Radio War Nerd EP #551 — Ukraine/Economic War Update: The Sick Europe of Mankind, feat. Ben Aris
Guest: Ben Aris, founding editor BNE IntelliNews
Recorded: September 25, 2025
Ben Aris joins us from Berlin to give a grim survey of Europe's finances as its governing elites continue failing their way towards disaster, in the name of saving Ukraine and Europe's democracies.
Check out bne IntelliNews here. Follow them on Twitter.
Total time: 59:09
Direct link to this episode's mp3 here
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Sound production by Telescope Audio
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Comments (40)
John's dedication to recreating American military failures in Italy is admirable but this is a bit much.
These are crises of capitalism. People like Ares cannot conceive of a way out because they cannot conceive of a cooperative international socialist model. Liberal bourgeois intellectuals, who may be very intelligent analysts of finance or great power politics (mearsheimer) are heavily blinkered and constrained by their ideological narrow mindedness. Eventually they will side with fascism because the socialist alternative is anathema to their sense of individual self-importance, not to mention their wealth. It’s a class that keeps itself deliberately blind to the possibilities of human progress.
I believe his name is "Aris," not "Ares." Though RWN should interview Ares the God of War at some point.
51 million people to 28 million A loss of 45%!!! Detroit went from 1 million people in 1990 to 650k in 2020. The news (in America ) was filled with how bad Detroit was -dangerous, empty - houses had be destroyed by the city to condense neighborhoods. So NATO and Putin turned an entire into Detroit with land mines and drones on top. What happened to Detroit now- the friendly billionaires bought the land on the cheap built new condos and rented it all back to us at a tidy profit. After getting low interest revitalization loans of course.
We gotta make baseball cards for these RWN heavy hitters
Get well soon John!
Get well soon John! Actually the absence makes me realise what a good job you've both been doing of keeping to a regular schedule. You've both appeared in pretty much every episode (except one I think?) without any noticable gaps between episodes since the first one over ten years ago!
It's really an amazing run! Healing vibes to John
Much love to War Nerd but dear lord this guy gets hurt/sick every damn day lol
Being healthy is a young man's game
I can't enjoy enough how Europe's elites have committed to Washington's orders to inflict a Century of Humiliation on the continent. And when the people get uppity, they'll just deny them democratic franchise like they have in Romania and just did in Moldova and will eventually do with AfD in Germany. As long as the violent right is given just enough leeway (which the British are quite good at giving them after all these centuries), they can rein in the right with better control than ever. And the left. Well, the left keeps receiving lead and censorship. It's interesting how much Europe's collapse is going to follow the collapse of all the previous empires, but not Rome. Constantinople, but not Rome. The right thinks it'll be a Roman end with Vandals and Goths. It will be a lot slower and more humiliating like with the Crusaders and the emperors being vassals to the Ottoman sultans long before 1453.
I do not think the decline is due to following the U.S as a lemming. Our elites do not care about internal validity anymore, their main objective is sustaining themselves and projecting to their peer/incrowd that they deserve to be in the elite. There is a lack of vision.
Really don't get the hate on Aris in the comments, and I'm far from a "Ukraine supporter". The general consensus is "he's been wrong on everything!". But (full transparency my memory is ass), ai feel like his main points (i.e. sanctions won't work) have basically come true ? Idk. Yes he’s biased and certainly more “anti Russian” than the co hosts but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t bring good insight. Like any other source, including the hosts, you can’t and shouldn’t take it all as gospel Also, full recovery to our glorious leader Dr. Dolan, but I think it'll be important to "scout" some future potential co-hosts. Hopefully it's not needed! But a good GM plans ahead... Annibale seems like an obvious favorite but idk I feel like there's a tiny disconnect between him and Mark sometimes. My guess is some sort of rotation would work best: one co-host for current events/world at wars, one for historical stuff (Annibale), etc.
Get well soon, John. Informative episode, as always.
Sad to hear about John's injury. Hopefully he gets well soon.
Speedy recovery to John! His head is his main caliber.
Great show with Ben! If you are not following the money, IMNSHO you are wasting your time and will never get the answers. I think Putin, the Judo master, let Europe/NATO lean all the way in and now they are falling forward on their own inertia. I will spend more time at BNE. Get well John!!!
