The European Union Is At War

Yes, the European Union is at war.

It is a war with three main fronts: the eastern front, the southern front, and the western front.

Eastern front. In 2014, Putinism -- the cultural, political and social logic of a 21st century Russo-imperialism (a.k.a. a revanchist Eurasian petro-colonialism based on unsustainable energy-rents, comparable to theocratic Iran and monarchical Saudi Arabia) which had frittered away $2 trillion of oil and gas revenues on Olympic circuses and massive insider corruption -- launched a revanchist imperial war against the people of Ukraine. It quickly seized the Ukrainian district of Crimea, and hatched plans to occupy fully one half of Ukraine's territory (the lunatic notion of a "Novorossiya" or "New Russia", extending from Rostov to Transniestria). The Ukrainians fought back, eventually retaking two-thirds of the Donbas. Timothy Snyder has pointed out, correctly, Putinism's goal was never to destroy Ukraine, but to destroy the transnational organization the people of Ukraine, by a vast majority, wished to join: the democracies of the European Union. Why were the Putinists so angry? Because if Ukraine had joined the EU, it would have been a successful economy and role model for Belarus and Russia, much as Poland's success was a model for the rest of Eastern Europe.

Southern front. In 2015, Minotaurism -- Yanis Varoufakis' wonderful term for the ideology of permanent financial austerity incarnated by the euro, a common financial currency without a common fiscal union  -- occupied Greece. Since 2008, the people of Greece have suffered from a catastrophic 25% fall in their GDP due to the fundamental design flaws of the euro (read Varoufakis for the details). In any sane economy, a common currency means a common fiscal policy -- here in the US, if Nevada gets into trouble, the other states bail it out via Federal subsidies until a recovery takes hold. Not so in Europe, where the structure of the euro means no nation gets the help it needs. When the weakest nation sinks, it takes down the next weakest, i.e. Portugal and Spain. When they sink, they will take down Italy, and then France, etc. The eurozone since 2008 is exactly like a group of mountain climbers tied by a rope, each one going over a cliff. Instead of pulling together, each lets the last climber fall -- and eventually everyone goes over the cliff. Why were the Minotaurists were so angry? Because if Greece had succeeded in stopping austerity, Europe's wealthy elites would have had to pay a bit more in taxes and gamble less on Goldman Sachs derivatives.

Western front. In 2016, the Brexit campaign blamed Britain's homegrown problems -- four decades of Thatcherite austerity, which inflicted Dickensian squalor on the public while making a few plutocrats obscenely rich -- on immigrants, refugees, people of color and the European Union. The "Leave" campaign cooked up a stewpot of the most outrageous lies, claiming Eurocrats were fleecing the people of Britain and bankrupting the National Health Service. This, to employ British slang, is complete and utter bollocks. Britain pays a tiny amount to the EU, but gets most of its contribution back in the form of rebates and investment. All in all, Britain pays a net amount of 8.5 billion pounds ($12.5 billion in 2015 US dollars) into the EU every year -- a microscopic 0.4% of GDP. That's right, the UK literally spends more on paper clips than on the EU. It's still well worth the investment, because in return British citizens get the advantages of visa-free travel, the right to live and work in all EU countries, and advanced social and environmental protections, while British businesses get to enjoy the rule of law and unlimited access to the single largest market in the world. But the Brexit campaign was never about facts, but about revanchist rage at British and European elites. Satirical cartoonist Bruce MacKinnon had the best take on the psychology of the "Leave" vote:

Exactly so. There is a cruel irony in the fact that Brexit's greatest victim will be Great Britain itself. If the results of the referendum stand, a vast majority of Scottish voters (59% according to the latest polls) will vote for independence from Britain and subsequent re-membership in the European Union, this time as an independent state. Brexit will not solve even the smallest of Britain's problems, but it will succeed in destroying the 308-year-old union of the United Kingdom, while cutting off Britain's young generation from the opportunities of the single market. It will also crush Britain's economy, which runs vast current account deficits, i.e. imports money from nations who want to access EU markets. In short, Brexit is that extremely rare breed of economic, political and social disaster which happens once in a generation: the kind which has absolutely no redeeming features.

Common front. It is important for concerned citizens to understand that these three wars are part of a single struggle, the struggle for the destiny of the European Union.

It is a war between two forces.

On the one hand, there is the alliance of (1) the eurozone market fundamentalists who worship neoliberal austerity, (2) the Eurasian petro-colonial fundamentalists who worship energy-rents, and (3) Western European national fundamentalists who worship imperial nation-states. Their three respective programs are not just toxic, they are outright suicidal. Austerity is destroying Europe's economy from within and is driving the entire world economy into crisis. Petro-colonialism has no answer to the renewable energy/electric car boom and cannot stop the demise of the energy-rent economic model. For their part, the national fundamentalists fantasize about returning to the glory days of national empires, conveniently forgetting that these empires were grounded on murderous warfare, on Atlantic slavery, and on the famine-genocides of Congolese, Indian, Indonesian, Irish and Vietnamese peasants.

On the other hand, there are the approximately 507 million people of the European Union and the 277 million citizens of Eurasian nations located on the EU's borders (Belarus, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine) -- the staggering sum of three-quarters of a billion human beings, or 1 out of every 10 people on our planet.

The solution to neoliberal austerity, petro-colonial militarism and revanchist nationalism for the 784 million people of Europe and Eurasia is not retreating to delusions of national economies or national empires.

The only solution is to transform the anti-colonial premise of the European Union into a fulfilled promise. This means creating genuine transnational solidarity between all 28 European nations, as well as the four nations of Eurasia along the EU's borders.

We must dare to imagine a single free, neighborly, and economically fair Europe stretching from Reykjavik to Vladivostok. We must dare to dream of a Europe guided not by greedy plutocrats, psychopathic warlords or vengeful bigots, but by the infinite generosity, wisdom and creativity of its constituent peoples. We must fight to construct a Europe no longer at war with itself, but a Europe with peace, justice and prosperity for all.

We dare not fail.

We cannot fail.

We will not fail.

We resist!

(Closing pic courtesy of satirical feed Trumpton. As some famous person said, somewhere, humor is the very essence of a democratic society.)