Is Trump inadvertently saving Europe from itself?

Whisper it, but Europe is changing.

UK prime minister Keir Starmer announced yesterday that his country will commit 2.5% of GDP to defence, which will later be increased to 3%.

Germany's Merz, who won the elections on Sunday and is likely to become the new chancellor, has warned that NATO might soon be dead and vowed to make Europe 'independent' from America.

France's Macron is considering extending its nuclear shield to Germany.

If you haven't noticed, Europe is preparing for war. It doesn't mean that a war is definitely coming, but it does mean that if war does come, Europe might be prepared. And the best way to avoid a war is to have strong deterrents in place, anyway. I've ranted extensively about Europe's (especially Germany's) inability to protect itself, and seeing Europe's leaders talk defence seriously is refreshing. It is, of course, not a coincidence that all of this is happening right after Trump's radical change of rhetoric about Ukraine. Trump has managed the impossible: he's going to make Europeans spend on defence.

I guess all we can do for now is wait and see what happens. Is a European army on the cards? How would a new European defence setup look like, and how would it relate to the EU? Who would a European army take orders from? Will EU's president Ursula von der Leyen seize the opportunity to centralise even more power to Brussels?

The UK needs more, not less, austerity

First of all let me say that this is a hill I’m willing to die on. In fact, when I hit “publish” and Starmer’s thought police inevitably come knocking on my door, I will proudly tell them that I regret none of what I’m about to write. My goal with this article is to divide my readers into two groups: the ones who love austerity (most of you will fall into this category by the time I’m done brainwashing you) and the ones who never have, and never will, understand the intricacies of primary school maths. Let’s start with a definition: what is austerity? Austerity is a broad term used to refer to policies that reduce the deficit/debt of a country, either via spending cuts, increased taxation, or both. The objective is to drive the deficit (and ultimately the debt) down, something that can hardly be argued is a bad thing to do, especially in countries that face the challenges of a rapidly ageing population. Quick note for everyone: the deficit is the difference between what the state...

Italy’s love for the big state is a cultural remnant of fascism

Today we are going to make Italians mad. And no, we will not be breaking spaghetti – something that my Italian family has been doing for generations, no, centuries, before TikTok videos started circulating claiming that Italians don’t break spaghetti. We do, in fact, break our spaghetti, just like any sane person with a functioning brain would do when the spaghetti clearly doesn't fit into the pot. I actually used to sometimes not break my spaghetti, but now I always do so out of spite: it gives me both physical and emotional pleasure to know that the Italian gods are frowning upon my heartless breaking of spaghetti. As much as I would love to talk about how only people living in a hopeless country could get brutally angry about other people’s freedom to break spaghetti, and how this relates to Italy still being a fundamentally fascist-loving country at heart, the topic I suggest for today is the following: the link between Italians loving the big state and Italy having experienc...

The root cause of all American evils

TL;DR: it's the two-party system. Longer version: it's the two-party system. Yes, really. Full version: When Americans go to the supermarket, for every product they want to buy they are overwhelmed by choice. Cereals, tomato sauce, apples -- everything is available in all shapes and flavours, with multiple brands competing with each other and products coming from all over the world. I am writing this before the tariff-induced famine. When Americans go to the polls, it looks a little bit different. There are, realistically for most of the country, only two options. This is a problem because when choice is limited, quality isn't incentivised. Going back to the supermarket example, imagine that there are only two brands of cereals you can buy: well, that isn't really a lot of options, and you might very well end up buying the cereals that you "dislike the least" rather than the ones you "like the most". As if that was not bad enough, the only two brand...

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