You assume larger more successful economic nations are more rational. Huge assumption.
That is true that Europe is not small but it is Europe that is not small, individual European countries are small. And, even having EU and Eurozone, Europe is far away from being a singular entity, at least for now, though that may happen.
War needs reasons to happen. It cannot happen out of the blue. And, I do not see any reasons whatsoever in Europe. Social unrest can cause only rebellion in that country. It cannot be enough reason for manifesting full scale military war.
Can you tell me any reason why Europe will have to face wars?
With love,
Sanjay
No, not at all. I never said that larger or more successful nations would be more rational by default. If that was true, US would have been the most rational nation since last 100 years but it has not behaved in that way at all.
Secondly, the elevation of counties like China and India does not entail that their citizens also become richer and more prosperous that their western counterparts. That is not going to happen, at least in next five decades.
But, we are not discussing that but only who will be bigger to whom. It is the matter of individual countries only, not individual citizens. The fate of the two could be quite different quantatively, though both will be in the same direction quality wise.
Means, if Chinese economy becomes no 1, it does not mean that the life or living standard of all Chinese citizens also become the best in the world. No, not at all. But yes, elevation of Chinese economy to certainly affect its all citizens also in positive way to some extent.
With love,
Sanjay
I think that you slightly tapped the crux of the issue.
I may be wrong, but as I see it, the real issue is neither economical nor even political. The roots lies somewhere else.
And, that is human psychology, to be precise, frustration and ego.
As we know that US was basically formed by European immigrants some centuries ago and was also a colony of UK initially. Those colonies later not only freed themselves but united and made progress even faster than the parent countries.
Perhaps, some posters disagree or even may not like it, but If you look at the polital history of US, and the behavior of its leaders especially after ww2 and when it got elevatedelevated to no 1, you will find a kind of arrogance, which persisted throughout its history till Obama. Things have changed slightly since then, but not much. That arrogance is still very much there in bureaucracy too, though has been lessened quite a lot in citizens now. But, one can still see its hints here and there.
US leaders and top administration have been provoking or rather bullling its European counterparts since long with its activities. Though, no political leader from either side will accept that.
Take spying. It is understable that one country may spy on its enemy. But, when a country spies on the leaders of friend countries, it is a sign of dominance and arrogance, not mere intelligence gathering.
This feeling of getting bullied slowly creeped up in the mind of European leaders. Secondly, it must have crossed in their minds at some point of time that the migrants from their countries are now bullling their own parent countries.
EU and Eurozone are the reaction of these two basic reasons, besides the challenge coming from China and India. They want to create and establish a second US, both economically and politically. And, they can do it too, if done wisely, which is not the case so far.
You are right in claiming that Germany could have done better alone. There is no doubt about it. But, the issue is that major European countries, especially their leadership, want to be bigger more than the better, thus the compromise.
Ideally, the unification of the Europe should have started with three countries only, Germany, France and UK, by opening their borders, both economically and politically, and accepting a single currency. Such arrangement would have played as a backbone of the unification and served the purpose more. Then, they can include more adjoining countries like Holland, Belgium, Finland, Norvey, Austria, Poland and so on.
There is one very basic contradiction in the unification of the Europe. The problem is that European countries want to be one, but at the same time, they also want to maintain their personal identity alive. But, both of these things cannot get along. If they want to be one, they have to lose personal identity, both politically and economicaly, just like the different states of America. Yes, they can maintain cultural identity.
But, UK is not only not the part of Eurozone, it had faced the near possibility of spilt of late. With this mentality, the future of Eurozone is bleak. UK must be in the Eurozone to make it successful but its leadership is under the influence of US, and it will never let UK to be a part of Eurozone.
The case of Japan is different. It has reached to its maximum potential long ago. It cannot grow futther on its own, unless it looks for some kind of arrangement with its neighbors and try to form a regional allience like Eurozone, acting as the centre of it.
On the other hand, other Asian countries like China, India and Indonesia are far far away from reaching their potential. Besides that, they have size in their favor too. That is why they will continue to go up and up. This list includes Brazil and Russia too.
