I want to open with the first of many disclaimers. The ideas that I will express here are certainly fringe compared to the mainstream in the West, so I'm hoping we can have a rational, decent, and mayhap even useful debate.

Second, I'd like to emphasize that my sole goal with the ideas expressed below is simply to think about ways that we can, first of all, maintain the current hard-earned prosperity of Europe, and in particular, Germany. At the same time, and equally, if not more, importantly, to ensure it can continue on a path of (hopefully accelerated) development. The EU started as an organization to build a strong German-Franco relationship and is still largely defined by these two countries today. So I believe it's fair to say that Germany's and Europe's future are, to a large extent, tied together.

I was rather happy last year when Germany unveiled its first national security strategy, although, as will become apparent in the course of this writing, I do not necessarily agree with parts of it. However, it is a major step in the right direction to have a national security strategy in the first place.

Thirdly, I will limit each point below to a couple of sentences so as not to blow up the length of this article.

The War in the East

To be clear, and to get it out of the way: invading another country is one of the highest crimes there is according to international law (if only because all else follows from this). Russia's invasion of Ukraine is, therefore, comparable, in this particular sense, to the US-led invasion of Iraq, or even the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland that triggered WW2. It certainly has not been equivalent in intensity to the Iraq war (recall the "shock and awe" doctrine employed, as among elsewhere, in Iraq). But it nevertheless is one of the highest crimes there is, again, according to international law.

Having said that, I subscribe to the idea that this war was completely and utterly provoked by the West, in particular the foolish US-foreign policy of the past 30 years. In the interest of keeping this article short, I will refrain from elaborating on this thesis. But I highly recommend that those interested check out this short lecture by J.J. Mearsheimer.

I believe that this invasion has severely weakened Europe as a whole, and in particular, Germany, and we are not yet even close to seeing the full consequences of it as of 2024.

I am a strong believer in Gorbachev's vision of a "Common European Home", without armies, and only with countries having economic intercourse with each other. This vision is today being severely challenged and faces an utmost uncertain future. But it does not have to be like this moving forward. We can still correct the current wrongheaded course of action.

To come to the main point of this section: simply put the war in the East is not in the national interest of Germany.

One of the main drivers behind Germany's prosperity, apart from German ingenuity, especially in the field of engineering, has been its quite successful economic model: take cheap raw materials from the East, mainly from Russia, create state-of-the-art industrial products, and export them to the World. This model was broken about two years ago and has come under immense pressure ever since.

Germany has had to scrape itself to find alternatives to the cheap Russian raw materials, which there simply are not any. Instead, they have replaced them with suppliers whose price is significantly more expensive. As a result, what we are currently seeing and living in, is a de-industrialization of the German economy. The neoliberal capitalistic regime is indeed unforgiving when it comes to maximizing profits (an abomination of our modern age), therefore a lot of companies are moving their industrial base out of the country.

It was therefore in the interest of Germany to stop this war from happening in the first place. To their credit, the Scholz government did try to do this. Regrettably, whether it was due to Putin's thuggish behavior (recall that in one of his last contacts with a European leader, he dismissed Macron as he had to go and play hockey), or the fact that he simply knew where the real decision was taken and did therefore not believe the client states of the Godfather had any say in the final outcome, the negotiations failed.

More importantly though, today in 2024 it is still in the interest of Germany of stopping this war, and that can happen only through one way: negotiations. Unless this is understood by the current governing elites, Germany, and Europe as a consequence, will continue to suffer greatly.

The Middle East

Unfortunately, due to the near-hysteria climate that surrounds this topic, another disclaimer is in order: Israel, as any other country in the World, does have a right to self-defense, and, of course, existence. What is more, I have personally been a long admirer of the Jewish people, have long been perplexed, and have sought to understand, the reasons behind their ingenuity throughout their nearly 3500 years old history.

Having said that, as of 9th August 2024, the Middle East, and therefore possibly the whole World, appears to be at the precipice of utter disaster. And the main cause of this is without any major doubt, Israel.

Israel has become as Prof. Mearsheimer puts it, an albatross in the neck of the US, and therefore, the West as a whole (given that the rest of the Western countries, are, to repeat it, simply client states of the US).

Unfortunately discussing this topic is doubly sensitive in Germany, for apparent reasons. I believe that supporting what is arguably a genocide does not wash away one's past crimes. Therefore it is my opinion that, in regard to the Middle East, Germany should try to apply real pressure on both Israel and the US to do what makes rational sense in terms of policy, as well as morally (policy and morality do sometimes align, which is the best case scenario that one can hope for): stop the Gaza war, and give the Palestinians what virtually the whole World is on agreement in, their own state. Then and only then will the Middle East truly be as quiet as Sullivant would have wanted it to be when he wrote his now rightly ridiculed article.

