Foreign Affairs A Proposal for a New European Order What might a European Confederation of the future look like?   After the end of the war in Ukraine, what would be the nature of a European order that included Russia instead of marginalizing it? What is the future for Europe in an increasingly multipolar world? How should such a European order be institutionalized so that peace, freedom, democracy, and effectiveness are ensured and Europe’s own identity is protected? These are questions that cannot wait to be asked until the guns finally fall silent in Ukraine. In the present context, these questions can only be outlined sketchily in the space of a few pages. Nevertheless, it is worth trying to find an alternative for Europe. Europe and Empire  Any quest for an effective European order that is legitimate in the eyes of the people must begin with consideration of the structure of Europe. European civilization—the occident—has been characterized historically by its cultural, religious, regional, linguistic, and ethnic diversity, complemented by its geography, which further reinforces that diversity through its numerous rivers and mountain ranges.  At the same time, to quote former Federal President Theodor Heuss, Europe is built on three metaphorical hills, namely Calvary (Christianity), the Capitoline Hill (Roman law), and the Acropolis (Greek philosophy). One concept that brings unity to this diversity is the European idea of empire. Plans for a federal Europe thus made early appearances: in the plan for world peace drawn up by French lawyer Pierre Dubois in 1300, in Dante’s foremost political treatise Monarchia (c. 1316) and in the 21-article federation plan proposed by George of Poděbrady, King of Bohemia, in 1462. The Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburg monarchy, for all their shortcomings, coped with internal diversity for centuries under the rule of the Emperor.  By contrast, the attempt made in the third century B.C. to create a “European”—meaning Hellenist at that time—federation, with a federal army and its own citizenship, over and above citizenship of its member poleis, to revive the Achaean League so as to counter the external threat from the Roman Empire in the west and the Macedonian Empire to the north met with failure as a result of bureaucracy and inefficiency.  Europe, then, guided by a modern democratic version of the idea of empire, must follow a middle way between a federal state and a confederation of states, especially since, as the German political thinker Ulrike Guérot notes, there are no popular majorities in favor of a centralist federal state. On the basis of the theories expounded by British philosopher John Laughland, the idea of a centralist EU federal state must also be rejected because the essence of a state is simply not determined—as Marxists and some liberals wrongly believe—by its economic basis. Such a determinist view of the nature of man, society, and history leads, in extremis, to totalitarianism. That, of course, is precisely the problem with the EU as it now exists, “designed” as an artificial bureaucratic construct, not organically evolved in the conservative sense, and inherently at odds with tradition, justice, and freedom. Moreover, it “forgot” to take the people—the peoples of Europe—on board, while a European demos and a European public opinion simply do not exist. The member states of the European Union, for their part, will not stop being sovereign until both their legal and their political authority are brought to an end by their own legal system and citizenry. We are still far from that stage (see above)—regardless of whether it is even a desirable outcome.  Alternative for Europe It should first be established, ex negativo, what this future European order should not be. Some points have already been addressed above. Back in 1915, the German liberal Friedrich Naumann, from whom, by the way, the foundation Friedrich Naumann Stiftung took its name, stated in his magnum opus, Mitteleuropa, that, in the spirit of European diversity, a Central European federation should not have only one official common language. Nevertheless, Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, in his highly influential work Pan-Europa of 1923, posited a need to spread the “knowledge that all of Europe’s national cultures are closely and inextricably connected parts of a great and uniform European culture.” This can be done, in a new European confederation which should be created, by funding a compulsory course for every university and college student in the foundations of Western civilization, similar to the “Western civ.” courses that were part of the U.S. university curriculum or the rudiments of Russian civilization that are taught in Russia today. A new European confederation should be an intellectual union, not a redistribution union. This means ending all subsidies which go beyond support for pan-European infrastructure (roads, railways, airports, digital infrastructure, pipelines, LNG terminals, etc.). This applies especially to the agricultural subsidies that currently account for a third of the EU budget.  