Time for Europe to grow up

Image by Olavi Anttila from Pixabay

JD Vance´s speech in Munich was like listening to a grown up correcting a spoiled kid. Finally, a truth speaking voice that cannot be ignored by the elites. I have been waiting for a moment like this for the past ten years and for the first time, I now feel hopeful that some real changes might come. Europe’s current trajectory is heading for total disaster and there are only two options that I can see. 1) A major reform of the EU bureaucracy that properly reflects the will of the people (i.e. downsizing), or 2) the EU shatters.

Reforming the EU is possible in theory. However, I am a pessimist, and I believe that the primary human instinct is to double down on established patterns when you are under great stress. Even if those patterns are what got you into the mess in the first place. Under fire, it is very difficult to let go and say “Hey, let’s try something completely different!”. But in this case, there is no other way than to change. Thus, I expect our elites to further increase censorship, add more bureaucracy and regulations, in an attempt to stop the greatest geopolitical changes that are sweeping the world since 1991. It will fail of course, because you cannot negotiate with reality.

Many seem to be surprised and shocked by the message that Europe must start pulling their own weight with regards to defence. The Obama and Biden administration said the same thing, so this is absolutely not a surprise – The US has been telling us for many years! Europe didn’t care then and perhaps thought the US was bluffing. They were not. We are paying insanely high taxes, and on top of that the US has been paying for our defence. And we still see very poor growth and an inability to help other nations like Ukraine. So where is the money going? The US have been an enabler for our childish behaviour since 1945. I reckon that the American taxpayer wonders why the rest of the western world have welfare systems when they themselves do not. By removing military support from Europe, quality of life for the American taxpayer can be improved. It is just a redistribution of limited resources. You should always put own your own gas mask first before helping others. Especially if the person you are helping are downsizing their military while making themselves entirely dependant on energy from your enemy.

Anyway, we will now see a significant increase in the defence budgets across Europe and it is long overdue and much welcome. We must be able to defend ourselves obviously. The question is now, where shall we start cutting away in the budget? I have said for a long time that a Trump administration will be worse for Europe in the short term, but the ripple effects are not only beneficial but essential for us. This is the very nature of change. Improvement and growth without friction and pain is physically impossible. And the more we procrastinate necessary changes; the more pain will be inflicted upon us later. Like I said, we are accelerating towards a cliff edge and must try something else immediately. We must start behaving like adults instead of spoiled kids. If we really had cared about democracy and freedom, we wouldn’t have defunded our military and we wouldn’t allow Islamists into our countries, for example. But we have been too comfortable and lazy. Taking important things for granted.

And all this current talk about an EU army… It is easy to define what we should fight against. I want to know what are the common values that we are fighting for? Who is going to send their sons as cannon fodder for unelected bureaucrats in Brussels? I do not know a single person. That’s where we must begin. To define common values that we are ready to die for. Freedom of speech is at the very top of that list. But what I hear from the crying elites in Munich is that “Europe and the US does not share common values anymore” – after Vance’s historical speech that unequivocally hammers down on the importance of freedom of speech. Does this mean that the elites who are supposed to represent us are against freedom of speech? And that is the banner we shall unite under?

I believe that there is no significant left-right political divide anymore. The real rift now stands between the old established parties and new nationalist populists. We will see great changes across the political landscape very soon. I expect a lot of inevitable pain, but I also expect that a lot of the counter-productive garbage that we currently burn billions of taxpayers’ money on, will now be thrown on the dustbin of history where it belongs, as scarce resources are redistributed to handle real problems instead of imagined ones.