According to many French, both ordinary folks and politicians, their president Emmanuel Macron could think of nothing crazier to divert attention away from farmers’ problems and increase his low 24% rating.  The leader of the extreme left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, said so explicitly: “Pitting one nuclear power against another nuclear power is madness.” In turn, Marine Le Pen, who represents extreme right-wing forces, said that Macron is playing with “the lives of our children.”

More influential forces, such as the Socialist Party and conservative Republicans, also condemned “the French president’s muscle play.” Notably, in the run-up to June’s European elections, Macron’s centrist liberal party is significantly behind the left and right parties in the polls.

There were also no statements in the media in favor of this idea, and on all news channels, when asked whether France should prepare for war with Russia, the answer was an emphatic “no.”  The same views were expressed in most European countries, with the exception of some eastern ones, primarily the Baltics and Poland.

So, then, how is our hegemon, “the leader of the free world,” Joe Biden doing?  The answer came during his recent annual address to Congress, when, instead of speaking traditionally about the state of his own country, he began immediately with Putin.  “If anyone in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you he won’t,” Biden said, adding that although Europe is “in danger,” he remains “determined” not to send American soldiers to defend it.

As the New York Times ironically noted, Swedish prime minister Ulf Kristersson, who was invited to this speech, must have gone dizzy.  Indeed, the threat of a Russian invasion of Europe was the strongest argument to attract new members to NATO for their own protection.  But if such incursions were a real concern, the USA would be obliged to send its troops there.

It turns out that Sweden and Finland decided in vain to trade their favorable neutral status, which allows them to stand aside from destructive conflicts.

At the present time, many Europeans, as well as Americans, are fed up with war.  They are convinced that Ukraine cannot win it and the Russian threat is a fiction or a bogeyman to extort taxpayers’ money for its continuation.

Interestingly, the recently published book La Défaite de l’Occident (The Defeat of the West) has been at the top of France’s bestseller lists since January.  Its author, the famous historian and anthropologist Emmanuel Todd, predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union as early as 1976 in his book The Final Fall.

In 2002 — i.e., even before the U.S. invasion of Iraq — his book After the Empire was published, already predicting “the collapse of the American order.”

Todd is also a critic of U.S. intervention in Ukraine, but his reasoning differs from those who believed that only NATO expansion, the neoconservative ideology of democracy promotion, and the demonization of Russia provoked the war.  He believes that an additional, if not the primary, factor in this interference is the American quest for global hegemony, which has not only jeopardized the rest of the world, but has “corroded the American character.”

Todd also argues that the global immersion of Americans in the world economy was a mistake and cites the following facts: “The United States is now producing fewer cars than it did in the 1980s and is growing less wheat.”  But it’s not just that, since “economic problems are linked to deeper, longer-term cultural shifts that used to be called ‘decadence.’”

Too many people seek to manage and hold command positions.  They want to be politicians, managers.  It doesn’t always require learning intellectually complex things.  In the long run, it has already led to the disappearance of those values that favor a deep comprehensive education.

Todd also estimated that the United States today produces fewer engineers than Russia, not only on a per capita basis, but also in absolute numbers.  America is experiencing an “internal brain drain” as its young people move from demanding, high-skilled, value-added professions to law, finance, and various occupations that simply “betray the importance of the economy, and in some cases may even destroy it.”

Speaking of America’s internal problems and the negative actions it is taking in the world, the author emphasizes the violent spread of the liberal value system.  This system is often described as devoted to universal human rights, but as a specialist in family anthropology, Todd warns that many of the values currently propagated by Americans are less universal than they think.  “Waging a values-based war requires good values,” the author concludes, but, as he also ironically notes, “they are, to put it mildly, not quite good.”

Returning to the current “micro-Napoleon” named Macron, we note that he has yet again postponed his visit to Kiev.  The explanations have changed several times, from security concerns to the need to first build a coalition of those willing to send troops to Ukraine.

The latest statement from the Élysée Palace says the visit will take place in the next few weeks.  We’ll see if he postpones it once again, but it would make sense for Macron, as a Catholic, to go to the Vatican instead of Kiev, talk to Pope Francis, listen to why Kiev needs to admit defeat, and request negotiations to reduce the sacrifices of Ukraine’s people.

Image via Picryl.