The so-called anti-discrimination legislation and censorship laws such as the Digital Services Act should be abolished. The future European confederation should put an end to imperialist exportation of values, such as requiring accession candidates to legislate for gender ideology and LGBTIQ rights. Such requirements at present only result in predominantly conservative peoples and societies, especially in Eastern European countries such as Georgia, feeling repelled by the same Europe to which they actually have a sense of belonging. Moreover, there should be no common citizenship of the new European confederation over and above that of one’s own member state (cf. the Achaean League). Sovereignty would remain with the European peoples, through their respective member states.  Ex positivo, the new European confederation should focus on common European cross-border interests. These include energy and environmental policies, for example. The joint purchase of energy sources—Russian gas and oil, for instance—would increase Europe’s market power as a consumer in relation to producers and is therefore in the interests of Europe as a whole. The joint purchase and joint stockpiling of strategic resources, such as rare earths, would reinforce the market power of Europe. In the field of environmental protection, regulation should be confined to a few basic benchmarks so as to guarantee Europe’s global competitiveness and establish compatibility with free trade agreements. In accordance with the principle of multipolarity, the new Confederation should conclude free-trade agreements with India, the United States, Russia, and South America, with a view to counteracting Chinese trade pressure on Europe.  According to the Belgian historian David Engels, the Europe of the future, because of its cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity, will have an organizational structure that is confined to shared core interests, namely defense (common armed forces, including communitization of the French nuclear weapons), home affairs policy (police cooperation in cross-border criminal prosecution and protection of external borders from illegal migration from the Global South), finance (material support for joint programs) and, as mentioned above, infrastructure (joint projects for the establishment of logistic links).  The figurehead of this structure will be the President of the European Union, who, rather like the Holy Roman Emperor, will act as a mediator, together with the commission under his or her authority, in the resolution of disputes. The European Commission will be dissolved, and the extensive judicial powers of the EU, exercised by the European Court of Justice, will be subject to considerable restrictions. The Court will only rule on specific matters, and without EU-wide legal effects. The existing European Parliament will become the lower chamber and the European Council the upper chamber of the new European legislature.  It should be noted at this point that the pan-Europeanist Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi  was already proposing a representation system allotting one member of the European Parliament per million inhabitants of each member state, rather than the degressive system which now applies and which discriminates against Germany. This would also lead to a substantial reduction in the number of MEPs. David Engels conceives the structure of Western Europe as that of a defensive alliance against the expansion of Chinese and Russian influence, providing for both national and collective defense, but, in a true continentalist spirit, it should also limit the influence of the United States. Nevertheless, peaceful coexistence of the new European confederation with Russia, which is also regarded as upholding the Russian imperial ideal of Byzantine origin, is conceivable and indeed entirely probable. A new Western Europe would focus on its internal problems, namely, the collapse of states and the migration waves from the Middle East and Africa. It would be an inward-looking Europe that exported neither goods nor arms nor woke values. David Engels points to the classical West, i.e. Western Europe, and implicitly recognizes the existence of a second wing of Europe, namely the Orthodox East. Russia, including Belarus and part of the former Ukraine, as the Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn proposed, would not be an enemy but a “partner with shared traditional values” of a renewed Western Europe.  This approach differs from the idea of the “global North” mooted by Vladislav Surkov, former aide to the President of Russia, in that it differentiates more sharply between Europe (Western and Orthodox) and the United States. At the same time, Engels strongly emphasizes that the new Western Europe should cooperate with the United States in the NATO framework; he therefore assumes the continuing existence of that key transatlantic organization. I largely agree with Engels on the listed points, but common armed forces, made up of contingents from national forces, should be deployed for the sole purpose of national or collective defense; internal operations within the European confederation should be prohibited.  