My view is that the west simply lacks social cohesion and self reliance to engage in any serious military conflict at this point. Western regimes are hanging by a thread right now, and it seems far more likely that the west descends into social unrest than rallies itself to war footing.
I think that social unrest is the war footing. You only need the rabidity of the neofascists in the streets to be allied with the police to be allied with the military and the intelligence community and all be tied together with surveillance capitalism, and then basically everyone not rabidly fascist will atomize and deactivate while the eschatological leadership directs the industrial genocide of new communities every 6 months. We are getting dangerously close to automated weapons platforms with the revelation of Lavender. We’re already beyond the pale with near-real-time social surveillance. Anyone not in the most disciplined and isolated resistance militias is by default living in a kettle, and sharing intel with lynch mobs is all the social control you really need.
I don’t think the Gladios militias got smaller or fewer. The openly fascist parties are growing in power in Europe. I think consolidation is plausible, but it will require a lot of blood letting. If consolidation happens, the resistance will mount and surely be disruptive, but not before a pan-Western force is amassed and starts its killing spree. I was looking for signs of this Gaza conflict accelerating the USA’s hard power decline, but I think we’re going to start seeing the opposite. We underestimate our enemies at our own peril.
Fascism is becoming increasingly open in the west, there’s no doubt about that. However, that doesn’t translate into a war footing. Western right wing parties aren’t united in any sense, and they’re all at odds with each other. What we’re seeing in Europe right now is that all the countries are at odds with one another. Meanwhile, US right is advocating for isolationaism and will likely leave Europe to hang once Trump gets in power. This will only cause the tensions in Europe to rise further.
There is no path to any sort of consolidation here, and what’s far more likely is that we’ll see NATO and EU fall apart with countries trying to join BRICS to save their economies.
I dunno. I don’t buy the great man theory of Trump isolationism. The US military is running the show, the politicians just need to package it. I think it’s entirely possible for the USA to squeeze Europe but they can’t abandon them because their interests align with China too strongly. If the Trump admin squeezes Europe, it will only be enough to justify the next phase in 4 years when the USA “returns to its former glory” and Europe falls in line under the threat of a Euromaidan from whatever Gladios operators are active in that country.
I really hope you’re right that NATO is out of gas, but I have doubts.
