'The memories of our dreams of Charles de Gaulle and Winston Churchill cannot guide us forever.' Photo: Benjamin Girette/Getty.
Wars, it is said, make people conservative, since they are fought for an idea of home under threat. And yet their innate tragedy is that, even in victory, they usher in a world transformed. We are seeing this revolutionary fable playing out once again in Ukraine, reshaping Europe in ways that we cannot yet comprehend.
The world of February 2014, when Vladimir Putin’s “little green men” began popping up in Crimea has now — beyond doubt — irrevocably disappeared. That was the world of Barack Obama and Angela Merkel, European demilitarisation and global interdependence. Back then, Russia provided Europe its gas and the United States its defence, while China provided the entire world with the raw materials needed for the technologies which would drive the future. All these assumptions now lie in tatters; that era finally brought to a cataclysmic end by Russia’s attempt to finally subjugate Ukraine in February 2022.
Three years on from that fateful decision, a million men at arms are still battling it out in trenches, hunted by drone armies powered by artificial intelligence. Imperial carve-ups are taking place in the marbled halls of Saudi Arabia while the transatlantic alliance teeters on the brink of collapse. And a new trade war is threatening to send the world economy into recession, risking not only the future of Nato but Europe’s entire social-democratic model. Yet behind the scenes in Europe’s capitals, a dispiriting refusal to abandon the dogmas of old still lingers. And among the worst offenders are those who are performatively leading Europe’s response to Donald Trump: the British and French.
Beyond the warm words over the past few weeks, London and Paris are largely sticking to the tired national strategies they have clung to for much of the past 50 years. The French talk of European autonomy but in reality are pursuing national autonomy; the British pretend they are a mini America but, instead, are becoming an ever cheaper imitation. The irony is that, as much as it might pain either side to admit, each would be stronger if it became a little more like the other.
As the former French ambassador to the US, Gerard Araud, has repeatedly pointed out, the Gaullist insistence to retain some national independence from America has proved more farsighted than Britain or Germany would like to admit. While the British military has long prioritised obtaining the latest shiny piece of American military kit available — even at the cost of becoming ever more dependent on the States — the French have prioritised retaining national autonomy, even at the cost of paying more for less.
One such example is the French insistence on a sovereign space policy. They spend around three times more than we do on space programmes, but end up with an inferior product to the one we access courtesy of the Americans, according to those I spoke with. Another example is the French satellite communications operator Eutelsat, which now wants to replace Elon Musk’s Starlink in Ukraine in order to protect European autonomy. But Eutelsat has far fewer satellites operating at far higher altitudes resulting in slower connections. European autonomy, in other words, means paying more for a worse product — at least in the short term.
The upside of this French insistence on national resilience is that in the event of a genuine American withdrawal from Nato — and, perhaps, even an alliance with Russia — the French would at least have the foundations upon which to construct a genuinely independent military. Britain, in contrast, has built its entire strategy around the principle of interoperability with the United States, and so would be sent into a crisis, forcing it to question everything from scratch.
Yet, the corollary of the French insistence on national resilience is that, for all their talk of European autonomy, they cannot bring themselves to do what is necessary to genuinely move in this direction — since it would inevitably undermine their own independence. The most obvious example of this paradox is the fact that in Ukraine’s great battle for survival against Russia — a war Emmanual Macron has held up as an existential test of European security — France has fallen far behind the UK and Germany in supplying the necessary arms for Kyiv to prevail. Why? The answer, it seems, comes in two parts: first, France continues to prioritise national self-reliance over European solidarity; and, second, as one analyst put it to me, France appears “more genuinely broke” even than Britain.
In total, Britain has contributed around €10 billion in military aid to Ukraine, compared with just €3.5 billion from France. As part of this, Britain has been prepared to run down its military stocks. “We’ve given it all away,” said one official I spoke to. By one estimate, Britain has just 14 pieces of heavy artillery left in Estonia, I was told. The French would never entertain this level of exposure. The result, however, is that in the fight for Ukraine’s national survival, Britain has shown more European “solidarity” than France.
