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At Nato, America recaptured Europe Our new Cold War has turned the EU into a protectorate

Biden's Nato rules the waves (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Biden's Nato rules the waves (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)


July 14, 2023   6 mins

It is now clear that the Russian invasion of Ukraine marked the end of one era in world politics and the beginning of a new one. As with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the collapse of détente following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, and the Korean War in 1950, it is too early to predict the outcome of what can only be called Cold War II. One consequence, however, is already clear: the acceleration of the domination of Europe by the United States.

Since the Fifties, there has been support for European strategic autonomy among both Euro-Gaullists seeking to minimise US influence on European defence and Americans who hope to shift the burden of protecting Europe to Europeans themselves. Yet in nearly seven decades, no credible European alternative to Nato has ever been constructed.

After this week’s Nato summit, one can only conclude that the dream of European military independence must once again be deferred, this time for a decade or a generation or even longer. The reaction to Putin’s invasion showed that only the US has the unity and the military infrastructure to coordinate multinational military efforts in or near Europe. The conflict has underlined the dependence of America’s European allies on the US military even more dramatically than the Balkan Wars and the Libyan adventure.

The expansion of Nato to include Finland and Sweden, and almost certainly Ukraine in the relatively near future, will only further strengthen the influence of the US in the transatlantic alliance. As a rule, the closer a Nato country is to Russia, the more favourable it tends to be towards the US. Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged this after the invasion of Iraq, scorning the sceptics in “old Europe” (France and Germany) while praising the “new Europe” formed by countries freed from the Soviet bloc. Today, Poland has embraced its role on the front lines of Cold War II, committing itself to spending at least 3% of its GDP on defence. Such hawkishness strengthens the US while weakening France and Germany, which were more likely to favour good relations with Russia.

In a prolonged cold war, then, we shouldn’t be surprised if the European Union plays an increasingly subordinate role to Nato. After all, with the accession of Ukraine to the EU, which seems likely to follow or accompany Ukraine’s eventual admission to Nato, the EU will have 28 members — fewer than the 32 members of Nato, following the accession of Finland and Sweden, or 33, if Ukraine joins. In other words, more European countries will be members of Nato, whose hegemonic power is the United States, than of the EU, dominated by the partnership of Germany and France.

The post-Ukraine geopolitical landscape will therefore represent the end, at least for now, of the Gaullist dream of a European superpower led by France. It will also represent the end of Germany’s attempt to have the best of all worlds as America’s defence protectorate, Russia’s energy customer and a major Chinese trading partner. Europeans may prefer to call decoupling from the Chinese economy “de-risking”, but, whatever the term may be, the phenomenon is likely to accelerate at the insistence of the Washington’s policymakers of both parties, for whom Cold War II is a single global conflict against a de facto Sino-Russian bloc.

This is not to say that individual European countries, or perhaps the EU as a whole, will be as strict towards trade and technology transfers as their American strategic partner. But while they may prefer to avoid the choice, when pressed, most European countries can be counted on to side with the US, the devil they know, rather than the secretive, authoritarian Chinese communist regime.

In previous generations, proposals such as the ill-fated Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a Nato for trade, have foundered on the opposition of businesses and citizens in European countries. To this day, many in Britain fear that transatlantic rule-making might lead to the privatisation and destruction of the cherished National Health Service, while European farmers have reservations about competition with US agribusiness.

But America is far from the only, let alone most significant, commercial threat to Europe. According to the German insurer Allianz, the European car industry now faces a critical challenge from Chinese automobile imports. And in time, China’s state-sponsored passenger jet manufacturing industry may cut into the global duopoly that the EU’s Airbus and America’s Boeing have enjoyed for generations. Threatened by government-backed Chinese mercantilism in one global market after another, European industries could soon reconsider their scepticism about a transatlantic trade bloc.

Elsewhere, demographic trends will further accelerate the shift in economic and military power from Europe to the US. In 1960, America’s population was roughly 180 million, compared to 406.8 million in what became the EU — around 44% of the EU total. Today, largely as a result of recent immigration-driven population growth, the US has a population of 334 million — roughly 75% of the EU population in 2022 of 447 million people. Assuming a continuation of net annual migration of 1 million individuals a year to the US, by 2060 its population could be 405 million— 80% of the projected 517 million Europeans.