The common armed forces could also be deployed to secure the external borders of the confederation on land, at sea, and in the air from terrorism and illegal migration, which are clear and present dangers in view of the rapid population growth in Africa. The common armed forces, moreover, could be used to secure global trade routes against terrorism and piracy—together with Russia and China and not against them—because these transnational dangers threaten all of us. All other EU missions, including any out-of-area Bundeswehr deployments, should be terminated.  The vote to authorize deployments should be taken by the upper house of the European Parliament, in other words the governments of the member states, acting by consensus (abstentions would be possible; the states abstaining would not participate in the mission but would be under obligation to contribute to its funding) and by the lower house (the directly elected chamber), acting by a simple majority. In the event of a deployment, the commander-in-chief would be the commissioner holding the defense portfolio in the downsized Commission referred to above, which would be focused on the core interests of Europe as a whole. I regard the aforementioned communitization of the French nuclear weapons as possibly unworkable politically, although joint deployment planning—solely for national and collective defense purposes—should be undertaken. To this end, a nuclear strategy would have to be presented by the competent Commissioner and adopted by the lower and upper chambers, following the procedure described above.  In the long term—after the creation of the new European confederation—pan-European armed forces would be the way to fashion an independent European security structure which can replace NATO. Ever since Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia” announcement, the United States has been looking to withdraw from the European continent; it is increasingly ceding responsibility to Germany, Britain, and France for providing Ukraine with arms and financial support and will be reducing its military presence on NATO’s eastern flank. Under President Donald Trump, the United States is focusing on North and South America (see his moves on Venezuela and Greenland) as well as on East Asia (China). In the long run, there will be no alternative to a separate continental, defensive European security structure.  This continental structure will strive for stability, peace, and security in Europe, combating the influence of external powers but also neo-imperialist ambitions and military adventures, whatever their source. It will foster stabilizing spheres of influence and mutual security guarantees—as proposed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov—and oppose the expansion of blocs, security alliances, and empires.  Back in 1923, Coudenhove-Kalergi recognized that the world had emancipated itself from Europe. “The world hegemony of Europe is overthrown for all time,” he wrote. “Once feared, Europe is now pitied.” Because of Europe’s reduced demographic, cultural, economic, and military status in the world, a new European confederation would concentrate on its own borders. Just as they define states, borders also define people and societies. They create identity and consolidate it. Etymologically, the original meaning of polis was “fortification.” Borders are a constitutive element of any body politic. Self-restraint, not expansion, is also the guiding principle in external affairs. This means that the new European confederation must resolve to stop the enlargement process. The borders of that confederation should correspond to the boundaries of Catholic and Protestant Europe, as the late American political scientist Samuel Huntington proposed. All efforts to expand into the Orthodox countries of Eastern Europe must be halted. Moldova, Georgia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Armenia should at worst be buffer states and at best bridges between the new European confederation and Russia. If they wish, they may participate in certain confederation programs, but any kind of military cooperation—arms supplies, personnel training, missile deployment, etc.—must be ruled out. An agreement should be negotiated with Russia establishing an exclusion zone for short-range and intermediate-range missiles and providing for mutual reductions in the presence of conventional forces in border areas.  The Route to a New European Confederation  That sounds all very well, the interested reader may think, but what does the pathway look like that leads from the EU as it now exists to a new European confederation? There are two possible scenarios, one of which is surely preferable: First, either a fundamental change in the ruling elites in the core countries of the EU (Germany, France, Poland and Spain; in Italy, this has already taken place to a certain degree) and in the United Kingdom, through the triumph of patriotic forces in the parliamentary or presidential elections that are scheduled to take place in 2026 and 2027 in France, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom, and in 2029 in Germany, if the present parliamentary term runs its full course.  The other scenario would be a case of continuing as before in the EU and its core states, which Ulrike Guérot considers likely, and the consequent uncontrollable disintegration of the EU as a result of the economic and cultural cleft and the division over migration policy between east and west and between north and south. In that case, the human, social, economic, and political costs would be high.  