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  • Shattered Pillar of Europe: How US Power, NATO’s March and a Real Russian Existential Threat Are Sacrificing Europe’s Economy, Social Model and Future

    Shattered Pillar of Europe: How US Power, NATO’s March and a Real Russian Existential Threat Are Sacrificing Europe’s Economy, Social Model and Future

    by Amal Zadok

    US policy today is not just “supporting allies” or “defending democracy.” It functions as a strategy that keeps Europe dependent, weakens its economic base, and erodes the social achievements built up since the birth of the European Union. At the same time, Russia’s leadership confronts NATO expansion and Western use of Ukraine as a real existential threat, and this reality has interacted with US and EU choices in a mutually destructive security spiral. Together, these dynamics risk turning the EU from a potential independent pole in a multipolar world into a subordinated periphery of the United States, while locking Russia into a permanent confrontation that justifies ever tighter Western structures around Europe.

    From partner to protectorate

    In the early decades after 1945, Washington encouraged European integration as a bulwark against the Soviet Union and as a way to stabilise and industrialise Western Europe. As Europe grew richer and more cohesive, and as the European Community evolved into the EU with its own currency and ambitions of “strategic autonomy,” US attitudes shifted from sponsorship to management and, increasingly, control. The United States wanted a strong Europe inside a US‑led system—not a Europe capable of independent strategic choices, energy partnerships, or monetary power that might rival the dollar.

    The turning point came when European choices started to cut across US preferences: independent Ostpolitik, deep energy links with Russia, talk of an EU defence identity not subordinated to NATO, and the launch of the euro as an international currency. From that point, Washington’s core aim was effectively that Europe must never become an autonomous centre of power. It would remain militarily reliant on US hardware and guarantees, energetically tied to US‑controlled sources, and monetarily constrained inside a dollar‑dominated financial system in which the euro is, at best, a junior partner.

    Russia, NATO and the security dilemma

    This story sits inside a wider confrontation with Russia. From Moscow’s point of view, NATO’s eastward expansion after the 1990s and, especially, the prospect of Ukrainian and Georgian membership signalled the arrival of a hostile alliance on Russia’s immediate borders. Russian elites, across different currents, came to see NATO not just as a military structure but as the spearhead of a Western project to encircle, weaken and potentially dismember Russia. In that reading, the Maidan revolution, Western military assistance to Kyiv, and the steady integration of Ukraine into Western economic and security frameworks looked like steps toward turning Ukraine into a proxy platform aimed at Russia’s heartland and political system.

    Many Western governments insist that NATO is a defensive alliance and that countries like Poland or Ukraine freely choose to seek protection after their own traumatic experiences with Russian power. But even if one accepts that, interests and capabilities matter more than rhetoric. To large parts of the Russian establishment, NATO’s moves—backed and driven by Washington—constitute a real existential threat. That reality has been used by the Kremlin to justify the 2014 and 2022 invasions of Ukraine and a broader confrontation with the West. In turn, those invasions have validated the worst fears of NATO’s eastern members and given the US justification to harden and expand its military, energy and financial footprint in Europe.

    A classic security dilemma has formed: each side claims to be reacting defensively to the other, but the net effect is an arms race and a hardened bloc system. For Europe, the tragedy is that this spiral locks the EU ever more tightly into dependence on the US as protector and energy supplier, while eliminating the diplomatic space that might have allowed Europe to act as a bridge rather than a front line.

    Killing cheap energy, then selling the “solution”

    Before the latest escalation, the German and broader EU growth model rested on abundant, relatively cheap Russian pipeline gas feeding highly competitive industrial sectors like chemicals, metals, glass, fertilisers and machinery. That industrial base underpinned employment, exports and the tax revenue for Europe’s welfare states. For Washington and for NATO hard‑liners, this model looked like a strategic vulnerability: it tied Europe’s prosperity to a Russia they saw as a long‑term adversary and created incentives in Berlin and elsewhere for accommodation instead of confrontation.

    Russia’s decision to escalate in Ukraine—and the Western response of sanctions, embargoes and the effective shutdown of most Russian pipeline flows—destroyed that model in a matter of months. Whatever one thinks of Moscow’s responsibility for the war, the outcome fits US strategic and economic interests almost perfectly. The one supplier capable of delivering huge volumes of cheap gas by pipe to Europe has been removed. Into the gap steps US liquefied natural gas.

    US officials and industry lobbyists openly present US LNG as a strategic asset and a historic opportunity to lock in the European market for decades. Long‑term contracts, new terminals and supporting infrastructure create a structural dependency on LNG whose prices are higher and more volatile than those of pre‑war Russian pipeline gas. European analysts warn that this risks recreating the old dependence—only now on Washington. Energy‑intensive industries close, relocate or shrink. Households live under permanent energy‑driven cost‑of‑living pressure. The surplus that once supported generous social security is eaten away by higher input costs and subsidies designed to manage, rather than resolve, the crisis.

    Choices made in both Moscow and Washington thus converge: they break Europe’s attempt to balance security and economic efficiency through diversified energy sources, and they channel Europe toward an Atlantic‑centric, US‑dominated energy order.

    Forced rearmament on American terms

    Overlaying this is a dramatic push for rearmament. The 2 per cent of GDP NATO guideline, once a benchmark, has become a political cudgel. Under Trump in particular, but not only under him, European states have been told bluntly: spend much more on defence—3, 4, even 5 per cent—or risk abandonment. In practice, the fastest way to meet these targets is to buy off‑the‑shelf from the United States.

    The result is a surge in European defence budgets, with a large share of the new spending flowing into US weapons systems: combat aircraft, missile defence, precision munitions, command‑and‑control architecture. This deepens Europe’s technological and operational dependence. Many of these systems cannot be fully maintained, upgraded or used independently without US software, spare parts and political consent. It is rearmament, but not autonomy.

    From a macroeconomic perspective, some of this spending stimulates local production and jobs, but a significant portion leaks abroad as imports. At the same time, higher defence outlays add to public debt and crowd out other priorities. Governments will have to finance this either through higher taxes or through cuts to social programmes, infrastructure and climate‑transition investments. The more the war in Ukraine is framed as an open‑ended civilisational struggle with Russia, the easier it is for elites to justify this shift and to silence dissent in the name of “security.”

    Again, Moscow’s choices and Washington’s strategy intersect. Russia’s actions are used to justify a transformation of Europe’s budgets and procurement patterns that locks the EU into US‑centric military structures for decades. The more the EU is psychologically and institutionally oriented toward Russia as a permanent enemy, the less space remains for any future European security architecture not dominated by NATO and the US.

    Monetary subordination and the caging of the euro

    The euro was meant to give Europe monetary sovereignty and a currency capable of balancing the dollar. In practice, the combination of internal EU design flaws and external pressure has kept the euro within a dollar‑dominated framework. Fragmented fiscal governance, limited joint debt issuance and capital‑market fragmentation restrict the euro’s international role. Repeated crises—sovereign debt, pandemics, energy‑driven inflation—undermine its attractiveness as a reserve currency.

    From the US side, powerful tools reinforce dollar primacy: sanctions regimes that weaponise access to the dollar system, extraterritorial financial rules that intimidate European banks and firms, and the sheer depth and liquidity of US bond markets. Efforts by the EU or by countries like Russia and China to build alternative payment systems, reduce dollar exposure or trade outside US‑controlled channels are treated with suspicion and sometimes punished. For Russia, this has led to attempts to “de‑dollarise” and diversify reserves, but Western sanctions in response to the Ukraine war have also frozen Russian assets and forced other states to think twice about challenging the dollar architecture.