Talking European but acting French is the straitjacket Paris seems unable to escape, limiting its ability to lead the Continent into the European revolution it has long championed. Again and again this conundrum plays out. Twenty EU states — including Germany — have called for greater coordination with the UK defence industry to boost the Europe’s resilience, but the French rejected the proposal. Britain has sought a defence pact with the EU in recent months, but the process has been held up by the French insistence on negotiating access to Britain’s fishing waters. The inevitable result: French autonomy, European weakness.
A similar story has played out on the biggest question of all: nuclear weapons. In France, the independence of the country’s deterrent is sacrosanct. There is understandable pride — especially today — that it is less dependent on American cooperation than the British equivalent. Yet, for this very reason, the French have proven unable to move beyond the Gaullist doctrine which states that its nuclear deterrent serves only its vital national interests. This means it cannot be extended to Europe. And so it is stuck.
Britain, in contrast, has always been much more willing to be dependent on American cooperation, but also to place its deterrent at the service of Nato. In the event of full-scale American isolationism, the cost for Britain of maintaining its nuclear deterrent would be prohibitive. As such, the lack of interest in strategic national autonomy has left the country in the similarly invidious position of being tied to a superpower that is increasingly prone to reveal its contempt for its supplicant partners. Whatever happens over the coming months and years, Britain will at some point be forced to confront the question it does not want to answer: what will it do when the Americans are gone and there is no Nato?
The costs of real independence from the United States, then, remain too high for either Britain or France to seriously entertain. The scale of our dependence was revealed by the former head of British intelligence, Alex Younger, this week when he said there were “no circumstances” under which European troops could be sent to Ukraine without a peace deal — and that even with an agreement it would be “irresponsible” to do that without strategic support from the US. According to one senior military adviser I spoke with, Europe needs to spend around 3.5% of its GDP for the next decade simply to get its armies into a position to independently deter Russian aggression. Until then, Europe’s collective forces would be vulnerable to a Russian incursion into the Baltics without the Americans.
Yet, even at this level of spending, Europe would still have to remain under the American nuclear umbrella. Without it, military advisers believe, Europe remains vulnerable to nuclear coercion. “We don’t have the answer to tactical nukes,” as one official put it to me, bluntly. An answer would cost Britain and France more like 4.5% of GDP — unless the Germans finance it. But while nuclear autonomy remains “the big play” for France and Britain in the coming years — the grand offer reshaping the continent for the 21st century — neither seems capable nor willing to make it.
In Ukraine, as many as two million drones are now produced each year, an increasing number of which are being controlled by artificial intelligence. Ukraine now trains its soldiers to launch combined operations with drone armies at land and sea, while its traditional military is dependent on high-end American intelligence and technology that Europe does not have. The nature of war itself is changing, which in turn, will force the armies of Europe and the United States to revolutionise themselves irrespective of the outcome.
In turn, both Ukraine’s drone production and America’s military might are dependent on the supply of critical minerals — including rare earths — which are sourced via an extraordinarily complicated global network that must be protected, in the end, by military power. Strip away everything and there is a Leviathan holding a sword and a sceptre — the only question is who that is.
If Europe is serious about its autonomy, then, it will need not only its own militaries, but its own supply of critical minerals, artificial intelligence, semiconductor plants and reliable sources of energy. It is for all these reasons that neither Britain nor France today is rushing to grasp the opportunity presented by Trump of “independence” from the United States. Neither can afford it.
Here is the rub. Britain and France are far too poor to play the role they want. Last year, the French government ran a deficit of more than 6%, far outside the limits demanded by the European Commission. Yet it has so far proved impossible to assemble a majority in the National Assembly to pass a budget to bring this under control. Instead, Paris has relied on constitutional powers to enact the budget without a parliamentary vote. In Britain, meanwhile, which has similar levels of national debt, the Government has a large majority, but is gearing up for a Spring Statement which most analysts believe will contain fanciful forecasts of undeliverable spending cuts.
The painful truth facing both London and Paris is that while Britain will need to become more French to thrive in a world of American withdrawal — and France will need become more British in its willingness to rely on others — both countries will need to become something new if they are ever to become truly independent in this new world. Henry Kissinger noted that Donald Trump may be “one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretences”. The trouble is, neither Britain nor France seems willing to stop pretending.
Tom McTague is UnHerd’s Political Editor. He is the author of Between the Waves: The Hidden History of a Very British Revolution 1945-2016, due to be published in September 2025
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SubscribeCan someone please explain why Russia is a threat to Britain?
