears are just a shadow of the past.
Perhaps some elites really do see it that way. But there were enough warnings.
Many experts predicted that NATO's eastward expansion would lead to precisely this escalation.
Either our political class didn't believe it - or they simply didn't care.
I think they knew exactly that it was risky.
But neoliberalism is a machine - it needs expansion to avoid being stalled.
Germany always wanted to use Europe as a lever for its global influence. The uncompromising association agreement with Ukraine in 2013 was not an act of solidarity - it was about new sales markets.
At the same time, the USA wanted to bring Russia under control in order to position it against China.
Now that it has gone wrong?
The USA is withdrawing from Ukraine, correcting its course and focussing on its main adversary: China.
Europe?
🔹 Cheap energy gone.
🔹 Sales markets gone.
🔹 Soft power gone.
As the BRICS overtake the G7 economically, it becomes clear what is really at stake: the Western arrogance of thinking they are the measure of all things.
Our political class was not smart enough to recognise this. Instead of focussing on cooperation, it wanted to hold on to its old dominance and in doing so, it shot itself in the foot.
There are between 6 and 7 million Ukrainian refugees in europe nearly all are in the EU , two thirds of Ukrainians are of working age , are we to beleive that Starmer and the EU president as well as other EU politicians calling for war against Russia are expecting people from UK and EU to fight against Russia in Ukraine whilst upwards of 20% of Ukrainians sit in their new , albeit temporary EU / UK refugee homes watching this on the tv news ?
It is interesting that you refer to European wars as civil wars. Recently I've been working my way through Chinese geopolitical scholars and their analyses of Europe today works from that very premisse. Which offers a refreshing perspective.
One can argue that European elites have been detached from reality since the days of the French revolution. Platonic idealism has replaced realism in Europe - with a few notable historic exceptions. Political cynics like Bismarck spring to mind.
Over the past two centuries complex social constructs have been created to organize nation states on corporate principles - with a thin veneer of morality to sell it to the populace at large. Deep down there is little difference between liberalism or Marxism - they are built on the same foundations.
In elite thinking today a 'clockwork universe' philosophy has reduced people to simple lifeless cogs in a machine. Sure, you have to grease the wheels from time to time and some of the machinery will require regular overhauls, but a machine it is nonetheless.
Cogs can be replaced, even the cogs at the heart of the machine. And with their machinery falling apart the European elite panics. If they weren't stuck in their own social constructs they could think their way out of this.
Maybe it is not just Europe that needs to find it's raison d'etre - Societies across the globe are facing similar problems at varying degrees. In the end it may be all about rediscovering what it is like to be human.
Very good Aurelian. I think there is a huge amount of effort by the Western elites to keep everyone at loggerheads and cash in on the uncertainty. In reading Jonathan Sumptions history of the Hundred Years War, it was astonishing to read that the English king was relying on a mercenary navy provided by the Grimaldi family of Monaco. They still run Monaco almost a thousand years later. They won't be the only ancient family still in place after centuries of plunder. Conspiracy? Who knows, but how can you write it off.
Which explains how a nationalistic tail can wag a dog. And even more disturbing can apparently convince an intellectually challenged very big dog to give it more toys just for agreeing to something it knows the other very big dog will never accept.
1. "Europe had confronted outside threats before: the Ottoman Threat, for example, was not finally halted until the end of the seventeenth century."
The difference btween europe in 1683 and europe in 1945 was that the european of 1683 didn't see world hegemony as something europeans were entitled to as a matter of Divine Right. Hell, even belgium had colonies in 1945.
If they have mastered nothing else, europeans are great at kissing up and kicking down. Take away the Americans and they really are nothing.
2. "There were, of course, a fair number of aggressive and unreconstructed Cold Warriors actively hoping for conflict with Russia, but they were decidedly rarer in Europe than in the United States."
I dunno, the West German Bundeswehr general staff seem to have largely been unreconstructed Nazis for a while. Not only that, but the Americans and british seem to have encouraged this, letting every Wehrmacht general blame everything on Hitler, while they of course, were innocent of any crime.
