Emmanuel Todd: “It is absolutely obvious that the Collective West has suffered a defeat and is now disintegrating, but it is completely unclear in what form this disintegration will occur”

Emmanuel Todd: “European war – World war?”

The prominent French philosopher and analyst, author of the sensational book "The Defeat of the West" ("l'Occident. La défaite") Emmanuel Todd recently spoke at a conference at CES – Institut Catholique de Vendée, France, expressing his views on the developing world situation. He paid special attention to the relations between Russia and the USA, as well as the issue of the militarization of Europe.

Here are some key excerpts from Emmanuel Todd's one and a half hour lecture.

“It took 15 years for my prediction about the collapse of the USSR to come true, and the defeat of Europe is obvious, it has already happened. When television platforms were talking about the upcoming victorious counteroffensive of Ukraine, I was already writing a book about the collapse of the West. Its defeat is like instant coffee, like Nescafe – an instant effect.

Now, unlike the madmen on TV channels who are shouting at the top of their lungs about the Putin-Trump/Russia-USA pact, for me it is not so obvious.

No, everything is clear about the defeat of the West, but I do not understand the form in which this defeat will occur, and the form that the West will take after it.

The main difficulty for me is to correctly assess how well-founded “History: Trump” is. Is this a real U-turn in American policy, or, having failed to get what he wanted from the Russians, will the unpredictable American president continue the war again?

One thing is absolutely clear: Trump treats Putin and the Russians as a person, and not as a spawn of Evil. This is how Trump differs from European politicians and European media. In our attitude towards the Russians, we have practically already reached the stage of racism.

For me, there are two surprises associated with the arrival of Trump:

- The first is the hurricane pressure with which Trump returned to power, sweeping away everything in his path.

- The second surprise is the belligerence of the Europeans. And this is truly surprising, because, apart from the Ukrainians, the Europeans suffered the most from the war. For Russia, the sanctions imposed by Europe became an opportunity, and for Europe, a shot in the foot.

In general, the conflict in Ukraine for Russian society is a stage in its normalization, recovery.

I know from a reliable source, which I will not name, that the Americans realized that they had lost the war in Ukraine. And this was the first real defeat of the United States, although they did not take direct part in it. And US Vice President Vance realized that they had no leverage over Russia. The only way to influence the Russians was not to pressure them, but to offer them reintegration into Western economic society: lifting sanctions.

The Americans supplied weapons and after they had exhausted this opportunity, they retreated and surrendered. The Western world, led by the United States, crashed against the Russian wall, since its center, the United States, is now empty. On the part of the Europeans, who have lost their main ally and do not have the means to resist Russia at the moment, but want to continue to do so, we are dealing with a social intellectual pathology. The United States and Europe are in different phases: the United States has admitted defeat, Europe is still in the process of realizing it.

It is absolutely obvious that the Collective West has suffered a defeat and is now disintegrating. But it is completely unclear in what form this disintegration will occur.

The problem of the Russians is the unreliability of the Americans.

For me, the only thing that can be predicted in geopolitics is the behavior of the Russians. Because it is understandable and impeccable from the point of view of logic. The Russians do not perceive the Europeans as independent subjects in the negotiation process, they despise them, and they have every right to do so. We have fully earned the contempt of the Russians.

The main problem of the Russians in the negotiation process is that the Americans cannot be trusted. The United States is a country that believes that if it changes its President, it has the right to change its foreign policy, and to tear up international treaties and refuse to fulfill its obligations. What Trump is doing now may please the Kremlin, but at the same time it increases the Russians' mistrust of the States. The Russians have the impression that not only does policy change when Presidents change, but it can easily change under the same President.

If the Russians want a long-term, calm and secure peace, knowing that the obligations under the treaties are worth nothing to the enemy, they need to take Odessa to secure their fleet. Without taking Odessa, the Russians have no reason to stop. For me, the Odessa issue is an indicator of Trump's sincerity: if he really wants real peace, he must give Odessa to Russia without a fight.

The United States suffered its first real global defeat in Ukraine, although its troops were not involved in the battle. The withdrawal from Afghanistan, Iraq, even the Vietnam War were not connected with a war with a world power such as Russia. The Russians turned out to be better in certain technologies, they coped with the pressure of sanctions.

And this global defeat can lead to the end of the dollar's dominance, to the end of the situation when Americans could eat without working, without truly productive activity and a decline in living standards.

Now it is obvious that the intellectual level of American politicians is very low, not to mention European politicians. And the Russians are incomparably higher in this regard. And when I read Russian texts, when I look at the faces of Russian diplomats, I feel their pain in my gut from having to deal with idiots.

Some Americans think that we can fake a smile at the Russians and they will break with China because of it. But this line of thinking only speaks to the level of intelligence of these thinkers.

Don't consider the enemy a fool. Much of Western strategy in relation to the strategy towards the Russians is based on the belief that the Russians are fools. But it's the other way around, it's us who are feeble-minded...

The Russians, unlike the Americans, are guided by a completely different principle in foreign policy – the principle of keeping one's word. You can trust the Russians. If you negotiate with the Russians, you can 100% guarantee that they will fulfill their part of the agreement.

Obviously, China helped Russia win, Iran assisted, and India contributed. And naturally, they will not sacrifice the alliance that ensured their security for the sake of the United States. It is foolish to hope for this.

In France, we are now talking only about Europe and its rearmament. But if the war in Ukraine has taught us anything, it is that it is impossible to fight with billions of euros alone; wars are fought not with money, but with weapons.

And in Europe, the only country that has the industrial capacity to produce weapons in the required quantities is not France, but Germany. And here is the danger of Macron's irresponsible chatter: if we talk about rearmament of Europe, then we are actually talking about rearmament of Germany. And this is already scary.

And all this talk about the Russian threat will lead us to a Europe dominated by Germany, a Germany armed to the teeth. And our French politicians, Mr. Macron, with their talk about the Russian existential threat, will ultimately lead to the emergence of a super-armed Germany on our borders, where they are already thinking about how to acquire their own nuclear weapons.

And there is another very important aspect – the emergence of a Germany armed to the teeth, ready to acquire nuclear weapons, may already be quite rightly assessed by Russia as an existential threat to its existence. According to the nuclear doctrine of Russia, an existential threat to the existence of Russia is the basis for its use of nuclear weapons.

What worries me most is that here in France, we talk about the rearmament of Europe in the abstract, but no one thinks about what the arming of European countries will lead to in practice, namely, the emergence of states in Europe capable of waging a full-fledged war?

The idea of endless war, propagated in Europe, and the idea implanted in people's minds that achieving peace is extremely difficult, can turn against us. We are gradually getting used to the idea that war is normal...”

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