Category: VOLUME XIII, No. 2

EUROPEAN UNION
OR THE NEW TOWER OF BABEL

‘Reading the history of nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities; their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object and go mad in its pursuit; that millions

WHAT THE EU LEARNED FROM EUROPEAN
HISTORY AND WHAT IT REPRESSED

What Happens to Economic Freedom? 1. THE DECLINE OF EUROPE For more than one hundred years, or since the beginning of the First World War, Europe has been in decline. Before that, the great powers of Europe dominated the world. Although the United States is located outside of Europe, one

THE EFFECTS OF SANCTIONS
ON THE GLOBAL ECONOMY HAVE NOT
BEEN THOUGHT THROUGH

The humanitarian catastrophe unfolding across Ukraine has triggered a tsunami of EU sanctions on Russia, unleashing seismic disruptions across the global economy, currency arrangements, and the infrastructure of global financial payments systems.11 European Commission, ‘Sanctions Adopted Following Russia’s Military Aggression against Ukraine’,2022, https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/banking-and-finance/international-relations/restrictive-measures-sanctions/sanctions-adopted-following-russias-military-aggression-against-ukraine_en. See also European Commission, ‘European Commission Calls

A WEDGE THROUGH CENTRAL EUROPE

How does Austria feel about the four Visegrád states? And vice versa: How do the Visegrád states feel about Austria? These two questions, having never really been answered, have hovered over Central Europe for many years. Of course, they immediately lead to the next two unanswered questions: What is Central

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING
OLAF SCHOLZ

Germany’s new government is in trouble after barely six months in office. Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his Social Democratic Party are sinking in the polls and losing regional elections. What comes next? HUMILIATION IN THE NORTH On 8 May, voters in the northern German Bundesland (federal state) of Schleswig-Holstein delivered

POSTMODERN WARS
AND THEIR LESSONS

In August 2008, Vladimir Putin provoked a war with Georgia by giving its president, Mikhail Saakashvili, the poisoned choice of either losing two ‘breakaway’ regions of his country to pro-Russian separatists and Russian ‘peacekeepers’ illegally present there or of risking an attempt to recover them by military action. Saakashvili chose