[The European Conservative] The Lure of National Dependence

West European nations are being coaxed by foreign powers into giving away their independence in exchange for better access to the global commons — in the case of Russia and China — and enhanced security — in the case of the US.

Editor's note — This essay is adapted from my opening remarks at a panel on “challenges to national independence” at the National Conservatism conference in Brussels on March 24th, 2022, with Baroness Foster of Oxton DBE (UK House of Lords), Francesco Giubilei (Nazione Futura, Italy) and Juan Ángel Soto Gómez (Fundación Disenso, Spain). You can watch the speech here.

Is national independence at risk in today’s West? The question calls to mind a fateful quote from September 2018, almost four years ago. “Reliance on a single foreign supplier,” the quote reads, “can leave a nation vulnerable to extortion and intimidation. That is why we congratulate the European states such as Poland for leading the construction of a Baltic pipeline,” (this was in reference to the so-called Baltic Pipe currently under construction between the Norwegian sector of the North Sea and Poland) “so that nations are not dependent on Russia to meet their energy needs …. Germany will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course.”

Continue reading the entire piece at The European Conservative here.