It is on the far side of the continent. It is 35 years since we worried about the spread World Communism. It is weak and poor and has lost tens of thousands of soldiers in Ukraine. The idea that it could storm across Ukraine then Poland, Germany and France and then cross the English Channel and March up Whitehall is fanciful. And if – in some alternative universe- they did manage it, we would nuke Moscow.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have given Ukraine arms when they were invaded – that’s Christian charity. But we should not talk as though Russian containment is a strategic imperative for Britain.
Britain has never had a large army (except at the end of wars after years of crippling national exertion). What we need are air defences, a proper navy, intelligence and nukes. We have much of that already and can complete the job with proper investment (and of course we should stick with Trident and the US). We can protect our islands, our offshore infrastructure and our trade routes. We should not be building large armies to send out on the continent- that is not in our interests.
One can but hope
I’m very much of the same view.
As I noted in other comments yesterday, the recent conflict has seen Russia control of areas bordering Russia that were broadly pro-Russian before the war.
The idea that they can roll their tanks all the way to Calais, securing their supply lines against half a billion hostile Europeans, is for the birds.
I’d only quibble on some of the details.
Britain’s leaders played a role in provoking and prolonging this war. That’s not Christian. There are also many other conflicts around the world (many of them involving Christians!) where we don’t intervene. Our leaders secured public support for war in Ukraine by exploiting the best instincts of the British people; whatever motivates our leaders, it’s not concern for the Ukrainian people.
100% agree that our focus should be on “air defences, a proper navy, intelligence and nukes”. As you say, the navy is really only needed to defend our merchant vessels, oil platforms and far-flung territories (Gibraltar, Falklands, South Georgia, Ascension), which could themselves be fortified, so the benefit to the taxpayer is less clear than in defence of the British Isles.
We should ally with the US, but not rely on them. We should build our own ships, subs, aircraft and ICBMs.
It is a myth that we don’t manufacture our own military hardware.
We build our own aircraft carriers, destroyers, frigates and other ships as well as SSNs and SSBNs from scratch in Scotland and Barrow (though of course we collaborate with the Americans – and now the Australians – to ensure interoperability).
As for aircraft, we play a significant role in the F-35 program with about 15% of each plane using components built in the UK (in Preston, Uxbridge, Edinburgh, Cheltenham and Bristol). We are also building the new Tempest with the Italians and Japanese.
We build our own nuclear warheads in Aldermarston but we deliver them on Trident II ballistic missiles (not ICBMs) built by Lockheed Martin in the US.
Our alliance with the US is something we should treasure. It gives us a huge technological advantage over our rivals and peers. But it is clearly wrong to say we have no homegrown production capacity and are wholly reliant on the Americans.
——————————–
You said:
We also need to protect ourselves from western Europe – we might be friends with France and Germany today but that is where the danger to Britain has always come from. We need to be able to defend against threats under, in or over the North Sea, the channel and the North Atlantic.
I didn’t realise we made as much as 15% of the F-35, but we’re not going to do much damage with 15% of an aircraft. And what of the bullets and missiles?
It’s good that we’re collaborating with the Japanese and Italians on Tempest.
To my mind it’s inexcusable that we rely on the Americans for Trident.
I think it makes sense to share research and development costs with allied powers (not just Americans), but keep production capabilities as independent as possible. That means making as many of the components as possible domestically, and stockpiling the rest.
I’m not blind to the threat from Western Europe, especially if the EU does get a proper military, but nuclear deterrent is our best hope there, and for defence of the British Isles it’s not clear what advantages a navy offers over guns, missiles and drones based on land. Ships are easy to sink. The channel isn’t very wide. To the extent we invest in the navy, I think we should focus on submarines.
See, I too can get caught up in national-level thinking! The truth is that our enemy is global, and its agents are domestic.
Oh, and here are some more black pills:
Compare Britain today with Britain in 1939.
We were a homogenous society, mostly united by Christian faith.
In large parts of the country, potential saboteurs were easy to spot: people who didn’t look like us, or talk like us; people that we didn’t recognise from church or the pub.
We knew how to endure hardship.
Crucially, we could survive without electricity and electronics.
Even without conventional warfare, it would be trivial to destroy Britain.
