Often young, intelligent people ask me questions about the questionable level of European leaders and the Trump disaster – why are they like this and are they really like this...
I try to share with these young, intelligent people what I think without imagining that I have a patent on the truth of last resort.
Moreover, it so happened that on two occasions (1992 – 1994 as the chairman of the National Security Commission in the 36th National Assembly (Bulgarian parliament) and 2002 – 2006 as the National Security Secretary of the Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov) I had the opportunity for some of the European leaders to watching closely, without, of course, having been any significant factor in their eyes. But at the same time, I tried to keep my senses awake and look, think, analyze, draw conclusions and learn lessons.

Here are seven of my thoughts on European leaders.

First, today's European leaders are people who have not solved too complex and fateful problems, have not had harsh exams and vital tests in particularly critical and dramatic situations.
They were formed as leaders in the golden age of the crushed USSR and the disintegrating socialist camp.
And great personalities manifest themselves and become such in days of extraordinary challenges and risks.
To become the first politician in a European country and from there to get a big role in European politics – this is not so significant. Holding a high national and European post is not in itself a sign of high, historic political and statesmanship. That Churchill, Adenauer, De Gaulle; even Thatcher, Kohl, Mitterrand were great politicians, it was not due to the high positions they held – their deeds, their visionary actions and brave decisions made them great personalities.

Second, today's European leaders are spoiled children of the triumphalism of the Western market liberal democracy of human rights and the rule of law – triumphalism proclaimed most solemnly by Francis Fukuyama (a very third issue is that, in fact, everyone read Fukuyama not as they should, but as they wanted to and that's why they didn't fully understand it).
For them, the highway of human civilization was one-way, and in the one and only correct, true, accurate, adequate direction, and there were only four alternatives for the others –
--- or to proceed with them confidently forward upon it;
--- or stand in their way and be run over by them;
--- or to go in the opposite direction and remain in the past, among the definitively lost and the irretrievably lost;
--- or to sniff on the side of the highway, sooner or later becoming highway ... women with frivolous and venal behavior.

Thirdly, today's European leaders have in their countries, in their large majority, too spoiled and easily manipulated, consumerist and navel-gazing electorates. And such electorates must be indulged, told what they want to hear and given what they want to receive.
Thus, in fact, a soil was created, fertile and destructive soil for unscrupulous populism. Because everything that a person (and a people!) wants to hear and be given can be increased, maximized, generated, excited.
And just as the market for goods and services (the real market) no longer satisfied NECESSITIES (you satisfy a necessity and it disappears), but NEEDS (but a need can be suggested, inflamed, multiplied, hyperbolized), so the market of ideas and ideologies (the political market) began to satisfy needs rather than necessities.
At the same time, the needs – the multitude of which do not honor societies, but provide easy and light solutions to difficult and complex problems – too easily and without remorse do find the Culprits, who as a rule are the Others – by ethnicity, religion, race, sexual orientation.
The climate that raised today's European leaders is the same that also gave rise to the insane and reckless populism rampant on both democratic sides of the Atlantic.

Fourth, today's European leaders pathologically do not understand what Putin's Russia is. And Putin's Russia is a monstrous entity driven by a sense of revenge and a thirst for revenge; ruled by a hideous dictator; torn by unsatisfied grandeur complexes and by phantom pain of great power (phantom pain is when a leg, for example, is cut off, but it still hurts or ... itches).
To think of Putin's Russia as something even extremely unpleasant, but rational, to measure it by your standards of values and mentality – this is an unforgivably ugly and nightmarishly wrong delusion! In Putin's Russia, these days, whole vast regions abound near that state described by Thomas Hobbes, where „there is continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short“.

Fifth, today's European leaders are geostrategically myopic and geopolitically without an instinct for self-preservation. They are like those animals that are bred in zoos and special territories to breed and become quite numerous, and then released into the wild, where they are defenseless, do not feel the dangers, do not have the senses to anticipate trouble, do not have their territories to defend, actually walk singly and therefore become easy prey for predators that hunt in packs.