But, I do not agree with that Germany is forced to bear the burden. It willingly bore that. If you want to be leader, you should be ready to pay the price. It is as simple as that.
With love,
Sanjay
With “banded together” I meant that they are not merely economically but also militarily banded together, for exanple in the so-called “Shanghai Cooperation Organisation” which is a political, economic and military organisation and was founded in 2001 in Shanghai:
Germany is the leader - it did and does not want to be the leader but had and has to be it because of the economical and political facts (that is what I meant by the word “forced”). But okay, now we have this facts that have been making and leading to the scapegoat role for so long.
The “price” you mentioned could be paid in another, namely a better way. That was my main point. No EU, no Eurozone, no NATO but nonetheless a powerful political, economic and mliitary organisation of European countries without any influence of the USA. It is namely a contradiction that there is a military parrtnership with an economic enemy (“competitor”) like the USA, because this means the contradictional politics between Europe and the USA.
First of all, the reasons for wars to happen are always given just because of the nature of living beings in general and of human beings in particular. Secondly, econimical wars as several forms of extreme “competitions” are typical doe the modern “humanity” and always accompanied by media wars (you can even see it here on ILP). Thirdly, the kind of war I am most afarid of is the so-called “civil war”, and this kind of war is what Europe will probably have to face. The contradictional politics between Europe and the USA are one of the main reasons why Europe will probably have to face a civil war. I just said “probably”, thus not “certainly”. But the probability is not low.
If you can’t defeat your enemy economically, then defeat him demographically. And if you will have defeated him demographically, then it will soon be easy to defeat him economically too. This implies the high probability of a civil war.Again: I am not saying that it is certain but merely probable that there will be war in Europe before 2050. Hence the title of this thread as a question.
By the way the current US debt:
US national debt: $ 18 320 000 000 000.
US debt per taxpayer $ 154 500.
US debt per citizen: $ 57 000.
(Cp. US Debt Clock)
Destroy the motor of a car, and this car will not function anymore.
Destroy Germany as the motor of the EU and the Eurozone, and the EU and Eurozone will not function anymore.
Since the wars in Central and Southwest Asia and in Africa that are caused by the USA and Israel the number of immigrants in Germany has increased gigantically.
Since the beginning of the huge problems in Greece Germany’s debts have also increased gigantically.
This obviously never ending demographical and economical war will lead to the fact that the EU and Eurozone will not function anymore.
And this can’t be in the interest of all Europeans.
Banding together is still not unification, though a step towards that for sure. There is long road ahead.
If European countries want to unify, the first and foremost thing is to have the lay the foundation right, in order to build the desired onlogy. And, that foundation should be consisted of right mentality of the leading countries, before anything else. Nothing can ever happen without that. But, that does not seem the case so far. In which way to the problem if Greece is handled so far, is the clear cut example of the lack of that intent. Greece is still treated as an outside defaulter by the big European countries, not an integral part of the family, who needs help.
That is not forcing but willingness in order to maintain its place in the new or future world order. Having said that, there is nothing wrong in it. It is quite natural and perhaps desirable too.
You are not getting it. European leaders have sorted it out. There cannot be another way except something exactly like Eurozone, even EU cannot serve the purpose without Eurozone.
The fight is also about establishing Euro at par with dollar as an universal currency, besides the economic size of the Eurozone. Both things are interlinked and cannot happen without each other.
Just like the English is almost a world language, US dollar is also the world currency. It is considered as a safe investment, at par or perhaps even better than the gold. Each and every country keeps a huge amount of USD in its foreign reserve, besides gold.
Means, there are many times more USD in the world economy than the share of US economy in the world trade. Ideally, both these should be equal. And, the dominance of the US in the world economy cannot be broken without displacing USD from the thrown of world currency. And again, to do that, it is necessary to establish a Eurozone also, where all trade will happen in Euro only.
