The fate of EUROPE (and the world) will be decided in EIRE, Pennsylvania

Article by Vision team 

It might sound exaggerated, but the future of Europe—and possibly the world—may indeed be decided in Erie, the city located in Northwestern Pennsylvania. This small city by Lake Erie, with a population of around 92000, holds a vote that could decide the allocation of Pennsylvania’s 19 representatives, which could play a crucial role in determining the next President of the United States. The war in Ukraine, NATO’s future, and Europe’s positioning between the U.S. and China all hang in the balance, subject to forces beyond anyone's direct control. This isn’t merely a case of “chaos theory” where a butterfly’s wings trigger a distant storm; the paradox of Erie is born from the interplay of three distinct vulnerabilities: a world much less multipolar than the economy portrays, Europe’s fragile place in this world, and the American democracy burdened by weak mechanisms that have remained unchanged for 200 years.

As the Financial Times recently noted, “the fate of the world rests on the votes of people we will never meet.” To begin with, we are stuck on the vote of some American counties as the outdated electoral mechanisms of liberal democracies are stuck in a world that no longer exists. Ironically, the paradox within this paradox is that they are even more stuck in the country that leads and defends democracy. This "winner-takes-all" criterion has lasted for 188 years, with only Maine state and Nebraska state as exceptions. Dating back to 1836, this system was established when the U.S. had just purchased Louisiana from France and, Mexico had no idea on how to deal with California and Texas, the two dessert territories. In two centuries, the world has radically changed its center at least 3 times, yet the American democracy remains unchanged.

The same inertia affects international institutions like the United Nations and the World Trade Organization. They lack mechanisms to govern the current scale of globalization, multiplied rapidly. Nations like China, India, Brazil, and Russia increasingly advocate for a multipolar world, where the U.S. dollar no longer dominates global finance. However, the inertia of the global system keeps pushing the U.S. into the role of global enforcer, with the obligation to intervene in any crisis. This responsibility is exhausting the nation, as Donald Trump astutely recognized that one of the reasons for his success is this exhaustion. Yet no other country is eager to shoulder the burden of global leadership.

And finally there’s Europe, caught in an uncomfortable state of waiting and lacking clear leadership. What will remain in Europe’s support on Ukraine which is destined to last forever, if Trump, after winning, keeps his promise to “end the war in a day” by proposing territorial concessions which are deemed unacceptable by Zelensky? How would the EU react to new tariffs on exports to the U.S., especially if they hit Europe’s struggling automotive industry? And is there a plan in place for an alternate scenario in which Kamala Harris wins, promising significant shifts in policy especially in regions like the Middle East?

Yet Europe is more fragile in these risks. Nations like Germany, France, Italy, and Spain are too large to survive from one crisis to the next, as what quiet Switzerland might be, and are too small to wield influence without any agreements together in a world dominated by giants like the U.S., China, and India.

Erie is a city whose population has shrunk by a third since the 1970s, a reminder of the fading American Dream. By chance, it also houses a significant Russian Orthodox Church community. This vote could be the episode that decides a stuck game and that no one - after a few million deaths and billions of impotent analyses - has the strength or courage to decide.

In complex systems, when no one decides, history can be left to the toss of a coin. Leadership is about reclaiming control over one’s destiny.

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