The New Dark Age

Background

I hesitated to write this, as the EU is not a nation but a grouping of nations, but the dominance of the EU bureaucracy over the constituent nations has progressed considerably (backed up with NATO of course) together with the EU being dominated by its largest and tightly aligned members; Germany, France, Italy and Poland. Of the larger nations, only Spain stands out as having somewhat of an independent alignment, but that is offset by the heft of the other large members. And the latter are also supported by Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Austria, the Baltics, Finland, Luxembourg, Sweden, and Romania (after the local vassals aligned with the EU and NATO elites in stealing the election for president). Only Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia stand in opposition to EU foreign policy against Russia, and Spain with respect to the Middle East. Let’s remember that the European security forces are very fully integrated with the US security services, and US troops occupy Germany (36,000) and Italy (12,600).

The collapse of the Soviet bloc in the 1990s delivered a huge peace dividend to Western Europe, for example German defence spending fell from 3% of GDP in the 1980s to about 1.2% of GDP by the early 2010s. At the same time, Eastern Europe was opened up to gain from the “benefits of backwardness” as Trotsky called it, with a huge ability to leap up the technology ladder aided by generous EU subsidies; with Poland benefitting greatly. The Western European capitalist oligarchy was also provided with extensive opportunities for profits in new markets, and the ability to move production to cheaper Eastern European locations; especially the German oligarchy. Numerous gas pipelines also promised to provide cheap Russian natural gas to support the European industrial heartlands. At the very same time, the vast and rapidly expanding Chinese market provided a cornucopia of profit-making for European corporations. After an early 1990s recession, EU GDP growth accelerated with the German reunification and the opening up of Eastern Europe and even the Soviet Union; with some European nations even surpassing US productivity levels. By the late 1990s, EU GDP growth was even heading above 3% per annum, a high number for such an already rich region.

After the hiccup of the “dot com” crash, during which GDP growth fell to 1%, high growth continued until the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. With still no external enemies to worry about. But the combination of German mercantilism, deflationary domestic policies, and a Euro that both removed the possibility of devaluations by less competitive nations and reduced interest costs for those very same nations, was creating large financial risks. The 2008 Global Financial Crisis that drove EU growth down to a negative 4.3% exposed those risks, made worse by the exposure of EU financial institutions to the securitized products of the US financial markets. The bankster-oriented response of the EU bureaucracy, supported by a Germany that refused to leave its mercantilist ways behind and reflate, meant that the response was a widespread deflation; after the banksters exposures had been socialized by the EU central bank (ECB). The result was a much slower rate of growth through the 2010s, at 2% per annum and less. With a 25% drop in Greek GDP in the first half of the 2010s, with hardly any recovery by the end of the decade. The Italian economy was hardly bigger in 2019 than it was in 2000. German GDP growth began to fade late in the decade, at 1.1% and 1% in 2018 and 2019.

At the same time, the EU started to create its own enemies as it looked to the east as a source of a new spatial fix for its re-emerging organic crisis. It was still reliant upon the industries of the second industrial revolution, together with European “luxury” goods exports, and was not heavily represented in the rapidly growing industries of electronics and software etc. The ex-Soviet Union nations promised a new wave of profits and cheap labour, together with a cornucopia of agricultural lands and mineral wealth. In 2014, the EU attempted to force Ukraine to sign what amounted to an agreement of neo-colonial vassalage to the EU. When the president of the nation equivocated over such a surrender, a Western-supported coup was implemented to install a Western-friendly government; which then signed the agreement. But Russia, and the majority ethnic-Russian population of the industrial Donbass were not so accommodating. Russia took the majority ethnically-Russian Crimea to protect its Black Sea bases, especially as Sevastopol, and the population of the Donbass resisted subjugation by the newly fascist and Ukrainian-supremacist state. Russia overcame the sanctions placed upon it, the Donbass successfully resisted the Ukrainian army at great cost, and Belarus resisted an attempted colour revolution in 2020.

The COVID-19 pandemic further exposed the EU nations, as its mismanagement lead to a fall of 5.6% in GDP in 2020, and after the bounce-back years of 2021 and 2022 very slow growth (2023 0.5%, 2024 1.1%, 2025 1.5%). Russian GDP fell by 2.7% in 2020, and then rebounded by 4.2% in 2021 before being hit by the sanctions and foreign exchange reserve theft in 2022. It was in 2022 that the EU, together with the UK and US decided that Russia was weak enough be toppled by the combination of a proxy war (Ukraine) and “the mother” of all sanctions and other policies. The Ukrainian army massed on the border of the Donbass, and shelling intensified, all the usual prelude to an invasion. The Russians responded with a pre-emptive invasion of their own, catching the Ukrainian Army extremely exposed, producing great casualties. and loss of equipment, together with the loss of significant land areas. The EU and the West then responded with what very much appeared to be pre-planned extensive sanctions and foreign exchange reserve theft. But Russia did not break, and its government did not topple. Its economy shrank by less than 1.5% in 2022, then grew at 4.1% in the following two years (2023 and 2024), and then by 1% in 2025; outperforming the EU. With much of the world ignoring the Western sanctions regime. The spatial fix had been turned into an enemy.

