Europe Never Recovered From the Fall of the Berlin Wall

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1. *The high point of 1989 kickstarted a prolonged crisis that left the continent vulnerable to Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, a new book argues.*

   *David Marsh for Bloomberg News*

   The fall of the Wall was a moment of triumph but also of catharsis, an outpouring of pent-up energy that signified a break with the past but failed to define a clear future. Europe had a supreme chance to take a path toward stability, peace and prosperity. Instead leaders took what is now clear were many wrong turns. In the four decades leading up to 1989, Europe got the big questions mainly right — on defense, fiscal economics, money, trade and social cohesion. In the almost four decades since, it’s gotten many of them wrong.

   The ending of the Cold War signaled by the events of 1989-91 ushered in what we can now see as the fifth great crisis in the European balance of power since the end of the 18th century, after the upsets wrought by Napoleon’s France, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Adolf Hitler in Germany, and finally by Josef Stalin with 1945-era Soviet expansionism.

   The first reaction to the fall of the Wall was, without doubt, joy and relief — mixed with some of the predicted foreboding about the prospect of a larger, united Germany that might be tempted once again to throw its weight around. In the end the US profited more than any other nation (including Germany) from the ebbing of east-west tensions and the equally unexpected collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. For all Western nations, the fall of the Berlin Wall signified both triumph and tribulation.

   Yet the post-1989 tumult placed on trial a world order that was never fully settled; that’s now giving way to a far more diffuse and unpredictable set of structures. The “old continent” is singularly ill-prepared for the onslaught of two presidents — Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin — on fundamental precepts of the post-1945 order.

   [Read the full story here.](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-10-24/how-trump-and-putin-exposed-europe-s-strategic-weakness?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc2MTM5MTg2NSwiZXhwIjoxNzYxOTk2NjY1LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUNE1KRzdHUEw0N0kwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJEMzU0MUJFQjhBQUY0QkUwQkFBOUQzNkI3QjlCRjI4OCJ9.nrWI7dTjXCyLr9gGrJKv6jQrMcP3W3GbMEeN0wzZPPs)

2. A new Berlin Wall is being built now by the West this time, in Ukraine. Putin and Angela Merkel will eventually wish for the resurrection of their communist pasts. Rest assured that “communist” China loves to see the West fall back into fascist wars! Lenin was the only one to lament that governments had voted for funds to wage World War I instead of carrying out a communist revolution (waging war on capitalism). The result: today, fascism is still destroying everything, and everything has to be rebuilt. Mao will prevail. Our generous welfare state ended in 1990 with the Fall of the Berlin Wall, i.e., with the end of the Cold War. Putin is only working for “communist” China without knowing it. With Putin, Russia can only weaken itself and weaken the West so that the whole world can be easier to grab by China. Communism is an all-powerful ghost or specter.

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