    Europe finds itself squeezed. It has its own currency, but in the decisive moments—sanctions, crises, financial flows—it still operates inside a system whose ultimate levers are in Washington. Russia’s confrontation with the West becomes another reason to tighten that system further, making it harder for the euro to evolve into a fully independent pole.

    Social destruction as the hidden cost

    The combined effect of these energy, military and financial dynamics is a slow erosion of Europe’s social model. Energy‑intensive industries lose competitiveness or vanish. Public budgets come under strain from higher defence commitments and crisis‑management subsidies. Inflation, especially for essentials like housing and energy, erodes real wages. Youth unemployment or underemployment rises as industrial and mid‑skill jobs disappear, leaving younger generations with precarious, low‑paid work and limited prospects.

    Health systems, already stretched, enter into crisis: senior citizens and people with chronic or complex health conditions face longer waiting lists, reduced services and growing out‑of‑pocket costs as governments struggle to finance universal care. The social fabric frays: trust in institutions declines, protests over living standards, housing and healthcare multiply, and political extremes gain ground by channelling anger toward Brussels, migrants, national elites, or foreign powers. What made the EU attractive—relative equality, robust welfare states, good public services and intergenerational solidarity—is undermined from within, even as leaders insist they are defending “European values” against Russia and other adversaries.

    Here, impartiality requires recognising that this destruction is co‑produced. US strategy uses crises to deepen Europe’s dependence and maintain American hegemony. Russian strategy, driven by its response to a real existential threat and by long‑standing imperial reflexes, has helped trigger and intensify those same crises, even as Moscow forges and consolidates strong partnerships across BRICS and the wider Global South.

    Far from being truly isolated, Russia has redirected trade, finance and diplomacy away from the Atlantic world and into a dense web of relations with China, India, Iran, much of Asia, Africa and Latin America: it sells discounted energy to India and others, deepens industrial and military cooperation with China, signs long‑term resource and infrastructure deals across the Global South, and uses BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and new payment arrangements to reduce exposure to Western pressure. In practice this means that the US–NATO–EU strategy of “isolating” Russia has largely failed outside the Western bloc: it has severed many of Russia’s links to Europe and North America but pushed Moscow into a parallel ecosystem of non‑Western partners who see in Russia a counterweight to US dominance, a source of cheap commodities, or a useful political ally against Western double standards.

    European elites, for their part, have often chosen alignment with Washington over building authentic strategic and economic autonomy, while failing to protect their citizens—young and old—from the predictable social costs. Seen from this wider angle, the pattern is stark: a security confrontation between the US‑led West and Russia creates the conditions in which Europe’s autonomy, prosperity and social achievements are sacrificed, while Russia is re‑anchored in an alternative non‑Western orbit rather than disappearing from the world stage.

    A fierce political argument can therefore say, without losing nuance, that US grand strategy is structured to keep Europe subordinate and dollar‑bound; that Russia’s reaction to NATO expansion is grounded in a real existential threat and has been channelled into building a broader non‑Western alignment instead of simple “isolation”; and that European leaders have so far failed to break this logic in defence of their own societies, accepting a role as a weakened Atlantic appendage in a world that is, in fact, becoming more multipolar.

    Reference list

    1.American Security Project. (2025). White paper – Strategic implications of U.S. LNG exports. Retrieved from https://www.americansecurityproject.org/white-paper-strategic-implications-of-u-s-lng-exports/

    2.Bruegel. (2025). Adjusting to the energy shock: The right policies for European industry. Retrieved from https://www.bruegel.org/policy-brief/adjusting-energy-shock-right-policies-european-industry

    3.European Commission. (2022). EU action to address the energy crisis. Retrieved from https://commission.europa.eu/topics/energy/eu-action-address-energy-crisis_en

    4.European Commission. (2022). Sanctions on energy – EU restrictive measures against Russia following the invasion of Ukraine. Retrieved from https://commission.europa.eu/topics/energy/eu-solidarity-ukraine/eu-sanctions-against-russia-following-invasion-ukraine/sanctions-energy_en

    5.Bruegel. (2025). Europe’s dependence on US foreign military sales and what to do about it. Retrieved from https://www.bruegel.org/policy-brief/europes-dependence-us-foreign-military-sales-and-what-do-about-it

    6.The Parliament Magazine. (2025). Europe’s defence reliance on the US runs deeper than hardware. Retrieved from https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/news/article/europes-defence-reliance-on-the-us-runs-deeper-than-hardware

    7.European Parliament Research Service. (2025). United States defense industrial base. Retrieved from https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2025/777967/EPRS_BRI(2025)777967_EN.pdf

    8.Reuters. (2025, June 18). US defence firms chase European military spending wave. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/us-defence-firms-chase-european-military-spending-wave-2025-06-18/

    9.Chatham House. (2024). Russia is using the Soviet playbook in the Global South to challenge the West – and it’s working. Retrieved from https://www.chathamhouse.org/2024/05/russia-using-soviet-playbook-global-south-challenge-west-and-it-working

    10.Vuksanović, V. (2025). The logic of Global South in Russian foreign policy. Third World Quarterly. Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10220461.2025.2519982

    11.Papa, M. (2025). The evolution of soft balancing in informal institutions. International Affairs, 101(1), 73–93. Retrieved from https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/101/1/73/7942161

    12.European Commission. (2025). Spring 2025 economic forecast: The economic impact of higher defence spending. Retrieved from https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/economic-forecast-and-surveys/economic-forecasts/spring-2025-economic-forecast-moderate-growth-despite-risks_en

    13.SUERF. (2025). Europe in the new NATO era. Retrieved from https://www.suerf.org/publications/suerf-policy-notes-and-briefs/europe-in-the-new-nato-era/

    14.Eurofound. (2025). Trust in crisis: Europe’s social contract under threat. Retrieved from https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/en/commentary-and-analysis/all-content/trust-crisis-europes-social-contract-under-threat

    15.New Economics Foundation. (2025). European defence spending soars, but climate and care are still “unaffordable”. Retrieved from https://neweconomics.org/2025/06/european-defence-spending-soars-but-climate-and-care-are-still-unaffordable

    16.OECD / EIB. (2025). A comprehensive overview of the energy-intensive industries in Europe.

    17.Modern Diplomacy. (2025). Is Russia really isolated? The increasing importance of East and South diplomacy.

    18.Atlantic Council. (2025). The underestimated implications of the BRICS summit in Russia.

    19.Council on Foreign Relations. (2024). What is the BRICS group and why is it expanding?

    20.The Diplomat. (2024). Anti-Western or non-Western? The nuanced geopolitics of BRICS.

    21.European Commission. (2023). EU–United States of America energy cooperation.

    22.Eurofound / Euractiv. (2025). Cost of living crisis set to prompt social unrest across Europe, poll finds.

    23.New Lines Institute. (2025). Russia is capitalizing on rising LNG demand and shifting geopolitics.

    24.Various national and EU sources on cost of living, inflation, health systems and youth unemployment (e.g., OECD and Eurofound social reports, national cost‑of‑living crisis analyses).

    ©️2025 Amal Zadok. All rights reserved.

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  • Part II: Genocide for Gas, Thirst for War: Inside the Ruthless Scramble for the Planet’s Last Lifelines

    Part II: Genocide for Gas, Thirst for War: Inside the Ruthless Scramble for the Planet’s Last Lifelines

    by Amal Zadok

    Superpower Rivalry, Scarcity, and the Road to Collapse

    The Arctic: The New Resource War Frontier

    Rising temperatures are shattering centuries-old Arctic ice, exposing vast and previously unreachable reserves of oil, gas, and rare earth minerals—resources now the focus of feverish competition among the world’s superpowers.