Even at this point, Russia did not weaponize its fossil fuel exports to the EU. Seeing that any payments in Euros would simply be frozen in European bank accounts, Russia demanded payments in Rubles. When many European countries refused to pay in Rubles, their gas supplies were stopped. The Germans had also been playing many delaying game with respect to the Nordstream II pipeline, under great pressure from the US, and in September 2022 it was blown up (obviously by Western interests), also damaging Nordstream 1. All gas transit through these pipelines was then ended. Early in 2022, Russia had offered an extremely good peace offer to the Ukrainians but the Western powers arrogantly made them reject it; while they set about rebuilding and rearming the Ukrainian army. After some late 2022 setbacks, the Ukrainian War has increasingly gone Russia’s way even with a Western second and third rebuilding of the Ukrainian army and extensive financial support to keep the Ukrainian economy functioning. The main result of the EU’s foreign policy toward Russia has been to turn what was a neutral nation into one that sees the need to throughly degrade the EU economic and military strength, and take a significant portion of Ukraine for its own security. The spatial fix has become an enemy and Ukraine has become a significant cost; all because of EU aggression.

At the same time, China has rapidly climbed the technology curve to challenge one second industrial European industry after another. The Chinese spatial fix has now become the Chinese competitor. And in the past few years, the US Imperial core has moved to require greater levels of imperial tribute (unequal trade treaties and military purchases), and for Europe to shoulder a greater share of the costs of Empire which includes the funding of the Ukrainian proxy war. Europe is caught between the enemy of its own creating (Russia), the great new competitor (China) and a newly exploitative imperial core. All while it cuts itself off from the cheap hydrocarbons that provided one of the major bases for the success of its manufacturing sector, to add to its own declines in natural gas production (Groningen, the North Sea and German production) and its slowing of the energy transition to aid its slow-moving corporations (e.g. the auto manufacturers).

Ways Forward

A highly beneficial option for the EU would be to:

• Make peace with Russia (probably including a neutral and diminished Ukraine) and reinstate the flow of cheap hydrocarbons from that nation (if Russia will even agree to do so).
• Mount a world war-style mobilization of the state to rapidly electrify the economies (mainly transport and space heating) and increase the levels of low-carbon energy generation (renewables and nuclear); including opening the door to greater levels of Chinese investments and sales to help kick-start European corporations into upgrading (through such things as joint-ventures).
• Implement policies that benefit the building of the productive forces rather than financial rentier activities, such as a limiting of financial “innovation” and freedom of actions for the banksters.

This is the “alliance of Germany and Russia” that UK and US elites consider to be a nightmare and have worked against for many decades. Given the vassal nature of the EU elites, and their fealty to financial capital, the above highly beneficial option will never happen. Another path has been chosen:

• Escalate aggression toward Russia, and use the “Eastern Other” as an excuse to massively increase military and “infrastructure” spending which will act as a buffer for corporate profits in the face of increasing Chinese (and other) competition, US tariffs and high energy prices.
• Continue with the financialization and neoliberalization of the EU economy, while also placing limits on Chinese imports and reducing the incentives for the electrification of ground transportation.
• Interfere in the internal domestic policies of any EU nation that dares to challenge the above course, or has internal forces which threaten to change the EU-supporting political status quo, such as Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Czechia.

The Future

Unless the EU changes course, it is looking at long term decline combined with a strategic defeat in Ukraine and the possible break up of the EU. Recent months have seen the EU travel further down the decline rabbit hole as Ukraine cut off the Druzhba oil pipeline between Russia and Europe, and the EU committed to removing any dependency upon Russian gas (it currently takes 50% of Russian LNG exports, and additional gas through the Turkstream pipeline) by 2027. While Western security services attacked and destroyed a Russian LNG tanker off Malta, and EU, UK and US governments worked to pirate Russian oil tankers that they have illegally sanctioned. All in a futile attempt to choke off Russian fossil fuel export revenues, while Russia increases its pipeline and seaborne supplies to China and India.

While the EU is expending more and more resources on war spending (with the US demanding an increase to 5% of GDP), questionable “infrastructure” spending and throwing money at Ukraine to keep it functioning, China is slowly but surely taking the West’s export markets (including in China) and increasing its penetration of the EU’s home markets. China is setting up production facilities in the EU, but not in the core Western nations; rather Hungary, Spain, and Turkey (which enjoys free trade with the EU) with some production in Poland and Austria. Helping to accelerate the deindustrialization of Western Europe.

With the destruction of the LNG tanker, an enraged Russia is now looking at redirecting its gas supplies from the EU to the east. Just at the time when the Strait of Hormuz has been closed by the Israeli and US aggression against Iran. An aggression that the German Chancellor Merz supports, fulfilling his role as a good imperial vassal. The EU decline may now be accelerated by a full-blown energy crisis this year.