The "West" Is IMPLODING Even Faster After This. | Dr. Jan Oberg & Ian Proud

The conversation makes the case that a defining fracture is underway: the self-confident architecture of the Western order — its economic models, political narratives, and security institutions — is showing systemic stress that risks unravelling them from within. Far from a gentle correction, what emerges from the exchange is a picture of accelerating militarization, shrinking spaces for dissent, and political reflexes driven more by fear and habit than strategic clarity. The result is not simply geopolitical competition with revisionist powers; it is an internal crisis of legitimacy and purpose that could reshape Europe and its transatlantic ties for a generation. ## The West in Decline: Signs and Symptoms The discussion treats decline not as a single event but as a composite process: economic stagnation, fading soft power, strategic overreach and moral contradictions. Participants point to a growing sense that the old formulas — economic liberalism as self-evident progress, military primacy as the ultimate guarantor of order — no longer deliver. Institutions once taken as stabilizing anchors are instead implicated in the very dilemmas they were meant to solve. Economic decline matters here because it constrains choices. When growth slows and debt burdens rise, political elites have fewer tools for redistribution or renewal. Yet the push to lock in higher defense spending — notably via joint borrowing and continent-level armament programs discussed in the conversation — promises to mortgage future prosperity to present security anxieties. That trade-off is rarely presented as such to electorates. Instead, it is framed as defensive necessity, which makes critique appear unpatriotic even when it may be prudential. The conversation also locates a moral erosion. Repeated foreign policy interventions, sudden shifts in alliances, and uneven enforcement of international law have left bruises on Western legitimacy. When the state that preaches human rights is found supporting or ignoring grave abuses elsewhere, credibility drains away. In an era of intensified information flows and rising competitors that offer alternative models of development and governance, the West’s moral leverage is a fragile asset. ## Militarization and the New Fund One concrete flashpoint discussed is the move toward mass rearmament — bundled not as isolated national efforts but as a collective European project. The conversation sketches how plans for large-scale borrowing to finance weapons procurement represent a qualitative shift: militarization becomes institutionalized at the supranational level, with future generations obligated to underwrite a strategic posture chosen today. This choice reflects both genuine security anxieties and political incentives. Leaders who fear being perceived as weak adopt maximalist postures; defense industries and allied bureaucracies flourish under the logic of permanent preparedness. But the conversation warns of a deeper paradox: escalating military spending paired with declining economic productivity creates perverse outcomes. Tying defense budgets to GDP, as noted, can produce counterintuitive effects in crises and incentivize weapons over prevention. The danger is not simply fiscal misallocation; it is a strategic narrowing — a habit of mind that equates strength with hard power spending and sidelines diplomacy, conflict prevention and wartime de-escalation strategies. Beyond fiscal concerns, the rearmament drive hardens political discourse. Binary choices — arm more or be accused of appeasement; support proxies or be accused of abandoning allies — compress deliberation. Where technical evaluations of capability and risk should drive procurement, symbolic demonstrations of resolve take over. The result is a security ecology that rewards escalation and punishes dissent. ## Groupthink, Emotionalism, and the Taboo on Peace A striking theme in the conversation is the cultural shift in how debate about war and peace is framed. The speakers describe a climate in which the very word “peace” becomes suspect, dismissed as naïve or even traitorous. Peace research, once a valid field of inquiry, is said to be sidelined. Media questions rarely probe whether current policies will actually end conflict; instead, they seek affirmations of toughness. This dynamic is underpinned by social and psychological mechanisms. Groupthink flourishes when institutions rely on shared narratives to maintain cohesion. Emotion — fear, righteous indignation, humiliation at perceived loss of status — becomes the currency of public politics. Leaders find it easier to rally populations by invoking existential threats than by engaging in the hard, uncertain labor of negotiation. The conversation points to another troubling trend: the instrumental use of historical memory and moral language to foreclose alternatives. Narratives of past wrongs, real or embellished, can justify present-day