Wow. One of your best, if not the best so far, Aurelian. Thank you.
My first thought was, this MUST be translated into Russian!
But then I realized how much will be lost in translation... and besides, those interested would be able to read it in English anyway.
But for the sake of strategic empathy, this needs to be widely read by the Russians. It is a breathtaking short tour of the current state of the European psyche, unsparing yet also sympathetic, with just enough historical background and examples to hint at the depth of knowledge and experience behind each and every statement.
Russian psyche has been so steeped in the narratives of the powerful West invading us, scheming to crush us, to break us, to plunder us, we do tend to forget about fairly recent times when the West had legitimate reasons to be very scared of us. It helps to be more aware of the various skeletons in the Western "mind closet", all of which we tend to either overlook or misunderstand.
This is superb — the premise that Europe is now somehow going to magic up internal comity to go to war on its periphery, against all the evidence of history, is at best a dangerous and delusional fantasy.
An excellent article. Indeed, Europe is lost, which is a pity because it is one of my favourite places. I do hope that they can throw off the shackles of this odious EU/Globalist leadership and rekindle their national sovereignty, but without having to wage pointless wars with each other.
I just want to add that economist/historian Michael Hudson builds on top of what you write, focusing on the economic side of history.
For instance, large banking interests greatly encouraged the nation-state, because while a king could default on a debt, when the debt belongs to the entire nation it's much harder. And economics are a far, FAR larger factor behind wars and conflict than our history teaches us.
Thank you for a very well thought out analysis which I will read again several times to really both understand and appreciate your thinking on this critical issue. Where everything has become a politicized Pareto distribution, it’s amazing how consistently our elites come out supporting the 20% proposition against the 80% populist ask.
Judeo-Freemasonry has been attacking Christendom for hundreds of years. They have used liberalism (USA) and communism (Russia/USSR) to tear apart all European Christian hierarchical societies and institutions from monarchies to the Catholic Church. Their efforts include the destruction of Rhodesia and South Africa. They bombed Catholics at Dresden (perhaps the real holocaust right before Ash Wednesday) and Nagasaki. This has been an all-domain, global war.
Europe has abandoned the Catholic Faith, the one unifying source of rights and legitimacy. Since the Europeans have abandoned God, they will be allowed to be deceived and succumb to the operation of error. Private revelation says that Europe will suffer from Muslim and Russian invasion. And Europe has little military power to prevent this. Welcome to the times of Fatima. Convert.
Ask any European about the EU's purpose and you'll hear the standard answers: it prevents war, ensures free movement and trade, standardises chargers and bans US meat. The issue is visa agreements, trade deals and product quality regulations can't justify what is a forever expanding bureaucracy.
So in place of a real vision we have the negative vision of WW2 forever replayed.
This is maybe why the reaction to Ukraine has been so strange. The obsession with WW2 is like a trauma response, with Europe never getting past WWII's ghosts, unable to look at today's challenges with clear eyes. Any whiff of war or popular will or national unity triggers the bad memory and the reaction is hysterical. All of history has been collapsed into the period of WW2, so now all current events are interpreted against it.
The backward gaze is best shown by the 133 WWII films made since 2010 by NATO affiliated countries (as per wikipedia). Until the west, and Europe in particular releases this grip and allows Europe to move on, it will remain as described - a tasteless post-modernist reality (which presents the most credible vision of its future in the city centres of its major cities every day) we will see no change.
The paradox or deliberate hypocrisy lies in the fact that, alongside the official rhetoric claiming "Putin is the new Hitler," the EU supports a political regime in Ukraine that literally rehabilitates Nazism, glorifies Hitler's collaborators, and conducts a widespread campaign to destroy monuments to soldiers who fell fighting Nazi Germany. Moreover, this war was preceded by a policy of imposing a monoethnic, discriminatory agenda on a multilingual country—precisely the kind of thing that is supposedly banned within the EU itself. From the Russian perspective, therefore, the EU's Ukraine policy looks more like revenge against Russians (both Russian nationals and ethnic Russians in Ukraine) for the defeat of the Axis powers (who proclaimed themselves defenders of Europe against the "eastern barbarians" in 1941–1945). Admittedly, this might also be an oversimplification. Still, the combination of the EU's fundamentally anti-nationalist ethos with its support for the most caricatured form of ethnonationalism in Ukraine is striking in its doublethink. Though perhaps there’s nothing accidental about it.
