Europeans Are in More Danger Than They Realize

Background:

At hybrid war, Europeans are in more danger than they realize.
Except this danger is not apparent to them and they don’t think about it. They think only of the external threat, but they don’t consider what this threat essentially means for them.

If Russia is increasingly launching more and more hybrid attacks, operating in a semi-partisan way inside your own countries – well, many of you think that that is the danger. But you miss the real danger it brings to you.

I always say that the real threat to you is always your own government.
If every average person got where the real danger comes from, they would press their governments to hit back fast – knowing their own government is the bigger threat.

TLDR

The Real Danger: The threat to you is not the Russian saboteur. The real threat is always your own government using the fear to expand control.
The Ratchet: Once they take emergency powers, they never give them back.
The 9/11 Trap: Americans lived this after 2001 – the wars ended, but the domestic oppression never went away. Europe is next.
No End Date: This is not World War II where democracy returns after a treaty. Hybrid war has no end date; they will just pivot to China or terrorism to keep the surveillance around "just in case."
The Munich Trap: Voting for pro-Russia appeasers will not save you. You get a pre-WW2 pact and elect domestic fascists who use the exact same surveillance against you.
The Response: Pressure your government to deal with the external threat decisively, while refusing to give them an inch of emergency power over your life.

Local sabotage vs mass control

Okay, see how it works.
Russians launch more local attacks on you by hiring agents and so on, by doing diverse and hidden attacks on your infrastructure with guerrilla-like tactics and all that.

Your government response?
"Let’s increase surveillance, let’s increase control, let’s grant our security services emergency powers, so they can do whatever they want!"

Yes, a couple of disruptions, couple of fires, destructions, denial on infrastructure would happen and affect up to 10,000 people in the rare cases. But those attacks are more likely to be very limited events.
While all this fear spawned by this will cause all of you – millions of people – to lose your freedoms and your rights.

Consider how everyone here is logical:

Russians do the guerrilla operations because they want to sow chaos.
Your governments increase security measures as a response to all that.

You think that you are getting something, and you think you get fake security. Maybe a little bit better temporarily, but not really.

But what you are not getting here is the reversal of all that.
Once they get power, they will not give it up easily.

And seeing how you are already losing your freedom at god’s speed, there is no way you can force them to give it up later. You are already failing to stand up to all these bureaucrats who want to encroach into your personal life. You think you can resist the coordinated efforts of all of those security agencies later?

The 9/11 Precedent and the Myth of the Sunset Clause

Yeah, Americans are very familiar with this.

They got 9/11 one time. Then they got a couple wars, but after the wars they did not return to normal life. And instead they got hit immediately by more and more oppression. The war never ended for them, even today.

Now Europeans are about to get the same treatment.

Now, the less your current government acts to deal with this existential threat in a way to just crush it immediately with a decisive response, the more you – the average person – are in danger of losing your freedoms. Yes, you are already halfway into a totalitarian state, but you could speed up in there much faster now.

Oh, you could say: "Wait, we had the Second World War and we had life returning to normal after that."

Well, while true that all those so-called security measures were removed after that, this is not a World War.
This is a proxy hybrid conflict, which has no beginning – oh wait, it has a beginning, but it has no end. There is no definite win tomorrow, where what we won now means all the evils of a World War are vanquished and all of you are free to go and do whatever. They will never accept that.

After Russia is done, they start saying: "Oh, that is China now in danger! China is now going to ruin us all! We definitely need to keep it all around, just in case."
Huh?
"Oh no, now the Islamic terrorists are going to ruin us next! They definitely would prefer to keep us safe just in case, huh?"

There are no more big global conflicts where you have a clearly marked end date at which you have permission to return back to normal life. No. This now blends and creeps into your everyday life. And while you keep pushing it away from your mind, they never will.

Weak states bully their own

Okay, well, you say: "Blah blah, we have a problem. And what do we all do?"

First of all, you have to understand that the longer you wait, the longer you allow the atmosphere of fear to be present at all. That fear fuels your politicians, who in turn get support from your idiot voters who easily fall into fear-mongering and demand a stronger government and all that. And generally, just postponing it allows your enemy to prosper.

Consider that they were able to do all that for quite a long time now. The fact that those incidents are increasing only signifies that they are more desperate now, and they will continue and try to do more. Not to mention how you enabled this by lacking a normal and proper response to a little proxy war they started on your soil.

And because your current governments are weak to deal with the big scary enemy, to whom will they retaliate?
Of course, they would get off on you!

Do you really expect to hear from them something like:
"Our belief in the freedom of everyone is unwavering, and we will never succumb to totalitarian measures just in the name of security."?

Who desperately needs to show some strength that they are doing something?
You already know the answer.

I was about to say that nobody should worry because those EU bureaucrats are weak and powerless anyway and have no way to answer to any external threat. But actually, that is exactly why the whole situation for you is in danger.
They cannot answer to an external threat, but they definitely can address you domestically.

They have been perfecting this technique for more than thirty years now. All the building bureaucracy, restrictions, control, blah blah blah – they are the masters of bureaucracy now, they are the masters of state interference into every aspect of your life. Have no doubt. Here they will not fail.

How much are you able to resist and protest against those emergency measures, huh? Especially when they try: "Oh no, we are being attacked, you cannot stop us from doing our job, blah blah blah."

The appeasement trap

Oh, you think this picture is bad? Consider this.
You might start to think to vote for the useless idiots who would say:
"Oh, let’s make a deal with Russia! Let’s make them go away, let’s just stop fighting and all that, let’s just agree on not doing anything, stop helping Ukraine and all that, and in return, we hope that maybe – maybe – by mere chance they stop attacking us."

Haha, tempting option, yet you would get twice as worse deal.
You made another pre-WW2 pact. And you elected fascist idiots, who now definitely do everything I was describing before, but just for another bogus reasons.

What You Actually Need to Do

The less your current government acts to deal with this existential threat in a way to just crush it immediately with a decisive response, the more you – the average person – are in danger of losing your freedoms.

If every average person realized who and how possesses the real danger as a result of external actors, the whole picture would change:

Put pressure on your own government to act against the external threat real soon. Force them to deliver a decisive response to the proxy war on your soil. Eliminate the hybrid threat at the source so they lose the pretext to terrorize you with fear-mongering. The more they focused on fight the real enemy – the less they focused on you.
Remember that your own government is the bigger threat to you actually. Treat every single proposed emergency measure, every surveillance bill, and every power grab with total distrust.
Never accept the trade-off. The moment you let them take your rights to protect you from petty infrastructure attacks, you have already lost.

Once they get power, they will never give it up. Kill the threat at the fence, and never let the bureaucrats lock you in a cage.