Glyn Ford on European and UK dilemmas
Who Will Defend Europe? An Awakened Russia and a Sleeping Continent by Keir Giles published by Hurst
Giles’ message is clear, his call resonates with those demanding re-armament in the thirties as a defence against Hitler. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was an echo of the Nazi occupation and dismantlement of Czechoslovakia (1938-39). Thus, Putin needs to suffer a clear, unambiguous, and undeniable defeat with Russian power broken. He acknowledges the West bears some responsibility. Moscow’s fundamental disagreements with their post-Cold War settlement were never addressed. America’s victory brought punishment and humiliation rather than any welcome mat for Russia that emerged from the wreckage. The US flattered Europe into a wilful denial, neither addressing Moscow’s realities nor preparing a kinetic counter. Once battle commenced, they spent their time staving off defeat rather than trying to win the war with interventions one step behind the changing realities on the ground.
Giles’ argument that the EU must and can up its ante to win the war and, if necessary, mind the gap from US backsliding, after Trump’s election is moot. There will be a seemingly inevitable imposition of a reluctant peace on Kyiv early next year. In the interim, the battle will intensify as both sides seek to optimise position and poise before the line of control is frozen. It will be a victory, of a sort, for Putin, with the territory “regained,” but not the rout and cheap conquest expected.
Yet, in a way, this “peace” pause worsens Europe’s dilemma. With Trump back, its American problem becomes more critical than its Russian one. Brussels – with the UK a spectator – has three options for its future relationship with Washington: Submit, Cavil or Compete. Loyalty will first see the EU truckle down and accept its economic punishment beating of across the board tariffs of 10-20% while spending its forced defence budgets at the tills of the US Military Industrial Complex. Second, it will be required to actively tolerate Israeli genocide, collude in a drive to war with Iran and participate in the hostile containment of China.
Any attempt to negotiate can only be a dialogue with the deaf. Trump’s Washington will not be in listening mode. At the last time of asking, Trump threatened to leave NATO. Congressional legislation to stop that won’t prevent either the re-direction of the 4-15% of the US Military Budget spent on Europe or the US” effective abrogation of NATO’s collective defence obligation.
That leaves Hobson’s choice of going alone. While Who Will Defend Europe? makes the case that it is both necessary and feasible; able is not willing. For Giles, Putin’s pause for peace is exactly that; the clock immediately starts ticking down. There is no cavalry. Europe has no one apart from itself. It would require some serious upfront spending – an extra 30% (£100B). Like Poland, the attraction of purchasing South Korean “America by-design” knock-off military hardware would cut costs, while the new European Commission has created the institutional architecture with a single market in military procurement, a Defence Commissioner, and a budget line for EU military Research and Development.
The danger is it will remain an empty vessel as myopic realpolitik takes point. It was the Ukraine war that broke the institutional and financial resistance to a Common EU Security Policy and the arming of Kyiv to Europe’s cost. The new framework can only come to life with serious resources flooding into the system. An end to the fighting will see the vultures circle to dismember that budget to fund everyone’s favourite priorities. All especially true of the third of EU Member States beholden to hard right forces inside government and out. They will pander to the Trump delusion that Europe’s place in his world is safe. But even with the funding, there is the predicament of where to place command and control of these new military assets. If under NATO with the US in control, they are in a lock box where only Washington has the key. But to break from that is to shatter the post-war consensus. Yet the US electorate did that on November 5. Europe may cravenly attempt to repudiate reality.
What about Britain? The Trump Administration is threatening to seduce Labour with the poison chalice of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) if we break with Brussels. Any FTA deal would open up the NHS to US Pharma, destroy UK food standards, and not even offer reciprocity on services – where competence in the US is at state level. Yet, Britain’s “bonsai” defence posture, perfectly formed, but too inconsequentially small to go it alone, is only designed to go to war with the US in the lead. A hard decision that will likely be ducked to the UK’s cost. Yet for the EU, the answer to Giles’ question is simple. If Europe doesn’t defend itself, no one else will.