In terms of Ukraine you forgot the enormous omnipresent secret police apparatus which has a tight grip on any deviant of the wrong culture.
They even boast on TV how fully armed squads kick in doors of average people engaging in wrong telegram channels.
The european hypocrisy is mind boggling.
I don't think that is any secret. The eurocrats know all this full well, and they do not care.
My take on this is that European leaders are cookie-cut out copies of each other and share a common world view and belief system. In the absence now of a defining religion, this has replaced it and now the shared views are held with the same intensity and lack of scrutiny. So they all define certain issues in the same way, and problems all have the same solutions - even if they make no sense at all. This covers climate change and energy policy, the whole gamut of the woke nonesense, economics and trade, political acceptability and the "Overton Window", international relations and "aid" and of course Ukraine and security policy - just to name a few.
This world view is shared by a controlled and tame MSM that does its best to ensure sign up by the masses. And it is pretty successful in all of this - only a fraction of voters in each country actually rebel against the prevailing world view and narrative - maybe 20% to 30% max.
However this world view is so fundamentally flawed that it gives almost always disasterous outcomes. However let me tell you, heresy against the new religion is a dangerous business on many levels for individuals and movements and is becoming increasingly so. They say if something can't go on for ever it eventually stops. Well I'd there is quite a bit of mileage left in the orthodoxy and the counter-reformation inquisition has barely started. And so Europe's decline will continue.
A member of the european political class, whether in government, business, the media or academia, knows full well what views will get you promotions and plum assignments, and what views will get you cast into Outer Darkness.
This is why the answer to everything is "more europe!" and if the Unwashed Masses don't vote the right way, then ignore the unwanted election results.
Europeans are very good at groupthink.
Europe and its leaders are presented as having much agency. Not to be too conspiratorial here, but the Americans and CIA/NED/USAID/DoD did have a good hand in what has happened and what is happening now in Europe, including the crop of leaders it now has or wants to have.
After the shocking fall of USSR, it took only a couple of years for the Americans to wake up and want the sky - the prostration of Russia wasnot total though since its dissolution and complete disarmament was not achieved, although envisioned and sought. More urgent for men of importance in the US was how to suck dry of wealth the Russian state. CIA is a creation of the Wall Street and its lawyers after all, as a secretive army to smooth the road for the money interst and its freedom of movement (and debt creation and asset stripping). This is not conspiratorial and many weighty and well resourced books have been written so far about the subject.
Some Eastern European countries didn't care about NATO, just wanted in EU. But the US made as condition of joining EU the joining of NATO - nobody cared to explain then why Austria for instance was allowed to be part of EU but wasn't in NATO. But the more sensible ones were brushed aside and the crazy ones, the Balts and the Poles were given pre-eminence - the so called squicky wheel. People with a chip on their sholder, with superiority complexes that ended being dominated by inferior races and cultures (at limit, if you give such peoples too much power you get Israel...).
Then the 9/11 happened. And the Middle East (Western Asia, sorry) could now be re-aranged according to a cabal's wishes (I think the word is well chosen and I don't want to imply anything conspiratorial here). All ME republics could be dismantled and weakened. GCC sheicks, Israel, Wall St would stand to profit, and the US DoD would be in control of the flow of energy and able to choke the uppity ones. Now that plan sputteret a bit, especially politically, since the invasion of Iraq was not sanctioned by Europe.
