I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but maybe my blog went down yesterday because Dark Forces (aka, Russian hackers) may have objected to this post on the problems of the European Union. George Friedman runs Stratfor, a private intelligence company with a client list of governments and corporations. Friedman presents a detailed history of Europe leading up to the forming of the European Union. His parents fled Hungry and after an incredible journey, settled in the United States. Friedman developed a fascination with Europe based on the stories his mother and father told him. He has visited Europe dozens of times. Friedman believes the European Union is inherently unstable. History and centuries of conflict trump the European dream of unity and prosperity. Of course, if the European Union breaks up–and with the BREXIT crisis this looks more likely–the aftermath will affect the United States. The Russians, of course, would be the biggest beneficiaries of the collapse of the European Union. If you’re interested in global politics, Flashpoints provides a detailed analysis of the problems ahead. Highly recommended. GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
List of Illustratoins
Preface
PART ONE: European exceptionalism
A European life
Europe’s assault on the world
The fragmentation of the European mind
PART TWO: Thirty-one years
Slaughter
Exhaustion
The American origins of European integration
Crisis and division
PART THREE: Flashpoints
The wars of Maastricht
The German question once more
Mainland and peninsula
Russia and its borderlands
France, Germany, and their ancient borderlands
Mediterranean Europe between Islam and Germany
Turkey on the edge
Britain.
That certainly is timely, isn’t it? Too bad future President Trump (God forbid!) has – on the word of his ghostwriter – never read an entire book straight through in his adult life.
This is scary. He relies on his “gut” for his worldview, and his gut tells him Putin is a good guy!
Scary.
Jeff, Friedman argues that Putin will take advantage of a crumbling European Union to advance Russian interests. Trump already said that he wouldn’t support NATO countries if they didn’t pay their dues! That’s an invitation to the Russians to make an invasion!
I often wonder what’s in it for gurus like Friedman who pronounce the EU (almost) dead.
Maybe I’m too much of an optimist but I believe that most of the relevant people in Europe know that the EU has to continue and develop – or we’ll be back to the 19th/early 20th Century (and before …) where every generation saw or rather had to endure at least one major war!
If the pessimists are right – then good bye Europa, good bye democracy, good bye humanity!
My frineds and relatives and my Hungarian wife often remember those horrible times and we are so happy that not only do we enjoy peace, can we travel freely in (most of …) Europe – and of course the USA and … (my granddaughter and her boyfriend just started the second year of their journey through Asia and Australia after finishing their studies …) and have an unprecedented wealth – compared to what our ancestors had!
Do we want to give this up by returning to nationalism?
Re Friedman and Stratfor:
I just remembered a dsicussion in Hungary two years ago.
Friedman became (in)famous for declaring Hungary’s right wing prime minister Orbán (who is big friend of Putin btw – some even call him a Russian mole in the EU …) a sucessful politician who does the right things – like trying to reduce the EU to amere economic partnership.
And there also was talsk about Stratfor being paid by the Hungarian government – so I wonder who paid for this?
Wolf, Friedman’s client list probably includes European governments and politicians. But I found his analysis provocative.
YAWN!
Bob, maybe you should get your CPAP checked out. You’re yawning a lot!
It seems the whole planet is going to hell in a hand basket. Sometimes I’m glad I’m old enough that I won’t see some of the grimmest things, like humans destroy their one and only planet, play out in entirety. As for the subject of this book, I just wonder why so many people seem to have lost their ability to reason, or to care.
Rick, Friedman points out that Europe was the bastion of Reason and the Enlightenment. Then the European countries fought two bloody World Wars where over 100 million Europeans were killed! There has been a shaky Peace in the decades that followed the end of WWII but violence could flare up quickly.
George, I think here Friedman is totally wrong!
“The Enlightenment” lead to the Napoleonic wars which were totally in the tradition of most European countries fighting a war every generation – until WW2. And a part of the reason for that were those horrible degenerate, even incestous dynasties of Kings/Emperors in Europe – they were all related to each other but still fighting against each other.
And thenafter WW2 there was peace in Central Europe at least among the formerly big warring powers – only some small crazy countries continued …
I wonder why these lunatics (yes, I have to call them that!) are so eagerly fighting and/or talkinf down the EU. What’s in there for them?
Wolf, some people benefit from Chaos. You’re right about those ancient dynasties. But the real culprit was technology. The invention of the machine gun changed the nature of war.
The Trump-Putin-Russian-kleptogarch-money-laundering connection is really scary. Although I try to avoid the comments on political blogs, whenever I read something that tries to present Putin and his ambitions in a favorable light, I always assume it’s one of Putin’s army of trolls who spend all day cruising American and European blogs and attempting to make Putin’s ambitions seem “reasonable”.