Any such projections must of course be taken with treated with scepticism, given uncertainties about fertility rates and national immigration policies. Yet in light of the support for mass immigration by the bipartisan US elite, regardless of popular sentiment, a growing American share of the transatlantic population certainly seems likely. And even demographic near-parity between the US and EU understates the American economic advantage over Europe. American global corporations tend to out-compete European firms because they benefit from having a single huge domestic market that allows them to reap increasing returns. While a colossal home market similarly benefits Chinese firms, European integration has not yet been able to provide an equivalent single market and probably never will.

Unlike military potential and commercial weight, culture remains intangible. But America’s influence in the realm of mass entertainment, the arts and ideas within the West seems to be growing as well. From the 19th century until after the Second World War, the transatlantic balance of trade in ideas favoured Western Europe. American artists and connoisseurs made pilgrimages to Paris, the global capital of the art world, to discover the new trends in painting and sculpture and architecture. In living memory in the Sixties and Seventies, American film students analysed  the work of French and Italian directors, while educated Americans had to have at least a bluffer’s guide’s worth of knowledge about contemporary German, French and British philosophy. In American universities, reverent students listened to accented “Herr Professors” — émigré intellectuals who had fled from National Socialism or Soviet communism. And as recently as the Nineties, there were lively transatlantic debates on the relative merits of Anglo-American liberal capitalism, German social-market capitalism and Nordic social democracy.

Yet in the last half century, the flow of both pop and highbrow culture across the Atlantic has reversed and now runs West to East. The last major European intellectual movement to influence American academic life was French post-structuralism, a phenomenon of the Sixties and Seventies which American professors discovered belatedly and largely in translation in the succeeding decades. Asked to name an influential contemporary German philosopher, most American intellectuals would be at a loss to name any other than Jurgen Habermas, who is 94.

Meanwhile, the most toxic aspects of America’s progressive intellectual culture, incubated on American university campuses, have spread like a contagion across Britain and Western Europe. American multiculturalism became “Multikulti” in Merkel’s Germany. Thanks to transgender ideology imported from the US, British police now identify male transgender sex offenders as “she” and the Anglican church is debating the pronouns of the Almighty. Perhaps most absurd of all, from an American perspective, were the Black Lives Matter protests that took place across Europe, complete with iconic images of George Floyd. That was the high watermark of contemporary American cultural hegemony over Europe — at least to date.

Turnabout is fair play, perhaps. For most of American history, the US was a cultural colony of Britain and Europe. The cutting-edge innovations in American art, literature and thought tended to be the fashions of Western Europe a generation or two before. Now, however, American artists, writers and thinkers can visit Europe and encounter people who treat yesterday’s American cultural and academic fads as fresh and exciting. To add insult to injury, American English is the lingua franca of Europe. Do Europeans outside of those countries still study the languages of Germany and France?

In 2008, Edouard Balladur, a former prime minister of France, published For a Union of the West: Between Europe and the United States, in which he called for Europe and the US to join forces in response to rising competition from China and the rest of the non-Western world. Here, he identified a genuine challenge and then, in French fashion, proposed to create a complex and bureaucratic transatlantic union.

Yet if deeper transatlantic integration does emerge, it will not be the result of formal institutions and procedures. It will result from deepening American hegemony over Europe, building on existing trends and accelerated by the dynamics of Cold War II in the aftermath of the war in Ukraine. Having achieved its goals at the Nato summit in Vilnius, America can be expected to promote ever closer military and commercial alignment with Europe — in the service of Washington’s China-centered strategy.


Michael Lind is a columnist at Tablet and a fellow at New America. His latest book is Hell to Pay: How the Suppression of Wages is Destroying America.


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David McKee
David McKee
1 year ago

It’s all a bit paranoid, isn’t it? Those cunning Americans, pulling strings and getting the European marionettes to dance to their tune. How dare they? This piece is like something the Stop the War Coalition churns out as a matter of course.
A slightly saner way of looking at is that for decades, Europe paid lipservice to defence, while the Yanks did all the heavy lifting. It didn’t matter then, now it does.
If European countries start spending serious money on defence, and unclog their sclerotic economies, then NATO will become a more equal alliance.

