Europe: Greater Eurasia Scenarios

This new series explores a range of scenarios that are either presently ongoing in Eurasia or have the potential to transpire in the coming future. It should not be assumed by the reader that all of these will happen, and much can occur to offset even the most seemingly inevitable of these events, but nor should anyone be under the assumption that any of these possibilities are necessarily being endorsed by the author. The purpose in crafting this series is to syncretize as much publicly available information and trends as possible in objectively forecasting the realities that might appear just across the horizon. The optimistic hope is that this work will inspire decision makers, researchers, and casual observers alike to take the initiative in following through on these scenarios by promoting, preempting, investigating, and/or interpreting them as needed depending on one’s own personal objectives and role vis-à-vis these possibilities. 

Regional Blocs Or Full-Blown Dictatorship?

If the EU doesn’t consolidate its control over every member state in the form of an actual unstated dictatorship, then it will likely decentralize (whether in fact or in form) into a collection of regional blocs:

(the author’s accompanying article and map are available at The Duran)

Viking Bloc:

Sweden (core)/Finland/Estonia/Latvia/Norway/Denmark/Iceland/Scotland/Greenland

This organization will seek to counter Russia in the Arctic and Baltic, with the former area of confrontation focusing on establishing control, influence, or disruption over the Northern Sea Route. 

Neo-Commonwealth:

Poland (core)/Lithuania/Ukraine

Poland, as it has historically done, will seek to push against Russia’s western border periphery in reestablishing itself over the former territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. 

Central Core: 

Germany (core)/Netherlands/Belgium/Switzerland/Austria/Czech Republic/Slovenia

Europe’s powerhouse will use continue to use its centrally positioned location and existing mobility infrastructure (railroads, roads, pipelines, etc.) to retain its continental hegemony, with special emphasis placed on its immediate neighbors. 

Latin/Classical Europe:

France (core)/Italy/Spain/Portugal/Greece

Paris will lead the economic unstable PIGS (Portugal/Italy/Greece/Spain) of Southern Europe in establishing a Mediterranean-based trading sphere that will also likely expand into North Africa with time. 

St. Stephen’s Space:

Hungary (core)/Croatia/Slovakia/the Croat-inhabited portion of Bosnia/possibly parts of Romania

Budapest will strive to recreate part of its former Dual Monarchy glory by expanding its influence into historical zones presently populated by ethnic Hungarians and allying with Croatia, the country which it had previously been unified with for centuries. 

Black Sea Bloc:

Bulgaria/Romania/Moldova (no cores, Sofia and Bucharest are much too weak)

The whole point of integrating the western littoral of the Black Sea is to begin building a nascent NATO-controlled navy that would legally circumvent the restrictions under place through the Montreux Convention, with the added touch being that it could also simultaneously exert power towards the Central Balkans if the need arose. 

Balkan Black Hole:

Serbia/Republika Srpska in Bosnia/Republic of Macedonia/Montenegro/Albania

This last corner of Europe has no distinct core, though Serbia could realistically function as one in attracting Republika Srpska and Macedonia, with the latter more than likely entering into a limited strategic relationship with Belgrade that would be highly sensitive to any possible cession of sovereignty due to historical reasons. Montenegro is joining NATO soon and will likely become a direct outpost of that bloc outside the influence of any core actor, while Albania will serve as the ultimate disruptor in periodically promoting the irredentist agenda of “Greater Albania” whenever it suits the US’ interests to destabilize its proxy’s Christian neighbors. 

Balkan Flashpoints

(all of these scenarios are founded on the belief that the US will resort to indirect proxy means to destabilize the Balkans and sabotage Russia and China’s megaprojects through the region)

Crazy Clash-Happy Croatia:

Zagreb, enthused with confidence amidst the state-sponsored revival of its World War II-era Ustasha fascist ideology, decides to upset the delicate ethno-religious balance in Bosnia and makes soft power/asymmetrical advances in the northern Serbian Province of Vojvodina, all as part of a larger NATO-encouraged proxy war against Russian-friendly Serbia. 

Bosnian Breakdown:

Beset with innumerable political conflicts and contradictions ever since its international community-supervised end of its 1995 civil war, Bosnia eventually breaks down into the dysfunctional artificial state that it always has been, with Sarajevo triggering a crisis through its illegal centralization campaign that in turn prompts a federative pullout by the Serbian entity. 

“Greater Albania” Returns:

The Albanian militant conquest of the Serbian Province of Kosovo was just the beginning of Tirana’s years-long mission to “unify” the Albanian-populated lands, with the country being pushed by the US to provoke ethno-religious separatism in its Macedonian and Montenegrin neighbors. 

