Bangladesh, Jan. 1 -- If history is unkind to Western Europes ruling elites, it will not be because they lacked warnings. It will be because they ignored every single one of them. By any reasonable measure, 2025 was a disastrous year for Western Europe politically, economically, morally, and strategically. Worse still, the trends that defined it are not abating. They are intensifying.

For all the talk of “European values,” “strategic autonomy,” and “defending democracy,” the European Union and its NATO-aligned governments spent the year accelerating toward a self-inflicted crisis of historic proportions. Reckless militarization, political manipulation, and a steadily expanding propaganda apparatus have...