And as Col. Larry Wilkerson (former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell) confirmed, after 2003, the US poured billions into Europe and the world in general in reshaping the political landscape and create the empty, cookie cutter politicians we have now. Wall Street had a big role to play (Aurelien keeps forgetting the bankers in all his essays and I don't understand this blindspot). And now we have Macron, Merz, likely Carney (please, please, check their background and do imbue yourself with the tidbits provided by Col Smithers from NC), and their ilk, ready to create more debt and privatization, and really kill the state and commonwealth goose for good. And in this case the US seems to be running ahead of the pack, and dreaming of the spoils from killing the Chinese whale.
But that doesn't mean Aurelien's conclusion is not right: "Why anyone should want to defend the Europe we have, is beyond me." Indeed, I have not seen any EU flag in the demonstrations happening now in Romania, who is now primed to join Ukraine for the slaughter. Like in 1941.
Nearly all, both conservative and liberal, nearly all EU leaders went though USA run NGO bootcamps, universities, and other NGO vetting before they were allowed to rise through their respective political party, university administration, news/propaganda organization. They get validation from the same closed circle of friends, cum failures in real life. They must stick together to have any power and any measure of success. They are a cult separate from their people, beholden to the cult leaders in Langley, VA, Foggy Bottom, DC, and London. There is no choice for the people, just like the monoparty in the USA, the differences is window dressing. Get rid of this lot and their replacements are the same.
The historical roots of European conflicts are fascinating and revealing.
The communication strategy of Europeans, both externally and internally, often makes it seem as if their fears are just a shadow of the past.
Perhaps some elites really do see it that way. But there were enough warnings.
Many experts predicted that NATO's eastward expansion would lead to precisely this escalation.
Either our political class didn't believe it - or they simply didn't care.
I think they knew exactly that it was risky.
But neoliberalism is a machine - it needs expansion to avoid being stalled.
Germany always wanted to use Europe as a lever for its global influence. The uncompromising association agreement with Ukraine in 2013 was not an act of solidarity - it was about new sales markets.
At the same time, the USA wanted to bring Russia under control in order to position it against China.
Now that it has gone wrong?
The USA is withdrawing from Ukraine, correcting its course and focussing on its main adversary: China.
Europe?
🔹 Cheap energy gone.
🔹 Sales markets gone.
🔹 Soft power gone.
As the BRICS overtake the G7 economically, it becomes clear what is really at stake: the Western arrogance of thinking they are the measure of all things.
Our political class was not smart enough to recognise this. Instead of focussing on cooperation, it wanted to hold on to its old dominance and in doing so, it shot itself in the foot.
There are between 6 and 7 million Ukrainian refugees in europe nearly all are in the EU , two thirds of Ukrainians are of working age , are we to beleive that Starmer and the EU president as well as other EU politicians calling for war against Russia are expecting people from UK and EU to fight against Russia in Ukraine whilst upwards of 20% of Ukrainians sit in their new , albeit temporary EU / UK refugee homes watching this on the tv news ?
It is interesting that you refer to European wars as civil wars. Recently I've been working my way through Chinese geopolitical scholars and their analyses of Europe today works from that very premisse. Which offers a refreshing perspective.
One can argue that European elites have been detached from reality since the days of the French revolution. Platonic idealism has replaced realism in Europe - with a few notable historic exceptions. Political cynics like Bismarck spring to mind.
Over the past two centuries complex social constructs have been created to organize nation states on corporate principles - with a thin veneer of morality to sell it to the populace at large. Deep down there is little difference between liberalism or Marxism - they are built on the same foundations.
In elite thinking today a 'clockwork universe' philosophy has reduced people to simple lifeless cogs in a machine. Sure, you have to grease the wheels from time to time and some of the machinery will require regular overhauls, but a machine it is nonetheless.
Cogs can be replaced, even the cogs at the heart of the machine. And with their machinery falling apart the European elite panics. If they weren't stuck in their own social constructs they could think their way out of this.
Maybe it is not just Europe that needs to find it's raison d'etre - Societies across the globe are facing similar problems at varying degrees. In the end it may be all about rediscovering what it is like to be human.
