the aftermath of the Second World War saw Europe split between two by then fully mature global powers, the US and Russia/USSR, and this split, despite the fabled "end of the Cold War" and Fukuyama's fabled "end of history", continues to tear Europe apart

To be completely fair, even if we leave the US and Russia aside, Europe continues to be torn apart chiefly by its own immense stupidity. What, you thought Romania was a singular case? Heh.

LE: which makes the whole mainstream gargle about "independence" and "an European army" all the more revolting.

That aside, the way I see it European culture is the child of the Romans/Greeks, built upon a scaffolding of Christianity -- I know there's a whole bunch of haters who will readily deny the role of Christianity in European history, but that's simply the easiest device that followers of atheism (yes, yet another religion, it's not like "science" will simply wave away belief with a magic hand, will it?) will find to explain the French Revolution and the latter Russian one. Otherwise, explain how for a millenia everyone in Europe who was granted a kingdom got it under divine right and how the papacy (an outgrowth of the Roman Empire, right?) was quite a big deal for a long while and so on and so forth. Anyways, yes, some cells in your body will kill off other cells during its normal functioning, and similarly, European culture evolved under self-regulating mechanisms in which sometimes the Germans surfaced as the dominant element, while other times the French emerged -- but these elements are completely intertwined, or I don't know how else to explain say, Stephen Mușat's relationship with the Poles, or the cohesion between Bach and Scarlatti, between Newton and Leibniz, between Schopenhauer and Eminescu, and I could go on for a long while. Yes, culture is necessarily downstream of violence, and that is how European culture was born, through a long string of wars and power grabs.

Now for the nitpicking:

> The Chinese are pumping technology like crazy

China is an economic powerhouse, but I have my doubts it can become a global cultural power. I also doubt that the US was ever much of a culture, unless we count that culture of forgetfulness they dub "pop culture" as actual culture. IMHO the jury's still out on both counts.

> This is the most likely scenario, and what the Eurocrats are ultimately trying to do.

Let's not kid ourselves, the EU isn't even trying anymore since the early 2010s, if not earlier. Yes, once upon a time the optimistic promise of multiculturalism pervaded throughout the EU space, but as far as I can tell some of the Arab countries are yet more multicultural than the EU could ever hope to be. Maybe, like you said, some cultural force will emerge out of Europe *after* the death of EU, but necessarily after. The Eurocrats are just making fools of themselves.

> I think all this talk about spirituality is just a red herring for intellectuals

Well, you did use the term "vital essence" a few paragraphs before this one. :D

Anyway, if you're looking to understand history from a metaphysical perspective, then that simple stuff you mentioned runs on what Heidegger calls spirituality. There's nothing wrong with ignoring the metaphysical point of view, but that's precisely it: that that which goes beyond physics (meta-phusis) attempts to find grounding (or: the so-called prime cause) for some phenomenon, and leaving aside the biological interpretation which is *necessarily* reductionist (as *all* science is, through its very nature), then power, resources, weapons and so on also have an essence. Conversely, the lack of spirituality is the essence of what those quantitative analyses represent as entropization and death.

I get it, you prefer mathematical modelling to poetry and far be it from me to deny that. Unfortunately I completely lack the common priors to explain why I prefer using the latter instead of the former -- for example, because the former is merely a *tool* -- and I'm not really a scholar of Western philosophy, but my recommendations above stand.

> The USSA is utterly destroyed

The biggest sign pointing towards that direction is to my eye the fact that they keep sending weapons to Ukraine and they've been gathering troops in Poland and Romania, but thus far they themselves haven't moved a finger, nor do I think they will. This signals more or less the same type of impotence that's seen in the EU, except maybe in different quantities. Perhaps I should have said that the West is fucked, but I didn't do that because Western culture *is* European culture.

It's individual cultures within this geographical area that we need to be worried about, and yes, they are fucked. Because they are small, and the USSA, Russia and China are bigger, and size and momentum still matter a lot, and power still exponentially clusters around those who already have it. The rich get richer and all that. There are only a few ways one of these cultures could ever break out of this trap and join the top dogs, and you'll excuse the sharp-edged ideas but we're all adults here:

- The culture comes up with a technological or cultural revolution that overrides the size/power differential. I don't see this happening, because frankly, pretty much all cultures outside Asia are tired, soyified and degenerate. The Chinese are pumping technology like crazy, Russkies are flexing their missiles, the Americans can at least look back on their past glories, while European youth are... chasing fame on Youtube and wondering how they are gonna pay for the old folks' pensions (spoiler: they can't). No points for guessing which civilization has a future.

- The USSA is utterly destroyed (not necessarily physically; just terminally shattered as a power and influence) AND this culture moves in to fill the void before China/Russia do. Very unlikely, also due to the loss of vital essence mentioned above. On the other hand, a natural disaster would do the trick.

- The culture permanently assimilates (i.e. exterminates) enough of the other cultures in Europe to achieve critical mass, whether through demographic or kinetic means. This is the most likely scenario, and what the Eurocrats are ultimately trying to do.

So yeah, pretty bleak. But it's just nature taking its course. I think all this talk about spirituality is just a red herring for intellectuals. The real world runs on simple stuff: power, resources, weapons, and who got there first. Turchin showed that civilizations, just like people, are at their greatest in their youth, when they have room to expand, room to conquer, when they are not encumbered by rules and the need for efficiency. When expansion inevitably stops, we inevitably switch to the "management" stage, which cannot possibly produce greatness, only inevitable entropization and death.

In short, life is expansion and conquest, i.e. aggression. The Americans, Russkies, Chinese did it and still do it well. So did cultures in Europe, once. And they must do it again if they want things to change. There is no other way.