It is not inconceivable that regional alliances would then be formed, bringing together groups of states which might be mutually hostile in some cases, leading to the eruption or rekindling of intra-European conflicts. On account of the common pan-European interests, even in the latter scenario the confederation outlined above would probably be formed, although every citizen of Germany and its European partners is called upon to do everything possible to mitigate the costs of such a scenario.  Or, as Coudenhove-Kalergi wrote more than a hundred years ago, If this development is not halted in time by the Federation of Europe, everything that is still efficient and viable in Europe will leave this impoverished, menaced, rotting and small-minded part of the world and settle in other, more auspicious areas, particularly in America. The post A Proposal for a New European Order appeared first on The American Conservative.

Politics Dealing With the Marijuana Problem Bans are a distant prospect, but there are steps to take to limit use in the short term. The New York Times editorial board thinks America has a marijuana problem. This may come as a surprise, as the same board has long supported legalizing weed. The esteemed paper of record once assumed there would be few problems with addiction or overuse. “It is now clear that many of these predictions were wrong,” the board concluded last week. The Times pointed to data showing millions of Americans smoke weed frequently and more use it on a daily basis than alcohol. “This wider use has caused a rise in addiction and other problems,” the board writes. “Each year, nearly 2.8 million people in the United States suffer from cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, which causes severe vomiting and stomach pain. More people have also ended up in hospitals with marijuana-linked paranoia and chronic psychotic disorders. Bystanders have also been hurt, including by people driving under the influence of pot.” But the paper argues against prohibition, arguing that it has its own harmful effects. The editorial board wants regulations and taxes rather than bans. That may displease conservatives who prefer outright outlawing it. But measures such as this may be our only hope to stem reefer madness. The public is too “culturally libertarian” to embrace a ban. Making it more inconvenient to toke offers the hope of limiting its harm. It worked with smoking; it can work again with weed. I am personally extremely anti-marijuana. Refusing to smoke weed is one of the four planks of the Greerhead Pledge. It’s a nasty habit that turns people into unproductive slugs. It reduces brain function and increases the chance of mental illness. It’s not even a good social drug like alcohol. People don’t gain the urge to socialize under its influence. It would be better if it were banned, with some exceptions made for medicinal use. But our country is likely to turn a deaf ear to that. We live in an age of cultural libertarianism where Americans desire a maximization of individual rights. This can lead to conservative victories, such as greater gun rights. But it also leads to legalized gambling, drugs, and “sex work.”  People don’t want to have their rights infringed upon. Some see that freedom as the right to carry their gun around wherever they want; others view it as the liberty to do any drug they please.  America’s common moral consensus can be summed up in “let people enjoy things” and “mind your own business.” So long as the individual isn’t “harming anyone,” it’s considered fine to legalize. As Aaron Renn observes, the nation now lacks the “softly institutionalized generic Protestantism” that stood for our moral consensus. It emphasized moral reform and vice suppression. But with its decline, all that’s left is “live and let live.”  This may seem daunting to those who want to reduce the prevalence of marijuana use. But that doesn’t need to be the case. Modern America was capable of suppressing one vice without outlawing it.  That vice is, of course, smoking. Cigarettes were once ubiquitous in this country. One could smoke them in the office, restaurants, and even on planes. In 1965, 42.5 percent of American adults smoked. Today, that number stands below 12 percent.  How was this changed? Besides health campaigns warning about the dangers of smoking, we made it harder to do so. Starting in the 2000s, we started to ban smoking at work and inside all buildings. Now if you wanted to smoke, you had to make the extra effort to stand outside and take a smoke. This made it highly inconvenient. No longer could you just light up a cig at your desk. You had to put aside work and brave the weather to do so.  