    The Arctic’s mineral wealth is so immense it could satisfy nearly a fifth of the world’s untapped reserves, and its routes, now navigable for longer periods each year, are coveted for their potential to transform global trade flows.

    Russia, possessing the longest Arctic coastline and a revitalized fleet of nuclear icebreakers, is expanding military bases and infrastructure to secure its claim as the dominant Arctic power. The US, not to be outdone, has surged spending on its Arctic military presence and technology, while the UK, Canada, and Scandinavian countries fortify the region with joint naval patrols and intelligence efforts. China, calling itself a “near-Arctic State,” is leveraging its Polar Silk Road strategy—pouring billions into Russian joint ventures and Greenland mining projects, and asserting rights to resource development and navigation.

    As old treaties strain under new realities, and diplomatic forums like the Arctic Council flounder amid renewed cold war tensions, the risk of direct power confrontation climbs each season. The militarization and competition for energy and minerals in the Arctic add yet another volatile flashpoint to the map of 21st-century resource wars—proving that the hunger for extraction never ends, only moves northward as the ice recedes.

    Green Transition: New Chains of Exploitation

    The “green transition” never halted exploitation—it simply shifted the battlefield. Electric vehicles, wind turbines, and batteries require lithium, cobalt, and nickel—often mined with Western finance under appalling conditions. The “clean energy future” is chained to new forms of resource colonialism. Climate policy, sold as moral progress, doubles as a tool for extraction with a new set of victims.

    Venezuela: Oil as the Hemisphere’s Condemnation

    Across the Atlantic, Venezuela sits on the world’s largest proven oil reserves—and bears the weight of that misfortune. Economic embargoes and covert sabotage have been deployed for decades to break Caracas’s independence. Now, as American economic dominance falters and BRICS seeks currency alternatives, Venezuela is again on the edge of invasion.

    Talk of “restoring democracy” is camouflaged resource reclamation. Hidden behind this is the Western craving to reclaim Venezuela’s oil sector. Should the military drums beat again, they will not sound for liberty—they will sound for fuel. This logic extends to South America’s mineral-rich backbone, where lithium in Bolivia and copper in Chile define future conflicts. The imperial chase for gold and silver now reemerges as the race for electrification.

    Economic Sieges: Sanctions as Modern Warfare

    Economic tools are now weapons. Sanctions starve nations. Currency manipulation can annihilate millions without a bullet fired. Asset seizures and banking exclusion are today’s siege tactics. IMF rules, SWIFT networks, and “rules-based order” all extend hegemony’s reach. No nation can survive without securing independent access to food, energy, and water. Sovereignty is now synonymous with self-sufficiency—and most states are failing.

    China: Resource Dominion and the Mastery of Modern Power

    China stands not as a mere participant but as the architect of the new resource struggles defining this century. Through relentless investment, state-led industrial policy, and a shrewd blend of diplomacy and selective export controls, Beijing has engineered a system that puts it at the center of global supply chains, making most rivals dependent on its willingness to share.

    China’s grip over rare earth minerals is unrivaled—controlling 85–95% of global processing capacity, 70% of mining, and more than 90% of rare earth magnet manufacturing. These materials are the backbone of electric vehicles, wind turbines, advanced electronics, and defense systems. Just in 2024, Beijing committed $16.3 billion to mineral exploration, discovering 150 new deposits and strengthening internal reserves. Its five-year plan puts $63 billion toward this long-term strategy, ensuring not just dominance in raw extraction but in technical know-how and downstream processing.

    The real power, however, is not simply in mining or refining—it lies in Beijing’s ability to weaponize supply chains for diplomatic and strategic advantage. Export controls and technology transfer restrictions allow China to disrupt other nations’ industries at will. New rules require companies everywhere to seek Chinese permission simply to export goods with rare earth content, effectively making Beijing the global gatekeeper for advanced technology.

    Attempts by the US, Europe, and Australia to break this grip are slow and costly. Years of environmental regulation and lack of technical infrastructure mean that new supply chains remain years—sometimes decades—behind China’s integrated model. Even nations with significant deposits cannot match the processing know-how or scale that Beijing has built over generations.

    China has linked its mineral dominance to industrial ambition.

    The “Made in China 2025” state plan and the Belt and Road Initiative entwine resource extraction with ambitions in green technology, artificial intelligence, and high-tech manufacturing. Every rail, port, and fiber-optic cable deepens interdependence, making logistics and raw inputs an extension of China’s political will.

    For governments in the Global South, China offers infrastructure, investment, and partnership—often trading minerals for major building projects and diplomatic backing. For Western rivals, China’s dominance is both a warning and a lever. Beijing has reshaped not only what flows from mine to market, but who decides how the world’s future is made—or denied.

    In the new era of resource wars, China is more than a competitor; it is the decider: orchestrating scarcity and abundance at a planetary scale. Those who depend for supply or technology must reckon with Beijing’s priorities. Those who resist find themselves searching for alternatives that rarely come fast enough.

    The Last Shredded Morality

    Gaza’s ruins expose the final shreds of moral legitimacy. The supposed defenders of human rights are complicit in genocide because it serves corporate and strategic interests. International law became theater; humanitarian language, marketing. Governments cry “freedom” in Ukraine and fund slaughter in Palestine. Every principle now costs cubic meters, barrels, or megawatts. When Gaza’s gas finally flows under new ownership, the hypocrisy will be complete.

    Plunder or Cooperation: The Choice Before Collapse

    The explosions in Gaza, trenches in Ukraine, Venezuela’s oil in crosshairs—these are coordinates of a single planetary war. The age of resource wars has no ideals: only contracts, drones, and scarcity. The victors will be those who master the flows of water, food, and energy. The rest will inherit dependence, injustice, and dust.

    Here is the raw, unsparing verdict: history will not remember the architects of this age for their ingenuity or civilization, but for the scope of their destruction. Every treaty shredded, every city burned, every river sucked dry for a dying empire’s last fix will be carved into the planet’s memory far longer than any monument or mission statement.

    The world’s self-styled guardians have chosen to plunder, not to build. In that choice lies a future not of progress, but of planetary reckoning. There are only two directions left: stand up, disrupt, and restore—or collapse, forgotten, beneath the weight of stolen time.

    References

    Arab Center DC. (2025). Gas and geopolitics in the Eastern Mediterranean.

    ByTheEast. (2025). Gaza gas field: The hidden agenda of Israel.

    DMJR Journals. (2025). Gaza marine gas: A strategic resource between economic opportunities and political challenges in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

    AA Energy Diplomacy. (2025). Recognition of Palestine could unlock Gaza Marine gas resources, experts say.

    CIRSD Horizons. (2025). The Mineral Wars: How Ukraine’s Critical Minerals Will Shape the World.

    ScienceDirect. (2025). The geopolitical fight for Ukraine’s mineral wealth.

    DiscoveryAlert. (2025). Ukraine-US Minerals Fund: Progress on Critical Resources.

    European Leadership Network. (2025). The US-Ukraine mineral resources agreement as a signpost in Eurasia’s emerging resource realignment.

    GIS Reports. (2025). The geopolitical impact of the U.S.-Ukraine minerals deal.

    World Health Organization. (2025). 1 in 4 people globally still lack access to safe drinking water.

    Human Necessity Foundation. (2025). Water Scarcity in 2025: The World’s Biggest Crisis.

