These are not good times for optimists, but falling into utmost pessimism should besides be avoided. Pessimism breeds passiveness and inertia. Then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, due to the fact that how can the worst script not be fulfilled if no 1 tries to prevent it?
The year 2024 should be considered completed and not worth mentioning besides much. From the point of view of political events, it was a mediocre year, full of bad, disturbing events, revealing that we are reaching the next phase in the process of the decomposition of the Western Liberal-Democratic Order. On the another hand, there is simply a large concern that the balance of the past year will look much better for the next 12 months, erstwhile 2025 will origin us to miss the predecessor solidly. It will not be better in the fresh year. It will become “uninterested”, which, unfortunately, does not mean boredom.
"Progress" of democracy
Where are we today? In the coming days, U.S. president Joe Biden will leave office, not only due to his age, but due to his old values, structures and predictability. His successor will be Donald Trump, who has again made the dying Republican organization a majority organization in America, a natural organization of power. She was taken distant by free marketplace neoliberalism and globalisation, which became a stone around her neck after 2008, and gave “old, good”, 19th century, in principle, conservative and anti-market protectionism, skillfully combined with nationalism and tailored to the fresh realities of political communication. He besides overcome the racial barrier, which was like a ticking bomb planted under a "white American party", and this shortly before the demographic Copernican breakthrough (lost by the white social majority in the US), moving to the Republican side a section of voters of Latin origin, for the time being primarily male. He was helped by any Democrats who stopped reading Rawls and began studying Gramsci and recognized that the left's pop culture advantage guaranteed them a series of political victories, no substance what they did to power. Besides, Gramsci seemingly did not understand, due to the fact that alternatively of actually reaping the yields from the cultural hegemony obtained from 25 years ago, they decided to modify their cultural communicative toward an indigestible direction for the overwhelming majority of Americans. In the end, Latin Catholics preferred to vote for white supremacists alternatively than advocates for vocalism or critical race theory. present in the United States, the future may belong to Vice-President J.D. Vance or individual like him. Including cultural hegemony.
It didn't get any better on the Old Continent. In Germany, the government collapsed erstwhile 1 of the coalitions – keeping the remaining contact with reality and reading macroeconomic data – felt that the collapse of Europe's largest economy could not proceed to be seen with their hands attached and something had to be changed. The combined life force on credit, green order, and template reasoning removed the coalition from the government for these "thoughts of crime". In February, the German Chancellor will become the leader of the chadeks, but the coalition will gotta build with those who are now in power and for whom the economy is specified a large ATM. It doesn't look good. It is very possible that Merz's office will be the last in Germany to be influenced by neither the far right nor the far left.
That's the kind of office France can only dream of. She is most likely besides waiting for fresh elections in the summer, and they will not be held earlier just due to the fact that it is constitutionally impossible after an accelerated vote in 2024. In French card politics, the leaders of the extremes, Le Pen and Mélenchon, give away. In their ticks, the political shortages of the center, led increasingly desperately by president Macron, are trying to supply the country with any endurance for the fresh presidential election in 2027, erstwhile a theoretically new, inspiring liberal-democratic “Jowish” may appear and one more time pull the Elysée Palace out of the hands of Le Pen. Until then, there is hope that the fresh Prime Minister of Bayrou will get the support of the moderates and of the law (the claims of de Gaulle's students who have long forgotten his teachings), and the left ("old" socialists dominated and politically addicted to Mélenchon, who want to behave decently but are very afraid) and someway pull the government cart. To the nearest legislative crisis. It is the administration of volatile sands, which threatens to collapse at any time.
In the UK, barely elected with a colossal advantage, the Labour organization government has already lost momentum and in the polls begins to lose not only to the tories but besides to the utmost right. London abruptly found itself on the map of capitals in which the utmost can take the helm (as a result, all European capitals are already on this map). In the Netherlands and Austria, parliamentary elections were won by the utmost right. In The Hague, she entered the ruling coalition and is tactically quiet for now, in Austria, the effort to establish a government without its participation has just been burned down, due to the fact that the chades, social democrats and liberals argued for details.
“Progress” of Russia
The Ukrainian-Russian war is coming to an end, but not as the Ukrainians wished and as we, their friends, hoped. Trump will cut Kiev off from military and financial assistance, so he will simply force an adverse peace or ceasefire. Ukraine will lose a large part of the territory, and the scope of possible safety guarantees will depend mainly on Trump's good humour and the degree of rooting before him by the Ukrainians. On the another hand, Ukraine's society is finished with the drama of war and begins to thin towards peace, even at the price of national defeat. Europe's countries are rhetorically heavy combated, but – let's say, with the boastful exception of the British, the Dutch, the Baltics and our own – the European commitment on the side of Ukraine has rather smoothly gone from the indecision and fear to the fatigue and longing phase of the peace agreement with the Kremlin with only a short phase of militant enthusiasm and belief in the success of the Western cultural task in Central east Europe. In 2025, Georgia and Moldova will pay a advanced price for this historical geopolitical defeat of the West.
