Well, that was quite the visit for Vladimir Zelensky to the Oval Office, wasn’t it? While certain of the MAGA army, (though not all), talk of how the Trump team “talked tough” to the president of a country that has managed to hold off the combined might of both the Russian, and, some of the unluckiest members of the North Korean, army, (and think for a minute just how unlucky you need to be to qualify for that honor) – the rest of us looked on between our fingers cringing with embarrassment. After all, one would think that such a person would have earned at least some credit for standing up to bullies. Nonetheless – the President’s acolytes, (though, again, not all), including his toady Vice President, seem to think this sort of behaviour was the height of diplomacy. I say “though not all” because one of the stalwarts, Marco Rubio, who holds the seemingly honorary title of Secretary of State, looked like he was throwing up in his mouth a little each time either his boss or Juvenile Delinquent Vance spoke.
Of course - the anti-MAGA contingent voiced what is the (understandable) conventional wisdom, which is that Trump has managed to humiliate himself yet again. I’m sure it certainly looks that way, at least at first glance, but I have to tell you both sides are wrong. Trump did not look tough - nor did he humiliate himself. Rather he was humiliated by Zelensky, who managed to get everything he could realistically hope for out of this meeting by manipulating Trump into giving him the best possible result for Ukraine.
The key word here is “realistically”. Let’s be honest – along with Zelensky the rest of us knew there was only about a 1% chance that Donald Trump was ever going to really modify his long held pro-Putin stance. I’m sure it was apparent within 30 seconds that this wasn’t going to happen. So Zelensky expertly moved to Plan B - which was to goad Trump into the sort of public loss of control that would lead to the alternative result that he really hoped to get in the first place. What Zelensky realistically hoped for in this meeting was to publicly unmask Trump’s willingness to abandon all of America’s foreign policy principles in favor of advancing Putin’s agenda. Those principles have, for over 80 years, included a willingness to act as the West’s principal military protector in Europe. First through the direct intervention in World War II and then via NATO, America has been guarantor of Europe’s security via a direct military commitment that has now been rescinded in the clearest terms possible.
Yes, I know Ukraine is not a member of NATO but it is the litmus test against which all NATO members will judge the United States. If you were sitting in Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Germany, France, Turkey, - indeed - anywhere in Europe, would you feel more or less secure after the meeting between Zelensky and Trump? Hint, the correct answer is “less”. This is a huge problem for Europe but an even bigger problem for America.
In order to understand why I’m going to ask you to take a little quiz.
Question 1 - What was the prevailing foreign policy imperative in the United States immediately before both the first and second World Wars?
Answer: The correct answer is “isolationism”.
Question 2 - Pre-World War I this isolationist sentiment took the form of Woodrow Wilson’s re-election slogan, “He kept us out of war”. What was the pre-World War II expression of this same sentiment?
Answer: Before Pearl Harbor this isolationist sentiment was most directly expressed by the “America First” movement, which eventually came to be seen as one of the most bigoted, short-sighted, obstructionist movements in US history. Oh, it also happens to be the name adopted by Donald Trump for his administration’s principal policy goals.
Following on from his Zelensky meeting, Trump seems likely to adopt the full legacy of that earlier movement. Just to clarify for anyone still unclear on the subject, the “America First” movement of the 1930s and early 1940s played off anti-semitism, fear-mongering, radical non-intervention, and a desire to adopt the full head-in-the-sand strategy typically attributed to certain flightless birds. That America First movement was turned back by the combined efforts of the Roosevelt administration and a number of far-sighted Republicans who put aside party differences and acted in a manner that allowed the United States to take the actions necessary to confront threats like Hitler, Imperial Japan, and eventually the communist Soviet Union.