escalation. Meanwhile, admission of strategic failure is politically risky. A polity that cannot tolerate acknowledging mistakes will double down on the policies that produced them. That self-reinforcing loop explains why some Western publics and policymakers insist on continuing wars that look increasingly unwinnable by conventional metrics. ## Eroding Democracy and Supranational Overreach Closely connected to the militarization trend is the erosion of democratic accountability. Participants highlight how power has migrated upward into supranational structures which lack direct electoral checks, while national debates are narrowed through legal and administrative instruments that marginalize dissent. When policymaking shifts into forums with limited transparency and diluted accountability, citizens lose meaningful control over strategic decisions that affect war, debt and civil liberties. The conversation identifies several manifestations of this phenomenon: the sidelining of national parliaments in security agreements, the use of legalistic grounds to exclude political opponents, and the shrinking of spaces for critical public scholarship. These moves are often justified as technical necessities or as defense against malign influence, but their cumulative effect is to hollow out democratic deliberation. There is also a paradox at the heart of supranational consolidation. While institutions like the EU and NATO were initially presented as mechanisms to stabilize postwar Europe and prevent the return of great-power conflict, they are now accused of constraining national sovereignty in ways that reduce flexibility at moments of crisis. At the same time, these institutions can be captured by narrow bureaucratic or industrial interests, which push their agendas irrespective of broader public consent. The conversation frames this as a governance trap: as sovereign authority is ceded upward, so too is the capacity for democratic correction. ## Fragmentation, Realignment, and the Future of Order Given these dynamics, the conversation projects a likely outcome: fragmentation rather than neat collapse. The West will not fade uniformly; instead, its alliances, political cultures and economic integrations will realign. Some states will double down on militarized posture and deepen dependence on external patrons. Others, disillusioned or pragmatically oriented, will pursue alternative ties and de-escalatory strategies. This unevenness can produce temporary bargains and new fault lines. A critical juncture is the state of the transatlantic link. If that bond frays decisively, European strategy will be forced to reckon with new constraints. Some European actors may seek rapprochement with non-Western powers for economic and technological cooperation; others may cling to a militarized illusion of independence that proves hollow without credible backstopping. In either scenario, the conversation suggests, the ideological cohesion that once defined Western foreign policy will dissipate. But frag

The "West" Is IMPLODING Even Faster After This. | Dr. Jan Oberg & Ian Proud The signs are not just on the wall but written in the skies and the ocean's too. The entire "western" narrative, its repressive dominance, and its hubris are about to collapse and take many of its established institutions down with it. And the kakistrocratic (aka imbecile) leadership, doesn't even realise it. If they did, they wouldn't be driving Europe into that giant iceberg. To discuss the very sorry state of the European tragedy, I'm joined again by two colleagues from the region, Dr. Jan Oberg, a peace researcher from Sweden and the former British Diplomat Ian Proud. Ian's Substack article: https://thepeacemonger.substack.com/p/europe-prepares-itself-for-all-out Jan's Susback: https://thetransnational.substack.com #M3 What I think is now going to happen is what I predicted more than 40 years ago—not to boast about it, but that was pretty predictable for me—was when the East and West had gone down. And that was the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. It would be time for the Western West to go down. I mean, we are similar societies, one run on Adam Smith and one run on Karl Marx. You know, the whole West is now falling. That's a completely different thing from when the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact were falling. But, you know, dialectically speaking, out of the catastrophe can come something positive. And that's what I hope to see while I'm walking around here. But I can say, honestly, if I were 40 years younger, I would think of moving out of Europe. #M2 Hello, everybody. This is Pascal from Neutrality Studies. And today I've got two great European colleagues with me, Dr. Jan Oberg, a peace researcher from Sweden, and the former British diplomat Ian Proud, who's currently located in the UK. Ian recently wrote an article on his Substack about how Europe is preparing itself for all-out war with Russia, and that deserves a lot of