    World Vision. (2025). Global water crisis: Facts, FAQs, and how to help.

    High North News. (2025). NATO’s Military Leader: The Arctic in 2025 Is at a Crossroads.

    The Arctic Institute. (2025). A Grand Illusion: America’s Anti-China Arctic Policy Is Rooted in Paranoia.

    ISSRA. (2025). Growing Geopolitical Significance of the Arctic.

    MERICS. (2025). The Arctic, outer space and influence-building: China and Russia join forces to expand new strategic frontiers.

    Modern Diplomacy. (2025). Resource Wars: The Hidden Fuel Behind Most Conflicts.

    ©️2025 Amal Zadok. All rights reserved.

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  • From Istanbul to Asymmetry: The Unraveling of Leverage and the Birth of the Third World War

    From Istanbul to Asymmetry: The Unraveling of Leverage and the Birth of the Third World War

    by Amal Zadok

    In the mid-2020s, inside the third decade of the 21st century (2021–2030), the architecture of international relations has become chaotically multipolar. No longer does “leverage” reside in the hands of a single power, nor can military force alone impose diplomatic solutions. The collapse of hallmark negotiations—most notably the 2022 Istanbul process aiming to end the war in Ukraine—exposed the Western bloc’s inability to enforce compromise, shut the doors on genuine negotiation, and set the stage for a new era of relentless, multidimensional conflict (Moscow Times, 2025; Intellinews, 2024; Responsible Statecraft, 2025). On the contemporary chessboard, financial warfare, technological embargoes, proxy confrontations, and psychological operations intertwine—heralding what some analysts perceive as an asymmetric Third World War (Defensa, 2025; Ogutcu, 2024; CSIS, 2025).

    The Death of Leverage: U.S. and the European Landmass

    American influence in Europe has ebbed as the ground realities of Ukraine’s war and Europe’s security needs have shifted. Once, U.S. leverage meant dictating both terms and outcomes, but by 2025, the capacity to project power—militarily or diplomatically—has faded.

    The withdrawal from Ukraine as a “primary guarantor of European security” and reluctance to back unconditional NATO expansion for Ukraine, coupled with a rising European sentiment for autonomy, have eroded Washington’s legacy leverage (Cato Institute, 2025; Council on Foreign Relations, 2025; RFE/RL, 2025).

    According to retired General Keith Kellogg, U.S. strategists are struggling to define what credible deterrence and leverage mean in a fragmented world where compromise is inevitable and military guarantees are no longer reliable (Fox News, 2025; Council on Foreign Relations, 2025).

    The fragmentation of leverage was laid bare in the failure to secure a peace deal during the 2022 negotiations in Istanbul. The draft proposed Ukrainian neutrality and security guarantees, yet disagreements over territorial integrity and future Western obligations led to a breakdown.

    The discovery of mass atrocities in Bucha hardened Ukrainian and Western postures against compromise, and Western powers—particularly the U.S. and UK—began to reject negotiation in favor of continued military pressure (Moscow Times, 2025; Intellinews, 2024). In retrospect, this marked a point of no return, confining the U.S. to a path of escalation without a credible offramp to peace.

    Asymmetric War: The Real “World War III”

    What is now termed “the Third World War” defies the template of conflicts past. This war is not defined by clear front lines but by economic sanctions, technological embargoes, currency wars, and information operations. The battlefields are as likely to be global financial networks as Donbas trenches or the Taiwan Strait (Defensa, 2025; Ogutcu, 2024; CSIS, 2025).

    The concept of “reverse asymmetry,” as argued by defense theorists, describes an environment where classic military advantages mean less than the ability to manipulate supply chains, public opinion, or cyber infrastructure (Defensa, 2025). Territorial gains are no longer paramount; instead, the competition is for influence, legitimacy, and “hearts and minds.”

    This multidimensional battlefield blurs public and private, civil and military, foreign and domestic. Actors operate through proxies, mercenaries, and covert cyber units, amplifying the chaos and unpredictability of the strategic environment (CSIS, 2025). Not only Russia and the West, but also China, Iran, Turkey, and other rising powers exploit financial leverage, information dominance, and asymmetric tactics in pursuit of their interests (Russia Matters, 2025; Ogutcu, 2024; CSIS, 2025).

    The China Factor: Watching, Waiting, Leveraging

    China’s approach exemplifies the asymmetric mindset. Rather than overt military intervention, Beijing leverages its dominance in rare earth minerals, microchip production, and global supply chains to extract concessions and punish transgressors (The Atlantic, 2025; CBC, 2025; CNN, 2025).

    The recent U.S.-China trade standoff underscores how economic and technological dependencies are now the principal vectors of coercion, overshadowing even traditional military might (The Atlantic, 2025; CBC, 2025; CNN, 2025).

    Chinese leaders, closely observing the unraveling of diplomatic pathways in Ukraine and the West’s turn toward coercive measures, have adapted their grand strategy. The threat of restricting key exports—and the real option to reroute global trade on Beijing’s terms—now serves as “leverage” every bit as real as nuclear deterrence was during the Cold War era (CBC, 2025; CNN, 2025). This shift reflects a broader global trend: power is measured not just in hardware or alliances, but in the ability to disrupt, destabilize, or dominate the economic connective tissue of the world.

    America’s Strategic Dilemma

    The United States finds itself at an inflection point. Having chosen escalation over negotiation, it now finds its tools—military aid, sanctions, and rhetoric—met by equally potent asymmetric responses (Cato Institute, 2025; Council on Foreign Relations, 2025; RFE/RL, 2025).

    According to observers, the lack of interest in revisiting the Istanbul frameworks, or negotiating on terms acceptable to Russian or even Ukrainian sensibilities, is not so much a show of strength but a symptom of strategic confusion (Moscow Times, 2025; Intellinews, 2024; Responsible Statecraft, 2025).

    Rather than a liberator, America is now cast as a reactive power struggling to maintain relevance in a world where every crisis is interconnected and every action begets unpredictable consequences.

    The expansionary nature of this new asymmetric conflict ensures that escalation continues even in the absence of formal declarations of war. Financial sanctions, tech restrictions, clandestine sabotage, and diplomatic brinksmanship proliferate—with less and less clarity about objectives or outcomes (Defensa, 2025; Nitishastra, 2025; CSIS, 2025).

    Conclusion

    Everything is, indeed, connected: the collapse of Istanbul, the evaporation of American leverage, the rise of asymmetric, globalized warfare, and the watchful presence of China mark an epochal transformation in world order.

    The refusal to negotiate, the strategic shortsightedness of all sides, and the embrace of maximalist, winner-takes-all postures have birthed a war without borders and without clear end (Moscow Times, 2025; Ogutcu, 2024; CSIS, 2025). The world now sits inside an asymmetric conflict whose only certainty is uncertainty, whose battles are fought across currencies, code, commodities, and minds.

    History will remember this era not as a sequence of isolated crises, but as a time when the largest powers gambled away the prospects of stability in pursuit of intangible victories. The post-Istanbul world has proven that negotiation is not dead, but merely starved by hubris, inertia, and the seduction of zero-sum tactics.

    In this new order, asymmetric conflict favors patience, subtlety, and creative leverage: states able to outmaneuver others beyond military bravado will shape tomorrow’s global architecture.

    The lesson for our time is brutal and unforgettable—the price of dismissing compromise is perpetual war, and the cost of arrogance is irrelevance (Defensa, 2025; Moscow Times, 2025; The Atlantic, 2025).

