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The Possible Future Events - Europe

How will we as individual nations respond to World Crisis that seems to loom around every corner. How will Europe Respond?

By Cameron PuckeyPublished 7 years ago 7 min read
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The old superpowers are falling, new nations are rising, Europe is in political chaos, Northern Africa and the Middle East are facing revolutions, uprising and terrorism, Equatorial Africa and South Africa are facing famines, South-East Asia is facing new Wars and North America is in political instability. The nukes are in the hands of two very unstable men.

SO what is this new Europe going to face and what is it going to look like?

European Politics

It's easy to imagine a collapse of the EU, with Greece having to pull out due to financial issues, Britain facing a national identity crisis with Brexit. Who will be next? The EU is disbanding, slowly pulling apart the jigsaw with the rise of the alt-right nationalist parties, who look to join Britain in the leaving of the EU. The 'problems' of immigration will be the main focus in politics in the next decade or two. With most countries slowing down or halting their refuge programs - I can imagine Sweden will most likely do this first after political pressure from the people, with France, Britain, Italy all nearly halting theirs and starting to look towards border security.

In the short run the collapse of the EU would probably mean financial instability, but everything will most likely settle within the coming years as most previous members would once again establish the free movement of goods, just not free movement of people, establishing a kind of single market, though the previous EU regulations would become minimal and only necessary.

But while this is happening Europe is slowly dwindling on energy supplies - there will be an oil shortage. I can imagine a green part rise in countries with at least small amounts of oil in Europe, most likely Norway. Britain won't see this rise but they would slowly run out of oil supplies in the North Sea and will have to buy from the Saudis.

The rest of Europe, on the other hand, will have to buy from Russia. This, in turn, will allow Russia to slowly gain ground in Eastern Europe, most likely slowly regaining its old soviet states. Already the seem to have control of the Crimean peninsula so it's hard to imagine that they won't incite revolutions and rebellions in other Eastern European countries. That is how they'll take control - through pro-Russia revolutions and slowly with Russia backing eastern Europe will return back to Russia.

NATO will be unable to respond to this, America has pulled out of NATO and financial backing for the military is very low across Europe so the response towards Russia is small, with only the UK wanting to threaten or sanction the Russians as in this timeline they aren't buying oil from the Russians.

This situation will probably end up with either US intervention in an indirect second Cold War - most likely not - or Russia pushing up to half way through Poland, occupying nearly everywhere between that and the Russian 'border'.

If there is no US resistance or reaction - which at least under the Trump Administration there won't be - then Russia will most likely occupy Norway. Why? I mentioned that Norway will be the most likely European country to shut off its oil supply, well with the Europeans buying off Russia but Russia needing to send more oil to Europe, they will need to build and maintain a new pipeline, which from Siberia / Near Middle East to Central Europe would be expensive, halting a return on the investment for many years. However there is an alternative for Russia, join an existing pipeline, Norway's. Norway will resist this decision by Russia and Europe but Europe needs their oil and Russia need their money, perhaps resulting in a European-backed Russia 'temporary' occupation of Norway. This occupation will most likely restart oil production for Norway by Russia.

I'm not the only one to explore this - if you want to see more about this I highly recommend watching the Netflix Series "Occupied", which looks at the same scenario.

Europe's Migrant Crisis

Although it doesn't seem to be newsworthy anymore, migrants and refugees are still flooding in from across the conflict zones in the middle east. I talked about this very briefly in the section above but that only a reason for the rise of the nationalist and the disbanding of the EU.

So what will Europe do about the migrant crisis? First of all, there are two situations that could occur:

Situation A:

The first situation is that the crisis will increase as the Trump Administration of US of A, Make it great again, will most likely get involved in the current war in Syria, bringing us to a Cold War but I'll save that for another situation. This will most likely kick off another revolution and a more intense rebellion against the Assad regime. Assad will drop his chemical weapons and the US will drop is destructive explosives without much thought the civilian population, yet of course, America will suspend its refugee program (if has one, I'm not sure.) - most likely under the nose of the public as it would cause an uproar.

This combination of The US military might and Humanitarian Cowardice will push the people of the Middle East back into Europe in the masses...

Europe will realize that it is a falsehood to call it a Migrant Crisis - it is a Refugee Crisis. These people are escaping death and conflict in their countries they don't want to come here they have to - there only one other: death and loss.

This 'second wave' will most likely make Turkey close its border with Syria. This is the part where the situations will diverge. In this situation the rest of Europe will see this as a breach of human rights, Europe finally considers these people as refugees and asylum seekers and not just immigrants. They will have to put either political, economical or even militaristic pressure on Turkey to open its borders. Europe will put in time and money into resolving the situation, we'll see council housing being used to house these refugees - this in Europe will cause an uproar, still, in those below the poverty line who need that housing. If not handled correctly - trust me it will not be handled correctly - it will cause social division and racial discrimination leading to rising of extreme nationalist right-wing political parties which will result in the end of the EU and disbanding of the Single Market, perhaps leading to the timeline in the section above this one.

Terrorism will become a key issue with terrorist being radicalized within their own countries by terrorist cell agents. Leading to fortnightly terrorist attacks, people live in fear. Once again meaning that the rise of nationalist alt-right political parties is a common occurrence across Europe. Leading to racial, social and political discrimination within the EU and Europe...

Situation B:

In this situation, Europe does nothing about Turkey. It ignores the Middle East, they feel as if it is none of their business - which in fairness it isn't. There will be no more bombing campaigns by Europe in the Middle East as they try and avoid the potential second Cold War between America, Russia and potentially China.

Unfortunately for the refugees and people trying to escape the conflict, it means they have nowhere to go. Trapped by closed borders. It is highly unlikely that Kazakhstan will open borders or Pakistan. Stopping any travel to the Far East. This will force the refugees to make a dangerous Journey through conflict zones in the Middle East, many will die, the West won't care. Some will make it to Africa however they are still exposed to terrorist attacks there as IS and other groups try to reform the 'old caliphate'. They aren't safe and no one will care.

Conclusion

Europe is about to go to hell. By the looks of things unless we do something the entire world is going to go to hell. The world at war is a potential scenario.

However this is just one of many scenarios Europe could face, so Good Luck.

~Puckey

controversiesdefensehistoryhumanitypoliticstravel
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About the Creator

Cameron Puckey

Amateur Writer and Philosopher, travelling the world with my voice, mind and laptop.

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