attention. Although the article itself, as I understand, is a bit of a parody, the threat is very real. Let's discuss Europe's latest drive toward more warmongering and militarization. So, Ian, Jan, welcome. Thank you so much. #M1 Yeah, thanks very much, Pascal. Nice to be back and nice to meet Jan for the first time. Look, clearly, President Trump wants to broker some sort of peace deal, but it's obvious that European elites are absolutely resistant to any steps that would change their current posture towards Ukraine, which is frankly unchanged since 2014, so 9 years now, and actually whipped up by the European -- 1 of 18 -- Commission and to some extent by the incoming German government. They're looking at a huge rearmament, and nobody is talking about actual peace and engaging directly with Moscow to bring an end to this needless war. It's just, quite frankly, bizarre. #M2 It is very bizarre, and now we are hearing that the European Union wants to use 800 billion euros for a fund, and Ursula von der Leyen is very proud, announcing that this is money that will be made available to member states to do more weapons procurements. Jan, what do you hear about this in Sweden, and what's the war mentality like there at the moment? #M3 Oh, Denmark, you know, I was born in Denmark and I live in Sweden, are very pro this whole thing. There's nobody who would question it in the parliaments. And particularly, I would say, NATO still has, paradoxically, absurdly, a great influence, or the US still has a great influence on both countries, because Sweden joined NATO, as you know, recently, and Denmark is now discussing having American bases in Denmark. So, I mean, you're speaking to one of the very few people who is a dissident when it comes to militarism. It's across the board and across the parliaments, there is a yes to arming Ukraine, an already lost war. There's a no to negotiations. There is a yes to militarization. And what you could add to what you said was, as far as I've understood, the European Union is thinking of borrowing that money as a union, not the single member states. So coming generations will have to pay for this. And secondly, the whole Western world is on its way down. The economic course of Europe is going down. And you tie the military expenditures to gross national product, which is the most stupid idea I've heard for years. And I've heard a few, because that means, actually, funnily enough, that if you have an economic crisis, you will pay less to the military, which is what they cannot do because they want to do the armament thing. So, you know, when militarism goes up, intellectualism and morals go down. #M2 It's getting worse, isn't it? I mean, now Donald Trump has even announced tariffs on European countries and threatened them that if they want to walk away from U.S. weapons manufacturers, there will be further repercussions. Ian, at this point, aren't we reaching the point where Europeans should just wake up and understand that, look, this thing with the United States stopped working a long time ago? #M1 -- 2 of 18 -- Well, to be honest, the point where they should have woken up was probably about 10 years ago, actually. But yes, we're still at that point where everybody needs to wake up and smell the Starbucks. But actually, what's happening now is the situation, the picture is getting even more confusing. U.S. interests in Europe and with Ukraine are increasingly coming into conflict with each other. Trump's position on tariffs is actually making it harder for him to broker peace in Ukraine. His position on picking up U.S. defense contractors is making it harder for him to distance himself from NATO. So the whole kind of policy mix is just desperately confusing. And meanwhile, the European leaders are stuck on let's just continue doing what we've been doing for the last 11 years and hope for the best. #M2 Do you think this is still this ingrained Russophobia? Or at this point, what is it? I mean, Jan, if you have to explain this to, let's say, my colleagues in Asia, in Indonesia and Malaysia and all over ASEAN, how do you explain what the Europeans are doing now? #M3 Well, let me give you two pieces of background very quickly. We have forgotten, and I have not, because more than 20 years ago, I wrote a criticism of the European Union's construction if it wanted to do peace, which it says in its preamble that it wants. There is no way the European Union was constructed to make peace, and that's a long argument why it is not. But do not forget that it's supposed to speak with one voice in foreign policy matters, at least. And they did that for the first and, if I remember correctly, actually only time. That was the recognition of Slovenia and Croatia out of Yugoslavia in 1992. Without giving you all the details of it, that made the war in Bosnia impossible. So you have a European Union which was bent on destroying Yugoslavia by not having a plan about the rest of Yugoslavia. And then, you know, at that point, they