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German Chancellor Friedrich Merz last week decried the end of Pax Americana and declared that Germany will fill the void:

“The decades of Pax Americana for Europe and Germany are largely over for us. It no longer exists as we knew it. Nostalgia will not help us, and I would be the last person to give in to this nostalgia. This is a reality! The Americans are now very fiercely defending their interests. And that is why we must now defend our interests.”

What were the first acts in defending those interests? Germany approved a nearly $60 billion spending package—believed to be the largest in post WWII German history— that provided aboost to defense stocks, which have begun to come down slightly from their record highs. And on Friday the EU approved 90 billion euros in joint debt in an attempt to keep Project Ukraine limping along.

What does it all mean? Is Germany seriously considering conflict with Russia or is it more subterfuge to push the train down the dual tracks of enriching the capital class while holding together the supranational European project? Probably both—but as the European elite bust out their own countries, run up the tab on rearmament, and do all they can to antagonize Russia in Ukraine and elsewhere, when exactly is common sense supposed to kick in?

Let’s start with what we know.

The German political class has been going on about the end of Pax Americana for years now, just as they’ve been talking about rearmament for years. What these discussions allude to is a Pax Germanica taking the place of Washington in the European theater.

?? Part 1/2 - Merz stood before his CDSU party and did two things in the same speech that should have stopped Europe cold.

He declared that “Pax Americana is over.” And he reached for Europe’s darkest memory... Munich, the Sudetenland, Hitler, to argue that Russia “won’t… pic.twitter.com/msPDyUSvbC

— THE ISLANDER (@IslanderWORLD) December 14, 2025

Yes, perhaps it should have “stopped Europe cold”, but then, so should have much of the events of the past four years or so. Yet whether by design or folly, it’s becoming increasingly evident that the vaunted German efficiency is a myth.

They keep pouring money into the rearmament black hole while hollowing out the economy and cutting social spending. It was fitting that on the same day the Bundestag approved the $60 billion in defense spending, the government also moved to cut welfare payments.

Merz’s speech was similar to Angela Merkel’s 2017 warning that Trump’s America was turning its back on Europe. But Merz goes much further by arguing that Europe “is no longer in peace” and that only a strong Germany can return it to such a state.

This argument is similar to the much-discussed Zeitenwende of Merz’s predecessor, Olaf Scholz. The Zeitenwende has surely been a turn, just not so much in the way it was marketed. It was supposed to mark the dawn of a new era in Europe and Germany in particular, which would undergo a massive overhaul of its armed forces in order to “deter” Russia and bring peace of course. It hasn’t done any of that. In fact, coupled with a refusal to compromise or even hold genuine discussions with Moscow, it’s made conflict more likely. But it also hasn’t produced much in the way of results for the German armed forces, which are still a long ways from being ready for any sort of sustained conflict (more on that below).

More recently, a report last year from The German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) titled “Europe and the End of Pax Americana” is nearly identical to what Merz said last week. SWP is one of the foremost think tanks in Germany, and it advises the Bundestag and the federal government on foreign and security policy issues so it’s worth paying attention to, although it usually produces quite bland, toned down versions of reports from the imperial capital in DC. Here’s the meat of its Pax Americana Finis report: 

Ultimately, the decline of Pax Americana also raises the question of what role liberal-democratic values could and should play in foreign policy. German and European advocates of a values-based foreign policy could lose an important backer – namely, America – in the coming years. As far as the European security order is concerned, the situation is quite clear: the conflict with Russia is only superficially about territorial claims and military power relations; its real cause lies in irreconcilable values about Europe’s internal and external order. From the perspective of the EU and the European NATO states, Europe’s security is therefore inextricably linked to the defence of liberal-democratic values.

Standing up for values outside Europe should therefore focus on those norms, institutions and rules that directly affect the peaceful coexistence of states: inter­national and maritime law, multilateralism and, consequently, the often-cited “rules-based order” at the regional and global level. These principles are also supported out of self-interest by authoritarian states that are not major powers and therefore are confronted by more powerful neighbours. However, none of this changes the sobering fact that without the United States, it would be much more difficult to protect the rem­nants of the rules-based world order.