Very good Aurelian. I think there is a huge amount of effort by the Western elites to keep everyone at loggerheads and cash in on the uncertainty. In reading Jonathan Sumptions history of the Hundred Years War, it was astonishing to read that the English king was relying on a mercenary navy provided by the Grimaldi family of Monaco. They still run Monaco almost a thousand years later. They won't be the only ancient family still in place after centuries of plunder. Conspiracy? Who knows, but how can you write it off.
Which explains how a nationalistic tail can wag a dog. And even more disturbing can apparently convince an intellectually challenged very big dog to give it more toys just for agreeing to something it knows the other very big dog will never accept.
Listening has obviously gone out of fashion.
1. "Europe had confronted outside threats before: the Ottoman Threat, for example, was not finally halted until the end of the seventeenth century."
The difference btween europe in 1683 and europe in 1945 was that the european of 1683 didn't see world hegemony as something europeans were entitled to as a matter of Divine Right. Hell, even belgium had colonies in 1945.
If they have mastered nothing else, europeans are great at kissing up and kicking down. Take away the Americans and they really are nothing.
2. "There were, of course, a fair number of aggressive and unreconstructed Cold Warriors actively hoping for conflict with Russia, but they were decidedly rarer in Europe than in the United States."
I dunno, the West German Bundeswehr general staff seem to have largely been unreconstructed Nazis for a while. Not only that, but the Americans and british seem to have encouraged this, letting every Wehrmacht general blame everything on Hitler, while they of course, were innocent of any crime.
Wow. One of your best, if not the best so far, Aurelian. Thank you.
My first thought was, this MUST be translated into Russian!
But then I realized how much will be lost in translation... and besides, those interested would be able to read it in English anyway.
But for the sake of strategic empathy, this needs to be widely read by the Russians. It is a breathtaking short tour of the current state of the European psyche, unsparing yet also sympathetic, with just enough historical background and examples to hint at the depth of knowledge and experience behind each and every statement.
Russian psyche has been so steeped in the narratives of the powerful West invading us, scheming to crush us, to break us, to plunder us, we do tend to forget about fairly recent times when the West had legitimate reasons to be very scared of us. It helps to be more aware of the various skeletons in the Western "mind closet", all of which we tend to either overlook or misunderstand.
So, once again, thank you.
This is superb — the premise that Europe is now somehow going to magic up internal comity to go to war on its periphery, against all the evidence of history, is at best a dangerous and delusional fantasy.
An excellent article. Indeed, Europe is lost, which is a pity because it is one of my favourite places. I do hope that they can throw off the shackles of this odious EU/Globalist leadership and rekindle their national sovereignty, but without having to wage pointless wars with each other.
Thank you for an excellent essay.
I just want to add that economist/historian Michael Hudson builds on top of what you write, focusing on the economic side of history.
For instance, large banking interests greatly encouraged the nation-state, because while a king could default on a debt, when the debt belongs to the entire nation it's much harder. And economics are a far, FAR larger factor behind wars and conflict than our history teaches us.
Thank you for a very well thought out analysis which I will read again several times to really both understand and appreciate your thinking on this critical issue. Where everything has become a politicized Pareto distribution, it’s amazing how consistently our elites come out supporting the 20% proposition against the 80% populist ask.
Judeo-Freemasonry has been attacking Christendom for hundreds of years. They have used liberalism (USA) and communism (Russia/USSR) to tear apart all European Christian hierarchical societies and institutions from monarchies to the Catholic Church. Their efforts include the destruction of Rhodesia and South Africa. They bombed Catholics at Dresden (perhaps the real holocaust right before Ash Wednesday) and Nagasaki. This has been an all-domain, global war.
Europe has abandoned the Catholic Faith, the one unifying source of rights and legitimacy. Since the Europeans have abandoned God, they will be allowed to be deceived and succumb to the operation of error. Private revelation says that Europe will suffer from Muslim and Russian invasion. And Europe has little military power to prevent this. Welcome to the times of Fatima. Convert.