What Are You Reading?

What's missing from the list is "The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam" by Douglas Murray. The "migrant crisis" was a self inflicted wound that may prove fatal. Europe's salvation may turn out to be the Visegrad Four, with Poland at the lead.

Krastev’s book is a must read, not for the reason in the article. Trained as an European style intellectual Krastev launches a multidimensional, yet condensed analysis of human societies, with focus on the killing fields of Europe. Many intellectuals trained in Europe have produced valuable work, but Krastev is special. He has lived under communism, and had to learn to analyze the world through Marxist lenses, an angle usually absent for the average US political scientist; later, he added other angles. What gives additional depth to is writing from Bulgaria. A simple rule of thumb: the smaller the Eastern or Central European country, the more accurate the analysis. Bulgaria was and is many things. Bulgaria is a fallen Empire, one the first of many, and her wars with the Eastern Roman Empire should have shown a long time the futility of war; these wars also showed that when two quarrel, the third usually wins (in this case invaders from Turkey). Bulgaria was a colony of the Ottoman Islamic State, whose liberation was delayed by the unconditional support offered by the British to the Ottoman Empire (as always looking for geopolitical gain). Freedom came from the Russian Empire, but with strings attached. It was unconceivable for the Tsar that the newly liberated Bulgaria will not join the fellow Slavic and Orthodox Empire. If that didn’t work, why not join the Soviet Empire, with the blessing of the British Empire, a treaty written on a napkin?! For any supporter of the EU, the wealthiest, largest entity in Western history this book is a must read. I would add that Krastev should have emphasized more that the EU is the last chance given by the world to the warrying states of Europe to realize that individually they are a census error compared to UP, an Indian state. And they actually have to learn a lot from India (except for IT). Krastev makes the mistake to expand his analysis to the US and President Trump repeating what the illiberal CNN and illiberal Zakaria have been saying now for months. This is excusable, as this topic is of exceptional complexity. The attitude of EU peoples towards refugees is incomprehensible, especially looking at numbers. A 550 million entity can’t help 1 million (plus, Sykes Picot?)? Then the EU has to understand they will never be a global actor, with or without an army. In fact, the first signs of trouble appeared when Yugoslavia descended in a religious war, a continuation of Afghanistan, and a harbinger of the next millennium.

“The Fate of the West” is a must read. As a side note, nothing indicates so far that Macron will single handedly save the EU (although good luck!). The author advances the idea of an ideal West which probably never existed. This is the West where the war of 1914-1945 started, and dragged the world into it, with incommensurable destruction. The post WWII institutions probably had a smaller role in keeping the peace that the MAD doctrine; one of the conflicts, Afghanistan, morphed into a religious war that will rage for the foreseeable future (it was actually an old religious war, reignited). Yugoslavia was the first victim of this very war in Europe. The Cold War ended without a peace treaty, but in 1990 the West had a window of opportunity to set the world to a new direction. That was simple: integrate the former Eastern Bloc and Russia in a united entity from Vladivostok to Lisbon. That was never even considered; once the geopolitical pressure of an actually irrelevant COMECON and a Warsaw Pact (whose ICBM’s could have destroyed the world but not supply it with enough eggs) was gone, global labor arbitrage begun with fury. It was Milton Friedman’s Chicago style economics which chased away Adam Smith; now the invisible hand is in the pocket of the middle classes. Unfortunately for the future of the West, Kissinger was never a match for the PRC leadership. In his defense nobody could have predicted that in a generation PRC will get from oxen carts to quantum radars. The author cites Khrushchev’s “Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you.”, in 1956. At WEF 2017 Xi Jinping talked about BRI/OBOR, AIIB, and everybody jumped at the occasion, which is perfect understandable. Was Khrushchev 100% wrong? In his EU good bye tour President Obama talked in Berlin and Athens about these being the best times in human history for a child to be born. Germans and Greeks, at opposite poles in terms of economic performance contradict Obama along the same lines, both countries losing population for the foreseeable future, in the tens of millions. I would leave the US alone to sort out her present internal affairs; it is a systemic test, and the continuous external meddling doesn’t help. President’s Obama’s ERI continues apace, and the US youth will borrow the billions, on top of the 1.3 trillion borrowed in student loans. The fact that the EU NATO allies keep ignoring their Article 5 obligations in Afghanistan is long forgotten. And where is India?