Americans hate to be inconvenienced. We structure our society, in theory, for maximum ease and accessibility. Being forced to go the extra mile to do anything will dissuade Americans from doing it. We also hate taxes, which is another thing that was heavily levied on tobacco products. Not only were Americans having to expend a lot of effort to smoke one measly cig, they had to pay a whole lot more for it as well. If we were able to dramatically cut tobacco smoking, we can do the same for weed. There needs to be stiff restrictions on where potheads can smoke. People, for the most part, don’t smoke at work, but they love to smoke in public places. That should be curbed. Most places don’t allow people to drink in public. It’s time to do the same for weed. There should be restrictions on smoking weed on public streets and in parks, and they should be strictly enforced. In practice, the only place you should be allowed to smoke weed is at a private residence. And even this domain should face restrictions.  A landmark case in DC ruled in favor of a woman who sued her neighbor for the weed stench he brought to her front door. Just like loud music and other public disturbances, marijuana users must ensure that their pastime does not interfere with their neighbors. They need to smoke responsibly and not stink up the entire neighborhood. That lawsuit hopefully establishes a precedent for the entire country and leads to city ordinances and rental agreements spelling it out. Along with these rules, we must place heavy taxes on the product and regulations on its potency. A federal tax on pot, as suggested by the Times, should be enacted as soon as possible. Once the standard is set, the states will follow. Potheads, like smokers, should pay a heavy price for their habit. We are unfortunately facing the prospect of legal weed. There may come a day when more people realize its harmful effects, and it is once again banned. But that day probably won’t come for a long time. It might even require a revival of the old moral consensus that fell by the wayside in the 1960s. In the meantime, we have to deal with this upcoming certainty. It would be a nightmare to allow weed to pervade our entire society. Legalization doesn’t have to deliver us to this evil. Making it extremely inconvenient and extremely expensive would go a long way toward reducing our marijuana problem.  The post Dealing With the Marijuana Problem appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs The Trump Admin Is Serious About Western Civilization Marco Rubio’s Munich speech reiterated and elaborated a new paradigm of U.S.–Europe relations. The Trump administration seems awfully serious about this “Western civilizational” thing. If you somehow hadn’t caught on to that fact before this weekend, chances are you’ve gotten the memo now. On Saturday, America’s top diplomat strode up to the podium at the annual Munich Security Conference and waxed poetic about the bonds of history and culture uniting the New World with the old continent. “We are part of one civilization—Western civilization,” Marco Rubio said early in the speech, which featured 12 uses of the word “civilization.” Whether you love or hate the Trump administration’s civilizational turn, the fact of its happening has been undeniable for months. And no, you can’t dismiss it as some Rubio-driven project.  Vice President J.D. Vance’s own speech at the same conference last year also gestured to a Western civilizational worldview, as I argued at the time, although it garnered a more hostile reception. Since then, President Donald Trump, Vance, Rubio, mid-level officials, and official strategy documents have repeatedly propounded a civilizational vision of America and Europe. That’s why I was able to report and write a feature-length magazine article on the topic and file it in January. What, then, was the point of Rubio’s big speech? One aim was to reiterate that the White House is operating within a new, civilizational paradigm of U.S.–Europe relations, and to elaborate that paradigm:  We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have fallen heir. Another aim was to reassure the Europeans that America wasn’t turning its back on them: We care deeply about your future and ours. And if at times we disagree, our disagreements come from our profound sense of concern about a Europe with which we are connected—not just economically, not just militarily. We are connected spiritually and we are connected culturally. A third aim was to kick the Europeans in the rear so that they come along for the ride:  Under President Trump, the United States of America will once again take on the task of renewal and restoration, driven by a vision of a future as proud, as sovereign, and as vital as our civilization’s past. And while we are prepared, if necessary, to do this alone, it is our preference and it is our hope to do this together with you, our friends here in Europe. Left-wingers were appalled. “Marco Rubio’s speech was a pure appeal to ‘Western culture,’” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) complained, making air quotes. “My favorite part was when he said that American cowboys came from Spain. I believe the Mexicans and descendants of African slave peoples would like to have a word on that!” (Fact check: no.) She added that “whiteness is an imaginary thing,” which I suppose puts white people in the same category as fairies, unicorns, and AOC’s deep knowledge of history.  