Spenglerian moments, borders, and the rise and fall of kingdoms

Since the publication of The Decline of the West in 1918, Oswald Spengler’s theories of civilizational decline have never truly gone out of fashion. War, Plague, Death and Conquest: no civilizational end of cycle is without its godly scourges. Kingdoms rise and fall, and all is overturned. The Classical Civilization’s crisis had its civil wars, its Justinian Plague, its Attila, and its Goths. The Faustian has had, and will keep having, its own Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Since its inception, this blog has been prophesizing the end of an era in Europe; an end more or less contemporary with the Covidian saga. The last few months have provided plenty of building material for this new paradigm: as Mutti Merkel’s reign comes to and end, so does an European Union smoothened by open borders, Orgasmus exchange programs, and relationships artificially sustained by social networks.

New German Chancellor Olaf Scholz went last week to meet with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. We’ve discussed Scholz before: he was the protagonist of a scandal as the Finance Minister of Merkel’s 4th government, when Nord Stream 2 polemics were spiking on February 2021. Scholz sent a personal letter in August 2020 to US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. Allegedly, in it he offered massive investments from the German government towards developing LNG terminals in the North Sea coast. In return, Trump’s administration was asked to permit the "unhindered construction and operation of Nord Stream 2".

Evidently, the scandal didn’t hurt the newly-minted Chancellors political reputation. It’s not the first one he survives, and he has been nicknamed Teflon Scholz for this ability.

The American Empire has never been too happy about Nord Stream, and neither have some of its European foederati. Central European countries, of which Poland is one of the most vocal, argue that the pipeline will increase Europe's energy dependency on Russia, while hurting Ukraine throught the denial of such a powerful source of transit revenue.

Of course, Nord Stream 2 was a central topic in the conversations between Morawiecki and Scholz. This time, however, in a very different climate, due to the saber-rattling at the EU’s Eastern flank. Overfed on mass media psyops, many in the West have come to expect (even desire in some cases) in their lifetimes confrontation between Captain America and [Putin’s] Winter Soldiers.

In general, invasions you announce too much are invasions you do not expect to carry out. One can never know for sure, though. One of the things that truly is remarkable in this story, though, is the beginning of "a new chapter" (Morawiecki’s words) between in Poland and Germany’s new socialist- coalition government.

For countries like Germany, Trump’s presidency brought crashing down the diplomatic costs of confronting the US. The US diplomatic apparatus, very much a Blue Empire fiefdom, tended to despise the President. This is not the case with a Biden administration - as this blog predicted almost exactly a year ago.

Berlin mandarins are feeling the combined pressure of the US, an every more influential Poland, their long-established “Russia First” foreign policy and their own commitments to the Ukraine - some of which were fundamental in sparking the 2014 sharp political crisis that led to the War in Donbas.

Things don’t look good at all for Ukraine.

Scholz said he would back plans to preserve Ukraine’s lucrative role as Europe’s gas gatekeeper, while funding the country's green electricity efforts. So, altough Germans “continue to feel responsible for ensuring that Ukraine's gas transit business remains successful," they also have “concrete plans” for Ukraine to become “a major source of renewable energy”.

Interesting, given the not-so-satisfying performance of Germany’s own Energiewende energy transition. In context, such declarations can sound almost as a threat, as countries who try too hard to become “major sources of renewable energy” tend to become net energy importers instead, often fading into political irrelevance (except as captive energy markets, i.e.: sources of loot).

Such is the case of Spain, whose political subordination to Germany with regards to energy and finances has made it particularly vulnerable to foreign interest. Despite record-high prices of electricity in 2021 and dismal prospects for post-pandemic economic recovery, the country is fully committed to phasing out its coal and nuclear plants to meet sustainability objectives: a price paid in 1986 for its admission into the polite society of European liberal democratic regimes. It is also regularly abused by its neighbors, partners and allies (the list of which not only comprises Morocco).

It is so, then: Spain, former ruler of the waves and (black)legendary exporter of soldiers and missionaries, is now a country of bartenders and sunny beaches. The kind of place German and British middle classes enjoy visiting in the Summer. And in the world of covidian arbitrariness, economic ruin is always just two weeks of lockdown away for hotel and restaurant owners.

[Incidentally, there’s fantastic beaches in Odessa.]

As a border country in the EU’s (and NATO’s) southern flank, the comparison of Spain with Poland is particularly interesting. The Mediterranean nation is well acquainted with the use of migrants in hybrid warfare, but stresses the solution is a “great European pact of asylum”, in the words of Foreign Affairs Minister José Manuel Albares Bueno. In the European cybernetic system of migration, the switches and levers are far from Madrid, for better or worse; something not entirely unexpected, considering the Spanish government’s credentials as Open Society crusaders.

These attitudes contrast with the Slavic based nation par excellence. In the face of the manufactured migrant pressure at the Belarusian border, Poland answered by calling in military allies, raising barbed wire fences, bringing water cannons and performing hot devolutions, to the outrage of Amnesty International and globalists worldwide. Warsaw was Scholz’s third foreign visit, only after Paris and Brussels. A remarkable distinction for a country that is supposedly at odds with “European values”, and which among other things simply refuses to phase-out coal for a couple decades.

This goes to show how far things can change in the course of a couple decades. Values which seemed eternal suddenly fade. Conspiracies and revolutions bound to take over the world fail unceremoniously. Alliances come and go, city walls fall and kingdoms crumble.

Trump is gone. Merkel is gone. Putin will be gone at some point soon, too. The times they ruled over were just the last of those belonging to a different era. They were privileged witnesses to a world that is already dead. New Cultures fester in the carcass of a dying Civilization.