But it was a close-run thing. Many of the votes on crucial questions were decided by exceptionally narrow margins. This included the decision on whether to institute the peacetime draft, which passed by a single vote. This debate was not restricted to the pre-war years. Incipient isolationism carried on to the post-war years as well – much farther than you might realize (read a bit about Pat Buchanan to see how influential this view remained). However, despite this desire on the part of some to rely upon oceans to keep America secure, there has been for decades a consensus that the U.S. needs to be fully engaged in the world. Obviously, much of this attitude arises not from a desire on the part of Americans to get to know more about Greece, Turkey, Korea, Berlin, Cuba, Vietnam or any of the other places where we have stuck our noses. It was because, given the choice between not having this done, letting someone else do it or doing it ourselves – America decided that, on balance, right or wrong, they’d rather be the one making these decisions.
Of course, not everyone agrees with the concept of America being anointed the world’s policeman, and there are plenty of times I agree with that sentiment. If you look at the list above – there are plenty of mistakes included. Still, for most of our lifetimes, large swathes of the globe have existed under the protection of America’s military umbrella.
The ultimate representation of this phenomenon is NATO, the carefully crafted alliance of Western nations designed out of the complex web of post-war European policies. If you were to ask most people why NATO exists, you would get an answer along the lines of, “to provide a barrier to the threatened Soviet expansion after Second World War”. However, this is only about half right. The threat of Soviet expansionism was the immediate impetus for setting up the sort of alliance that would have been seen in more isolationist times as the very epitome of what George Washington was warning against in his Farewell Address. In addition to selling Americans on this alliance, the possibility of Soviet tanks rolling across Europe undoubtedly allowed many European nations to be far more amenable to a US-led NATO than they would otherwise have been.
Really, just
think about how extraordinary this was. Run the following thought experiment.
What do you think the reaction of Americans would have been if we were to cede
control of Andrews Air Force Base to the Germans? Well, that is exactly what
Germany did with Wiesbaden when they ceded it to the control of the American
Air Force. What would the reaction have been if we had turned New London Naval
Base over to the Brits? Well, this is what they did with the submarine base at
Holy Lock for years. Actions that would ordinarily make nations scream in
outrage at the violation of their sovereignty have become routine under the
NATO model. Everyone has been happy enough to continue under this regime for
nigh on 75 years.
Oh, there has certainly been a long-standing debate about whether or not the European members have been paying their fair share towards NATO’s upkeep. But there has been little to no call for Europe to ramp up their actual military capabilities. Most of the debate has been about money – is Europe paying its fair share – not “are they re-arming effectively”.
It did not have to be this way, but it is the way things worked out, because that is the way America wanted it. You see, NATO as it exists was not set up just to counter the Soviet threat. Many people do not realize this. Nor was it set up to rearm Europe. Indeed, far from it. America set up NATO this way in order to demilitarize Europe. If it had wanted to, America could simply have paid a far smaller long-term economic price and built a formidable European barrier to the Soviet threat. If France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and especially the UK needed to be secure against the Soviets, we could have simply provided a short-term umbrella and then sent them enough weapons to rebuild their forces themselves. Indeed, there was serious consideration given to exactly that scenario, and it was rejected.
This was done for a very simple reason. For the entire history of the United States, and indeed well back into the depths of the Middle Ages, Europe’s ever-evolving nations have been lacking in many things, but armaments is not one of them. The problem was, when in possession of these weapons, and the standing armies that wielded them, the leaders of Europe tended to do one very troublesome thing.
Use them.
About every 40 to 50 years or so, Europeans would find occasion to kill each other and to often involve others in this pursuit. The Hundred Years War, Queen Anne’s War, the War of Spanish Succession, the War of Austrian Succession, the Seven Years War, the Norman Invasion, the Franco-Prussian War, the Napoleonic Wars, the 1848 Revolutions.
One could
construct a wonderful history exam by simply asking students to put these
conflicts in order – there were just so many it becomes difficult to remember
which fit where.
Finally, by the 20th century, some semblance of order had been created, and Europeans began to have the decency to properly number their conflicts. There is never any problem remembering which of World Wars I or II came first – the only difficulty was calculating how many millions of people died in each of them.