Ah yes, the rules-based order: 

Germany's CDU leader Merz as usual saying the quiet stuff out loud! "The ICC is intended for despots and authoritarians not democratically elected governments ... " https://t.co/n4BIsDCjLB

— Adam Tooze (@adam_tooze) May 23, 2024

The legal innovations coming out of EU this week (Article 122 override of unanimity, permanent freeze of sovereign reserves in violation of international law, and now Article 20 selective carve out to enable EU borrowing of ‘joint debt’) should have EU and global lawyers… https://t.co/u7p3sTQPVA

— Kathleen Tyson (@Kathleen_Tyson_) December 19, 2025

Beyond the obvious joke of the rules-based order, what is being proposed here? That Germany will keep the fight against Russia in the name of this order (which is code for neoliberal capitalism controlled by Wall Street and the European financial class).

In What Form Is This Fight? 

If this is the war Germany is engaged in, it started a while back. And it surely isn’t for the benefit of all Germans. Let us briefly once again recall that the final nail in the coffin of the German economy was Berlin’s decision to move away from cheap and reliable Russian natural gas. Amid the hysteria of the conflict in Ukraine, which is backed by Germany, the response in Berlin has been an assault on the working class in Germany.

While the valuations of weapons companies soar, foreign investors are feasting on the German economic carcass. And the government in Berlin is now committing $35.2 billion in public guarantees, loans, and equity to “de-risk” private equity investments in energy, industry, and advanced technology. This is happening as the German engine of Europe breaks down and is dragging the Eurozone with it.  So the military keynesianism ain’t working (it’s a highly inefficient way to boost the economy) while more and more money is being directed away from social programs and into weapons companies and financialization schemes in the name of competitiveness and defending the country against the dual so-called threats of Russia and a retreating America. Nevermind that US troops remain in Germany and that Moscow was perfectly happy doing business with Germany, wanted further integration with Europe, and has no interest in having to go to war with and subdue a continent of 450 million people who are cursed with fanatically Russophobic leaders. 

Unprepared for a Real Fight 

While the European political class wants to keep Project Ukraine going, longer term their stated goal is to be ready for war with Russia. They are nowhere close. A June report from the Kiel Institute and Bruegel highlights the lack of preparedness. The authors don’t proclaim that Germany and Europe will not be ready to fight by 2030 but consider the obstacles:

• An inability to translate spending into real capabilities and sustained growth in European force generation, sustainment, and military modernisation.

• Reducing dependency on US systems and the overstretched US defence industrial base will be a challenge.

• Cost effectiveness is a major problem.

• Perhaps the greatest challenge is  reducing dependency on US forces, which means raising a large number of European troops for which the local population has shown no appetite for.

• Meanwhile, Russia has only increased its advantage since 2022.

It would take an enormous amount of political will, vision, population-wide sacrifice, and even then they might still be far behind Russia but at least able to last more than a few weeks.

Does the current crop of European elected officials or any on the horizon appear capable of anything beyond busting out their own countries?

How about what we don’t know. 

Is It All a Ruse? 

It’s entirely possible. As we see, there are benefits for capital and its long-held wish to dismantle European welfare states. Beyond that, it aids the expansion of supranational EU power, which has nothing much to offer anymore except fear mongering of the Russian horde.

Living standards in the EU continue to decline as prices go up, real wages decline, and the social safety net is cut, and all the borrowing to juice weapons companies and pave the path for private equity are only making matters worse. As a Friday paper from the Kiel Institute highlights:

Current NATO rearmament plans could lead to permanently higher taxes in member states, according to a new analysis by the Kiel Institute based on a unique dataset. The dataset covers the financing of rearmament and wars over the past 150 years in 20 countries. It shows that military spending is initially financed through significantly higher public debt, while in the medium to long term the tax burden rises.

Spook Alignment?

The fact is we don’t know with any degree of certainty what European governments have planned because they long ago quit paying attention to voters, and so much of foreign policy (and domestic) is nowadays conducted by the spooks. As just one example, here’s the situation in the UK, which is openly discussing continuing its dirty war against Russia beyond the inevitable Ukraine collapse: 

???? UK Democracy In A State of Collapse

The latest report from the UK Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) depicts the UK’s intelligence agencies (MI5, MI6, and GCHQ) operating with near-total autonomy as the democratic circuit-breaker between secret state power and the… pic.twitter.com/EiDt8W9TWc

— ??pocalypsis ??pocalypseos ???? ???? ?? (@apocalypseos) December 17, 2025

And we see Western governments engaged in all sorts of games like fake negotiations designed to trick targets, narrative control, false flags, etc. The Washington Post, for example, just confirmed what was long suspected: that the US pretended to be in negotiations with Tehran in order to help Israel target Iranian nuclear scientists and other officials. And I’ve lost count of the number of stories over the past few years that detail angry calls from the White House to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and tell us a serious rift is emerging between the US and Israel.