Deb, you’re very astute! There’s an Internet movement to spin Putin as a “nice guy.” I’m not buying it.
Deb, totally agree!
I’ve even read reports on that trollfactory in St Peterburg (not the one in Florida – which we enjoyed very much btw) and it seems there are several of them. Some weeks ago they put up a story about a gang rape of a Russian girl in Berlin by refugees in Germany – which was later found out to be a total falsification!
And Stratfor /Friedman are very dangerous, because people believe them – for me they are the academic equivalent of breitbart.com!
Some people will do anything for money and/or some crazy ideas …
For those interested in the unscrupulous “logic” of Stratfor – we had a discussion two years ago on a report by Friedman on Hungary – full of inconsistencies (or outright lies?), of course paid for by the Hungarian government:
http://hungarianspectrum.org/2014/05/20/a-critique-of-a-political-analysis-on-hungary-by-stratfors-george-friedman/
Btw Eva Balogh, the author of HS is a retired professor at Yale and many of the contributors live in the USA …
And here’s a very moving book – the strory of a Jewish survivor in Budapest in WW2:
http://www.academia.edu/4019475/The_Explanation_by_Steve_Colman
Wolf–last week there was a very long thread on one of the left-leaning blogs I read regularly. It started with a comment that began, “I’m a Hillary supporter, but…” and went on outline a very pro-Putin stance, not something I imagine too many Hillary supporters believing. Then there were a bunch of comments “liking” the first comment. Then someone else popped up and said all of the previous comments were from people who just created their accounts within the last 30 minutes and the only purpose was apparently to “like” a pro-Putin post and they were obviously Putin trolls. Then the pro-Putin commentators lashed back. On and on it went–a veritable online Doneybrook! I’ve come to disregarding any comment beginning, “I’m a liberal/Democrat/Hillary supporter, but…” because I’m convinced 99% of them come from people who very much are not!
Deb, a funny story in a way. These trolls are often easy to find out …
A comment of mine is in moderation because I put in two links probably.
Just read on a German site that actor Will Smith used really strong words on Trump – will that help?
Here’s the story:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/aug/03/will-smith-donald-trump-supporters-collective-insanity
And he concludes:
“I have faith in America,” he said. “America has had really critical times, but the good [people] tend to make their way to the top.”
My, what interesting times we live in. Dammit!
Excuse me. I’m going back to bed and pull the covers over my head.
Jerry, I don’t blame you. The signs of the times are ominous.
You know how some SF writers make a story by following a tend/theory/idea to it’s furyhe3st ends? The kind of story where Feminists have taken over & subjugate men, or society has become enslaved in the name of security, or people reduced to uselessness by their own laziness. It strikes me this is that sort of story, told as non-fiction, when the truth is (for better or worse) nothing ever gets taken to its logical conclusion.
Dan, Friedman’s FLASHPOINTS was published in 2015. Some of Friedman’s predictions have already come true!
That doesn’t mean much!
Did you know that Arthur C Clarke “predicted” Brexit many years ago?
‘But Britain was declining. As part of unified Europe – deprived of tools of macroeconomic policy like control of exchange and interest rates, and yet unsheltered by the imperfectly integrated greater economy – the British government was unable to arrest a sharp economic collapse. At last, in 2010, social unrest and climate collapse forced Britain out of the European Union, and the United Kingdom fell apart, Scotland going its own separate way. […] Then in 2019, England, with Wales, ceded Northern Ireland to Eire, packed off the Royals to Australia – where they were still welcome – and had become the fifty-second state of the United States of America.’ (Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter, The Light of Other Days [chapter 1], 2000)
Found this via the really intereting SF fanzine of David Langford – ansible:
http://news.ansible.uk/a348.html
Wolf, you’re right about Arthur C. Clarke! The man could see into the Future! Not only did he predict space satellites (among other things) but he knew BREXIT was just a matter of time!
If anyone’s really intereted in the story of Jews in Hungary (what Friedman heard from his parents may have been a bit, well …) – here is a very moving account by someone who survived WW2 in Budapest as a young Jew (with lots of luck and help from unexpected directions, like the headmsitress of a brothel …):
http://www.academia.edu/4019475/The_Explanation_by_Steve_Colman
Ypou canread all 180 pages online or download it for free …
At 20 years of age Steve left Hungary in 1946 after realising that the ussian Communists were not better than the German (and Hungarian …) Nazis!
Sorry for the mistakes, my computer/keyboard has problems, the spellchecker seeme out of order and there is no update facility here …
Wolf, no problem. Your comments are pure gold!
Wolf, I found Friedman’s account of his parents flight across war-torn European extremely moving.