It was with this background that the United States assessed the post-World War II landscape. They could, as the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, simply pay for Europe to rearm themselves. While this would be a large initial expense, once in possession of a viable military, all the Western European countries would be more or less required to maintain it. Indeed, as the U.S. would find, possession of a military tended to engender the creation of a military-industrial complex. The rearmament of Europe would be essentially self-perpetuating.
That was the easy way out. The harder way would be for the U.S., as a giant superpower, to take the task of European defense upon itself. This was an enormous cultural turnaround. Until the 1940s and 50s, with the rise of NATO, the U.S. prized above almost all other characteristics the fact that it carried almost no peacetime army. In the years following World War II, in terms of sheer expenditure, the U.S. has by far the largest military structure in the world. The mentality of the U.S. has turned a full 180 degrees since the pre-World War II days of an army in the tens of thousands. Now, even the smallest cut in military expenditure leads to cries of, “you’re leaving the nation exposed”, and the U.S. electorate expects to lead in all areas of military costs. Whether it is naval forces, ground forces, air forces, nuclear forces, and now we’ve even invented space forces, more money and more effort is spent on each than most any other combination of Western countries combined.
But this is not to protect the U.S., or at least the U.S. alone. To a great extent, perhaps the greatest, it is to protect Europe without asking (or allowing) the countries that make up that continent to rearm. I don’t know about you, but I am absolutely fine with that approach. Call me crazy, but I am in no great hurry to see Germany armed to the teeth. I don’t want France, Italy, or the UK to feel the urge to flex their muscles or to invest resources in a low- flying, radar-resistant missile armory. The principal reason I’m okay with keeping things the way that it has been for so many years is very simple.
Because it fucking worked.
In case you hadn’t noticed, there hasn’t been a war with a Roman numeral after it since chapter II closed. This is a good thing. No Western European power has engaged in what would be considered a “major” military action since then (the Falklands? – c’mon). No trenches have crossed or divided the sides within the continent. The closest thing to armed conflict is the annual Eurovision Song Contest.
However, it is something to speak of in the past tense. Within hours following the Trump-Zelensky meeting, European leaders were meeting amongst themselves to discuss and implement something that had been largely theoretical up to the point of that conference - the rearmament of European nations and the entry of their forces into the field. J.D. Vance, in a move that must have made Secretary of State Rubio revert to full upchuck, poured kerosene on this fire by mocking the ability of nations that hadn't “fought a war in 30 to 40 years” to pull this off and come to Ukraine’s aid.
Zelensky certainly hopes they can, and he played Trump masterfully to put the possibility in motion. Myself - I remain skeptical as to whether there is enough time. Nonetheless, it certainly seems they will try, but one thing is certain, the Europe that we have known and counted on for the past 80 years is gone. Whether it is Ukraine that creates the tipping point necessary to make this happen, or it is the near inevitable next Putin step, Europe will rearm and 80 years of careful, successful diplomacy will go right down the toilet.
I don't doubt that there are those in the United States who will be glad to see it go. I'm sure they can make their case. However, what must be conceded is that this step should not have been precipitated due to a hasty meeting that turned into a public display of pettiness. In the past, discussions of this magnitude were debated by the greats, the George Kennan’s, the Dean Acheson's, the Harriman's, McCloskey's and Dulles's. They weren't set in motion over a bad cup of coffee while the alleged Secretary of State looks on with an expression indicating that his particular cup had been loaded with 14 teaspoons of salt.
In other words, this, like so much else going on right now, is not “normal”. We need a “party of normal” to bring some semblance of sanity back into the world. Republicans are lost. They are in the twilight zone at the moment. They are like guests at a cocktail party who have become so drunk that they've wandered off to the back yard to play cornhole and pee in the bushes. The Democrats could be normal, except they keep letting the kiddies interrupt the grownups to tell everyone about what they hope Santa brings them for Christmas.
Time to put the kids to bed, lock the door, adjourn to the room away from the drunken idiots and start to discuss things like adults. I'm going to try to post to this blog more regularly in an attempt to talk about a “party of normal”. And the next entry is going to be a solid rap to the Democrats' knuckles in an attempt to get them moving towards that standard of normality. So, watch this space everybody.