BECAUSE THEY COULD

The tricks that both sides played in the Cold War come back to haunt us all again as people are now really trying very hard to reignite the Cold War. They see profit and power in it and they don't care what it costs. Sadly for them there is no country on the planet that can now afford to even pretend to play at Cold War. Remember the old joke where the king's advisors kept coming to him and telling him that his spending on defense was ruining the country and causing unrest and the king's response, when the revolution comes, I'll be ready.

The people that fancy themselves as modern Bismarcks and Napoleans haven't quite yet wrapped their heads around the fact that all of the First World has spent itself into bankruptcy and has less than nothing to show for it but unrest and seething hatred. Even if they could point to a genuine threat there is literally no money anywhere to increase defense spending in any meaningful way so it won't ever be done and it would solve nothing if it did get done.

I don't think more than about 10% of the educated people in America and Europe actually understand that the things they fear so little they completely disarmed themselves over the last 30 years are boogie men that simply cannot exist. Why would Russia attack and try to conquer any territory in Europe? Yes I know people have many ready answers but I think they missed the boat to Clueville. Russia finally responded to the endless push by NATO to take over everything right up to the Russian frontier despite firm warnings that Russia would not permit this to happen. They acted openly and tried a coup de main which failed but they persisted. You know why they persisted? I'll tell you why. They are Russians. They persist.

Those clueless folks think that they "won" because NATO expanded to incorporate half a dozen more utterly useless frontier countries along borders that are essentially frozen in time (as far as the Russians are concerned they are. The rest of the world would shudder themselves to pieces from the nightmares if they realized that the last century drew lines on maps carving up old nations, empires and countries and putting the whole of Europe into a future cauldron IF NATIONALISM EVER GETS OUT OF THE BAG AGAIN.) 

It's getting out of the bag everywhere and the leaders of Europe just don't know what to do about it other than put a boot on it and hope they are more successful at squelching nationalism than they were in Germany, Italy, Poland, France, Czech Republic, Slovakia, xYugoslavio, and all the rest. They have lost their way but at least they're not out trying to pick a fight with China.

As bad as it can be in western Europe it is 10 times worse in the east where the Russians and the Allies carved up ancient nations and empires and put whole ethnic populations at the mercy of their enemies out of time. Stalin did it because he understood "divide and conquer" and if you make other people look like the enemy they will be the enemy and now he had all of eastern Europe at each other's throats over ethnic issues that were not reduced and solved but were fanned into flames, buried to smolder a couple of generations and are bursting out everywhere. Every single country in Europe has claims to land now lying inside the borders of other countries.

When I look at how vicious and petty and slimy the little crocodiles of the Bureaucratic State (BS) are and how they would gladly sell half this country into slavery if it would only bring them back into power I wonder what it must be like in Europe where there are lots of people a whole lot smarter and infinitely more cunning and vicious who are scheming and maneuvering to get back what is theirs. They are our like our bureauwarriors on steroids and I'm kind of rooting for them now.

I think the EU has run its course and it has failed. It was a Trade Group that was hijacked by the aristocrats and topdog socialists as a means to impose unity on Europe both for the power that was in it for themselves and the power a united Europe might have had if it tried and for its main purpose which was to keep the nations from going back to war as they learned how their interests, families and land had been sold down the river over the last 120 years.

Remember, this is the place that gave us things like the 100 Years War, the 30 Years War and thought nothing of killing a third of the population of Germany as often as necessary. Thankfully they let the war machines rot and the people's mindframe for making war slide into senescence and decay. Guess what introducing a permanent class of invaders is doing to revitalize all that shared hatred and contempt for others? The amusing thing, the Germans, as usual, started it and then every other country followed their idiotic example.

It will be interesting to watch if/when the Nationalists finally sweep into power whether it is Le Pen in France, AfD in Germany or Farage in England. It has already happened in Hungary and is well on its way in many of the rest of the little countries like Ruritania. It has been a long time since Yugoslavia showed the way as it dissolved into bloody war and slaughter among people who literally lived together and side by side for generations. That ethnic hatred thing can be a real bitch.