Europe's March of the Dammed: Hysteria for war today, euphoria for war tomorrow: the Europeans are still frightened and divided, and therefore still weak and powerless. Will war fever seize them again

German soldiers cheering in a railroad car on the way to the front in 1914.

The continent is racing in Seven-Mile-Boots toward its next calamity. The Trump-Abandonment shock is stoking a war fever not seen in a century.

Europe is going through one of its worst fits of war hysteria since the early 20th century. The Slovenian historian and journalist, Uroš Lipušcek recently correctly pointed out that much of Europe has been gripped by a new form of pro-war narrative that is posing as a discourse on common defense and “necessary” militarization.

The immediate cause is the recent change in US foreign policy rhetoric, which is finally serving the Europeans big sips of reality, including the admission that the US is not an omnipotent military demigod, capable of conjuring up unlimited resources. Nor is it a benign hegemon that, out of the purity of its heart, takes the feeble under its protective wings. Least of all is the butchery in Ukraine an “unprovoked” war of Russian imperial conquest. The Trump administration made it clear that this travesty is very much a US-Russian Proxy War, fought out over the heads of the Europeans and without concern for their political interests.

While utterly obvious to some outcast realists, this has come as a veritable shock to much of Europe’s trans-atlantically intoxicated defense establishment, who not only took US military support for granted but were living in the blissful illusion that Washington was a “partner” of equal standing to them in this sick, Brzezinski-esque game of thrones.

Recognizing battleground realities (that the war is lost), Trump is trying to extricate the US from its failed Ukrainian adventure. But the rest of NATO is shell-shocked about what hit them. They still believe in a fairy-tale version of world politics, in which this complex 30-year drama of a failed Post-Cold War order can be reduced to a question of “god vs evil”.

Well, tough luck Europe (and Canada), you got plaid. You never were a partner; you were a willing tool. And you were never being protected, you were being used to achieve US goals on the Eurasian continent. Welcome to reality land, suckers.

Peace? Oh No!

While the rapprochement between the US and Russia should be highly welcome news to Europe which, after all, has once more become the battleground for a terrible great-power conflict, de-escalation is in fact the last thing the Europeans anticipated or wanted. The previous US administrations (including Trump 1) had so successfully prepared them for their role as the arm of the empire that will drive the Ukrainian knife into the Russian brown-bear, that this turn of events is simply incomprehensible to them.

A European war poodle rejoicing blissfully at the sight of his master’s praise.

Wasn’t this joint commitment supposed to last “as long as it takes” and wasn’t Ukraine’s path into NATO “irreversible”? Well, turns out that all it takes is one press conference of the NATO Secretary General sitting next to the US President to reverse the entire script. And that empty Dutch suit just sat there and smiled, reminiscent of German Chancellor Scholz who, back in 2021, stood there in silence when President Biden announced that the USA would end North Stream in case of a Russian attack on Ukraine.

There you go, Europe, that’s what real power looks like. Compelling your underlings to smile about their own demise. Credit, where credit is due. The USA really perfected the art of satellite management.

The Wrong Lessons

Europe—which includes the UK, the EU, Ukraine, and other third or fourth-tier dependencies like Switzerland—has been caught with its pants down. The new script shatters not only their political approach but their entire war narrative. Everything is upside down. This means a new narrative needs to be constructed, one that incorporates the last one and rationalizes away this unwelcome shift of events. After all, what really needs protection is the fragile European mind. It needs to be sheltered from the inevitable cognitive dissonance that otherwise would lead to much-needed reflective introspection and a reconciliatory correction of its failed policies.

But no, not the old continent of the Grand Nation, the Queen’s Empire, and the Third Reich. That’s not the way Eurasia’s crazy western peninsular operates. Admitting that one did something wrong only happens post-military defeat or 200 years after the fact. Only once the consequences of the admission cannot hurt you anymore, long-dead forefathers will be blamed for a couple of minor excesses like “colonialism” or “genocide”, and redemptive email footers about indigenous lands will be implemented to absolve the guilty minds of the great-grandchildren of the colonial genociders.

Hence, as so often, the Europeans are learning the wrong lessons. A great number of mainstream pundits are blaming Trump and his (supposed) authoritarian tendencies for their shattered worldview. How else to explain that the USA is unwilling to go to a Third World War with the European poodles on the “right side of history” against the Russian devil? Much of Europe has internalized this binary fantasy land so profoundly that they can’t escape its irrational but deadly grip.

Militarizing to Ruins

For now, what this leaves Europe with is a chorus of war and scare-mongering braindead kleptocrats, paying tribute to the newest dictate from Washington: „Thou shalt increase thy defense budget.” Glory Hallelujah.

How many times in the past 500 years has an increase in defense spending helped the Europeans not to go to war with each other? Honestly. How many times? Can anyone point me to the actual data that shows that militarization did not lead to war on the continent? It didn‘t work in the 1780s, it didn‘t work in the 1900s, it didn‘t work in the 1930s, please anyone, explain to me how it is that the Europeans expect this to work in the 2020s? Fools!

To make matters worse, there are now open calls in Europe to achieve the increase in military expenses by cutting back on social spending. Beyond the already ongoing (civil) deindustrialization of the continent, this will obviously make matters even worse for the lower- and middle-income classes. Research shows that economic hardship only increases the propensity toward militarization and the likelihood for war, which is certainly a welcome implication for Brussels. It is going to speed up the new European war project.

And let me add at this point that defense budget targeting—be it a relative number like a percentage of GDP or a nominal goal—is the most ridiculous and downright stupid way of approaching national security since the invention of suicide bombing. How dumb does one need to get to think that security is best approached by conjuring up a spending target and then somehow justifying a threat to match it?

Obviously, sound security thinking starts with a cool-headed and realistic threat analysis and then reasons backward to come up with needed capabilities and a budget to achieve them. Doing things the other way around is like starting to pee before looking for a toilet. Naturally, you will sully yourself.

Next Stop: War Euphoria

A german leader announcing a re-militarization program. What could go wrong?

But here we are, at the dawn of “ReArm”, the EU Führerin’s latest idea for achieving peace on the post-American protectorate by way of more arms. For now, the Europeans are caught in a war hysteria of their own making, as they have abandoned the rational thinking needed to realistically assess the actual threats around them. All they see is a Russian Hitler who’ll swallow them whole if they don’t step up to do what the USA is unwilling to deliver; a proper victory of good over evil.

For now, the Europeans are scared and disunited, hence they are weak and powerless. But no one should make the mistake of underestimating this little peninsula’s capacity to great foolishness. If a rational discourse about the actual causes of the Ukraine War does not set in, and the ReArm spirit catches on, the Europeans will, in due time, develop the implements of war needed to once more wreck their homeland for decades to come—and probably other people’s lands, too.

Once the hysteria gives room to euphoria, once the discourse shifts from “fear” to “pride” and the idea that “now is the time”, we will once again see the beaming faces of young men and women on train wagons headed toward the battlefield. They will not only have forgotten the pain and rupture of war, they will be delighted that finally it is happening. The young will believe they are revenging the injustices of the past at the behest of the old who will send them to their graves.

It is going to be the next walk of the damned, for they can’t escape themselves.

Europe’s Walk of The Dammed: War Hysteria Today, War Euphoria Tomorrow