How many days could we live without power before people got hungry, and our divided society turned on itself?
If I ran the show, there would be vast underground tunnel network with an independent nuclear-powered grid.
There would be hydroponics and stockpiles of weapons suitable for guerrilla warfare.
I expect some of this exists, but how many people do you reckon our leaders would choose to accommodate?
Well UK used to have a tunnel from Whitehall to PWHQ on to COD Bicester… not sure if its still operational?
To COD Bicester! That’s more than 50 miles! Could we really dig such a thing?
Any resemblance to German actively spying is coincidence, ja?
The not zero fanatics are working on living without electricity.
15%! Presumably that’s the ejector seat?
BAE in Lancashire produce the rear fuselage,and in Bristol the all-important avionics of the electronic warfare system.
Northrop, Raytheon, Honeywell (urgh!) then BAe ASQ. I understand “share the loot” but surely it makes sense to have 1 prime avionics supplier and COTS back ups? F35 has an unenviable record – most over budget DOD project on land or in the air – the senior service have spent way more but had a 100+ year headstart in terms of graft etc.
Thank you.
And the tailplane and its mount to the fusilage
Thank you.
Australia contributes to the construction of the F35 too. I think we do the cup-holders.
15% for the tail wing, a battery and the ejector seat explains a lot – it may only be 5% of the aircraft but with UK corruption, inefficiencies and tax payer subsidised failures its easy to see why it is 15% of costs. Aside from the sub assemblies above does any reader know other parts made in UK? ( Engine nascelles + Lucas generators don’t count – old UK designs now made in India, China and USA.)
OSA prevents me adding detail, but UK doesn’t rely on US to remove, repair and re-arm Trident. Obvs i wouldn’t want mainstream labor activists to know any more but sturmer must have been briefed on the actualité when he took power?
The point about the UK making 15% of every F-35 is that it applies to every F-35, including those operated by the USN, USMC and USAF. That gives us some leverage in the military equipment cooperation stakes.
I know this is really sad cos a lot of my personal income has come from the S80, types 26 + 45, and the boondoggle F35b over recent years but like Ptarmigan, Clansman and Stingray in the 70s-90s these are govt dole schemes. UK seems to hide under the US umbrella a lot more than France or even Spain – i saw the UK media say Spain spends 1% gdp on defence which is what is spent on the regular army, add in the airforce, navy and Guardia Civil (80k perm staff, 40k reserve), and its 3.5% ish of known GDP( Spain has a big Sumergida – black economy so the actual figure is prob close to 2.5 % ) Ofc Uk has a way bigger sumergida than anywhere in the first world – drug cartels, terrorists, huge DSS fraud and parts of the territory that simply refuse to pay tax like construction, auto trade and drug dealers – that puts UK at 1% which is prob why their media levelled that insult against Spain. IIRC Frau Thatchler shat herself when she realised the Carlists and Franquistas might overrun the traitor Gonzalez and send 200k warriors to occupy Wales. ( The thinking was many Argies were Welsh and had fled UK due to racial or religious persecution, they could be like the staunch housewives of Madrid – our 5th Column)
Well they can def get to Calais unopposed but if they cross the channel they’ll face the same Afghanis that kicked their behinds 82-89 lol. I know the brit army is staffed by mercenaries from Africa, Caribbean and South Seas but adding a few Hazara and Pashtun units could make all the difference. Migrantes are bad until they’re not – also a new British motto: “pas d’argent, pas de Khorashanis” hahaha
In principle I agree. But what about those unworkable aircraft carriers – we seem to have lost the art of shipbuilding. And since the days of TSR2, we have lost an aircraft industry. And our Trident is an American missile, kept in Virginia. What Erstwhile Subscriber proposes is exactly what this article shows is unaffordable, as well as unachievable.
We should be aiming at greater European military cooperation outside NATO, but as well as the intransigent French, the Boris Brexit has made such cooperation increasingly difficult. As he left the Commons, he confided, “Stay close to the Americans!” – about the only way in which he was similar to Churchill. And it is why the Europeans in general hold us at arm´s length.
Entirely agree. Also avoids the need for mass conscription of a populace that may not accept it and the huge cost of maintaining a UK ‘Army of the Ukraine’.