DuBose Kapeluck
DuBose Kapeluck
1 year ago
Reply to  David McKee

Yes, the ball is in their court. Nothing is inevitable.

Kerry Davie
Kerry Davie
1 year ago
Reply to  David McKee

You put your finger on the key point in your last paragraph; and that’s why the prediction of the article is probably quite accurate. If there is one thing the EU excels in, it is making rules and regulations.

Glyn R
Glyn R
1 year ago
Reply to  David McKee

I think that the evidence available makes it abundantly clear that this article is not remotely ‘paranoid’.

Phil Rees
Phil Rees
1 year ago
Reply to  Glyn R

Agreed, it is very accurate.

Phil Rees
Phil Rees
1 year ago
Reply to  Glyn R

Agreed, it is very accurate.

Phil Rees
Phil Rees
1 year ago
Reply to  David McKee

But the point (admittedly not adequately dealt with in the article) is that while within the EU, European countries cannot ‘unclog their sclerotic economies’.

Last edited 1 year ago by Phil Rees
Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
1 year ago
Reply to  Phil Rees

Cutting every government bureaucracy by 20 per cent, particularly the unaccountable one in Brussels, would have an amazing effect. For one, German soldiers would not be marching with brooms on their shoulders rather than guns.

Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
1 year ago
Reply to  Phil Rees

Cutting every government bureaucracy by 20 per cent, particularly the unaccountable one in Brussels, would have an amazing effect. For one, German soldiers would not be marching with brooms on their shoulders rather than guns.

Brian Villanueva
Brian Villanueva
1 year ago
Reply to  David McKee

Or, if the US makes it clear that they expect the Europeans to pull their weight in NATO, the Europeans will get serious about their own defense.

Chris Chris
Chris Chris
1 year ago
Reply to  David McKee

The situation in Ukraine looks more and more engineered over decades by the bidens.

US is significantly propping up NATO as it’s in the US’s interests to have this shadow war in Ukraine.

Europeans do not want war, especially on our front lawn.

US seems like they don’t care how many Ukrainians die, so long as they are not American……

I wish the war would end and people stopped dyeing…….

martin logan
martin logan
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris Chris

The Hidden Hand of the Bidens!
The “Shadow War” in Ukraine!
This is sooo cool!
It must be nice to see the world run by a few (usually very bad) actors, instead of believing that, in a world with 7 billion human actors, things might get a mite…complex.
It might actually have to do with deep cultural trends in Russia, that have been centuries in the making. It might…
Oh, never mind…

martin logan
martin logan
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris Chris

The Hidden Hand of the Bidens!
The “Shadow War” in Ukraine!
This is sooo cool!
It must be nice to see the world run by a few (usually very bad) actors, instead of believing that, in a world with 7 billion human actors, things might get a mite…complex.
It might actually have to do with deep cultural trends in Russia, that have been centuries in the making. It might…
Oh, never mind…

DuBose Kapeluck
DuBose Kapeluck
1 year ago
Reply to  David McKee

Yes, the ball is in their court. Nothing is inevitable.

Kerry Davie
Kerry Davie
1 year ago
Reply to  David McKee

You put your finger on the key point in your last paragraph; and that’s why the prediction of the article is probably quite accurate. If there is one thing the EU excels in, it is making rules and regulations.

Glyn R
Glyn R
1 year ago
Reply to  David McKee

I think that the evidence available makes it abundantly clear that this article is not remotely ‘paranoid’.

Phil Rees
Phil Rees
1 year ago
Reply to  David McKee

But the point (admittedly not adequately dealt with in the article) is that while within the EU, European countries cannot ‘unclog their sclerotic economies’.

Last edited 1 year ago by Phil Rees
Brian Villanueva
Brian Villanueva
1 year ago
Reply to  David McKee

Or, if the US makes it clear that they expect the Europeans to pull their weight in NATO, the Europeans will get serious about their own defense.

Chris Chris
Chris Chris
1 year ago
Reply to  David McKee

The situation in Ukraine looks more and more engineered over decades by the bidens.

US is significantly propping up NATO as it’s in the US’s interests to have this shadow war in Ukraine.

Europeans do not want war, especially on our front lawn.

US seems like they don’t care how many Ukrainians die, so long as they are not American……

I wish the war would end and people stopped dyeing…….

