Europe is leaving the world stage in disgrace

The most dangerous thing about Western Europe today is not just its decline, but its refusal to recognize it. The half-continent continues to posture, continues to lecture, and continues to imagine itself as a pillar of global order. But it has lost the internal resources that once sustained that illusion. What remains is a hollow echo of power, wrapped in a language of values that even those same Western Europeans no longer seem to believe.

The region’s failure is most visible in its inability to make peace. Time and again, it chooses confrontation – with Russia, with China, with reality itself. Devoid of meaningful autonomy, it now functions as a permanent appendage of the US. It is no longer an actor on the world stage, but a supporting cast member, often unwelcome and increasingly irrelevant.

Western Europe’s descent has been rapid. Just 10 or 15 years ago, it projected global importance and confidence. Today, the cracks are impossible to ignore. The reasons are many: Elite degradation, political inertia, a population gripped by apathy. But above all, it is the bloc’s unrelenting selfishness – its refusal to give, only to demand – that lies at the heart of this collapse.

Nowhere was this clearer than in last week’s failed EU-China summit. Eurocrats went to Beijing with nothing to offer, only with a desire to extract. China, which has no historical affection for Western Europe, responded accordingly. There was simply nothing to discuss.

And then, as if to underscore its strategic drift, the bloc offered a humiliating concession to the US. Faced with the threat of new tariffs, Brussels agreed to purchase American energy and weapons in vast quantities. So much for ‘strategic autonomy’.

These are not signs of a serious power. These are the actions of a civilization on the back foot, stumbling blindly into dependence. Anyone still speaking of a sovereign EU industrial or defense policy is either a fantasist or a liar.

Full article at: RT International.

Related: Germany and rest of EU transforming into a Fourth Reich – Lavrov

Header image is courtesy of Euromaidan Press, cropped and slightly enhanced by me.