With spy games as statecraft, the interests of capital taking precedent over national interest, and crazies running the show, the idea that Europe might try to further “extend” Russia into its own yard doesn’t appear far-fetched—despite their lack of preparedness for such a fight.

For example, if there is “spook alignment” in the West, the plan as discussed by some American think tankers and officials to transform the fight against Russia into an EU project while the US tries to play mediator and make imperial gains elsewhere, looks more possible—if not gaining much in the way of sense. But if the European Blob was delusional enough to go all in on Project Ukraine, what about the larger Western Blob project underway for the US to regain hegemony using oil and AI, which involves strengthening control over West Asia and domination in the Western Hemisphere in order to better confront Russia and China economically, if not militarily.

Even if there isn’t such transatlantic Blob alignment, there exists a great deal of danger for Europe.

Russia is treating the European threat very seriously. As the military buildups continue  in Eastern Europe and the dirty war plays out in multiple theaters, the chances of more direct conflict increase. The madness surrounding the so-called shadow fleet with Ukraine (with whose help?) now hitting Russian tankers in the Mediterranean Sea leaps immediately to mind as a potential source of more direct confrontation once/if Moscow runs out of patience. Even if the titans of finance and the EU power mad bureaucrats see benefits in drumming up the threat of conflict, the fallout from Europe’s economic decline will only become more unpredictable and lead to more desperation.

For now, the idea that the Europeans are bluffing and are wise enough to fold at some point requires us to ignore that nearly the entire European political class has already been willing to decimate their own countries economically in the name of this conflict, and wisdom would have been not to start it to begin with. Their actions show that they value the lives of their fellow countrymen as much as they do Ukrainians. If these actors truly believe in the logic that extending Russia will ultimately weaken it (thus far, the evidence is to the contrary) and topple the government, then when they’re no longer able to outsource the job to Ukrainians they won’t hesitate to further wreck their homelands.

They might not be insane enough to send battalions eastwards, but if they can successfully goad the Moscow, imagine how beneficial some Russian strikes on EU territory would be for the effort to burn more cash on rearmament, further scale back social spending, and centralize more power in Brussels.

So as the EU continues its free fall, perhaps the scariest thought is that the political class has already dug so deep, they’re already at bomb shelter depth.

Finland has over 50,000 air raid shelters.

Their preparedness aims to strengthen their resilience and to deter aggression.

We have so much to learn from the Finns.

This is the change of mindset I want to help bring during my second mandate. pic.twitter.com/xo64LKX1qD

— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen_epp) June 4, 2024

Written by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

When I think of the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk I see the event as symbolic of the death of civil discourse in the west. The timeline split at that moment leaving two distinct groups: The conservatives and centrists who cling to the fantasy that progress through traditional politics is still possible, and the patriots who now realize that a peaceful resolution is unattainable.

I also see it as symbolic of a deeper element of the culture war – Specifically, the war on young white western men. Kirk was 31 at the time of his death. Not “young”, but almost 15 years younger than I am, and it has left me thinking about the future for the next generation of western males at a time when the system is obviously hellbent on destroying them.

They have been the subject of economic warfare through DEI: Corporations and colleges give first shot to any identity group other than white males regardless of merit.

They have been targeted by social warfare: Demonized as irredeemable monsters by woke cancel culture and labeled the cause of all the world’s ills.  Their ancestors built a civilization of unprecedented prosperity and so much material bounty even the poorest people are fat.  They created the middle class, a concept which had never existed before in history.  In 1890 the average global life expectancy was 42 years; by 1990 the average life expectancy was 73 years, all because of western civilization and the technology it created.  And now, white guys are being punished for it.

They have been selected for extermination: They’re the key demographic that leftist governments want to use as cannon fodder for a mindless geopolitical mess in Ukraine.

Charlie Kirk’s biggest mistake was believing that the system could be defeated through peaceful discourse. He was wrong. It’s not just the insanity of the political left that makes peace and reason impossible, there’s also the machinations of globalist controlled governments working tirelessly to conjure a perpetual meat grinder through domestic and foreign conflicts.