David McKee
David McKee
1 year ago

It’s all a bit paranoid, isn’t it? Those cunning Americans, pulling strings and getting the European marionettes to dance to their tune. How dare they? This piece is like something the Stop the War Coalition churns out as a matter of course.
A slightly saner way of looking at is that for decades, Europe paid lipservice to defence, while the Yanks did all the heavy lifting. It didn’t matter then, now it does.
If European countries start spending serious money on defence, and unclog their sclerotic economies, then NATO will become a more equal alliance.

Ian Barton
Ian Barton
1 year ago

If the US get Von Der Leyen in charge of NATO, then the US will probably get a tighter grip on the defence budgets/activities of the EU member states.

.

If I live long enough, it will be interesting to watch whether the EU (or individual member states) increasingly evolve towards becoming “US states abroad”.

Last edited 1 year ago by Ian Barton
Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian Barton

If the US get Von der Leyen in charge of NATO, it will be the moment I finally give up on the West and start thinking “China – COME ON DOWN! We’re done here.”

martin logan
martin logan
1 year ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

China always needs new citizens.
Go for it!

martin logan
martin logan
1 year ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

China always needs new citizens.
Go for it!

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian Barton

If the US get Von der Leyen in charge of NATO, it will be the moment I finally give up on the West and start thinking “China – COME ON DOWN! We’re done here.”

Ian Barton
Ian Barton
1 year ago

If the US get Von Der Leyen in charge of NATO, then the US will probably get a tighter grip on the defence budgets/activities of the EU member states.

.

If I live long enough, it will be interesting to watch whether the EU (or individual member states) increasingly evolve towards becoming “US states abroad”.

Last edited 1 year ago by Ian Barton
Martin Smith
Martin Smith
1 year ago

Astonishing that in blowing up the Nord Stream in order to sell LPG at inflated prices to the consequentially fuel -impoverished Germans, the Americans are getting away with blatant economic terrorism. But they are… and we’re on the cusp of nuclear war in Europe to boot… and they said Trump was dangerous…

Martin Smith
Martin Smith
1 year ago

Astonishing that in blowing up the Nord Stream in order to sell LPG at inflated prices to the consequentially fuel -impoverished Germans, the Americans are getting away with blatant economic terrorism. But they are… and we’re on the cusp of nuclear war in Europe to boot… and they said Trump was dangerous…

Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
1 year ago

Europe’s lackadaisical attitude toward defending itself rather than lazily relying on Uncle Sam to carry the burden for generations is what led it to this pass.

Last edited 1 year ago by Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
1 year ago

Europe’s lackadaisical attitude toward defending itself rather than lazily relying on Uncle Sam to carry the burden for generations is what led it to this pass.

Last edited 1 year ago by Jerry Carroll
Malcolm Webb
Malcolm Webb
1 year ago

The repeated use in this piece of the rather dark word “hegemony” is, I think, revealing. Personally, I think we Europeans have been very fortunate to have been saved and then protected by American military leadership and its strong, even dominant, economy. Just ponder what life would have been like for us if any of the Socialist alternatives ( From National Socialism to Communism) had held sway over us for the last century or so. Life is full of trade offs. American leadership and dominance on the world stage of course has some downsides but overall it has been hugely beneficial for the nations of Europe and democratic states worldwide. We lucky Europeans are free today thanks to our American friends. Of course they are not perfect ( who is?) but let’s try to be their constructive allies and certainly not spit in their faces.

Malcolm Webb
Malcolm Webb
1 year ago

The repeated use in this piece of the rather dark word “hegemony” is, I think, revealing. Personally, I think we Europeans have been very fortunate to have been saved and then protected by American military leadership and its strong, even dominant, economy. Just ponder what life would have been like for us if any of the Socialist alternatives ( From National Socialism to Communism) had held sway over us for the last century or so. Life is full of trade offs. American leadership and dominance on the world stage of course has some downsides but overall it has been hugely beneficial for the nations of Europe and democratic states worldwide. We lucky Europeans are free today thanks to our American friends. Of course they are not perfect ( who is?) but let’s try to be their constructive allies and certainly not spit in their faces.

Francisco Menezes
Francisco Menezes
1 year ago

Good description of imperialism at work, especially the cultural component. But doesn’t it always end in imperial overstretch? The vassal states tend to be the first victims.

