EU collapse causes extinction

For many Americans reading this, there is no doubt a sense of remove from the relevance of the European project. Think of it this way: for centuries Europe was the Middle East of the world. It was a war-hungry, dysfunctional, violent, chaotic piece of the globe that could barely go a decade without a barbaric, usually pointless blood-letting conflict. Since World War II and the economic and political integration that brought former nation-state rivals into mutually beneficial coexistence, the continent has been a region of remarkable prosperity and stability. Keep in mind, this has never happened before in human history: a set of political leaders and their constituents voluntarily chose to cede elements of sovereignty in order to form a better, stronger union. The United States and Great Britain, often mentioned as democratic ideals, were two empires won by violent conquest in which wealthy elites only begrudgingly allowed democracy to sift down to the most impoverished and brutalized citizens.

The parochial movements of the last five to ten years—from the EU’s troubles to the Scottish independence vote to the surge of American nationalism that brought us such phenomenon as the go-it-alone war in Iraq and now Donald Trump—have different roots and causes but they do share a common thread. We live in an increasingly complex and interdependent world where the greatest threats to peace, individual well-being, and human flourishing are largely transnational. Climate change, infectious disease, nuclear proliferation, financial crisis, cyber insecurity—these are all borderless phenomenon that do not care if their victims are French, British, American, or Syrian. Their worst consequences do not care about our flags, languages, religions, or skin colors. And yet at a time when transnational peril necessitates a greater need for cooperation, tolerance, and unity, Western liberal democracies are taking a hard turn into fragmentation, arrogance, self-pity, and denial. The break-up of the European Union brought on by a wave of selfish, quasi-authoritarian nationalism would be a staggering blow to the economic and political security of what remains of the increasingly precarious free world.