The more Euro will be used, the less USD will come into play. That would devalue the USD because of lessen demand. And, that will also push back the US economy sizewise to some extent, comparing the Eurozone, besides many other negative implications.
US debt is well under control its economy. The fearsome thing is external debt, not internal one.
The reason for higher public debt in US is that it’s citizens tend to save very less. It is more a domestic consumption type of economy, rather than an export oriented one like China.
US total internal and external debt is almost equal to its GDP, which is not a big issue. Japan has more than double debt to its GDP.
With love,
Sanjay
It has nothing to do with “getting it”, Zinnat. The current situation will not remain the same for centuries. I have children. I know that you have chidren too, by the way, but do not know how many. 
There are other ways. It is possible, for instance, to reform the EU, the Eurozone, and the NATO. It does not have to be much reform in the case of the EU, but in the case of the NATO it has to be very much reform. Think of the competition, Zinnat. The NATO was formed as an alliance of defense, and now it has nothing at all to do with defense but exclusively with aggression.
European countries will come out of NATO when the time will come, as they are mere puppets there. It is only US which calls the shots all the time. Rest do not have much say in decision making.
But, there is no other or better way than Eurozone to compete with US. The basic idea is right but it lacks both of right intent and details, at least as of now.
By the way, I have two children, one daughter(24) and a son(22) and both are in IT jobs now. My son joined just two months back and daughter almost two years ago.
With love,
Sanjay
That’s great, Zinnat. Congratulations.
Actually the EU as it turns out was partially set up and used intensively by the US to curb European powers. Europe never was as weak as it is since the EU exists. It has no decision making capacity as a continent and the individual nations lost that capacity too. Best to blow up the union and have some tradewars take the place of stupid compliance to this barely even golden cow.
England saw what was coming.
Thanks.
Me and my wife have gone through a lot of difficult times in last 20 years or so, but that is paying now, as we have contributed two skilled and successful citizens back to the society, who also have the right mindset, at least now.
Our job is almost done, except arranging their marriages.
With love,
Sanjay
My take is, that the union is pretty well on it’s way, the problems are not yet ironed out, big picture. Correct me if You would, but the watershed was around the turn of the century, the last one that is and in the last millenium, when people actually would
not dare say something as obnoxious as there will no longer be history after the year 2000.
The big change, was 1900, abd between 1900 and
2000, there were 2 world wars, the end of so called
colonialism, the dependence on oil, birth of Israel as a nation, and many smaller wars, usualy fought for domination of disputed areas of interest and land.
That’s a lot. But also 1982 , the waning of Marxist-
Leninism, and the upcoming capitalistic one world idea.
Marxism domineered for apprpximately from 1945 to
1982, on a large part of the world, that is less then
40 years. Not even 2 generations. Total laissez faire economy held now for more then 30 years. So we are almost to the point where those people born before at least a generation, have almost forgotten history, as lived under communism, for as long as communism hed presence.
This is important, because prior to and after the
communistic system, (which can be visualized as sandwiched between two types of major world governance :imperial and economic capital ),the main focus of world power was the conflict between that
(communism) and (fascism). Both were ideologically
reduced forms of power entities, with the ideal of fascism at odds with the equally ideological ,but CAPITAL based power sharing system of governance.
The ideal communist power sharing was based on social principles (supposedly) of equal distribution,
while fascism was a retro ideal form of it, where the
imperium on top was sustained, in an ideal form of distribution of values, - vesting old patterns and their
inherited worth. This was the basic conflict, and in order to predict, whether these unbalances were, are
or will be equalized,one has to be able to make a
best case probable scenario-on the historically determinant parts of the equation.
The German enlightenment of the Protestant ethic set
the stage, for the sustaining vectors of power sharing all the way from the formation of the Holy Roman Empire, of which Austro-Hungary was, prior to WW2, the pre-emnent seat. The German hegemony
embraced the Austrian/Serbian struggle, triggered by the assasination of the Archduke, the basis of the
pivotal struggle. It’s not co-incidental that Hitler was
Austrian.