God what a mess. I almost hope the war keeps grinding on because it seems like after the ceasefire we will have a Ukrainian economic disaster, mixed with a “stab in the back” ethos, and hundreds of billions of dollars in weaponry and military training floating around. A low level insurgency in Ukraine would be best case scenario, but a rippling out of violent instability would be the more likely scenario as Ukrainian nationalists look to provoke wider war and punish their supposed allies who delivered the knife in the back.
It really is insane how much of a corner Europe has painted itself into here. And just conceptually, they refuse to even acknowledge it. For three years if I even try to point out that they’re breaking themselves to bankroll an unwinnable war of the hats, and they just act like it can’t be so because they’re so morally indignant. It’s always a matter of will power for them, we’re just not committing enough. It’s never the fact that they just don’t have the factories to arm Ukraine for a prolonged war, and CAN’T have them because they’re cut themselves off from their own energy source
They didn’t have a choice. After the Iraq war and the 2008 financial crisis the European ruling class was effectively replaced by individuals with much closer ties to the US. By the time we get to the invasion of Ukraine the EU ruling class are all effectively US imperial provincial officials. The US needed to keep the European peninsula of the Eurasian continent in their pocket by kicking them off Russian hydrocarbons and tying their survival to US natural gas. Europe has no say in this matter, it will do what it is told by the US ruling class. The only hope for Europe is if they are able to throw off their US appointed ruling class.
Get well John, but how is this guy always in bad health? 😭💔
Well, he’s 70, has traveled at an insane rate (stressful travel at that). He’s always had significant health issues (chronic fatigue). And, most importantly, we need good intros to every episode with his health updates lol
Idk, sounds British…
AKA Perfidious Albion Until Proven Otherwise
It’s interesting to track Ben’s thinking as he works through the contradictions between the economic trivia he knows, the ideological talking points of the day, and the realities of the situation. I remember when Russia was doomed, now they’re hanging on some how
Maybe you remember better then I do but even in the very first episode he was on and he discussed the sanctions I don’t even remember him saying they were doomed, even if it’s “against the war” like mark is
Ben Aris does an excellent job explaining a topic that nobody covers.
Haven’t listened to the episode yet but Aris has tended too put too much emphasis on the cutting off of Russia oil as the root of the German economic problems, which it is not. These have far more to do with the global economy not being conductive to its export heavy economic model any more than with Russian oil. The other thing is these have been predictions of Ukraininan collapse for a long time now that do not seem to be coming true. Things might not be going as badly for the Ukrainians as so have been believing
As with most major events, there is no one singular cause. As for the global economy, yes there was post Covid stagnation/inflation and a sustained (real economy) downturn. But, in the year after the war began the EU as a whole shelled out 800B in cash transfers to energy companies. This on top of an all ready stagnating economy that depends heavily on energy and resource imports (as opposed to the US) has accelerated that downward trend. I personally find Ben's perspective interesting because, unlike most Western media sources, he reports an uncensored version of the economic reality. Western sanctions have undeniably damaged Europe far more than Russia, and though the war is not yet concluded it certainly appears conditions for Ukraine/EU are worsening at a faster pace.
The lesson is not to start a war with Russia and that like everything else, Europe as a whole has speedrun pretty much every arc of empires. It was an irrelevant backwater full of the most depraved, aggressive animals in the world until 500 years ago, and in another 500 years it will have fully regressed to the mean for another million years.
Russia started this one. I understand all the context and everything, and the pressures that drove Putin to do it, but he still did it. The West can and should be held accountable for the Maidan coup, breaking its promises to the USSR and Russia about NATO expansion, etc., etc., but let's not let Putin off the hook for his crimes, either.
Ugh this guy is wrong about so much and never ever owns it
He has a nice soothing radio voice, though.
get well John ❤️🩹
Best wishes for John. Hoping for a speedy recovery.
get well soon john!
All the best to John for a speedy recovery! And love when Ben guests, always good value.
Best wishes John. Hope you feel better soon <3
The sick man of Europe -- Ben Aris
No, John Dolan is clearly the sick man of Europe.