Francisco Menezes
Francisco Menezes
1 year ago

Good description of imperialism at work, especially the cultural component. But doesn’t it always end in imperial overstretch? The vassal states tend to be the first victims.

Ian Cory
Ian Cory
1 year ago

As long as Biden, or whoever it is who/what is pulling his strings, is governing the US, we are in no greater reality than that described in Alice in Wonderland/Through The Looking Glass. This is why China is laughing all the way to Taiwan, the White House, the EU, the UK, Australasia, and all of the Western World’s Universities. The CCP Belt and Road project is the end of the Western Enlightenment paradigm.

Ian Cory
Ian Cory
1 year ago

As long as Biden, or whoever it is who/what is pulling his strings, is governing the US, we are in no greater reality than that described in Alice in Wonderland/Through The Looking Glass. This is why China is laughing all the way to Taiwan, the White House, the EU, the UK, Australasia, and all of the Western World’s Universities. The CCP Belt and Road project is the end of the Western Enlightenment paradigm.

Dick Barrett
Dick Barrett
1 year ago

On a minor but telling point, it is noticeable that Von Der Leyen and other EU spokespersons continue almost always to make their speeches and statements in English, which is now the language of only one minor country within the EU, Ireland. If the EU is serious about functioning as a European entity, could French, the traditional language of diplomacy, not now be used as the main functioning language of the EU?

Last edited 1 year ago by Dick Barrett
Ian Barton
Ian Barton
1 year ago
Reply to  Dick Barrett

Pointless – the most sensible language to use is the most common 2nd language – which is English by some distance.

Last edited 1 year ago by Ian Barton
Peter B
Peter B
1 year ago
Reply to  Dick Barrett

No. Not enough people speak it and not all countries would agree.
More EU citizens speak English than any other language. It’s everyone’s second language. So English it is.

Andrew D
Andrew D
1 year ago
Reply to  Dick Barrett

Latin?

Ian Barton
Ian Barton
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew D

etiam retrorsum vultus 🙂

Last edited 1 year ago by Ian Barton
Ray Zacek
Ray Zacek
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew D

Ixnay atinlay

Ian Barton
Ian Barton
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew D

etiam retrorsum vultus 🙂

Last edited 1 year ago by Ian Barton
Ray Zacek
Ray Zacek
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew D

Ixnay atinlay

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
1 year ago
Reply to  Dick Barrett

Macron keeps pushing that old chestnut obviously, but English is just too dominant. Changing to French now and making all the diplomats, officers, bureaucrats and assorted hangers on in the EU learn French, and to a working standard? It’s just not practical.

Last edited 1 year ago by Katharine Eyre
Ian Barton
Ian Barton
1 year ago
Reply to  Dick Barrett

Pointless – the most sensible language to use is the most common 2nd language – which is English by some distance.

Last edited 1 year ago by Ian Barton
Peter B
Peter B
1 year ago
Reply to  Dick Barrett

No. Not enough people speak it and not all countries would agree.
More EU citizens speak English than any other language. It’s everyone’s second language. So English it is.

Andrew D
Andrew D
1 year ago
Reply to  Dick Barrett

Latin?

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
1 year ago
Reply to  Dick Barrett

Macron keeps pushing that old chestnut obviously, but English is just too dominant. Changing to French now and making all the diplomats, officers, bureaucrats and assorted hangers on in the EU learn French, and to a working standard? It’s just not practical.

Last edited 1 year ago by Katharine Eyre
Dick Barrett
Dick Barrett
1 year ago

On a minor but telling point, it is noticeable that Von Der Leyen and other EU spokespersons continue almost always to make their speeches and statements in English, which is now the language of only one minor country within the EU, Ireland. If the EU is serious about functioning as a European entity, could French, the traditional language of diplomacy, not now be used as the main functioning language of the EU?

Last edited 1 year ago by Dick Barrett
Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
1 year ago

What nonsense:
” … one can only conclude that the dream of European military independence must once again be deferred, this time for a decade or a generation or even longer.”
The point is, there is no dream of European military independence, sop your article is based on a straw man.
Brexiters used the bogeyman of a common European army to great effect in their secessionist campaign.
Very few of the European countries, whether inside or outside the EU, would be willing to let go of their national armies.
It is the European who are clinging to the Americans.
Positing this as some sort of US plot is nonsense.
I ask you, which major political party, in Britain or indeed in any EU country, is openly campaigning on a common EU/ European army ticket?
Europe simply hasn’t matured that much yet.  

