Ukraine war cements decline of the West

“All that remains of the West is the ever more artificial, even insane attempt to arrest the wheel of history… In this senile Europe, the nations, states, and ruling classes… keep their faith in empty formulae of freedom and progress.”

Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West

In June of this year, the German daily Handelsblatt revealed that German leader Olaf Scholtz, while serving as finance minister in 2020, tried to make a secret deal with the Trump administration to avoid US sanctions on the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline.

Two years later, in early February 2022, a few weeks before the outbreak of the Ukraine war, Scholtz, as German Chancellor, visited the White House for talks with US President Joe Biden on the growing crisis.

During a live press conference following their talks, Biden was asked about his view of Nord Stream, the pipeline system that delivers Russian gas to Europe. The US president responded by saying, “If Russia invades Ukraine, there will be no longer Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”

Scholtz, standing next to the US president, was asked for a response. The German leader affirmed that the US and Germany were on the same page regarding Ukraine. Without mentioning Nord Stream, he implicitly endorsed its destruction.

But as he spoke, the German chancellor seemed uncomfortable. Did he consider how history would judge him for effectively greenlighting the extrajudicial destruction of a crucial part of Germany’s civilian infrastructure? And how it would set a new precedent for international norms of behavior?

Encircling Russia

On the face of it, the West seems to have a schizophrenic view of Russia. Following the collapse of the USSR, Europe and Russia developed growing economic ties that