A Conversation with Ivan Krastev: Outlook on 2024

At Presseclub Concordia we traditionally welcome the new year with a geopolitical forecast by political scientist Ivan Krastev. This time our intellectual new years concert already took place in December. We thank our partners at IWM, fjum and ERSTE STIFTUNG for their cooperation and for making this event possible. Our expert on foreign policy, Mirjana Tomić, was moderating the talk which was followed by a Q&A session.
Ivan Krastev is one of the most influential European intellectuals and political thinkers, political scientists and author. He is chairman of the Center for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna (IWM).
For more infos on our speakers see links below:
- Mirjana Tomić
www.fjum-wien.at/menschen/mir...
- Ivan Krastev
www.iwm.at/fellow/ivan-krastev
COOPERATION PARTNERS:
Presseclub Concordia
concordia.at
fjum
www.fjum-wien.at
IWM
www.iwm.at
ERSTE STIFTUNG
www.erstestiftung.org/en/

[@animalspirit77]

Great talk.he is a very wise man

[@NotABadGuy.]

The idea that Ukraine was able to defend itself is not quite accurate. From 2016 NATO troops were on the ground in Ukraine and Trump started sending them weapons which was continued by Biden sending $200 Billion. There have also been US and UK airsupport, surveilance, training and intelligence. So saying Ukraine is defending itself is a bit too simplistic.

[@NotABadGuy.]

Zelensky is a great comms guy, but his strategic thinking is lacking.

[@Vera22101]

Given the title of this rather mixed-bag, insubstantial and, as it proceeds increasingly boring soliloquy, it should sure be 12 months, and not 12 years Krastev talking about. Oh, but don't forget the news: we'll be in even deeper kimchi in 2024 than we already are. Who would have thought. There are, however, a couple of aperçus it would have been interesting to elaborate on - from no-brainer remarks on the stifling of freedom of expression (to the extent of now sending chilly memories of McCarthy up your spine - in case you've one left), social media activity in Brazil on the Israel-Gaza calamity, the Global South issue that many in the West still seem to be in denial of. - No, post-colonialism is not an extravagant academic ivory tower fad (read Said's 'The Question of Palestine'), but, like it or not, one of the driving forces now in world politics, after the post-1989 'unipolar moment' that some academic thought to be the end of history, obviously extrapolating from the perspective of his staid campus idyll. Isolationist trends in a new generation in US politics (should we be hopeful? Not just 1,3m in prison, but 250m presided over by a lunatic running the asylum). Then the sobriety plus hangover setting in with regard to the war of Russia against Ukraine - or rather, as in Putin's eyes, and according to Mearsheimer not totally unjustified so, against NATO. One of the issues strictly banned from public discourse during the first year or so of this war. Perhaps Le Bon was right after all? Funny, or rather sad, that people on all sides still fall for the most obvious propaganda, as long as the barrage of concerted media onslaughts on the public sphere is upheld, or as Tim Franks on the panel of Intelligence Squared said 10 years ago with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: "There are few conflicts that lend themselves to such shouty certainty & loudly dogmatic positions..." Or, as Spengler writes: 'Three weeks of press work, and the truth is acknowledged by everybody.' (Decline of the West, Volume II, p. 461; Atkinson Translation, New York 1928). For the rest, a rather weird hodgepodge of poll-based generalisations, random remarks, and, above all, beating around the bush. Just the right toast perhaps for an audience looking for an evening of 'let-me-in-a-bit-on-the-small-talk-in-the-corridors-of-power-edification' - while not being too bothered with what's really going on behind the closed doors one enters from these corridors - how disappointed they must have been! It's perhaps fair to say, and it should have been said much clearer in this talk: the geopolitical shifts are irreversible, the authoritarian, right-wing and openly fascist trends that besiege liberal democracies are too conspicuous & powerful, and on top, globally, the West has lost too much of its authority when it comes to human rights, democracy, and the liberal idea of allowing for - helas mostly economic - pursuit of happiness, simply because it has never seriously lived up to the lofty standards it has set itself. Add to this that the wealth (that allows for the luxury of democracy (Toynbee) has been accumulated at the expense of the rest of the world, and that this has led to the most severe crisis humanity has ever faced as a global collective. So will democracy survive? Only if - and this is very unlikely given the current state of affairs - Western societies will be able to disprove Boeckenfoerde's dictum, that 'the liberal secularised state lives by prerequisites which it cannot guarantee itself' which means that it is not able to develop within itself the ethical forces needed to keep its liberal foundations intact. But since modern democracies are in fact built on the shaky foundation of industrial economic growth (still keeping slaves, but nowadays outside the walls of national fortresses), a radical shift in policies required to prevent the globe from becoming inhabitable seems impossible. We are now really in very dangerous terrain, and just because it is so difficult from our perspective of a wealthy, comfortable life to imagine what can happen, doesn't mean that it will not. So let's brace for the descent into the most unpredictable & unfathomable 'Moskstraumen' in 2024 and beyond.

[@everybodyhadtopayandpay8]

Said, Mearsheimer and Spengler, a sickening marriage if I've seen one 😂 But hey, to each his own perversions... As for the "weird hodgepodge of poll-based generalisations, random remarks, and, above all, beating around the bush" argument, I'm sure you realize your statement reads in much the same way (minus the 'poll-based..'), right? Your claims are just as obviously rooted in an ideological position, which you've spelled out for us wtih your choice of references (not to mention the Underground Man tone of it all), and they are no less 'just a language game', which is to say, empty talk. This is just the comment section on youtube, of course, but still, I'm wondering - where do I turn to look for what you say is missing here: form utilised in an undeceptive way to reveal 'the truth'? The very mention of Mearsheimer makes me seriously doubt your judgement, but do wow me