Terry M
Terry M
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

The EU is an attempt at maturation, but it is so bureaucratic, undemocratic, and elitist that it cannot ever be effective. It inhibits European growth and innovation. Moreover, 75 years of living under an American defense umbrella has made Old Europe complacent.
European countries do not need to give up their national armies, but they do need to practice working together in drills for what could occur with further Russian aggression. They also need to understand that China will undermine them just as they are the African nations.

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

“Very few of the European countries, whether inside or outside the EU, would be willing to let go of their national armies.”
And I would suggest that very few would also give up their language and culture. Nor should they! Therefore, the concept of a EU is a fantasy. Never going to happen. The geographical and demographic facts are not in their favor in the 21st century world.
In a 100 years, most of them will be content with being a pleasant place for Asians to visit and muse about the romantic, “old world” cultures. That’s, of course, if they are not first overrun by Middle Eastern and African immigrants.

Stephanie Surface
Stephanie Surface
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

Wonder what would happen, if the next US President won’t care much about NATO. All the European countries will throw a hissy fit…

Terry M
Terry M
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

The EU is an attempt at maturation, but it is so bureaucratic, undemocratic, and elitist that it cannot ever be effective. It inhibits European growth and innovation. Moreover, 75 years of living under an American defense umbrella has made Old Europe complacent.
European countries do not need to give up their national armies, but they do need to practice working together in drills for what could occur with further Russian aggression. They also need to understand that China will undermine them just as they are the African nations.

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

“Very few of the European countries, whether inside or outside the EU, would be willing to let go of their national armies.”
And I would suggest that very few would also give up their language and culture. Nor should they! Therefore, the concept of a EU is a fantasy. Never going to happen. The geographical and demographic facts are not in their favor in the 21st century world.
In a 100 years, most of them will be content with being a pleasant place for Asians to visit and muse about the romantic, “old world” cultures. That’s, of course, if they are not first overrun by Middle Eastern and African immigrants.

Stephanie Surface
Stephanie Surface
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

Wonder what would happen, if the next US President won’t care much about NATO. All the European countries will throw a hissy fit…

Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
1 year ago

What nonsense:
” … one can only conclude that the dream of European military independence must once again be deferred, this time for a decade or a generation or even longer.”
The point is, there is no dream of European military independence, sop your article is based on a straw man.
Brexiters used the bogeyman of a common European army to great effect in their secessionist campaign.
Very few of the European countries, whether inside or outside the EU, would be willing to let go of their national armies.
It is the European who are clinging to the Americans.
Positing this as some sort of US plot is nonsense.
I ask you, which major political party, in Britain or indeed in any EU country, is openly campaigning on a common EU/ European army ticket?
Europe simply hasn’t matured that much yet.  

Christopher Chantrill
Christopher Chantrill
1 year ago

I declare that every political entity is the result of uniting some groups of people and winning a war. E.g., France winning the 100 Years War, the US winning the Revolutionary War, and Germany winning three wars ending in the Franco-Prussian War. And then there’s Lenin and Mao, bless their hearts.
Thus, if Europe wants to be something more then a puppy of the US, it needs to get its male thing going, tell the US to go fly a kite, unite and defeat some dreadful foe for the eternal glory of Europe. Russia?
Remember the beloved British philosopher Enoch Powell who said that the EU could not work because there was no European demos?

Last edited 1 year ago by Christopher Chantrill
Christopher Chantrill
Christopher Chantrill
1 year ago

I declare that every political entity is the result of uniting some groups of people and winning a war. E.g., France winning the 100 Years War, the US winning the Revolutionary War, and Germany winning three wars ending in the Franco-Prussian War. And then there’s Lenin and Mao, bless their hearts.
Thus, if Europe wants to be something more then a puppy of the US, it needs to get its male thing going, tell the US to go fly a kite, unite and defeat some dreadful foe for the eternal glory of Europe. Russia?
Remember the beloved British philosopher Enoch Powell who said that the EU could not work because there was no European demos?