did not have an idea about conflict analysis and seeing the consequences of what they did. And then, of course, they got the Nobel Peace Prize. Now, the other point is, when I was in Iraq, right before the US invasion, an ambassador who had been an ambassador to France said one thing: we have given up talking with the Americans, but we had hoped we could talk with the Europeans. But we had written several letters to the European Union and we never heard anything from them. So this idea that the European Union could become an alternative West, with a different benign policy vis-a-vis the world and all that, with a European identity, whatever that is, is something we have—it's not 10 years ago, it's 20, 30 years ago that that was gone. But the madness we see now has surprised even me. And that's because diversity has disappeared. Criticism has disappeared. Rational analysis has disappeared, and a lot of analysis of the consequences of what we do today, just one month ahead, has disappeared. It's all emotionalism, it's all hatred against Russia, of course, and it's all a cover-up -- 3 of 18 -- story for the fact that this whole crisis was created by NATO's expansion, particularly the one into Ukraine. I'm not defending the Russian invasion. I distanced myself the day after. But what I'm saying is there is a huge cover-up now. And the conclusion of this is we now have two Cold Wars in Europe, one with the United States. Because any fool should have made a plan: What do we do if Trump is reelected? And secondly, they have it and will have it for decades ahead, in my view, with Russia. We are losers in Europe to an extreme extent now. #M2 Ian, do you agree with that? #M1 Yeah, I completely agree with that, actually. And it's great to have that historical context as well, which is often missing. So much thinking on what's happening today is rooted in the short term. Few people can think back further than a year in the past, let alone sort of Jan's reaching back 30 years and more to provide the kind of wider backdrop. I think it's super important. The emotionalism has absolutely kind of taken over, you know, by now. And there's an unwillingness to accept that actually, we can gamble and lose. You know, we gambled that actually Russia would back down on the issue of NATO expansion. It didn't. It actually faced up, and that caused a war that Ukraine is now progressively losing, albeit slowly losing on the battlefield. And nobody is willing to invest political capital in actually putting their hands up and saying, well, actually, our strategy has failed. And that's what it comes down to. It's a fear of failing and admitting to the constituencies that they fed nonstop propaganda for the last 11 years that they have failed and have been failing for the past decade. #M2 But the bizarre thing about this moment is that you now have the least capable to actually continue fighting a war who yell the loudest that we have to continue fighting a war. The UK and the EU member countries, not all of them, but most of them, are on board with this madness. And there's a lack of ability, clearly. I mean, Russia just demonstrated that it can destroy NATO inside Ukraine, right? Anything that you throw at them. And by now, through the New York Times article, we also know all of this has been very closely coordinated by the Americans, right? And this was America and the US NATO actually killing Russians in Ukraine and killing Russians in Russia as well, right? With the Kursk invasion and operational planning. And despite all of this knowledge, which by now is out in the open, even in the West, the Europeans still insist on continuing the war. Jan, I can't understand this. Shouldn't there be a rational acknowledgment that, okay, we're just not able to do it? We need to wind it down as soon as possible. -- 4 of 18 -- #M3 Well, I would not pretend that I understand it, because in the 50 years I've been working with these things, I've never seen anything like this. So let's be honest about that. There's no rational understanding either. But I would touch upon things like this: it is quite likely, in a more macro- historic perspective, what you are likely to do when you see you're losing the grip. This is a patriarch in the Western world on its deathbed, the US and Europe. And you do crazy things, and you don't argue anymore. You shout and scream, "Obey what I'm saying," and stuff like that. And then you have things like groupthink, flock mentality. You have now a—and that's mind-boggling to me—you have a total taboo on the word peace. Peace research has gone in Europe, including Scandinavia, including SIPRI in Stockholm. They're not doing peace research, which is to investigate how to reduce violence of various types. Peace has disappeared in the media. I can't remember having heard a journalist ask the prime minister, "Do you think this will help bring about peace?" And it has disappeared from politics. Now, why that happens, I don't know. But maybe again, macro