Also this author, like many others, takes this US withdrawal notion way too far. US wants to end the war, reach detente with Russia, for European nations to spend more on their defence and to sort out trade imbalances. US also cautions against other aspects of Euro policy mainly censorship and fining US tech companies for not enforcing said censorship.
This all seems reasonable to me, or at least do-able. It’s a way off complete US withdrawal.
Agree, we can never compete with Countries like Russia, Turkey and China on the size of army in soldier numbers.
What the UK must have is a ‘smart’ army, and to enable that, we still have a large defence manufacturing sector which could then expand.
Nuke Moscow with what? Look, I agree Russia are unlikely to invade Europe (not least to what end) but we should have a military capable of defending the realm in any event, not least because without a military you have no borders and without borders you have no country at all.
We have no borders. Those tasked with defending them refused to do so.
Agreed but one lives in hope of a move to what could remotely be referred to as right wing
Well the original big vision of the CIA driven color revolution, ultra-nationalization of the extremely corrupt Ukraine, and continuing to prop up its Neo-Nazis, with the last minute announcement by the Biden admin that it would cross the final Russian red line and join NATO was to force Putin’s hand to invade so all the USAID paid for media could say “Putin Bad!”, and the puppet actor put on his green costume and was declared so brave. The big prize was the big global corporations of the Western nations to enjoy the fall of Russia and the carving up of the world’s largest country.
The lesser thing to keep going when that failed was the endless grift. NATO and wars create huge slush funds, and so the US pioneered and mastered this way in previous wars like in Afghanistan to wash taxpayer dollars out through these controlled narrative and orchestrated wars. Remember all wars are bankers wars…
Anyway, as each big thing fell apart the final hope is to at least keep the US and all it’s endless “protection money” wink wink… in Europe. That failing you can eagerly expect the final rug-pull on the EU citizens of a Digital-Euro, preceded by, or simultaneously done with a savings account haircut. Yes, sort of like they did to Greece.
So, the war thing is all sort of integral with the Davos style Great Reset (because they need something to seize emergency powers, some emergency imperative, either “the Russians are coming” or pandemic or something) , but it’s expectations have been way lowered, I mean at least most of Ukraine is owned by Western Multi-National corporations now, so they have that going for them, and they have ended a lot of human lives which makes things greener, so they like that too.… There is still hope that they can start WWIII though… They keep hoping and trying… Ukraine might be able to do a dirty nuke false flag, and the UK media would help sell it… So, they have big hopes and dreams, but they keep failing due to things happening that cause the dreams not to work out… Last case is they get to control where everyone in the EU lives, what they think, how rich they get, how much meat they can eat, and yes, you will eat ze bugs… Unless… something happens again and the plans don’t work out for them, again….
In America many of us were raised with a cartoon called Scooby Doo, and in that we often found out that the bad guy was someone institutional or in government. There was a pull off of a mask and the line was “Look, it’s the mayor!”. Well, more and more everyone is starting to see “Look, it’s your liberal Europian government!” 😀
Thanks – nice to see some thinking in these comments
Agree with paragraphs 1 and 2. I’d go further than you on the rest though. Strongly consider withdrawal from Nato (other folks are just as likely to start fights for you as defend you?).
Why do we need an army?? I don’t see foreign states invading us as there’s nothing worth having here and any agressor would probably do a cost/risk benefit analysis before doing any invading.
Create an armed police force (something akin to Spanish Guardia Civil) to discourage potential aggressors further which would also serve to reinforce woeful existing police forces.
Ireland seems to manage with 23 air force aircraft none of which are fast attack jets so get rid of RAF too. More money for UK Guardia Civil/Police.
Get rid of non existent Navy and use money for an improved coast guard/border farce(should that be force?).
Develop a nuclear deterrent delivery system independent of USA as a last ditch option.
This should help us keep out of disastrous foreign wars, save money and strengthen our police forces/border forces?
Perhaps we could use them to counter the real invasion threats?
I once read a sci-fi story in which the USA got rid of all its military and just said that if anyone attacked it’s territory, they would be nuked immediately with no questions asked.
Might work for us.
In fact, in the story, they got rid of the police force too and people just paid private security firms to protect them. And the prisons were private too and made money out of the prisoner’s labour (or if they refused to work, they were executed and their organs sold!)
