In 1989, as the Soviet empire was imploding, Alexander Arbatov, a diplomatic advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev, addressed a brilliant remark to Westerners: "We are going to do something terrible to you. You will no longer have an enemy." The disappearance of Communism indeed plunged Europe and the United States into a disorienting euphoria; for the "Free world," it was a symbolic catastrophe.
Europe stopped caring about history, a nightmare that it left behind with great difficulty, first in 1945, and again after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Reality gives the lie to the fairy tale: millions of people, some within Europe itself, show that they're ready to die for their God, while European populist movements contest the post-political utopia, proclaiming that peoples do not want to disappear, that borders protect before they separate, and that identity is not a product of nostalgia but a defining concern.
In its worst moments, Europe has sought peace at almost any price, an approach that can sanction grave injustice, as during the ethnic conflicts that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s-violence brought to an end only with American military intervention.
The threats it faces might harm Europe gravely, but they might also force it to take hold of its destiny and constitute a military force worthy of the name, preparing for the worst in order to avoid it.
The prosecution of Europe goes on, led by a drumbeat that Europe itself often provides.
Europe must rearm itself but it must also distinguish the battlefield from the confrontation of ideas.
https://www.city-journal.org/europe-and-its-enemies
Europe stopped caring about history, a nightmare that it left behind with great difficulty, first in 1945, and again after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Reality gives the lie to the fairy tale: millions of people, some within Europe itself, show that they're ready to die for their God, while European populist movements contest the post-political utopia, proclaiming that peoples do not want to disappear, that borders protect before they separate, and that identity is not a product of nostalgia but a defining concern.
In its worst moments, Europe has sought peace at almost any price, an approach that can sanction grave injustice, as during the ethnic conflicts that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s-violence brought to an end only with American military intervention.
The threats it faces might harm Europe gravely, but they might also force it to take hold of its destiny and constitute a military force worthy of the name, preparing for the worst in order to avoid it.
The prosecution of Europe goes on, led by a drumbeat that Europe itself often provides.
Europe must rearm itself but it must also distinguish the battlefield from the confrontation of ideas.
https://www.city-journal.org/europe-and-its-enemies
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