The tragedy of Europe's idiocracy

Key Markets report for Tuesday, 18 March 2025

Europe's idiocracy, and this includes the UK, seems single-mindedly determined to escalate the war against Russia, consequences be damned. Of course, the push comes from all our leaders who, like Ursula von der Leyen, laugh at the idea of sending her own children to war. Of course they laugh: they know they do not stand a chance, but for as long as the fighting continues, there's profits to be made by skimming off the massive amounts of money flowing toward Western military-industrial complex and the black hole of corruption that is Ukraine.

Feeling lucky?

All the collateral damage sustained in that war is worth the price, as far as the idiocracy is concerned: so long as the fighting goes on, not only do they continue to profit, there's even a chance that some fortuitous event could reverse their defeat. Perhaps Trump could be persuaded to recommit to Ukraine's security; something could happen to Vladimir Putin, or some kind of an event could galvanize Western public opinion in favor of escalating the conflict to a brand new World War.

But betting the house on a long-shot stroke of luck amounts to the gambler's ruin. The fact that our leaders are pursuing that path to the exclusion of any other must be the definition of idiocracy: even if you managed to unite the collective West to confront Russia, defeat would be the most probable outcome.

Europe’s many attacks on Russia

In June 1812, Napoleon led his 600,000 troops strong Grande Armée to conquer Russia. It was the largest invasion force ever assembled, and it was not a French invasion, only a French-led invasion. It brought together regiments from many European nations including France, Poland, Spain, Italy, Austria, Bavaria, Saxony, Westphalia, Netherlands, Croatia, and Hungary. That didn't go so well and Napoleon's invasion disintegrated within six months.

In June 1941, Hitler who obsessively studied Napoleon’s invasion, assembled a much larger invasion force counting 3.8 million troops, 3,600 tanks, 2,700 aircraft and tens of thousands of artillery pieces. Again, it was not a German invasion but a German-led invasion. Codenamed Operation Barbarossa, it counted troops from most European nations: Germany, Finland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, Spain, Italy, Austria, Romania, and Bulgaria, Sweden, Netherlands and Belgium. In all, Russia has experienced multiple major attacks from the West since the 17th century:

1. The Polish-Lithuanian Invasion (1598-1613): during "the Times of Troubles" the invaders attempted to place a Polish king on the Russian throne. Polish forces managed to occupy Moscow from 1610 to 1612, but were ultimately driven out by Russian militias.

2. Swedish Invasion (1700-1721): the Great Northern War was led by Sweden's king Charles XII. His troops invaded Russia in 1708 and it ended at the Battle of Poltava in 1709.

3. French Invasion (1812): Napoleon's war on Russia

4. Crimean War (1853-1856): while this was not a full-scale invasion, it was another attack on Russia by a British-led coalition of the willing. It included French, Sardinian and Ottoman troops.

5. World War I (1914-1918): Germany, together with Austria-Hungary launched a major offensive against Russia on the Eastern Front. Many European countries contributed troops to this offensive.

6. Polish-Soviet War (1919-1921): Poland once more attempted to invade Soviet Russia in an attempt to expand its territory and "create a buffer zone."

7. Soviet civil war (1918-1922): overlapping WWI and the Polish invasion, Russia experienced a Civil war during which tens of thousands of Western troops from Great Britain, United States, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Japan invaded Russia and helped stabilize the Bolshevik regime. To this day, Western history books falsely teach that Western troops attempted to help the Czarist, "White" forces against the Communist Reds, which was the official narrative at the time. In reality, Western troops consistently weakened the Whites and helped the Reds. Between 7 and 12 million Russians died from combat, famine and disease.

8. World War II (1941-1945): Hitler's Operation Barbarossa.

9. Transition from Communism to Capitalism (1990s): this wasn't an invasion, but it was a successful insertion of a large, toxic Trojan Horse into Russia. Its effects were no different to a major war. Until Vladimir Putin took power, Russia was entirely ruled by Western financial interests through their appointed trustees, or as we know them, Russia's oligarchs. The nation's GDP dropped by 50%, more than during World War II; according to the World Bank, 74 million Russians (more than 50%) lived in poverty and half of those (1 in 4 lived in "desperate" poverty). Russia's death rates increased by 60% to a level only experienced by countries at war. Surplus deaths during the 1990s were estimated at 5 to 6 million, between 3.4% and 4% of the total population of Russia. For perspective, consider that during the course of World War II, the United Kingdom lost 0.94% of its population, France lost 1.35%, China lost 1.89% and the U.S. lost 0.32%.

10. Ukraine war (2014-present): contrary to the current establishment narrative, the conflict in Ukraine is a Western proxy war against Russia.

Russians are just paranoid

With all this in mind, it's clear that the Russians are simply being paranoid if they think that Western powers might have any agenda toward Russia other than ensuring a just and stable peace in Ukraine, as Sir Keir Starmer insists. The objective, obviously, is to spread our values, like freedom, democracy and human rights. But why exactly our leaders like Starmer, Emmanuel Micron and Ursula von der Leyen think that the West today could succeed where Napoleon and Hitler failed is a mystery.

Their desire to conquer and dismember Russia could be explained (it's all about freedom and democracy, of course), but how they think they could pull it off can't. Today, NATO would struggle to put together 50,000 fighting troops on the ground in Ukraine, but about the only role they could fulfill there would be as cannon fodder.

How World War I was perceived in its time: everybody come together and march on Russia

Three years ago they embarked on this proxy war with Ukraine's army fully intact, trained up and armed to the teeth and the West's arsenals full. They readied nuclear economic sanctions on Russia and full support from the United States. By today, all that failed, Ukraine's army is broken and our arsenals are almost empty. How our leaders are still undeterred and bent on doubling down on failure must be the definition of idiocracy. Britain’s Sir Keir said that Britain’s deployment of troops to Ukraine is already “operational.” The very fact that these people are still in charge is nothing short of a tragedy for the people of Europe. Without a major course correction, it will lead to political, social and economic ruin of the continent.

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Trading signals for Key Markets, 18 March 2025

With Friday’s closing prices we have the following change: