What military-political blocs are formed after the collapse of the EU and NATO

In recent days, two interesting texts have been published at once, authored by Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Medvedev. The first, so to speak, “protocol” is a rather long article in "Russian newspaper", in which Medvedev summed up the results of the outgoing year, and although he did this from his own point of view (and in characteristic terms), on the whole, the article differs little from other official rhetoric.

But in his personal telegram channel, Medvedev spoke about his vision not of the past, but of the future, more precisely, the coming 2023 - he spoke much more concisely, bitingly and more cheerfully. To Europe, he “nawang” the collapse of the current transnational structures and internecine wars, to the States - the secession of Texas and California, the civil conflict and the election of Elon Musk as president.



And although this publication has a clearly comic character (by the way, Musk, in the social network of which the ban shared a link to his text, appreciated the humor), as they say, a fairy tale is a lie, but there is a hint in it. Medvedev's predictions about the reformatting of the entire Western world are by no means unfounded, and this especially applies to Europe, which, through the efforts of its own leaders, has reached a real civilizational dead end. The imminent collapse of the European Union and NATO is almost inevitable.

However, with regard to specific figures on political the map of the near future with the deputy chairman can be argued. In particular, he predicts the creation of the "Fourth Reich" on the basis of Germany and the Eastern European limitrophes, followed by a war between him and France - how realistic is this scenario?

Is there a basis under the superstructure?

The current process of deindustrialization of Europe is not something sudden, a natural disaster that did not start out of the blue. In fact, the process began over a hundred years ago with the First World War, and although the pace has changed since then, there have been no stops along the way.

As part of a global geopolitical combination to transfer the world capitalist center to the United States, Washington managed to force European competitors for almost a hundred years to work mainly on weapons (and this is, in a sense, throwing money away), while gradually depriving them of sources of cheap raw materials and markets. The role of such was first played by the colonies, then by the “non-democratic partners” of the Russian Federation and the PRC. 2021-2022 turned out to be a period of stretching and breaking of Europe's ties with the latter, and there is no doubt that this trend will continue for at least the next few years.

For European economics this has already resulted in a severe crisis, which will gradually develop into a real catastrophe. The former capitalist metropolises will soon become literally backyards where any industrial production (except the notorious "screwdriver assembly") will be unprofitable: expensive energy, logistics (including, among other things, customs duties on restored national borders) and questionable political stability.

This will certainly affect the political landscape. Those big magnates who move their business to other regions of the world will lose interest in European affairs and withdraw from local politics. Among the rest (it is still unknown who it will be), a squabble will inevitably begin over the “remnants of former luxury”, but in what form is the question.

Many are stressed out Newsthat for 2023 the French armed forces planned large-scale exercises in the format of an “overseas expedition”, with a landing in a conditional “small country” to protect it from the aggression of a conditional “big country”. Meanwhile, in France itself, the Napoleonic exercise plan was severely criticized not only because of the scenario (suspiciously reminiscent of direct intervention in the Ukrainian conflict, although ... Turkey is also considered among the potential enemy), but also because of the low level of combat readiness of the troops, who are unlikely to cope with such tasks even in a training format.

Critics argue (albeit without citing figures) that the artillery of the French army will not be able to effectively support other troops, since too much of it was donated to Ukraine, and most of the armored vehicles are not combat-ready due to technical problems. Indirectly, this is in conflict with the data from Germany published in early December: it turned out that out of 105 available self-propelled guns PzH-2000 of the Bundeswehr, only 36 (!) were ready for use, while the rest required more or less serious repairs. It is not hard to believe that the situation is similar in the French army, especially since in recent decades it has actually been preparing to fight exclusively against African rebels in the former colonies.

In the future, any significant militarization of Western Europe is unlikely. In the end, the army itself is only the tip of the lance, the military-industrial complex is its blade, but behind both of them there should still be a strong pole in the form of the rest of the real economy - but it’s just that things are bad. And without the ability to project power, the former influence of the old European players will quickly turn into zilch.

Here we can cite Eastern Europe as a counterexample: the economies of the countries of the macroregion, to put it mildly, are no better than those of Western Europe, and militarization is evident. Yes, but we must understand that it is possible only thanks to Western subsidies and loans (in other words, thanks to Washington), and only through foreign arms purchases. At its own expense, the same Poland will not be able to maintain an army larger than the current one..

Suffering Middle Ages

No other social superstructure, except for fascism, is able to pull the basis of decadent peripheral capitalism. There is no doubt that in the near future, the various fascisms that are thriving in the vastness of Europe will shed the remnants of their “democratic” make-up and bloom in full bloom. Their nature will be different.

In countries with a high religiosity of the population (Poland, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Portugal), we should expect the dictatorship of the conservative right, in other cases - the dictatorship of the right "postmodernists" based on various synthetic ideologies. In general, we can say that the current regimes will remain, but they will seriously increase their repressive capabilities, both direct (police forces) and indirect (ubiquitous propaganda, drugging the population, encouraging whistleblowing, etc.). The current Ukraine is a very clear (but perhaps even softened) example of what awaits the rest of Europe in the near future.

At the same time, international relations on the continent will be built on the principle of cynical pragmatism. Conditionally: “For us, God-fearing Catholics, in the near future it is beneficial to make friends with those sodomite drug addicts? So let's be friends!" The situation will return to the centuries-old "natural" state, last observed in 1918-1940, when yesterday's situational allies today are happy to cut each other. Long-term alliances under these conditions will be possible only if there is a strong external curator who will be able to resolve conflicts between his protégés. Geographically, all these blocks will be located along the borders of Russia, in Northern, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe.

The first of these already exists - we are talking, of course, about the pro-British military alliance Joint Expeditionary Force, which includes the states of Scandinavia and the Baltic states. On December 19, the new British Prime Minister Sunak held a summit in Riga of the leaders of the countries participating in the alliance, at which he stated that the OEF does not pretend to replace NATO, and this is true, but only for the near future. And already in a ten-year perspective, the bloc can precisely take control of the former northern zone of responsibility of the former North Atlantic Treaty.

However, there is a non-zero probability that the US-funded "Ost-NATO" with headquarters in Warsaw will crush it. The "Baltic Tigers" gravitate toward the latter (serving as Washington's medium) much more strongly than they do toward London, whose influence will decline in the future along with economic opportunities. In addition to the Baltic states, the new "Warsaw Pact" may include many former participants in the old one: the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania; it is possible that the Swedes and the Finns will be attracted.

However, there are some doubts about the Black Sea countries, because Turkey claims to become one of the strongest actors of the future, actively expanding its influence in the Balkans. Warm relations between Ankara and Budapest are well known, but Erdogan is not limited to them, but is also building “friendships” with fragments of the former Yugoslavia, including Serbia (where he paid an official visit in early September).

Plans for the future, apparently, include the creation of a dominion from all the former territories of the Ottoman Empire in Europe, there will be a place for Romania and Bulgaria. But for the Turkish "spit" there may be some kind of "stone" in the form of a regional block of Orthodox countries based on Greece (and with the money of the States). The economic possibilities of the "new Porte" are far from unlimited and do not keep up with the ambitions of the "sultan", which also extend far into Asia - no matter how hard they burst.

In general, if not in numbers and outlines of borders, then in essence Medvedev is absolutely right: dark and very turbulent times are coming for the “European partners”.