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Europe Is a Political and Economic Eunuch and Vladimir Putin Has Won Quite Handily
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Europe’s political, economic and military impotence shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone; it has been several years in the making.
The last time that it settled a war on its own was in the 1870s, during the Franco-Prussian war.
And the outcome of that war enabled Germany to consolidate its position as the pre-eminent power at the heart of Europe and set the stage for everything which took place — genocidal fascism, totalitarian communism and extreme nationalism — in the 20th century.
It’s pertinent to point out to all would-be readers of this piece that the standing armies deployed in imperial conquests across Asia and Africa, often came from the native populations, who were engaged in internecine warfare.
But these troops ended up playing an important role for France and the United Kingdom during the first and second world wars, when Senegalese, Nigerian and Ghanaian regiments saw action in Egypt, Syria, Burma, Paris and Rome and also helped liberate Europeans from the yoke of Nazism.
Neither the victors-Great Britain and France-nor the vanquished-Italy, Germany and Poland- were in any position to raise standing armies after 1945, without external support and the…