Matt, what’s the name of that book? My bible is all worn out. Need a new one.
Same here!
Agree with 95% BUT would it have been better for O’biden and their UK puppets to read a bit of history – esp the Crimean Wars and the Tartar Yoke? Crimea has never been Ukraine and the gift of Crimea by Kruschev to ameliorate the Holodomor genocide doesn’t make it Ukrainian territory. Likewise east Ukraine – Don valley and delta etc have always had more Russian speakers than Ukrainian, though like UK/Ireland there is a long historic mix. So what O’biden should have done instead of pocketing Burisma dollars to spend on crack and hookers, is push for a ceasfire from day 1. Look forward to the unturd article telling the Ulster Scots they are not Brits, their culture and religion is fake etc etc. So meedjahadeen: Dare you to come to East Belfast and say it to peoples faces, not behind their backs as per standard meedja lackey practice.
Can someone please explain why Russia is a threat to Britain? – Yes, Vladimir Putin. Ask him. It’s his choice to send aircraft probing our airspace, warships through our waters, “research” ships plotting the location of our undersea cables and pipelines, cyber attacks on public services and industry, not to mention assassinations of regime opponents on our streets.
Imagining the Russian threat as tanks rolling up Whitehall is missing the point. But if Russian tanks roll into the Baltic States, triggering Article 5, we should all worry, never mind the economic disruption and energy insecurity that would create right here in the UK.
Perhaps we have all forgotten that the first major English joint-stock Trading Company was the Muscovy Company established in 1555 during the reign of Queen Mary I*
By 1584 it was trading through Archangel, and still exists today as a charity.
*Bloody Mary.
Hard to disagree. But you should be reassured that we’re continuing to shrink our army ! As well as fine tune hiring practices to make it less competitive. Sadly, we’re also shrinking the parts you do care about … but administration and procurement are thriving (exactly as Parkinson observed in the 1950s).
“ And if – in some alternative universe- they did manage it, we would nuke Moscow.”
You really think the modern brand of wet woke politicians would have the courage?
Am a bit hungover this morning and therefore not thinking at full capacity but I think that, rather than the UK and France having to become more like each other, both (and Europe as a whole) have to become more American. Or, I dare say it, more Trumpian in the sense that to move forward and achieve any measure of autonomy in this new world, they are going to have to be willing to steamroller the norms of the past and not be too apologetic about it.
But, for the time being, they need to stay on the right side of The Donald, even if it galls them to do so.
Britain has the same complaint as the US – we have been treated horribly by the Europeans when we wanted to leave the EU (even to the extent that they whipped up Nationalists in Northern Ireland to pressurise us on border controls). Just as the EU was set up to screw the Americans do it has been used to screw us.
So like Trump we should ask: why are we going to pay to secure the borders on Latvia or Romania?
‘Europe’ will NEVER forgive us, the Anglo-Saxon alliance of the UK and USA for preventing them descending into a world of almost unparalleled depravity and barbarism.
That stigma will never be erased and nor should it. Unfortunately for those who preach forgiveness evolution just isn’t that fast.
Don’t forget that most of our political class was conspiring with the EU on this.
The worst of the traitors is now PM!
Don’t forget Theresa MAY!
‘We are living today under a great shadow’, wrote the elderly man.
‘It is sadly tempting’, he continued, ‘to fancy ourselves back, say, in the spring of 1914, and to alter, in our minds, the happenings of the world at that time’.
The man, the Bishop of Durham, Handley G C Moule, continued, ‘Why should not all the great nations have seen that goodwill was better than jealousy and suspicion? Why should not all the kings and statesmen have tried to take honest counsel with one another? Why did they not really strive to arrange matters so that their own people’s peace and prosperity, and their neighbour’s peace and prosperity, should fit in together, side by side?’
‘If only that other thing had happened…the fields would not be sown…with the hideous barren seed of shell fragments, and littered with wrecked bodies of men, which eighteen months ago were full of youth and heath.’
The Bishop compared the horrors. ‘Pretty villages and harmless lives’ can just as easily be destroyed by war now as in the days of the militaristic autocrat Sennacherib. Yet of the present calamity, ‘The oldest people never knew such a time before…though they would have lived through the dreadful days of that former great war, when Napoleon Bonaparte threatened to invade England, and shed English people’s blood on their own hearthstones. Those days I have heard from my parents…’
But of today, ‘…our towns and villages bombarded into wreck and ruin’ from the air. ‘Have I not myself…visited house after house in one of our coastward towns, to see the dear dead faces in their last sleep in the coffin…?