Sixth, today's European leaders live in the postmodern paradise of simulacrums (images without original, real images – for example, a centaur, I say this deliberately simplifying things to be understood by more readers).
They see things (processes, phenomena, friends, enemies) not as things are, but as they themselves, the European leaders, are.
And this is not living in a parallel reality – you can live in the parallel reality, especially if you gradually make those you rule live in this parallel reality and according to its (your) laws! This is their, the European leaders', reality, but visioned and strategized wrongly, distortedly, positively and wishfully.

Seventh, today's European leaders cannot navigate the current situation, because it is a situation ON THE EDGE, AT THE END after which is already the abyss (including on the edge of chaos, at the end after which is already anarchy). They are used to situations like in the field – in the field if you trip and fall the most you can do is scrape your knees or break your nose. Whereas in the situation on the edge, at the end of the precipice, if you make even the slightest wrong step, you fall, fly down, you move into a new aggregate state. Not to mention that the abyss has the insidious ability to hypnotize you and deceive you, lure you, so that the closer you are to it, the faster you fly towards it.
Now this is a radically different time – a time of NON-LINEARITY.
A time when small impacts can have big consequences (a pebble flips a car) and big impacts can have small consequences (a mountain strained and gave birth to a mouse).
A time when few probable events can be very possible events (and Putin invaded Ukraine despite European leaders' predictions – before February 24) and very probable events can be few possible events (the triumphant West can quickly make sure that Russia is defeated – after February 24 ).
We live in a non-linear time, but Europe's leaders are linear-minded and rectilinear.

...

So much for today's European leaders – seven is a biblical number, after all.
And Trump?
I will only say the following about this black swan with a red feather:

Trump is terribly dangerous, but not because he is an agent of Putin (although Putin has worked hard to push and impose him). But because the president of the USA can be a useful idiot (and useful for Putin, and an idiot for not understanding this). The US has never stooped so low and low before to have a president who is a useful idiot.

Trump is terribly dangerous, but not because he is the cause of the US processes. But because, in addition to being the cause of these processes in the USA, Trump is also a consequence of these processes. The USA is seriously ill and the disease is called – Alzheimer's inability and Parkinson's unwillingness to behave at the level of Leadership that the world expects from them and that the world needs.

Trump is terribly dangerous, but not because he will end NATO. But because Europe is not at all ready for the day when NATO can be ended.
Yes, NATO is (still) a necessary Alliance, but NATO remains a relic of another, bipolar time; NATO failed to evolve in accordance with the challenges and risks, dangers and threats of the post-bipolar world, and like any organization that cannot reformulate and reformat its mission, it began to expand mechanically.
That's why (and) I've been writing for a long time that Europe should have a Plan B if Trump becomes president. Unfortunately, Europe is not ready for the time when Trump becomes president again. Europe has already lost ten years to prepare for this time. Europe today is like a snail without a shell, like a turtle without a shell.
Is this the Europe it should (already) be? No, it's not that.

Trump is terribly dangerous, but not because he is presumptuous and unscrupulous, brazen and foolish. But because in today's turbulent times he may become the president of the United States without a mission, without a vision, without a goal, without a strategy – a plutocrat at the head of the USA, an autocrat at the head of the West, a psychopath at the head of the Democratic world. And this will make him uncontrollable, unmanageable, unpredictable, unacceptable and intolerable for all human civilization.

God sent us – to us, to human civilization – Trump 8 years ago as a FINAL WARNING to remind ourselves, as a hyper-alarming bell ringing, that His, God's patience with us is coming to an end.
But we, the human civilization, did not learn our lesson and God sent us Trump again – this will be the second and last time for us, for the human civilization.
Because clearly and obviously, when God wants to punish a human civilization, He sends it Trump...
It's not too late to show Him that while we deserve some light punishment, we don't deserve that kind of punishment.
It's not too late, but it's getting later.

03.14.2024