    References

    Cato Institute. (2025, February 24). Trump Should Cut Off Europe’s Defense Welfare Queens. https://www.cato.org/commentary/trump-should-cut-europes-defense-welfare-queens

    CBC. (2025, October 28). Trade deal or no trade deal, China still holds crucial leverage. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-xi-us-china-apec-meeting-9.6955385

    CNN. (2025, October 27). If you think Trump’s China deal is the end of the story. https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/27/economy/rare-earth-minerals-china-us-trade-deal

    Council on Foreign Relations. (2025, February 9). Securing Ukraine’s Future. https://www.cfr.org/event/securing-ukraines-future

    CSIS. (2025, September 15). The Evolution of Irregular Warfare. https://www.csis.org/analysis/chapter-12-irregular-warfare

    Defensa. (2025, October 27). A new dimension of asymmetry in armed conflict. https://www.defensa.gob.es/documents/2073105/2320887/una_nueva_dimension_del_conflicto_2025_dieeeo86_eng.pdf

    Fox News. (2025, May 1). Retired Army Lieutenant Gen. Keith Kellogg provides analysis of America’s attempted Ukraine strategy. https://www.facebook.com/FoxNews/posts/retired-army-lieutenant-gen-keith-kellogg-provides-analysis-of-americas-attempte/1076216994368162/

    Intellinews. (2024, April 16). Fresh evidence suggests that the April 2022 Istanbul peace deal to end the war in Ukraine was stillborn. https://www.intellinews.com/fresh-evidence-suggests-that-the-april-2022-istanbul-peace-deal-to-end-the-war-in-ukraine-was-stillborn-321468/

    Moscow Times. (2025, May 11). What Prospects Are There for Russia-Ukraine Peace Talks in Istanbul. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/05/12/what-prospects-are-there-for-russia-ukraine-peace-talks-in-istanbul-a89051

    Nitishastra. (2025, October 27). China’s Overreach, America’s Leverage & India’s Strategic Equilibrium. https://nitishastra.substack.com/p/chinas-overreach-americas-leverage

    Ogutcu, M. (2024, November 19). Who Will Prevail in the Third World War? https://www.globalpanorama.org/en/2024/09/who-will-prevail-in-the-third-world-war-mehmet-ogutcu/

    Responsible Statecraft. (2025, May 18). Istanbul 2.0: Know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em. https://responsiblestatecraft.org/ukraine-russia-istanbul-talks/

    RFE/RL. (2025, February 1). Trump Able To End Ukraine War In ’Months, Not Years. https://www.rferl.org/a/trump-strategy-end-ukraine-war-months-kellogg/33299246.html

    Russia Matters. (2025, January 30). Keith Kellogg on Russia and Ukraine. https://www.russiamatters.org/analysis/keith-kellogg-russia-and-ukraine

    The Atlantic. (2025, October 23). China Gets Tough on Trump. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/10/xi-trump-trade-war-escalation-china-power/684658

    ©️2025 Amal Zadok. All rights reserved.

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  • Silent Europe: The Political Clica That Traded Bread and Liberty for War

    Silent Europe: The Political Clica That Traded Bread and Liberty for War

    by Amal Zadok

    Europe finds itself plunged into its darkest democratic and social hour since the end of World War II. At the helm stands a political clica—an organized, exclusive minority determined to protect its own interests above those of the citizenry.

    The European Union has bartered away social well-being and fundamental freedoms for the fiction of perpetual war and manufactured security (Wikipedia, 2025). This clica is embodied by Volodymyr Zelensky, Emmanuel Macron, Sir Keir Starmer, Friedrich Merz, Giorgia Meloni, Ursula von der Leyen, Christine Lagarde, and Kaja Kallas: a closed, opaque network that determines Europe’s fate by bypassing the popular will, human rights, and participatory justice (Eurofound, 2025; Le Grand Continent, 2025).

    The Clica and the Apocalypse of Welfare

    Since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, the European clica has siphoned off more than 138 billion euros in public resources and social sacrifices to sustain the conflict and secure its own power (Le Grand Continent, 2025). The people pay the price: shuttered hospitals, educational collapse, energy poverty, unemployment, inflation, and the disintegration of social programs that once defined the European project (Eurofound, 2025; Human Rights Watch, 2025; Euronews, 2025).

    Every euro directed by the clica toward war is a euro denied to the elderly, youth, migrants, those dependent on social services, and working families. Daily life erodes, while the official narrative insists on “solidarity” and “sacrifice for Ukraine” as if they were ultimate objectives (Euronews, 2025).

    Exclusion and Pillage: The Mechanism of the Clica

    European aid to Ukraine, managed by the clica, already exceeds that from the United States by 20% (Le Grand Continent, 2025). National and community priorities are subjugated to the dogma of war. Teachers, healthcare workers, scientists, and social workers watch their resources and rights evaporate under the moral blackmail imposed by the clica’s leaders: dissent is silenced, criminalized, or banned from public debate (Human Rights Watch, 2025).

    The outcome is the structural and ethical collapse of social Europe: ruined families, children with no future in education, the elderly without health care, impoverished neighborhoods, and widespread fear of losing one’s dignity due to decisions made far from any democratic process (Eurofound, 2025).

    Repression and Despotism: Europe Against Its Own People

    Worse than material destitution is the systematic demolition of basic human rights and free expression. The clica has pushed through regulations like the Digital Services Act, empowering authorities to preemptively delete critical content, shut down accounts, and implement digital surveillance—all in the name of “democratic health” and “combating misinformation” (RSF, 2025; Amnesty International, 2025).

    By 2025, Europe recorded the highest number of attacks and restrictions on journalists, media, and critical citizens in decades: over 340 incidents documented in just the first half of the year (RSF, 2025). Protesting the war-driven plundering means risking fines, prosecution, job loss, and media censorship, especially in England, Finland, France, and Germany (Infobae, 2025). Self-censorship is driven by institutionalized fear and legal persecution—dissent is equated with subversion, and alternative thinking is forced out of serious debate (Euronews, 2025).

    The New USSR: Europe In the Shadow of Stalin

    Drawing direct parallels to the Stalinist Soviet Union is no longer mere rhetorical exaggeration but a grim observation. The clica exerts the same suffocating and punitive control over citizenship that characterized Stalin’s regime: all discourse must fit the official narrative, all deviation is a form of treason, and all critical thought is met with merciless retribution.

    Just like in the USSR, fear becomes a collective tool of control; self-censorship and denunciation, driven by mistrust, become tools for navigating an environment of institutional suspicion (RSF, 2025; Infobae, 2025). Information is managed, hierarchized, and, when necessary, erased.

    Citizens, much like those in Soviet Moscow, sense an invisible line separating “legitimate” public opinion from “political crime”—a line the clica redraws at will.

    It’s not just the structure—it’s the core. The “cult” of war echoes Stalinism’s dogmatism: repression, hunger, and technological stagnation were justified by the banner of national emergency.

    Today, the clica wields the supposed Russian threat to centralize power, gut constitutional rights, and crush any real democratic avenue. The strategic use of an external enemy, collective hysteria, systematic slander of dissent, and budgetary opacity reproduce, point for point, the logic that underpinned Soviet totalitarianism.

    The Clica and the Digital Police State

    The police state built by the European clica stretches from digital algorithms to physical surveillance: banning peaceful demonstrations, obscuring public spending, and promoting institutional silencing of any voice challenging the war narrative (RSF, 2025; XNet-X, 2025). Social and political pluralism is replaced by the top-down imposition of private interests and entrenchment by the ruling elite.