The clergyman lists the sufferings: the missing at the front, suspense adding to the perpetual torment of their loved ones at home; the houses blasted in fire by the new aerial machines; the maimed children; and in invaded countries, the foully outraged women and girls. He compares the vast catalogue of woe to the scroll seen in a vision by Ezekiel; nothing but a long unvaried burthen of sorrow so that the parchment had to be written on both sides; an unusual thing with scroll-writings.
The sky of Ezekiel’s nation was all clouds: ‘It was written within and without; and there was written therein lamentation, and mourning, and woe.’
‘Why was every effort of the real friends of peace…deliberately defeated?’
Something strange happened here. It was showing 6 upvotes when I clicked on it; now it shows 1. Just an innocent bug, I hope.
Your point?
The real friends of peace being…..?
One of my pet hates is deadly serious: the tendency to anthropomorphise countries.
99% of the time, when you hear “Britain wants”, “France wants”, “America wants”, you should substitute “Starmer wants”, “Macron wants”, “Trump/Biden wants” …
Interestingly, we have an easier time personalising when we’re talking about the enemy – “Putin’s war”, “Putin wants” – though lots of the commentary slips into condemnation of Russians generally, with Martin M being so bold as declare “Russia” a “forever enemy”.
Even Palmerston had it wrong, unless he had in mind a very specific “we” and “our”:
The interests of ordinary British people are most definitely NOT aligned with the interests of the psychopaths who rule us.
That point notwithstanding, there’s some truth here:
If we had an elite that cared about British security and prosperity, we would be doing things very differently.
I agree. You might have noticed the new (interim) head of Ofsted is a man who dresses as an Imam. Russia is the least of our worries.
Europe’s great delusion: that Eurovision matters.
They even let Australia in.
And a bearded lady from Israel won it once.
That was a man.
Hey, that was Conchita Wurst and he/she was Austrian!
“Britain has sought a defence pact with the EU in recent months, the process has been held up by the French insistence on negotiating access to Britain’s fishing waters. ”
So as ever the French can only conceive of a world in which any potential gain for Britain or co-operation with Britain MUST come with a penalty, some deliberate damage, some bending of our knee.
Remember a couple of years back when Macron threatened in all seriousness to halt the supply of electricity through the subsea connectors?
That was the behaviour of an enemy. The kind of threats we could expect from a Putin? Yes but it came from our ‘ally’ France.
France and by extension the EU only sees Britain as an ally when it requires our soldiers blood to be spilled when they have surrendered to someone else.
France is not our ally, they dont like us and they dream of causing us harm.
We should, in all our long term planning (I know, I know that’s a joke) plan for our nearest neighbour to stab us in the back and then in the front.
Perhaps I have missed it.
Nowhere do I see an article or the responses to it suggest that all this waste of people, money, and life, might, just might, be avoided if the “West” stopped treating Russia and its people as evil.
Look where we are with the every iteration of the same same that’s been going on forever.
If Putin was evil, he would have taken Ukraine and the Baltics long ago.
Is he stuck in Ukraine because his armies are weak?
Or has he been minimalistic in his Ukraine actions because he doesn’t want to fight against his fellow Orthodox Christian Slavs?
Who knows.
Or does he perhaps respond to NATO expansion right up to his doorstep by taking military action because after years of saying “NO” to the west he finally needs act.
Current attitudes and postures have failed.
I applaud Citizen Diversity’s post.
Start talking with Russia and welcome her into Europe.
Cheaper.
Safer.
As I understand it, he’s been minimalistic because if a full on war is declared, or spreads onto Russian territory, army regiments have some kind of right to press-gang Russian nationals ?
Can someone confirm?
And he saw what the grieving Afghan-Soviet war mothers did to Gorbachev.
The truth is that Russia under Putin is still a rogue state, you only have to look at the record with their neighbours to understand that.
We have to ‘deal’ with Russia on a day to day basis, trade etc, but there is no way in which we can trust Russia until they become a true democracy.