But not just them. Indeed, fears of war in a classical sense between Russia and NATO states are (for now) on the rise. This may happen, but not in 2025 (unless in the form of atomic destruction). Russia is discovering more and more of this, non-war, and effective methods to combat Western democracy and will make them intensively. The first ground was Romania, where the Kremlin was 1 step distant from installing its figurehead as head of state. The "carrot" policy has proved to be fruitful, which opens up prospects for expanding the list of Western candidates for Russian satellites. Hungary has long played this role, Slovakia is taking a key step. erstwhile the killing in Ukraine stops, it will strengthen certain modus vivendi Around the ceasefire and the possible of resuming economical relations with Russia will shine, this list of volunteers may be extended. An investment in the political power of the far right (and to a lesser degree the far left) has proved highly fruitful for the Russians. Prokremlian parties are able to win elections in all 3rd country of Europe, they regulation in Hungary, Slovakia, Italy, the co-government of the Netherlands, they have France and Belgium, including Austria, good prospects in the Czech Republic and Romania. There is just no longer a taboo of them reaching for part of the power in Germany, and a systemic barrier to their triumph in Britain ceases to exist. And there are further plans of hybrid actions against us in the Kremlin drawers: from those older in the form of disinformation and manipulation of political processes, cybercriminal hacking of delicate infrastructure systems, inciting social conflicts against racial or cultural background (in the Baltic States by launching Russian diaspor) to fresh concepts of utilizing the methods of average state terrorism in Libyan or Palestinian style. possibly the Russian army's invasion does not endanger us at the minute over the Vistula River, but bombings can undoubtedly become a terrible “daily bread” of the Russian neighbourhood.
“Progress” of Poland
Poland, with its acquisition of power by the Democratic coalition and probable presidency for Trzaskowski (with the anticipation of writing a "Bukarestztski script", which may hit these elections), becomes – paradoxically – a certain kind of pariah in the Western world, in which right-wing populism follows power. A freak and a freak. Suddenly, on the agenda of the debate, especially in light of Trump's return, the question becomes, "What if we are politically marginalised for besides much attachment to the regulation of law and liberal democracy?" Polish Law and Justice have become an outcast of Europe for violating the values of the West and treaties. In a fewer years, erstwhile people who think akin to Kaczyński take the helm in key capitals, will Poland, ruled by democrats, become an outcast? Trump clearly wants to make his customs policy a political weapon, a tool for influencing the governments of the theoretically allied states. Yes, the highest duties await Chinese goods. But as a punishment for the influx of immigrants, customs are expected to hit Mexico, as a punishment for drug smuggling – Canada, as a punishment for besides low defence spending – in any European countries, especially Germany. Will Trump, as an ally of the Pisan opposition over Vistula, introduce a work on Polish goods as part of the repression of the liberal-democratic direction of the Tusk government's policy? Or for the Polish boycott of his plan to abolish sanctions against Russia? This. Political fiction Or a possible scenario? What if a regular customs war breaks out between the EU and the USA and the Community countries are called upon by the Commission to solidarity with partners in which the Washington administration has hit the most with duties? erstwhile Poland is forced to make a loyal choice between Europe, with which our economical prosperity is linked, and the US, on which our national safety depends in the era of aggressive expansion of Russia, how can Warsaw behave?
If the PiS continues to hold its presidency, Poland threatens to break up the coalition and accelerate elections, which can be brought by the Law and Justice Government with the participation of the Confederate. Therefore, the win of Trzaskovsky is highly crucial. Taking over full power in Poland by people seen behind the Atlantic as "Biden's camp" will lead to a cooling of Polish-American relations. So far, this kind of ideological discretion has not prevented the good improvement of Poland-US relations. Kwasniewski and Miller worked perfectly with the administration of the younger Bush (thinking of the Old Kiejkuts, 1 can even propose that this cooperation was even besides good), after a decade earlier – being freshly baked post-communists – not only did they not halt the Polish march to western structures, including NATO, but they even made a crucial contribution. The Government of the First Tusk worked equally well with Bush as well as with Obama, and the second did no major confrontation by the Government of the Law and Justice organization of Szydło, despite the President's negative comments on the first blows in the regulation of law and free media in 2016. The government of the Law and Justice organization had a bigger clash paradoxically with the Trump administration, erstwhile the agenda was followed by the establishment of penalties for preaching the thought of the participation of the Polish population in the Holocaust under the German Nazi business and the alleged Lex TVN. For Biden, the Americans primarily highlighted good cooperation with the Law and Justice government in the first months of the Kremlin's aggression against Ukraine than any disputed points.