Last edited 1 year ago by Christopher Chantrill
Aidan Barrett
Aidan Barrett
1 year ago

“In living memory in the Sixties and Seventies, American film students analysed the work of French and Italian directors, while educated Americans had to have at least a bluffer’s guide’s worth of knowledge about contemporary German, French and British philosophy.”

Thank George Lucas for American Cultural Hegemony. As William Friedkin (director of The French Connection, The Exorcist, and Sorcerer) noted:

https://quotefancy.com/quote/1654603/William-Friedkin-If-Star-Wars-had-failed-you-wouldn-t-have-90-percent-of-what-s-out-there

Here’s a great interview on the legacy of Star Wars on American (and hence world) pop culture:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/cinephiliabeyond.org/a-discussion-with-william-friedkin/amp/

And here is what progressive critic Rick Perlstein has to say about it:

https://washingtonspectator.org/juvenilia-strikes-back/

Aidan Barrett
Aidan Barrett
1 year ago

“In living memory in the Sixties and Seventies, American film students analysed the work of French and Italian directors, while educated Americans had to have at least a bluffer’s guide’s worth of knowledge about contemporary German, French and British philosophy.”

Thank George Lucas for American Cultural Hegemony. As William Friedkin (director of The French Connection, The Exorcist, and Sorcerer) noted:

https://quotefancy.com/quote/1654603/William-Friedkin-If-Star-Wars-had-failed-you-wouldn-t-have-90-percent-of-what-s-out-there

Here’s a great interview on the legacy of Star Wars on American (and hence world) pop culture:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/cinephiliabeyond.org/a-discussion-with-william-friedkin/amp/

And here is what progressive critic Rick Perlstein has to say about it:

https://washingtonspectator.org/juvenilia-strikes-back/

martin logan
martin logan
1 year ago

The EU and the US differ in one fundamental respect.
You can vote to get out of the European Union. You can’t vote to get out of the American Union.
Tried it quite a while ago, and it didn’t fly.
So the two will always differ in how power is wielded.
As long as the EU has the current makeup, it is doubtful it will ever match the way the US wields power.
Just the result of two very different histories.

Last edited 1 year ago by martin logan
martin logan
martin logan
1 year ago

The EU and the US differ in one fundamental respect.
You can vote to get out of the European Union. You can’t vote to get out of the American Union.
Tried it quite a while ago, and it didn’t fly.
So the two will always differ in how power is wielded.
As long as the EU has the current makeup, it is doubtful it will ever match the way the US wields power.
Just the result of two very different histories.

Last edited 1 year ago by martin logan
Christopher Barclay
Christopher Barclay
1 year ago

A more interesting question is what are the long term consequences for the EU from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The days of France and Germany being accepted as leaders of the EU is surely over, after both have shown their sympathy for the Russian empire to eat into Eastern Europe.

Christopher Barclay
Christopher Barclay
1 year ago

A more interesting question is what are the long term consequences for the EU from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The days of France and Germany being accepted as leaders of the EU is surely over, after both have shown their sympathy for the Russian empire to eat into Eastern Europe.

Samuel Ross
Samuel Ross
1 year ago

If the EU had an army of 10,000 heavy tanks, 25,000 fighter jets and bombers, and 20,000,000 men permanently under arms, perhaps it could be taken seriously as a military power?

Samuel Ross
Samuel Ross
1 year ago

If the EU had an army of 10,000 heavy tanks, 25,000 fighter jets and bombers, and 20,000,000 men permanently under arms, perhaps it could be taken seriously as a military power?

LCarey Rowland
LCarey Rowland
1 year ago

Thanks for your report. You present a scenario of productive possibilities that, I hope, can find fruition in the years come.
If the Ukrainians and their Euro Allies can remove the destructive Russian yoke, without putin throwing a cataclysmically destructive tantrum, we may get through this in a manner that will assure peace and productivity for the next generation.

LCarey Rowland
LCarey Rowland
1 year ago

Thanks for your report. You present a scenario of productive possibilities that, I hope, can find fruition in the years come.
If the Ukrainians and their Euro Allies can remove the destructive Russian yoke, without putin throwing a cataclysmically destructive tantrum, we may get through this in a manner that will assure peace and productivity for the next generation.