Nor did neoconservatives like Jonah Goldberg seem pleased with Rubio’s speech, which kicked off a discourse they saw as racist—and which struck a nerve. Goldberg lost his cool on X during a debate about “white culture,” maligning some poor fellow named Golfguy21 as a “stupid peckerwood” for believing it exists. Wikipedia tells me that odd word is a “racial epithet used against white people, especially poor rural whites.” Evidently, whites are permitted to claim the culture of drinkin’ beer and shootin’ deer, but not the higher culture extolled by Rubio: It was here in Europe where the ideas that planted the seeds of liberty that changed the world were born. It was Europe which gave the world the rule of law, the universities, and the scientific revolution… the genius of Mozart and Beethoven, of Dante and Shakespeare, of Michelangelo and Da Vinci, of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones… the vaulted ceilings of the Sistine Chapel and the towering spires of the great cathedral in Cologne… Paleoconservatives are, in theory, the faction best equipped to process this rather unexpected effort to save Western civilization, and to support it. The legendary paleocons of yesteryear—Pat Buchanan, Sam Francis, Joseph Sobran—lamented the demise of the West and rise of the rest. They would have been thrilled to hear a U.S. official voice nostalgia for the centuries of Western expansion and bemoan the contraction of the West after the Second World War amid “godless communist revolutions” and “anticolonial uprisings.” The White House apparently wants Americans and Europeans to adopt a very different, much more right-wing temperament than the one modernity has instilled in them. It’s a big ask. For decades now, the education system and corporate media have instructed whites to feel guilty about Western history, to make themselves smaller, less aggressive, harmless. The idea is that if you lie down in your bed underneath the covers and cry then maybe some big liberal in the sky will smile down on you and show mercy. Rubio offered different advice: Don’t be such a wimp. We do not want our allies to be shackled by guilt and shame. We want allies who are proud of their culture and of their heritage, who understand that we are heirs to the same great and noble civilization, and who, together with us, are willing and able to defend it. All these passages are shocking, but not as shocking as what happened after Rubio was done speaking: The audience, comprising some of the most effete and xenophilic Europeans you’ll ever encounter, gave a standing ovation. “Mr. Secretary, I’m not sure you heard the sigh of relief through this hall when we were just listening to what I would interpret as a message of reassurance, of partnership,” a moderator told Rubio.  Mr. Moderator, I’m not sure you heard the message. I’ve been trying to decode this message for over a year now, ever since Trump’s second inaugural address. “Above all,” Trump said, “my message to Americans today is that it is time for us to once again act with courage, vigor, and the vitality of history’s greatest civilization.” One conclusion I’ve drawn: The “Western civilization” framework is meant to generate coherence between Trump’s foreign and domestic policy programs, just as “democracy versus autocracy” did for Joe Biden.  Trump wants to make America great again, and he understands this aim as part of a broader effort to make the West great again, and that’s what it’s all about, Alfie. His plans to upsize the White House and build an Arc de Triomphe in Washington should be understood in these terms no less than his condemnation of Europe’s suicide by mass migration. Simply put, if you don’t like all the talk about Western civ, perhaps because you were expecting a sharper focus on foreign policy “restraint,” then you should consider that maybe you don’t like this administration. And really, look at Donald Trump. Look at the totality of his life in business and media and politics. Does he symbolize restraint to you? Are you simple? The man used to split his time between a palace in Palm Beach and the top of a skyscraper in Manhattan with his name on it, cycling through leggy supermodels and eating three Big Macs every meal, before moving into the White House—which he’s currently turning gold! I won’t lie (my job is to write and talk about politics while not lying): I reckon there’s a roughly 5 percent chance this all goes terribly wrong, with a big war or mass left-wing uprising or slide into actual fascism or some other calamity. And there’s a 90 percent chance nothing really changes. Perhaps three years from now, as AOC is being inaugurated as America’s first female president, cherry-strudel-eating Europeans will ask themselves: “Vy vere zee Americans acting so veeeerd during Trump?” But that leaves a 5 percent chance that this actually works, that the White House leads a restoration of the West to its former greatness, and that America and Europe really do dominate the world for another “Western century,” as Rubio put it. Trump 2.0 is the only right-wing administration of my lifetime. Yet Americans and Europeans have been marinating in liberalism so long they’ve grown pruney. So what happens next? Stay tuned. The post The Trump Admin Is Serious About Western Civilization appeared first on The American Conservative.

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