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2025/03/04
In the decades leading up to World War I, Europe witnessed an unprecedented military buildup fueled by nationalism, imperial competition, and a complex system of alliances. The major powers being Germany, Britain, France, Russia, and Austria-Hungary, significantly increased their military expenditures, modernized their armies, and expanded their naval forces. The arms race, particularly between Britain and Germany, led to the rapid development of dreadnought battleships, further intensifying tensions across the continent.
Conscription became a common practice, with millions of men being trained and prepared for war. Germany, in particular, adopted a highly militaristic society, with its army seen as the backbone of the nation. France, determined to recover Alsace-Lorraine from Germany, also invested heavily in its military, while Russia sought to modernize its forces after its defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905.
The system of alliances, such as the Triple Entente (France, Russia, and Britain) and the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy), further exacerbated the militarization process. These alliances created an atmosphere where any regional conflict had the potential to escalate into a full-scale war. The 1912 and 1913 Balkan Wars demonstrated how quickly tensions could ignite, and by 1914, Europe was a powder keg ready to explode. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in June 1914 ultimately served as the spark that set off the war, with the militarized nations swiftly mobilizing their armies for what would become a global conflict.
Enter 1914. The worst bloodshed in some of these countries' histories, with many still not recovered from it, spread from the fields of France to the coasts of Anatolia. Germans effectively fought for three fronts, and millions of men were passed through a meat grinder on the scale never seen for almost three hundred years. The Russians failed to gain a foothold despite initial successes. The French held out but at a great cost. But the worst challenges were seen in the fields of Gallipoli, where scores of British subjects from Australia and New Zealand failed to push through the Turkish defenses, the greatest testament to the mastermind of Kemal-pasha, the future Ataturk.
Americans decided to sit this one out. A war far away was not worth fighting for. That was that until 1917. President Wilson, a Democrat, campaigned for U.S. presidency, promising to keep the country out of war. But he ended up declaring war on the Germans in April 1917.
But the consequences of war reached U.S. shores years before. RMS Lusitania, travelling from New York to Britan's Liverpool, was sunk by a German submarine on May 7 1915. Over a hundred Americans were killed in the attack - including some famous figures like Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt. Lusitania was a civilian British ship, and it was sunk by the SM U-20 class submarine, that was launched in the peacetime in 1912. Indeed, the German Empire's technological edge in submarine building was as genius as its adaptation of the submarine tactics to challenge the mighty British fleet.
That submarine was a product of European countries arming themselves with the latest technology and its marvels for one task - world domination.
Indeed, His Imperial Majesty Kaiser Wilhelm II wrote before the war a passage that so aptly captures the Zeitgeist of that time in Europe
[The coming war is] the last battle between Teutons (Germans) and Slavs
And what a war it was.
Soon after it was over, the entire continent was swept by a whole series of Communist insurgencies, with nearly all failing, save that of Russia.
After the bloody massace that was the Russian Civil War ended, the threat of the Bolshevik invasion loomed over Europe ever since. Despite the failure of the Reds to capture Poland, the infantile fascination with Communist delusions continued and even spilled over unto the United States as well.
For every Oppenheimer there was a Teller. For every American-born genius infatuated with Marxism, there was an immigrant genius who fled its horrors.
Unlike the Russian Empire, the newly formed Soviet Union did not hide that its goal was world conquest. Moreover, its capital Moscow became the headquarters of the Communist malcreants exiled from the home countries aimed at one single task - conquering new lands for the Communist tyranny.
And when Europe flared up once more, German leader Adolf Hitler had a chance of defeating Communism once and for all. But he committed a terrible mistake by declaring war on the U.S.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, another Democrat president who campaigned to prevent the U.S. from entering another European war, had no choice but to respond when the vicious Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, was followed by Hitler's folly, as he declared war on the United States, for absolutely no reason save a hypothetical entry of the Japanese Empire into the war against the Soviets - it ulimately failed.
After the war was over, the continent was pacified and disarmed. British Empire was plundered by the Americans, and it soon ceased to exist. The Soviets were saved by the Americans and their sphere of influence extended from the Baltic to the Adriatic seas. That configuration with some changes largely remained the same for forty years.
Finally, this was over. Or was it?
This will be an exercise in speculative prediction. But what will happen to Europe if Americans leave? Maybe not overnight but gradually.
That depends on the way they do that.
Leaving gradually while ensuring European deterrence will keep the relations cordial, but not for long. Eventually Europeans will come to some sort of a concord between their countries, forming unified defense and even uniting into some sort of a supranational entity, realizing that returning to the centuries old divisions is equal to defeat.
These "United States of Europe", or, hopefully, a more monarchy-friendly named conglomerate of European nations, will advance not only its institutional fortitude, but its technological and military spheres.
And eventually, this will lead to competition with both the U.S. and China. Russia will be out of the picture sooner or later - it's a moribund, senile nation, albeit still dangerous.
That's the best case scenario.
If Americans leave suddenly, leaving Europe abruptly to fend for itself. Then it will only get worse - for America.
Among hundreds of millions of Europeans, a strong anti-American sentiment prevails. Except if Europe is split between anti-American West and pro-American East now, it will become unified along the lines of vicious anti-Americanism.
The narrative will speak of how Americans betrayed Europeans and how they all but "bailed out" the Russians - the existential threat to Europe. New allies will be found, especially in the Islamic world, which is already basking in the Anti-American resentment. And if Americans brush this off as a negligible threat, just remind them how "well" Iraq and Afghanistan went for them. Those were cavemen with Soviet rifles. Europe can be a much tougher nut to crack - especially with Turkish advances in military technology and Qatari finance.
But conventional arms and deterrence won't be enough.
About six million people live in the Miami metro area. That number will probably increase significantly in the coming decades. Just five thousand kilometers from it lie the Azores, a sparsely inhabited set of islands in the Atlantic. It takes almost nothing for a gang of terrorists on one of these islands to launch a pulse jet bomb reaching the city within a day. Now multiply this by a thousand, and this does not look too pleasant. Now imagine that these devices' payloads are not conventional bombs, but plutonium fission bombs. If dropped on the Miami Beach, its resulting damage will kill up to 50,000 people and injure twice as much.
Surely, the Americans will respond! But how?
Will they send boots to the ground? Bomb churches and hospitals like in the WWII? Or will they scream on the streets about inhumane treatment of the poor Europeans? And if the Americans "win" and occupy Europe again. What's next?
Will this be another Afghanistan but with hundreds of millions of civilians living under American occupation? How long can it last without straining the American military fatigue?
Will they nuke Europe? They sure can try, but it won't be the end.
In the end, however, the price to pay will be hell. Even the richest nation may find the price too high to pay.