Interesting article by Aris Roussinos
As a result of our rulers’ policy choices, Europe is now so weak that it presents an unguarded feast for the great powers carving up the world between them. The emperor on the Washington throne now seeks to detach Greenland from Denmark and add it with Canada to his vast American domain. When Trump can say of Canada that soon “the artificial line of separation drawn many years ago will finally disappear”, the dynamics are not so different from Putin harking back to Kyivan Rus and the Rurikids to justify his war of imperial expansion. Empires ebb and flow, as they always have: the weaker states between them, whether Ukraine or Europe as a whole, must either accept having their fates determined by great imperialists, or prepare to fight for their own survival.
The talk, then, of European rearmament as a means to save Ukraine from American retreat and Russian dismemberment is best understood as a form of noble lie to prepare European voters to stand alone. When Emmanuel Macron called Nato “brain dead” five years ago, suggesting America’s waning commitment, he was mocked by the very same Atlanticist voices which now, too late, demand a strong and sovereign Europe. These are the very same voices that three years ago, when Russia first invaded, were proclaiming that “Nato is back”, with the relief of born vassals suddenly rescued from the fearful responsibilities of freedom. Had Macron been listened to back in 2020, perhaps matters would be different now; perhaps, indeed, the Ukraine war would never have begun. But Europe’s empty commitments are simply too late: without American support, Ukraine has lost the war. And a Europe capable, with great exertion, of patrolling Ukraine’s eastern frontiers in a decade’s time is simply of no use in determining the outcome of the peace talks taking place now. Once again, it is those most culpable for present failure spurring us to future action: yet whether or not it is also too late for Europe remains an undetermined question. The assumption belatedly dawning on European policymakers is that Nato’s Article 5 is already dead, and with it, the Atlantic Alliance. If Nato still exists in a decade, it will do so only in the sense that Charlemagne was a Roman emperor. The titles may remain the same, perhaps the great ritual gatherings will continue, but the hard facts of power will have changed utterly, and the frontiers to defend will have shrunk.
With Nato moribund, it is difficult to think of a Western state, apart from Canada, worse prepared or politically situated for Trump 2.0 than Britain.
posted by f.sheikh