One indicator of a coming purge is the open call for young men (specifically conservative men) to accept the idea of future conscription. Multiple EU member states have threatened to institute a military draft if volunteer numbers do not dramatically increase (so much for “democracy”). The purpose of the draft? To construct an EU army large enough to go toe-to-toe with Russia.

As I predicted in my article “World War III Is Now Inevitable – Here’s Why It Can’t Be Avoided”, published in April of 2024, the globalists in Europe are doing everything in their power to stop a peace plan from moving forward in Ukraine. They have been actively sabotaging the Trump Administration’s efforts for a summit which actually includes Russia instead of cutting them out of the process.

At the same time that a greater war is being fomented, there has been a relentless gnawing crusade to demoralize young white men. One could rightly say that this campaign also affects some minority men in places like the US, but let’s not play games – The primary target is without a doubt white western males.

Why? It’s hard to say for certain, but when patriots are called to action it’s usually white conservative men that answer. Minorities (third world migrants in particular) are far more inclined to lean into socialism and view western civilization as a structure to be torn down rather than protected.

This attitude is changing in some areas of South America, for example, but the fact remains that if you visit a developing nation, chances are high that free markets and individual liberty are not common societal values. It’s not racial profiling, it’s simply statistical fact.

In Europe, the current goal of the establishment is to crush the spirits of western men while protecting migrants as a precious commodity. In the UK, the narrative is focused like a laser on white conservative males as public enemy #1, while simultaneously demanding that these same men “prove their patriotism” by fighting for the elites against Russia.

I was watching a news broadcast from the BBC a few months ago in which a male journalist of military age tried to argue rational points on why men in Britain are reticent to go to war for the existing government. He noted that they do not believe that the leftist politicians in power represent them anymore and they feel they are being rapidly replaced by third worlders with hostile ideologies. Why would they fight for such a government?

A black female journalist involved in the discussion sneered at the man’s argument, then grinned as she asserted that nothing he says matters because he could be drafted whether he likes it or not. It was the evil grin of a communist – She knows she’s part of the protected class. She knows that he can be sent to die no matter how logical and reasonable his position,  Meanwhile, she risks nothing in her support of continued war.

She was reveling in the idea of white conservative men being expendable. It’s the leftist dream, is it not? To turn their political opponents into beasts of burden and fuel for the fire of their Utopian fantasy. They don’t care about being correct, or moral; they just want to crush the life out of people who disagree with them.

Progressives in Europe have taken to social media asserting that conservative men should BE SENT FIRST to war; because they are better mentally suited to combat (because conservatives are violent monsters, remember?). They are also easy to sacrifice in the name of the grand progressive experiment. There is, of course, no talk of sending the millions of military age migrant men in Europe to the front lines in Ukraine.

Again, I predicted this exact scenario in my article “Europe Goes Full Totalitarian And Puts The Entire Western World At Risk”, published in March. I stated:

“I would go even further and say that in the event of war with Russia native born citizens will be rounded up for conscription while most migrants are left behind to run the streets of London, Paris and Berlin. I believe the migrants are enforcers to keep any potentially defiant Europeans in line. Many empires and monarchs throughout history have used foreign mercenaries as muscle to prevent local rebellion. The politicians in the EU and UK are following a similar strategy…”

I’ve identified at least three separate propaganda narratives and political agendas that are working in tandem as a weapon against western men.  These mechanisms are highly coordinated across social media, with mainstream news platforms, politicians and influencers repeating the same talking points as if they all received the same script.

Lazy, Apathetic, Angry And Dangerous To Society

Social media is rife with this disinformation claim – Often perpetuated by female influencers, they assert that young men are no longer engaging with modern women and he liberal order because they are “porn addicted”, lack motivation and have no direction. They say that young males have abandoned society and that this makes them volatile and prone to unpredictable violence.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Young men are simply building their own separate society which preserves western values and protects their heritage from the ravages of deconstructionists. Feminists and establishment shills are worried about men walking away because then they can’t exploit those men for their labor and resources anymore. By extension, when men separate from the liberal herd, they have greater independence and a greater potential to rebel.

I would argue that the “incel” narrative widely promoted in the past decade by the political left has nothing to do with sincere concerns about the mental health of young men. Rather, it’s all about controlling those men before they go rogue against the establishment.