Madness In Macedonia:

Confronted with the interlinked Hybrid War challenges of a Color Revolution and an Albanian-supported Unconventional War (whether for separatist or “federative” purposes), the Republic of Macedonia descends into madness and its domestic turmoil seeps outwards to its Serbian, Bulgarian, and Greek neighbors. 

My Half, Your Half

Germany and France, the EU’s two main leaders, drift further apart over their vision for the bloc and its fiscal policy, with ultra-liberal Germany continuing to advocate for more integration and fiscal conservatism, while a newly conservative France proposes enhanced state sovereignty and leniency towards debt-ridding members (as an outreach to the PIGS).  Moving in opposite directions, Berlin and Paris either end up amicably dividing the EU amongst themselves into spheres of influence or engage in a highly competitive intra-bloc struggle. The decisive factor might ultimately come down to what their social policies are and their attitude towards enforcing them, which might lead to some strange geographic contradictions (e.g. conservative French influence in Poland and liberal German influence over Italy). 

The Imperial Tradition

The newly ‘liberated’ UK, fresh out of institutionally finalizing the Brexit, returns to its classic imperial tradition of playing off its continental European counterparts amongst themselves, whether this sees London dividing and ruling Paris and Berlin, or perhaps engaging in much more complicated multidimensional diplomacy in the “Concert of European Powers” that could arise if the EU decentralizes along the lines of the regional blocs described above. 

Françafrique

Pushed out of Europe by excessive German influence and Berlin’s institutional bullying, and coupled with the severe demographic changes it experiences through the high birth rates of its former colonial citizens who now live within the ‘imperial center’, France makes a conscientious decision to redirect its grand strategic focus towards the geographically large and highly populated French-speaking parts of Africa where it still retains a military presence and considerable hegemonic influence. Paris may or may not conscript Rome to be its ‘sidekick’ in this initiative. 

Algerian Immigrant Crisis

The Algerian state collapses after stroke-ridden President Bouteflika’s unsurprising death in office sets off a violent successionist conflict between the country’s competing security agencies and the military, leading to the outbreak of another civil war that is quickly capitalized on by Daesh and other Islamic terrorist groups. In the resultant chaos, millions of people flee north to nearby France by means of Spain, thereby transplanting the structural instability of the Mideast Immigrant Crisis from the Balkan Peninsula to the Iberian one and beyond. France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy – the Latin/Classical European bloc in the abovementioned scenario – team up to tackle this threat by conducting joint patrols of the Mediterranean and even leading a NATO intervention in the North African state. All four countries stand to experience dramatic demographic shifts within their borders by the time the crisis is quelled and millions of Arabic-speaking Muslim immigrants/refugees have settled in their new historically Christian homes. 

Hungary Ruins The Heartland

The European Heartland is thrown into disorder after an ultra-nationalist Hungary (or perhaps even an outright Fascist one if Jobbik comes to power) aggressively asserts the ‘rights’ of ethnic Hungarians living outside of its borders and separated from their homeland by the post-World War I Treaty of Trianon, thus bringing Budapest to blows with Bratislava, Belgrade, and Bucharest and possibly trigger larger geopolitical shifts in the entire Southern/Central/Eastern European space (e.g. Poland militantly pushing its historical claims on Western Ukraine, Romania making a lunge towards Moldova, etc.). 

East vs. West Redux

No longer separated by the “Iron Curtain”, the Eastern and Western European countries have still somehow found a way to realign themselves into their historical blocs, albeit now separated by the ideology of Western Liberalism vs. Eastern Conservatism, with the Immigrant Crisis, Brexit, and Brussels’ policies in general setting the stage for an intra-bloc Cold War whereby the West seeks to reimpose the dictatorially centralized status quo while the resistant East wants to reform the EU into something looser and more sovereign. 

Picking Up The Spanish Pieces

Spain’s pseudo-federative model of a unitary state suddenly falls apart as other peripheral regions such as Galicia and Andalusia join their Catalonian counterparts in either pushing for outright independence or a Bosnian-like “Identity Federation” of quasi-sovereignty, leading either to an outbreak of hostilities between the central Madrid authorities and the restive frontier of a breakdown of law and order as the once-unified Spanish state falls apart into several pieces. This scenario becomes more likely if preceded by an Algerian Collapse and the consequent influx of millions of civilizationally dissimilar immigrants/refugees that unbalance the state’s delicate status quo and push it past the tipping point into political instability.