    The newly invented doctrine of “continental unity” is, in fact, the clica’s main purpose: to legitimize economic and democratic disaster and to maintain total control over vital resources and collective decisions (Le Grand Continent, 2025; Human Rights Watch, 2025).

    The Clica as the New Totalitarian Oligarchy

    Zelensky is the useful face, the visible beneficiary of resource transfer and fear strategy. Macron, Starmer, Merz, Meloni, Von der Leyen, Lagarde, and Kallas coordinate the institutional entrenchment and budgetary plundering.

    Together, they form a “power clica” that has broken the social contract, using war as endless fiction to dodge accountability, expand extraordinary powers, and safeguard their permanence (Eurofound, 2025; Amnesty International, 2025).

    The Stolen Future: The Price of the Clica

    The data is undeniable: poverty, inequality, emigration, and precarity have hit historic highs, while debate on Europe’s path is forcibly closed. Participatory democracy is now only cosmetic. No one asks the people what their priorities are; no one reveals the true human cost of plunder.

    Every decision is made by the clica—always invoking fear or urgent war—and criticism is punished as treason or so-called “disinformation” (Eurofound, 2025; Human Rights Watch, 2025).

    The Resistance: Restoring Bread and the Word

    In this context, resistance is more than a political option: it is now the last line of defense against a visible, continent-wide authoritarian slide.

    Citizens must reclaim the right to decide their own collective fate, restore control over public spending, demand transparency, and guarantee full rights for freedom of association and expression. The battle for bread, dignity, and speech has become a historic imperative (XNet-X, 2025; Amnesty International, 2025).

    European memory demands courage: silence in the face of the clica—in all its historical forms—enabled the greatest crimes of totalitarianism. Today the risk is to repeat that history, only rebranded and dressed in modern language.

    Europe will never be free or just as long as the clica rules alone, robbing its people of the future, welfare, and truth. The only horizon is a radical return to democracy, participation, and plurality—expelling the clica and returning bread, hope, and liberty of speech to the millions it now threatens.

    And you, European—what will you do?

    History, when it repeats itself, does so at even greater cost. Europe stands at the edge of an abyss: you will either rise up to throw off the yoke of the clica and reclaim the democratic, critical, and solidaristic spirit that once pushed back every tyranny—or you will resign yourself to a new Soviet Union, trapped in digital Stalinism, where vigilance, submission, and fear replace reason, plurality, and civic courage. There is no middle ground: neutrality today is the oxygen that fuels tomorrow’s totalitarianism.

    To abstain from resisting is to surrender—without a fight—the future, dignity, and speech of millions to a minor, authoritarian elite.

    Europe’s destiny is now at stake as never before. Each citizen must answer the essential question: will you allow, through silence or indifference, the clica to erase centuries of struggles for freedom and human rights? Or will you join a new generation of resistance who, as so many times before, choose the light and freedom over voluntary servitude?

    The choice is yours, and the time is now. Europe will face its last great night of reason… or will be reborn in the democratic light the world always hoped for.

    References

    Amnesty International. (2025, February 26). Agresión de Rusia en Ucrania. https://www.amnesty.org/es/projects/russias-aggression-in-ukraine/

    Euronews. (2025, March 10). Los expertos advierten que el recorte de la ayuda exterior de Europa podría provocar “un colapso”. https://es.euronews.com/salud/2025/03/11/totalmente-devastador-los-paises-europeos-recortan-la-ayuda-exterior-y-los-grupos-sanitari

    Eurofound. (2025). Support for Ukraine still high among EU citizens but some fall off apparent among certain groups. https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/en/publications/all/support-ukraine-still-high-among-eu-citizens-some-fall-apparent-among

    Human Rights Watch. (2025, January 29). Informe Mundial 2025. https://www.hrw.org/es/world-report/2025

    Infobae. (2025, May 21). Los europeos son cada vez menos libres para decir lo que piensan. https://www.infobae.com/america/mundo/2025/05/21/los-europeos-son-cada-vez-menos-libres-para-decir-lo-que-piensan/

    Le Grand Continent. (2025, April 14). La ayuda europea a Ucrania es un 20% mayor que la ayuda estadounidense. https://legrandcontinent.eu/es/2025/04/15/la-ayuda-europea-a-ucrania-es-un-20-mayor-que-la-ayuda-estadounidense/

    RSF – Reporters Without Borders. (2025, May 27). World Press Freedom Index RSF 2025. https://rsf-es.org/clasificacion-mundial-de-la-libertad-de-prensa-rsf-2025-el-debilitamiento-economico-de-los-medios-constituye-una-de-las-principales-amenazas-para-la-libertad-de-prensa/

    Wikipedia. (2025, April 17). Clica. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clica

    XNet-X. (2025, March 16). Our Report on the Rule of Law in the EU 2025. https://xnet-x.net/es/estado-de-derecho-rolreport2025/

    ©️2025 Amal Zadok. All rights reserved.

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  • Europe’s Self-Destruction: How Denial of Multipolar Reality is Fueling War and Collapse

    Europe’s Self-Destruction: How Denial of Multipolar Reality is Fueling War and Collapse

    by Amal Zadok

    The current war in Ukraine has not only been devastating for Ukrainians but is also steadily corroding Europe itself. Behind the headlines of military offensives, sanctions, and refugee crises lies a deeper structural problem: Europe’s refusal to accept the rise of a multipolar world order. By clinging to the vestiges of US-led unipolar hegemony, European leaders are not merely prolonging the war in Ukraine but accelerating the continent’s own decline—economically, politically, and strategically.

    Europe’s Addiction to Unipolar Illusions

    At the heart of the issue is Europe’s inherited ideological attachment to the post-Cold War liberal order. European elites internalized the illusion that American-led globalization was permanent, and that geopolitics was merely about spreading Western institutions eastward. NATO enlargement, EU expansion, and neoliberal economic integration were treated as inevitable. Russia’s objections were written off as paranoia, while China’s rise was underestimated or dismissed.

    This mindset encouraged hubris. Instead of building a security architecture that included Russia, Europe bet everything on NATO expansion, reinforcing a dangerous zero-sum logic. Instead of accepting the new economic gravity of Asia, Europe doubled down on dependence upon US markets and financial architecture. When the clash finally arrived in Ukraine, Europe’s only instinct was to double down on the same unipolar strategies: sanctions, arms transfers, and alignment with Washington’s demands.

    But these strategies no longer work in today’s world. The Global South refuses to isolate Russia. Energy markets rebalanced swiftly, with Moscow redirecting exports to Asia. Sanctions harmed European industries more than they destabilized Russia. Yet European leaders continue to behave as if economic coercion and military escalation can enforce a unipolar order that no longer exists.

    Ukraine: The Battlefield of Denial

    The catastrophic war in Ukraine is therefore less about Ukraine itself and more about Europe’s inability to come to terms with multipolarity. Recognizing that the post-Cold War order has collapsed would mean negotiating directly with Russia and accepting that Moscow has legitimate security interests. It would mean building dialogue with rising powers who no longer accept Western tutelage. For Europe’s elite, this is ideological heresy. Instead, they cling to the narrative that Ukraine is defending “Western civilization,” a framing that justifies endless escalation, arms shipments, and the sacrifice of diplomacy.

    This refusal to adjust, however, only traps Ukraine in an unending war with no path to victory. By pouring weapons into a conflict against a nuclear-armed power with superior industrial resilience, Europe ensures a stalemate of destruction. The longer the war endures, the more Ukraine becomes depopulated, devastated, and dependent, while Europe drains itself economically trying to sustain it.

    Economic Suicide in Real Time

    Europe has already paid an extraordinary price. Sanctions cut the continent off from cheap Russian energy, a lifeline for its manufacturing base. As a result, industries in Germany, Italy, and France face soaring costs and competitive decline. Deindustrialization is no longer a fear but a lived reality, with factories closing or relocating abroad.

    Beyond energy, Europe has surrendered its financial autonomy. Compliance with US sanctions forces European banks and corporations to follow Washington’s dictates even when their own interests suffer. Dependence on expensive American LNG has bound Europe further to the US economy, undermining talk of “strategic autonomy.” Meanwhile, inflation, energy poverty, and public discontent push European societies into political turbulence.

    The irony is striking: in trying to weaken Russia, Europe has instead sabotaged its own industrial heartland. Moscow has survived by pivoting toward Asian growth centers, while Europe faces stagflation, competitiveness crises, and rising social unrest.

    Political Surrender to Washington

    The political fallout is equally severe. Rather than acting as an independent pole in global politics, Europe has reduced itself to a subordinate partner in US strategy. From defense to energy to digital policy, the default answer in Brussels is to align not with Europe’s material interests but Washington’s geopolitical imperatives.

    This has hollowed out European claims of sovereignty. Talk of “strategic autonomy,” long championed by figures like Emmanuel Macron, rings hollow when every major policy decision is framed in NATO headquarters or filtered through Washington. European citizens feel the consequences: rising living costs, declining security, and disillusionment with leaders who cannot articulate a vision apart from Washington’s shadow.

    Meanwhile, other regions of the world are moving ahead. The BRICS have expanded, creating institutions and partnerships that bypass the Western-centric financial order. The Gulf States, Africa, and Latin America pursue diversified partnerships without deference to the West. While these regions embrace multipolar engagement, Europe isolates itself, clinging to a dying order.

    The Road Not Taken

    It did not have to be this way. Europe could have adapted to multipolarity by developing a security framework that accommodated Russia while protecting smaller states. It could have leveraged its economic power to build cooperative partnerships across Eurasia. It could have positioned itself as a bridge between the US and the rising powers of Asia and the Global South.

    Instead, by refusing to accept multipolarity, Europe rendered itself a casualty of it. Stuck in Cold War reflexes, Europe missed opportunities for diplomacy and adaptation, and now pays the price in economic decline and political irrelevance. Ukraine is the immediate battlefield, but the deeper battle is over Europe’s place in the world order.

    The tragedy of Europe’s stance is that, in trying to maintain unipolar dominance, it has undermined its own prosperity and future. The reluctance to accept a multipolar system has perpetuated the war in Ukraine, ruined prospects for peace, and accelerated Europe’s economic and political decline. History rarely waits for those unwilling to adapt. Unless Europe finds the courage to acknowledge the new multipolar reality, the continent risks not only defeat in Ukraine but destruction from within.

    Europe now stands at a civilizational crossroads: either awaken to the reality of multipolarity and reclaim agency in shaping its destiny, or march blindly into a future of irrelevance, poverty, and dependency. The choice is no longer between Washington or Moscow—it is between self-preservation or self-destruction.

    ©️2025 Amal Zadok. All rights reserved.

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  • Europe’s Suicide Pact: Sacrificing Justice & Freedom for American Masters

    Europe’s Suicide Pact: Sacrificing Justice & Freedom for American Masters

    by Amal Zadok

    Europe is willingly dismantling its soul to serve a patron that profits from its demise.

    The post-war era birthed a powerful vision: Europe as a “Continent of Life and Social Justice.” Rising from the ashes of unimaginable destruction, it championed peace, built sophisticated social welfare models that were the envy of the world – universal healthcare, robust pensions, strong workers’ rights, affordable education, and social safety nets – and fostered unparalleled industrial prowess. Its integration project promised not just economic unity, but a society prioritizing human dignity, solidarity, and a unique alternative to raw capitalism.

    Yet, a profound and unsettling reality now grips the continent: Europe is actively dismantling these very foundations, regressing towards a self-inflicted economic, social, and civilizational “Dark Ages.” Crucially, the architect of this decline is not a distant foe, but its closest ally. The uncomfortable truth Europe refuses to confront is that under its comprehensive submission to the United States – militarily, financially, economically, and socially – the primary threat to its prosperity, sovereignty, cherished social model, and increasingly, its freedom of information and speech, emanates not from Moscow, but from Washington.

    The roots of this vassalage lie deep in the post-WWII settlement. The security umbrella provided by NATO offered stability but simultaneously bred a crippling, strategic dependency. Decades of deliberate underinvestment in genuine, autonomous European defense capabilities created a dangerous illusion of security. When crises erupted on its doorstep, most starkly the Ukraine conflict, Europe was exposed, impotent, and utterly reliant on American might and, critically, American decision-making.

    This reliance transcends mere logistics; it dictates foreign policy, forcing Europe into alignment with US global objectives that frequently disregard Europe’s core interests and the well-being of its citizens. The imposition of sweeping sanctions on Russian energy, driven overwhelmingly by Washington’s geopolitical calculus with little regard for European vulnerability, exemplifies this destructive dynamic. Europe, ignoring its profound structural dependence on affordable Russian gas, severed its own economic lifeline in a fit of geopolitical solidarity defined elsewhere. The result was an energy shockwave of unprecedented scale, fundamentally altering Europe’s cost base, shattering household budgets, and igniting rampant inflation.

    The economic autodestruction that followed was swift, brutal, and fundamentally self-inflicted under US pressure. Skyrocketing energy prices eviscerated the continent’s industrial heartland – the very engine of wealth creation that funded its famed social model. Fertilizer plants, chemical facilities, glassmakers, and metal smelters saw their competitive advantage annihilated overnight. Factories shuttered, production halted, and hundreds of thousands of jobs vanished.

    This wasn’t passive decline; it was active deindustrialization, a conscious sacrifice orchestrated by European capitals yielding to intense US demands. Investment fled en masse, not merely to cheaper locations, but specifically towards the United States, lured by its shale gas bounty and the protectionist subsidies of the Inflation Reduction Act. Estimates suggest over $800 billion in industrial capital flight since the energy crisis began – a colossal, deliberate transfer of wealth and productive capacity directly benefiting the American economy at Europe’s expense, catastrophically eroding the tax base essential for sustaining its social programs.

    Simultaneously, Europe embraced a militaristic surge utterly incongruent with its peaceful ideals and fiscal reality. Panicked by its exposed weakness and under relentless US pressure – amplified by the transactional threats and extortionate demands of figures like Donald Trump for tribute-like increases in NATO spending – European nations pledged massive, unsustainable hikes in defense budgets.

    This is where the direct assault on the European social model and social justice becomes explicit and devastating. Billions of Euros, desperately needed to maintain universal healthcare, robust pensions, affordable childcare, unemployment benefits, social housing, and green transition initiatives – the very pillars of Europe’s enlightened society and its commitment to social justice – are now being ruthlessly diverted. Funds essential to cushion citizens against the crushing cost-of-living crisis, fueled primarily by the US-driven energy policy rupture, are instead funneled into imported military hardware – predominantly American.

    The armamentistic race, dictated by Washington’s priorities and Trump’s coercive tactics, forces brutal, unjust choices upon European societies: hospitals or tanks? Pensions or missiles? Affordable heating or F-35s? Social cohesion and justice or geopolitical obedience? This fiscal drain deepens unsustainable public debt and deliberately starves the welfare state, dismantling the “European way of life” piece by piece, sacrificing social justice on the altar of alliance loyalty.

