Good Times Bad Times cuts through the noise of daily geopolitical drama to argue that the collapse of the post-Cold War order wasn't an accident, but the inevitable result of a specific moral failure by Europe's largest economy. While most analysts focus on the immediate shocks of the 2020s, this piece traces a direct line from the 1990s optimism to today's fragmentation, blaming a self-defeating strategy by Berlin that turned the European Union into a vehicle for narrow national gain rather than collective strength.
The Illusion of the Liberal Order
The author begins by dismantling the nostalgia for the 1990s, a decade when the "liberal rules-based international order was winning." Good Times Bad Times writes, "America was the champion of globalization and the liberal order. America was winning. But the world has a way of never standing still. Once given conditions are constantly redefined. The only constant is change." This observation is crucial because it reframes the current chaos not as a sudden rupture, but as the natural evolution of a system where the hegemon's internal decay allowed rivals to rise. The text correctly identifies that the transfer of manufacturing to China and the subsequent hollowing out of the American middle class were not merely economic shifts, but the seeds of a geopolitical realignment that destabilized the very order the US built. This dynamic, the author argues, paved the way for a shift in American foreign policy from global stewardship to a transactional approach that now resembles a "schoolyard bully, seeking to extract tribute from others while insisting that it is doing so for their own good."
Critics might note that this narrative places too much blame on the US for ignoring its own domestic inequalities, yet the author's point holds: the failure to manage the distributional consequences of globalization created the political volatility that now threatens the system from within. The reference to the Rust Belt is implicit here; the article suggests that the "degeneration of lower and middle classes in the United States" was the direct price paid for the "higher margins for the American elite," a trade-off that ultimately undermined the domestic consensus for global leadership.
The German Paradox
The commentary's most provocative section targets Germany, arguing that Berlin squandered its historic opportunity to lead Europe into a superpower bloc. Good Times Bad Times asserts, "Germany together with France created an instrument, the European Union. Properly played, it could have elevated them into the same league occupied today by the United States and China." Instead, the author contends that Berlin pursued a zero-sum game, using the EU to advance its own export interests at the expense of its neighbors. The piece is scathing in its assessment of German energy policy, noting that "Energy Vende was a fundamentally terrible policy and shutting down nuclear power plants amounted to an act of state sabotage." This is a bold claim, but it underscores the author's broader thesis: that short-term national calculations destroyed long-term strategic cohesion.
The author argues that the true sin of Berlin was not just economic mismanagement, but the political misuse of the EU platform. "When you push treaties and policies while feeding a narrative often through paid lobbyists that they are designed for the common good, when in reality their primary beneficiary is meant to be Germany at the cost of others, you are actively destroying the very concept of the European Union," Good Times Bad Times writes. This framing is powerful because it shifts the blame from abstract "European dysfunction" to specific agency failures. The text draws a sharp contrast between the potential of the EU as a positive-sum project and the reality of its current fragmentation. "In a structure as large and internally divided as the European Union, meaningful initiative must come from the largest player. Lithuania, Croatia or Denmark cannot force such a shift. But the Germany can," the author notes, highlighting the unique responsibility of the continent's economic engine.
Instead of playing a zero sum game and winning at the expense of other European nations, it should have shaped the board in a way that produced a positive sum game.
The argument here is that trust in the EU was eroded because the largest states, particularly Germany, refused to voluntarily relinquish decision-making authority to build a genuine collective identity. The author points to the Lisbon Treaty of 2009 as a turning point where power was consolidated in Berlin and Paris rather than distributed, strengthening the core at the expense of the periphery. "The two strongest capitals became even stronger and worse still failed to use this shift for the good. Instead, it was used to the detriment of both themselves and the rest of Europe," the text states. This is a compelling critique of the EU's institutional evolution, suggesting that the very mechanisms designed to make the union more efficient have instead deepened its internal fractures.
The Power of Values in a Fractured World
Turning to the conflict in Ukraine, the author makes a striking claim: that the war's outcome has been determined not by hardware, but by the "will of the nation" fueled by a desire to embrace Western values. Good Times Bad Times writes, "Ukraine's greatest weapon was not javelins nor later. It was the will of the nation. a will fueled by the desire to break away from the values represented by the aggressor and for Ukraine, however imperfect today, to ultimately become a space embolding entirely different values far closer to those of the West." This is a departure from traditional realist geopolitics, which often dismisses ideology as secondary to material power. The author argues that the "geopolitical weight of values proved so powerful that it rendered obsolete thousands of geopolitical analyses predicting Ukraine's rapid defeat."
The piece contrasts the Western social contract, where "a millionaire stands equal before the law with a cleaner lady," with the Chinese model, where security and prosperity are traded for absolute freedom. Good Times Bad Times notes that while China's economic rise is a "story of extraordinary success," the political system that enabled it is "dangerous to humanity as a whole." The author warns that the Chinese Communist Party seeks to "export this system beyond its borders, even if not through outright annexation than through absolute economic and political subordination." This analysis connects the dots between domestic governance and international ambition, suggesting that the clash of values is not a rhetorical flourish but a fundamental driver of future conflict.
Critics might argue that the author oversimplifies the Chinese social contract by ignoring the genuine popular support for stability and economic growth, yet the warning about the export of authoritarian norms remains a critical variable in global stability. The reference to the "one child policy" and the "cultural revolution" serves as a historical anchor, reminding readers that the pursuit of order in China has often come at a staggering human cost.
Bottom Line
The strongest part of this argument is its unflinching critique of German leadership within the EU, exposing how national self-interest has paralyzed the bloc's ability to act as a unified geopolitical force. However, the piece's biggest vulnerability is its somewhat deterministic view of the US decline, potentially underestimating the resilience of American institutions and the capacity for internal reform. As the executive branch navigates a world where the "order has been turned upside down," the key variable to watch is whether the EU can finally transcend its internal divisions to become the positive-sum player the author insists it must be, or if it will remain a "geopolitical pushover" searching for an identity it can no longer find.