Europe's Progress
This time it may be different, due to the fact that Trump goes to power with a individual agenda and a long list of “seeers” to be fulfilled, and from his surroundings he most likely effectively removes anyone who could – as in 2017-21 – get him to present the right state over projections of his own mind. Of course, against the background of its precedence settlements, Poland is very low and is not peculiarly important. Theoretically, he can swing his hand on Tusk and Sikorski. However, Viktor Orban and his geopolitical hyperactivity may be an obstacle to specified an amicable scenario, which after the inauguration of Trump is ready to launch into space. The Hungarian Prime Minister has as large goals as his country is small. Together with the American alt-right and partners from the pro-Cremlovian European parties, it plans to build a movement to take control of the EU after 2029. Trump's strong commitment on the part of Orban will not be overlooked by the fact that Poland is treating Hungary as its biggest enemy in Europe, but naturally Russia and Belarus. Orban seems to have tools to “bring” Trump advisors on Poland. The only tool to counter this policy will be further crucial purchases of military equipment, as well as energy carriers in the US from Poland. Or allowing the fresh U.S. Ambassador to Warsaw to dictate to any degree the content of politics to the Tusk government. In any event, the possible that the Polish presidential election of 2025 may become the subject of abroad interference, both from Russia and the US, and these interferences may have about the same vector, is not the best.
Another possible origin of Poland's conflict with the US is, of course, the way of ending the war between Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine will be a organization to the failure of war, but a moral defeat will be suffered by the full West, including the US. Trump will effort to preserve his face by his country, and there is simply a certain chance that the truncated Ukraine will receive real guarantees to defend him from re-aggression (or hybrid actions oriented towards political control?). In the context of weak guarantees, the advanced likelihood of a re-launch of war for e.g. a year and the transfer of this "hot potato" into the hands of lonely Europeans, the relations of Poland and most countries of central Europe with the US may deteriorate rapidly, the link being the collapse of pro-American sympathy within the local societies. In these realities, Macron's thought that militaryly strongest countries of Europe (i.e. above all France and the United Kingdom, but besides Poland, which is 1 step distant from obtaining specified a status, while not necessarily Germany) set up a peace mission in the buffer region along the fresh Ukrainian-Russian border, sounds forward-looking. However, the Warsaw Reserve must be understood. It is hard to agree on specified a politically and technically hard task with the leader of the state, whose successor in a fewer months, and the least in 2 and a half years will most likely be Vladimir Putin's friend. It cannot abruptly turn out that Poland will defender buffer zones at the edge of the fresh Russian empire...
The collapse of liberal democracy in Europe can besides bring US customs policy importantly closer. This will be a large blow, especially in the German economy, facing decline due to the failure of its own political elite (even little Olaf Scholz, Angela Merkel embodies the policy of destroying the German economy). The economical problems of Germany are a fatal news for practically the full continent, and surely for the Polish economy, so radically connected with the German trade and investment. How far have we gone from the planet where the form of the TTIP agreement was drawn?! The race for customs will consequence not only in breach of the ties of trust, but besides in the return of inflation, only a fewer years after it has been lowered. Inflation will make serious social dissatisfaction, and there will be a challenge everywhere in Europe (including very serious public debt in Poland), which will require very unpopular reforms and political decisions. In the background, the European economical stagnation, the declining innovation, the hump of the failed green governance policy and the collapse of key industries in Germany remain. All of this will besides strengthen the position of the far right. As is the unresolved and constantly resounding demographic problem, which is inevitably followed by the challenge of migration policy. European elites deficiency the will, courage, money and, above all, political stableness in their own countries to even think about facing this most controversial social-political challenge of this decade.
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If it makes you feel better, you can “shoot” a messenger bringing bad news. You can also, like Scarlett O’Hara, worry about it tomorrow. However, the year 2025 is categorically dark. These are not good times for optimists, but falling into utmost pessimism should besides be avoided. Pessimism breeds passiveness and inertia. Then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, due to the fact that how can the worst script not be fulfilled if no 1 tries to prevent it? The year 2025 will be highly heavy, but any processes can be avoided, can be mitigated, can be laid the foundations for a better tomorrow. This will be a task for average politicians remaining in the station. In Europe, the most attention will be drawn to Friedrich Merz, who will face a chance to make a qualitative breakthrough. However, Donald Tusk will be the second most closely observed politician. Whether this all falls apart like a home of cards depends mainly on them.
