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| Europe |
| What will happen if Russia wins? - asks the German newspaper Zeit |
| 2023-11-26 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Petr Akopov [RIA] If Russia wins in Ukraine (and the Zeit authors even call our retention of control over the already annexed territories a victory), then this will become “the end of the liberal and the beginning of the authoritarian world order.” But these are general words, and Nico Lange (former employee of the Ministry of Defense) and Carlo Masala (professor at the Munich University of the Bundeswehr) want to really scare their fellow citizens. Not only by saying that “life in Germany will become less safe, poorer and lonely”, but also by describing what will follow the defeat of Ukraine. That is, “new Russian aggression”: "Sirens are wailing. Cell phone warning tones are sounding thousands of times. Air raid alert in Munich , Frankfurt and Berlin . Cruise missiles and swarms of drones are penetrating German airspace. German soldiers have been putting out fires in the Baltics for days. In response to Russia's attack there, NATO filed a case for Article Five assistance. Russia responded with missiles. Some states are withdrawing from NATO and the EU, and a hard core in the north and east is putting up fierce resistance. Germany is torn. Heated protests in many German cities lead to violent riots, and police have to intervene decisively. Extremist and populist parties are benefiting enormously from this situation, not least because global trade and the economy are collapsing." Apparently fearing that not all Germans will be greatly frightened by such prospects, the authors move to a global scale: "In the Indo-Pacific, China has been attacking Taiwan for weeks. Meanwhile, the United Nations is deciding against Germany as many states in Africa, Latin America and Asia vote with Russia and China in the General Assembly. Does this sound exaggerated? No! If Vladimir Putin wins his war of aggression, this scenario is realistic." They began to scare Europeans with Russia’s attack on the Baltic states —and the Eastern European NATO countries in general—after 2014. Since last year, allegations about the “Russian threat to Europe” began to be heard on a daily basis. Moreover, sometimes they even say that Russia has already attacked Europe , because “Ukraine is Europe”; it just needs to be accepted into the European Union. But now Zeit, of course, has taken its intimidation of the Germans to new heights. Moreover, this publication is not accidental. On the eve of its appearance, new “defense policy guidelines” were announced, which spoke of “an immediate threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Germany” and a focus on “security from the Russian Federation.” After the publication of the article in Zeit, a report by two experts from the Center for Security and Defense appeared on the website of the German Foreign Policy Council (DGAP), which directly states that within five to nine years, “Germany and NATO must enable their armed forces to deter and the need to fight against Russia." Why this escalation? Are the Germans really being prepared for war with Russia, that is, the Atlantic elites (including in Germany) themselves believed in their own propaganda about the Russian threat to Europe? No, fanning Russophobia has two specific goals. First. Even though Atlantic solidarity is on the rise, European Atlanticists are not even sure about the immediate future. If Trump wins in the United States in a year and at the same time the West continues to lose in the battle for Ukraine, then NATO will really begin to feel feverish. In these conditions, the Atlanticists will need to shift the main burden of supporting Ukraine to Europe - and here Germany is a key link. The Germans will not be able to provide a lot of weapons and ammunition (they simply don’t have them), but the value of their financial and political assistance, given Germany’s weight in the EU, will greatly increase. Therefore, it is necessary to raise the degree of anxiety in the German public atmosphere. The second goal is to stop the growth of the influence of non-systemic opposition forces, which not only denounce the ruling elites, but also oppose the conflict with Russia and are critical of “Atlantic solidarity,” that is, the subordination of German interests to Anglo-Saxon ones, namely: “Alternatives for Germany” and the new “ Union of Sarah Wagenknecht ." But will it be possible to force the Germans to rally around the systemic parties with the help of the “Russian threat”? No, because the process of destruction of the current party system has already gone very far. In January, the Waagentnecht party will be officially created, and the German party-political machine will no longer tolerate two strong non-systemic parties. The ratings of the ruling coalition continue to decline: in total, the three parties already have only 35 percent, that is, a little more than a third (the opposition CDU has 31 percent). The Free Democrats have failed especially badly - they are teetering on the brink of five percent, that is, they may not get into the next Bundestag . Against this background, the voices of those in the FDP are increasingly louder and call to leave the ruling coalition in order to save the party. There is also talk about creating a grand coalition - from the SPD and the CDU, but this option will be saved for a last resort. Early elections to the Bundestag cannot be ruled out, although so far only the AfD is calling for them, which maintains its position as the second party in the country with a rating of 22 percent. By the way, there are slightly more satisfied with the work of Chancellor Scholz: only 24, that is, every fourth. And when politicians are rated on a scale from minus five to plus five, Scholz goes to minus 0.4. All the key ministers, from Bärbock to Linder, and the leader of the opposition CDU, Merz, are in the red. Of the systemic politicians, only Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (the main star of the SPD) and Bavarian Prime Minister Soeder are in the black. If this is not a crisis of confidence in systemic politicians, then what is it? Moreover, there are still two years until the next elections to the Bundestag. But the chances that the ruling coalition will survive to see them are less and less. And the foreign policy course of the Scholz cabinet in a variety of directions - from Ukrainian to the Middle East - further undermines the position of the coalition. Simply replacing the chancellor or changing the coalition will not correct the situation, but in just over six months there will be elections to the European Parliament , which will be another blow to the German party system. The main problem of which is the decline in voter confidence. And it will not be solved by trying to intimidate them with the catastrophic consequences of Russia’s victory in Ukraine - the Germans are increasingly worried about Germany’s defeat. And not at all from Putin, but from the lack of independence of their own elites. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #6 ^ guess they took it down. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2023-11-26 23:31 |
| #5 ^ That'd be Ward Carroll: Justin Bronk on the Fate of the West if Russia Wins in Ukraine. |
| Posted by: Blackbeard Jones3349 2023-11-26 19:05 |
| #4 Watch this to get the real answer https://youtu.be/rmMclP8dlI0?si=8mKKbM6Ki0EjSGiG |
| Posted by: Armaros 2023-11-26 14:08 |
| #3 People will go back to not caring. One hopes that the Vindmans don't come back to the US. |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2023-11-26 08:51 |
| #2 If? |
| Posted by: DooDahMan 2023-11-26 05:43 |
| #1 The lives of Ukrainians will improve? |
| Posted by: Grom the Reflective 2023-11-26 02:38 |