Flashpoints

In the end, the problem of Europe is the same problem that haunted its greatest moment, the Enlightenment.  It is the Faustian spirit, the desire to possess everything even at cost of their souls.  Today their desire is to possess everything at no cost.  They want permanent peace and prosperity.  They want to retain their national sovereignty, but they do not want these sovereign states to fully exercise their sovereignty.  They want to be one people, but they do not want to share each other’s fate.  They want to speak their own language, but they don’t believe that these will be a bar to complete mutual understanding.  They want to triumph, but they don’t want to risk. They want to be completely secure, but they don’t wish to defend themselves.

Europe has always been a hotbed of military activity.  I never really understood that in the 1700s and 1800s because so many of the nobility were related.  Even as World War I approached, the situation was much the same, and the leaders England, Germany, Russia, and others were all related in one way or another.  I would think that would’ve kept things calmer, but it didn’t.  Obviously, World War I and World War II followed the pattern of violence.  From then on, though, Europe has been relatively stable or, at least, the famous parts that people want to visit have been.  Always lurking under the surface, especially during the Cold War, though, was the threat of war.  It makes for interesting study and reading.

In Flashpoints: The Emerging Crisis in Europe by George Friedman (ISBN: 978-0-307-95113-7), the author examines the history of Europe between the great wars and then wants to know if Europe will continue in its post-World War II ways or return to its long history of war.  He argues that Europe’s history of conflict has not come to an end.  The war in Bosnia & Herzegovina after Yugoslavia disintegrated and Russia’s invasions of Georgia and Ukraine are given as the most prominent examples of how Europe has not been very peaceful since the fall of the Soviet Union, and that’s relatively recent.  He discusses many of the problems Europe is facing, such as immigration from predominantly Muslim societies, the UK’s distance from the EU (the book was written before Brexit was finalized), friction between northern Europe and southeastern Europe, and economic concerns throughout the European Union.  Friedman bases a lot of his analysis on what he calls borderlands, which are areas where cultures, nations, and ethnic groups meet and mingle.  People grow up speaking three or four languages and are involved in cross-border trade, but always seem to maintain some sort of identity, be it religious, ethnic, or national.  When conditions get worse, such as when the economy takes a hit, these borderlands can turn into flashpoints that have the potential to turn into war (or a larger war if multiple flashpoints go off at the same time).  The book is predictive in nature, so only time will tell.

While already a few years old, the book seemed relevant to today’s Europe.  Bosnia & Herzegovina is still unsettled with the ethnic Serb entity, the Serb Republic, defiantly worked towards ever-greater autonomy.  Kosovo is still a major sore point for the Serbs.  The Greeks and Turks are always on edge with each other.  The Greeks and Macedonians continue to squabble over just who was there first and whether the name of a country can infer violent intentions.  The EU itself has a member in Cyprus that is home to a frozen conflict.  Other frozen conflicts on the European periphery like Nagorno-Karabakh and Russia’s incursion into Ukraine are keeping things warm.  The author placed a lot of weight on Germany’s economic domination of the EU and how other countries resent that (which is likely true — as the story goes, a few years ago, a German missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Athens was beat up when some Greeks learned he was a German, and the Greeks were of the opinion that Germany had caused most, if not all, of their economic problems).  I continue to think Russia, immigration, and energy (all of which Friedman touched on) have the biggest potential to add a spark to the flashpoints.

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