Using Economic Hardship And War To Weed Out The Strong

In George Orwell’s novel “Animal Farm”, the communist Pigs seek to dominate the other animals by keeping them busy with arduous (but empty) acts of labor. They use this aimless labor to break the backs of the strongest animals on the farm. The horse named “Boxer” is a true believer in the common good of the collective, but the Pigs see his strength as a potential threat to their long term rule.

They exploit Boxer’s patriotism and ultimately work him to death. They then sell his body to a slaughterhouse despite his faithful service to the farm.

If you are a young man and a patriot in the west and primarily in Europe, YOU are Boxer the horse. They will send you off to slaughter in the name of the collective because you represent potential opposition. They will use economic decline as a means to pressure you into conformity, or leave you no other option but to join the military. They will then celebrate your death, because they nullified your strength without ever having to fight you directly.

Young Men, The Warrior Class And The Weak Elites

Another story I’m often reminded of when contemplating the plight of young men is “The 47 Ronin”. The basic theme is one of justice vs. law and government corruption. When the benevolent lord of a samurai fiefdom is assassinated by another lord, his soldiers call for justice. However, the government intervenes and disrupts any investigation into the murder.

They know the opposing lord is a criminal, but he is also an elite valuable to the power structure. He is one of them, and to punish their own is to bring the entire feudal system into question in the eyes of the nation. They allow him to escape consequences for the sake of the “greater good.”

The samurai, though, do not share in this “enlightened” vision of gray morality. They see everything as black and white; honorable and dishonorable. They make a plan to kill the enemy lord who murdered their master.

I find this story to be the most profound when it comes to explaining the way in which men are treated by modern liberal society, specifically white men in the west. At the end of The 47 Ronin, the samurai succeed in killing the corrupt lord, but they are then required to commit mass suicide or face dishonorable execution as criminals.

They are warriors that have gone rogue; they have exited the societal reservation. They have become the most dangerous thing in existence: Honest men willing to act outside the law.  And so, they must die for the sake of the status quo.

What I see going on today is a perverse agenda to control western men and keep them subservient. The agenda stifles the next generation, through nihilist propaganda, through the apathy of the political circus, and by conditioning those men to see themselves as a dispensable utility. If the system can’t control these men, it will try to kill them by creating a war big enough to thin their ranks by attrition.

The elites view the warrior class as the ultimate danger, and young western men represent the best chance of a renewed warrior class. If these men ever realize their true power, the weakling elites would be wiped off the face of the Earth within moments. I hear the argument often that this kind of rebellion is meaningless without a detailed plan to rebuild.  This is another means of control – Demand a perfect solution before action is ever taken so that nothing ever gets done.

Warriors understand that reformation only comes from the will to take action; the will to create momentum. They understand that civil discourse has its place, but if all it does is maintain the status quo then it must be abandoned. Warriors understand that the worst thing one can do is debate the obvious while the world burns.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Between the 2010 and the 2020 Census, the number of centenarians in the United States grew by 50 percent to more than 80,000 as the realities of aging populations are catching up to a country that had previously outdone its peer when it came to fertility and demographic development.

As Statista's Katharins Buchholz reports, the recently published Census Bureau report on centenarians shows that while they remain a very small part of the U.S. population at only two out of every 10,000 Americans, they are nevertheless emblematic of global changes that see increased life expectancy meet lower fertility rates.

You will find more infographics at Statista

The country with the world’s most centenarians – Japan – has more than twice as many and has been plagued by the realities of demographic change for years.

In 2020, more than 60 percent of U.S. centenarians were aged 100 or 101, while only 10 percent were aged 105 or above.

Women, who have higher life expectancies, were hugely overrepresented among the group, with 79 percent of U.S. centenarians being female.

White Americans are also overrepresented in centenarian populations.

Black and Asian Americans made up somewhat smaller shares of them than their overall population shares would suggest.

Meanwhile Latinos were hugely underrepresented among centenarians, with only around 9 percent of those reaching the age of 100 currently part of the group despite 18.7 percent in the country now identifying as Hispanic. This could be due to the fact that Latino populations are among the fastest growing in the U.S. and therefor have many younger members. Puerto Rico was the place with the second-most centenarians in the country, only surpassed by Hawaii.

The changing realities of aging and fertility have caused demographic change to accelerate recently in the United States. Between the 2010 and the 2020 Census, the number of Americans aged 65 and over rose by 4 percentage points to 16.8% as Baby Boomers entered retirement. Between 1990 and 2000 as well as between 2000 and 2010, this number had held more or less steady.