So these three power motifs were present before,
and sought re-definition of th meaning of capitalism
between the fascist ideal and the Anglo-American
version. So there was a lot of overlap of value, besides the nominal politically colored
pronouncements.
The question is, and remains, in light of what has
gone down, the last generation, (prior 1982) in terms
of how these politically fixed ‘isms’ have retained their political, social and economic value.
Given, that the terrorists in the Middle East, may feel
that they are the world’s movers and shakers, the
fact is, they are but grains of sand on that spectrum, and more objects of manipulation and political projection. Their worth is strictly based on dollars
per gallon, and the moment the wells run dry, their
value will sink as well. The middle East is stricly a kind of computerized chess game, for the major players to diffuse their differences.
If so, it’s probably ubfoeceeable that either the Euro,
or the Dollar, will predominate, since this is an area
of common interest. I do not buy the idea that there is much more dissent than agreement.
The same goes for Chinese interests in the Japanese
sphere, or American interest in the Chinese sphere.
The ideal world of national interest is slowly shifting to internationalism, and the big holders of economic
influence have international equality to worry about.
For these reasons there will not be a major upheaval
in the world, but the question of a European struggle
in-it’s self, is equally doubtful, IF the union, the Eurozone, and the immigration-social integration go
on without a hitch. Minor skirmishes may occur, but military, police, and political dominance will defeat any such trivialities, whether it’s OK or not for Muslim women to wear typical clothing and head gear.
For all practical purposes the ideological struggle has
been basically been resolved, and the social-
psychological ones usually toe that line.
On top of that, conflict resolution is expressible by
new tech, giving impetus to people’s feeling that they
are part of something bigger than they are, not puppets of strictly defined and narrowly viewd , alienated sub cultures. Their inferiority is resolved
per nationalistic and internationalistic exchanges,
therefore, another key is turned in favor of a gradual resolution of these types of sub-struggles.
For people who have memories of the last century, a
view such as this is inconceivable, since all they saw
was war, with periods of unnaturally posed peace, with equally tenous treaties, broken as often as re-drawn.
I see peace, as a potential and attainable goal for the
coming generations, with monumental gains in both personal and social progess
Now, i have to admit, that i don’t necessarily believe the above, but the neutralist that i am, based on data i have been able to get myhands on, it can be argued by the other side, and very briefly undermined, as far as the fragility of this whole new world idea may be pointed to. Greece s a good example of a soft underbelly, also the systemic inflationary weakness of a non-fascistic perhaps non workable handle on limits of capital holdings. I feel when capital holdings exceed a trillion units person of major currencies, things may happen to markets, which they may not be able to control or support. The Great Depression, or, The recent Great Recession would, in such a scenario, could not even compare tomth severity of the comsequences, and this could set the stage of cescading events with horrific ends.
So between these two extremes, i probably would lean toward gradual, computerized indexed, data sharing, whereby likelyhood of major trouble could be detected and corrected.
However, never say never.
Not England but the City of London. The City of London. Do you know what that means?
Now, excuse me for intejecting, but i could not resist.
In addition, absence of reply toward intended within a reasonable time, may invite an answer en-passant, meaning an interjected idea, may not exclude a similar one to the one intended.
The caveat is, the intended writer may not loose
anything bu the interjection.
So here it goes. the City of London knew what was
coming, because…they had a hand in it. Clever
plot, and if this is what is implied, the next question may be: Why? (or is this off base and again unintended and unwarranted?)
Or, may the implication may be far more literal, (and simple)in that only London knew the missles were comng, since it was they who got bombed.?
The City of London is independent. It has nothing to do with London, England, the UK, and os on.
But how did the City of London see things, as England didn’t? Or did they? some junction is missing here, and may be beneficially clarified. It seems so, as a missing link, as if, it’s assumed that England or the City of London, saw something coming is less important than the differentiation between London the city and England.
Maybe this insight is trite and unnecessary, and yet it may be good to detail here, not necessarily for the sake of agument.
If unnecessary, lack of comment will mean an agreement with such reasoning.
Not a clue.
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