China

As aforementioned the very successful German economic model has come under immense pressure in the last 2 years. If Germany follows once again the orders of the Godfather with respect to China, without applying any critical thinking first, I am afraid the downfall will only be significantly hastened.

And this is simply because China has been for decades a major trading partner of Germany. These are relationships that have taken years upon years of work to build, relationships that we are now seeing get smashed out of, to be very frank, sheer stupidity. The latest example of this is Li Qiang not even bothering to meet Habeck when he went to China a couple of weeks ago.

Now, it could be that Chinese industrial capabilities will far exceed those of Germany in the future and that at any rate, this beneficiary trade for Germany will be no more. But why hasten that?

For those of you mentioning the plight of the Uyghurs, I hear you. But keep in mind that this is a decade-old topic at this point, and it was not even part of the conversation until the Godfather began a confrontation policy with China in 2017, a policy that has picked up significant steam these last 2 years, with this year being the most intense one. And regarding China's authoritative nature, why suddenly wake up to this fact in the fifth decade of opening relations? To be sure, China has slipped more and more towards that path with Xi Jinping but the question nevertheless stands. My point here is: that it's not that the EU suddenly found its moral compass and woke up to this "brutal dictatorship" today (moreover, it has to take real intellectual effort to still maintain this position while they are utterly blind to Israel's full-blown massacres towards the Palestinian people). No, it's simply because they are simply being ordered to follow this policy.

Therefore, what Germany should be having instead is cordial and friendly relations with China. I believe it is not in Germany's, and Europe's, strategic interests to completely alienate China, which is what the Godfather is striving for.

The US

Another disclaimer: please keep in mind that this is an article on foreign policy and as such concerns itself only with it. This is not an evaluation of the US in any other dimension.

I believe US foreign policy has been an utter disaster since the end of the Cold War (to be clear, it wasn't any better between WW2 and the end of the Cold War, and even before that for that matter), and even more so with the current administration.

What Europe and Germany need to be doing is developing their own foreign policy, independent of the US. This is absolutely crucial for their future. It cannot be overstated how important it is that European countries, to say it for the third time, stop being client states of the US, and instead voice their opinions and concerns on various topics, and in therefore doing so, perhaps even stop the US from pursuing these foolish policies in the first place.

Regarding Russo-German relations, a major concern of US policymakers, for a very long time now, has been preventing synergies between these two countries. For, if Germany and Russia had friendly and cordial relations Europe would no longer be depended on and, therefore be, dominated by the US.

The sole goal of a country's foreign policy is expansion, power, and influence. That is it. That is what explains almost every single decision taken, even the foolish ones.

Seen in this particular light, Putin's decision to invade Ukraine, apart from criminal, was foolish even (although it was perhaps rational from the Russian perspective on other points, which in the end apparently outweighed the others): Europe was given, at least temporarily so, in a golden platter to the US. Now Finland and Sweden have joined NATO (rather foolishly so), Europe is re-militarizing, and Russophobia has reached new heights.

This is not good for either side, but incredibly more so for Europe as a whole, and, to say it again, we need dialogue, de-escalation, and a return to normality.

It appears to me that Germany is too afraid to look at itself in the mirror. The past is the past, it cannot be changed. One can only learn from it. However, one must not be refrained and pulled down by it.

Germany needs to step up to the challenge of uniting and unifying Europe. Germany needs to understand that it has to pursue its own interests, interests which at times can be at odds with its partners. So einfach ist es.

The current degree of dependence on US decision-making is frankly, embarrassing. I can understand Adenauer choosing not to pursue peace with the Soviets (recall the rather not-so-well-known Stalin Note), afraid that the Americans would think them too independent. Unfortunately, this, and other decisions taken at the time, seem to have set a very dangerous precedent for Germany simply obeying the orders of the Godfather on almost every topic.

Europe

I believe the EU to be a stepping stone, not an end, not a goal, simply a transition period. What we need is the United States of Europe. We need more unification, we need to consider ourselves European first and foremost. This of course does not mean that one's identity is erased, it simply means that we recognize that the path of accelerated development requires first of all unification and truly joining forces. This was the genius of Lincoln: he understood that the preservation of the Union was his first and foremost task. To be sure this would be an unprecedented achievement for the Europeans, given that the last time that Europe had a 'unified culture' was millennia before the birth of civilization itself, namely during the Gravettian culture. It should, however, be our goal.

This has been understood to a certain extent by the current French and German leadership, and there were some good plans on the agenda 3 years ago. Unfortunately with the current geopolitical catastrophes and tectonic shifts, these plans seem to have been largely put on hold, when they were most needed, and bickering has returned once more.

The German and French elites need to understand the need to finally stop trying to dominate one another (spoiler alert: they never stopped doing this, it just sublimated to more subtle ways), to come together in order to evolve the EU into something incredibly much more potent.

If this was a good-to-have goal previously, today it has become a necessity.