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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 24, 2025

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Who would be Europe's plausible geopolitical partners other than the US and the Anglosphere?

Mid-sized African countries willing to be paid to receive European deportees. (There are no large ones.)

Between population decline, relative economic winnowing, and its own strategic priorities, Europe will likely lack the capacity to spare for power projection abroad when prioritizing Russia, and other geopolitical powers are unlikely to want to help Europe with Russia. This limits Europe's plausible geopolitical partners.

Unless you want to think in terms of a presuming the breakup of various other major global actors, but I'd expect the EU to break up more than most of the others.

Does a closer relationship with China or India make sense, or would Europe be better placed positioning itself as a leaders of an equivalent to the non-aligned movement in the Cold War?

No, no, and no respectively.

No, a closer relationship with China doesn't make sense, because China will prioritize Russia for its resources and strategic utility against the US and Europe has little to offer beyond market access. This doesn't mean China wouldn't accept that, but if Europe is just wanting to be an uninvolved economy, it doesn't need to be a geopolitical partner to do that, and it's hardly going to fight Russia on behalf of Europe.

No, a closer relationship with India doesn't make sense, because Europe cannot help India with its security challenges, particularly if Europe is a willing market for China and consumed with its own issues, and India isn't interested in Europe geopolitically as much as just a technology transfer target, which will dry up and doesn't require an alliance.

No, Europe will not be a credible leader of a non-aligned movement. Colonialism and post-colonial grievance aside, Europe is currently and probably will be engaging in exporting detention camps against the global south most interested in being a part of it, while the sort of xenophobia that supports anti-Americanism as a guiding principle will be even more pronounced against much of the global south.

How should Europe square US domination of digital media and tech with a much cooler relationship?

Mass censorship and a gradual partition of the internet with a European enclave, mandating use of European government monitored / controlled platforms while criminalizing others.

Should it aim for a "Red Tape Firewall" that makes it progressively harder for US digital services to operate in Europe, both as a cultural-and-security measure and as a kind of technological importation substitution?

As long as it's willing to accept increasingly direct American retaliation against non-digital service sectors, and to have the European digital service sector largely limited to Europe as others take on equivalent red tape firewalls that Europe has justified establishing.

What does NATO look like in a world where no-one trusts that the US would honour Article 5?

Much the same as it does in a world where no-one expects the non-American elements to be able to honour Article 5- people will make their judgements based on the Americans and their strength of relations directly, not the NATO treaty, even as the potential of an American support shapes political issues.

Does it remain as a zombie organisation?

Possibly, though less so if spite lists occur.

Do European countries formally withdraw, in favour of a European alternative?

What would be the point? Just build the European alternative in parallel.

It's not NATO membership that stops a European alternative. It's the point that NATO is the means by which Europeans try to (politely) counter-balance against the French and the Germans, and European Alternative projects tend to be jobs projects disproportionately to the benefit of France and Germany.

It's not NATO membership that stops a European alternative. It's the point that NATO is the means by which Europeans try to (politely) counter-balance against the French and the Germans, and European Alternative projects tend to be jobs projects disproportionately to the benefit of France and Germany.

Yep. Count me out for a Franco-German army with bases in Ireland.

There’s nothing wrong with NATO that couldn’t be fixed by members pulling on their big-boy trousers and also by respecting the actual borders of the alliance.