A Disunited Kingdom: Will Britain Face the Soviet Union’s Fate?

In the long history of Europe, there probably hasn’t been such a dramatic “turning point”. Perhaps it is “normal” that the period of Anglo-Saxon domination in Europe, which began after World War II, is ending. Together with France and the other EU countries, Germany will inevitably have to think carefully about developing a new historical concept of security and intergovernmental relations in continental Europe.

Will the United Kingdom face the same fate that the Soviet Union faced 30 years ago? One of the outcomes of Brexit could be that Scotland and Northern Ireland, whose populations for the most part voted to remain in the EU, could withdraw from the UK. For London, losing Scotland would be like losing Ukraine was for Moscow, since Scotland is where Britain deploys its nuclear weapons and naval bases. In order to prevent such a course of events, the ruling elite will do everything within its power to insist upon a new referendum. The EU will not object to this, because Brexit could seriously damage continental Europe as well. Following the example of Ireland, where after a first referendum resulted in a vote against the Treaty of Lisbon, another vote was taken, the British could also be sent to the ballot boxes a second time in order to achieve the “right” result. However, wouldn’t such manipulation harm liberal democracy?

The Brexit Saga Continues: Turning Disaster into Catastrophe
Richard Sakwa
No matter if there is a deal or no deal, Britain would end up worse off than it is today. This is why there is a general consensus that Brexit itself is a type of excess, even a type of collective suicide, pursued by a hardline group of people who always considered the European Union an alien and oppressive force, which in itself is a sign of a long-term crisis of British state development.
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Another Anglo-Saxon state, the United States, is witnessing similar internal contradictions. According to local elites, the “wrong president”, read Donald Trump, came to power. From the very moment of his inauguration, his opponents have tried to “clean” him from the Oval Office, using every opportunity to create political scandals and overthrow him. Their slogan is “It cannot be that this fool could beat our candidate”. While shocked, the local elites were still able to convince the public that Donald Trump had only won the elections due to secret Russian meddling. Russia allegedly possesses the best cyber military forces in the world. In fact, for many years, the United States played the leading role with regard to organizing cyberattacks, as CIA defector Edward Snowden revealed. However, the CIA managed to “redirect the tip of the spear”: many have already forgotten Snowden, and “Russian hackers” are now allegedly guilty of all the deadly sins committed in this world. Trump’s opponents openly say that Russia apparently influenced Brexit.

By doing this, the ruling elites aim to prevent a situation in which they lose power.

Mueller Report: A Reason for Optimism
Andrey Kortunov
It’s generally easier to be a pessimist than to be an optimist. This is especially true when it comes to the current state and dynamics of Russian-American relations. We all have long been accustomed to the fact that these relations are developing according to the formula “today is worse than yesterday, but better than tomorrow”.
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The Americans and the British will have to deal with their domestic problems for many years. They will become “the other” part of the West. Like it or not, the EU will mostly develop within continental Europe with economically strong Germany and, to a lesser degree, France, playing the leading roles. In order to prevent this, the United States and Britain will use every opportunity to diminish the importance of Berlin and, if possible, weaken its influence within the EU and provoke a split in its ranks. The German elites need to be aware of this danger. For the Anglo-Saxons, the preservation of transatlantic unity in the security field, NATO and other institutions is at stake, and they will achieve this at any cost – unfortunately, at the expense of democracy. The United States will rally the countries of Eastern and Central Europe against Berlin and Paris. These efforts have already included last-minute attempts to prevent Germany from building a Russian gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea.

This description of the current state of Europe and the West in general may seem frightening. In the long history of Europe, there probably hasn’t been such a dramatic “turning point”. Perhaps it is “normal” that the period of Anglo-Saxon domination in Europe, which began after World War II, is ending. Together with France and the other EU countries, Germany will inevitably have to think carefully about developing a new historical concept of security and intergovernmental relations in continental Europe. The most likely outcome is a common space stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok. Eventually, the EU will be able to cooperate with both America and Russia.

Demonising Russia and the Geopolitical Consequences
David Lane
As a consequence of Western misperception of Russia’s interests and potential power, Russia will develop its self-conception as an alternative civilisation to the West. Geo-politically, Russia’s growing alliance with China is an outcome of the West’s misguided hostility to Russia – expressed in the expansion of NATO, the abrogation of nuclear arms agreements, support for extra-legal political regime change and a series of destabilising economic sanctions.
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