    Compounding this decline is a disturbing erosion of freedom of information and speech, often justified under the guise of security or alignment with US narratives. While fixating on external threats, European institutions and member states increasingly adopt measures that stifle dissent and critical discourse. Legislation ostensibly aimed at combating “disinformation” or “foreign interference” risks casting a wide net, potentially silencing legitimate criticism of government policies, particularly regarding the Ukraine conflict, sanctions, NATO expansion, or the very nature of the transatlantic relationship.

    The pressure to conform to a US-defined geopolitical narrative creates an environment where dissenting voices – questioning the wisdom of energy sanctions, the scale of militarization, or the costs of subservience – are marginalized, labeled as pro-Russian, or subjected to online censorship and de-platforming pressures. Academic freedom faces new constraints, media pluralism diminishes as narratives converge under geopolitical pressure, and the space for open, democratic debate crucial for a healthy society shrinks. This suppression, often tacitly encouraged by the need to maintain “Western unity,” undermines a core European value: the right to scrutinize power and challenge orthodoxy.

    Here lies the blinding, tragic paradox: While Europe fixates on Russia as the existential threat, the tangible, accelerating destruction of its economic base, social fabric, strategic autonomy, its world-renowned welfare model, and now its foundational freedoms, is being wrought by its alliance with the United States. The soaring energy costs, the gutted industries, the capital flight, the inflation eroding living standards, the deliberate defunding of social safety nets sacrificing social justice, and the creeping constraints on free expression – these are direct consequences of policies demanded by Washington and obediently enacted by European leaders, often against their own populations’ immediate welfare and social contract.

    The US reaps immense benefits: a crippled European competitor in key industries, a vast captive market for its overpriced LNG, lucrative arms contracts, the enforced weakening of Europe’s alternative social model, and a more pliant Europe aligned with its global agenda, even at the cost of European liberties.

    The specter of Trump’s potential return only intensifies this existential peril. His explicit disdain for the alliance, threats of abandonment, and demands for tribute-like payments expose the transactional cruelty underlying the relationship. His rhetoric and pressure directly accelerate the cannibalization of Europe’s social spending to feed the US arms industry and satisfy his demands, while his disdain for independent media and criticism creates a chilling effect that resonates within compliant European corridors of power.

    Yet, Europe remains willfully blind, clinging to the crumbling myth of a benevolent transatlantic partnership, unable or unwilling to acknowledge that the primary strategic antagonist fostering its comprehensive decline – economic, industrial, social, sovereign, and now in the realm of fundamental freedoms – sits across the Atlantic.

    The path back from this emerging Dark Ages demands nothing less than a seismic shift in consciousness and action. Europe must achieve genuine strategic sovereignty, building autonomous defense capabilities to end its humiliating military dependency and break free from coercive demands. It must pursue radical energy independence through aggressive diversification and accelerated renewables, rebuilding its industrial base on sustainable foundations to revive the tax revenues essential for reinvestment in social justice.

    It must fiercely defend and rebuild its commitment to freedom of information and speech as non-negotiable pillars of democracy, resisting pressures to silence dissent under false banners of unity. Most critically, it must open its eyes: The fundamental threat to European prosperity, autonomy, its unique social welfare heritage, and its core liberties stems from its unhealthy, subservient marriage to American power.

    Continuing to sacrifice its industries, its people’s welfare, its cherished social safety nets, its democratic freedoms, and its future on the altar of US geopolitical gambits and Trumpian demands is not solidarity; it is collective civilizational suicide. Recognizing that the greatest danger lies not in the East, but in the West, is the first, indispensable step towards reclaiming Europe’s light, its commitment to life and social justice, and its destiny.

    The alternative is extinction. Not by invasion, but voluntary euthanasia: economies bled white, societies shattered beyond repair, voices strangled at the source – all sacrificed on the altar of Atlantic subservience.

    The autopsy will read: “Death by Loyalty to American Masters”.

    ©️2025 Amal Zadok. All rights reserved

  • Highway to Hell: Trump’s Militarized Europe Drives the World Toward WWIII

    Highway to Hell: Trump’s Militarized Europe Drives the World Toward WWIII

    by Amal Zadok

    Donald Trump’s vision for Europe isn’t partnership—it’s extortion. His threat to abandon NATO allies who fail to spend 5% of GDP on defense—while openly encouraging Russian aggression against “delinquent” nations—has shattered the alliance’s foundational trust. In its place, he installed a protection racket where security is transactional and Europe’s sovereignty is collateral. Terrified of abandonment, Germany amended its constitution to unleash $400 billion for rearmament, Poland ramped up spending to 4.7% of GDP, and France floated a suicidal 5% target—all while slashing social programs to fund war machines .

    The Economic Hellscape

    This militarization isn’t just about tanks—it’s economic sabotage. Trump’s parallel 10% tariffs on EU goods and 100% levies on electric vehicles will crush Europe’s industrial backbone. Germany’s auto sector faces collapse, French farmers revolt against crippling costs, and the IMF predicts a 1% GDP contraction across the eurozone. Worse, Europe must now buy American weapons to appease Trump, diverting billions from green transitions and welfare states into Lockheed Martin’s profits. As social programs bleed, defense contractors rejoice: Rheinmetall’s stock soared 240% since 2022, embodying a grotesque new “austerity-for-arms” doctrine .

    The Grotesque Theater of Submission

    European leaders compound the crisis with humiliating obsequiousness. NATO chief Mark Rutte set the tone, addressing Trump as “daddy” in leaked texts and publicly praising his “decisive action in Iran.” This “orchestrated grovel,” as critics dubbed it, extended to UK PM Keir Starmer brandishing a royal invitation to flatter Trump’s ego. Such sycophancy isn’t diplomacy—it’s strategic self-debasement that rewards coercion. As one analyst noted, Trump’s court “doesn’t respect allies who kneel; it exploits them”.

    Fanning the Fires of War

    Trump fuels global conflicts with nihilistic abandon:

    – Ukraine: He vows to “settle in 24 hours” by gifting Putin 30% of Ukraine’s territory, betraying a democratic ally to appease the Kremlin .

    – Gaza: He backs Netanyahu’s genocide while deporting pro-Palestinian protesters, turning ethnic cleansing into campaign fodder .

    – Iran-Israel: He eggs Netanyahu to “hit harder!” during strikes, risking nuclear escalation for political theater .

    Europe’s complicity is stark: Macron deploys troops to “Trump-proof” Ukraine’s front lines, while Poland stations U.S. nukes 100 miles from Belarus—turning the continent into a tripwire for catastrophe .

    The Inevitable Endgame: WWIII

    This spiral—shattered alliances, bankrupt economies, and emboldened autocrats—creates a tinderbox. European polls now show majorities fear nuclear war, with 60% supporting a EU nuclear deterrent. Yet their rearmament is futile: Europe’s defense industry can’t produce enough arms, relying on U.S. imports with 4-year delays. Drones vital for modern warfare are obsolete within months, while Russia produces 4 million annually. As Germany’s own analysts admit, rebuilding military capacity could take “decades or even centuries” .

    The Point of No Return

    Trump’s “mission impossible” to militarize Europe isn’t about security—it’s about subjugation. By forcing allies to choose between protection money or annihilation, he has ignited a geopolitical suicide pact. Europe’s leaders march toward hell, believing they can outsource their survival to a man who sees them as vassals, not partners. But as Rutte’s “daddy” diplomacy proves, no amount of groveling can mask the truth: this road ends in ruins .

    The world is not sleepwalking to war; it is saluting and marching.

    ©️2025 Amal Zadok. All rights reserved

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