If Russia is so ‘nice’, why hasn’t Putin made sensible, friendly overtures to Britain and Europe? The Russians have happily sold us oil and gas, but that’s about all. Otherwise, they spy, assassinate people in our country, and make mischief militarily and otherwise. They can’t be trusted, and until or if they can, dealing with them as reliable trading partners is impossible.
Well, we tried that. And for a time, it worked.
But then Russia returned to being ruled by an evil dictator. Of course, I don’t know whether that was the genuine wish of the Russian people, or just because the system could not prevent it – I suspect the latter.
As for ‘NATO expanding to his doorstep’, well, he knows (though he will not admit it, even to himself) that is because Russia occupied and mistreated those countries for half a century, and they saw that as their best chance of preventing a repetition. Poland, Finland and the like know only too well how Russia can behave.
And the award for the best comment goes to Peter.
Wise words – could’ve been done when Yeltsin asked for access to the global clearing bank system early 90s- even knowing it would hit the Rouble’s strength in the short term. Now people blame the Wolfowitz doctrine but the lack of education in history and STEM across NATO politicians is the likely cause. Last opponent to fight (pre) Russia to a standstill -? Mongols (FYI the Steppe tribe, not the 1%er ‘bike club). Napoleon and Hitler both failed – now i know UK Labor shares much ideology with the latter but can you really see UK subjugating Russia? me neither.
Damn right! I have never understood why the west – the US in particular – wouldn’t prefer a big, strong(ish) ally to a big, weak(ish) enemy. When the Soviet Union failed the world lost a huge opportunity.
It is wishful thinking, I know, but Russia was on the mat. Instead of helping them up, we assisted the oligarchs in looting the country and allowed Putin to pick them up off the mat. Putin is a slime ball, but more than any of us, he has his country’s interests in mind. Becoming a strong, industrialized, technologically sound ally and trade partner would have been in their interest. Instead, we got Putin and 140 million suspicious Russkies. I think ye old Military Industrial Complex saw their huge meal ticket going away and quietly proceeded to poison the minds (pay) of most of the US politicians.
When the Soviet Union fell, Russia should have been invited into NATO or NATO should have been abolished – what has NATO been worth in the last 30 years? NATO membership would have the best instrument to control Russia, just as the US has used it to kind-of control Europe.
The UK is stuck in the past…
A past it doesn’t understand or like with a native people becoming ever diluted by low-skilled immigrants who do not share our values and possibly even dislike them. Hard to get interested in geopolitics when you feel abandoned by your political class.
The truth is that we cannot ‘trust’ our ‘friends’ in Europe and despite all the political turmoil in the U.S. we should be allying with the U.S. not Europe.
At the same time we should be spending the 3.5% on Defence, which over the next 10 years, will give us a credible military which the U.S. and Europe will respect.
Who wants to bet that the Ukraine war will end in six months? Britain and France simply can’t go on with this charade of independence from the US security umbrella.
And the Germans will go back to Russian gas within a month of the ceasefire being declared.
I can’t see that one. They might as well invite the Russians to occupy Berlin.
It’s hard to guess what the Germans will do.
The *sensible* course is to minimise external dependencies for things as essential as food and energy.
For energy, this suggests use of hydroelectric, nuclear and domestic extraction of fossil fuels.
To the extent that it’s necessary to import food, fuel or power, the wider your sources, the better.
If they’re going to import gas, they should get it from the US, Norway, Qatar *and* Russia.
Agree with everything except the “and Russia” bit. Russia should forever be a pariah State.
I didn’t think they had stopped buying Russian gas.
I expect they are already bringing it in as LPG on trucks or ships.
I’d say it’ll be much less than six months, in a de facto sense if not a signed and sealed one.
Even if that is true, Western Europe will surely start rearming for the next war with Russia. Nobody at all could be stupid enough to think that the Russians will sit quietly behind their borders, and not annoy anyone.
Si vis pacum, para bellum as experience has taught the Russkies
Moscow has always thought of itself as the third Rome.*
*eg: Rome, Constantinople, Moscow.
Hopefully it will get sacked like the other two did.
Manpower and the demographics that manpower is recruited from is key here. Along with the social capital needed to sustain extended military operations. Neither the French or the British have this – even if they had the money and equipment.
The dread of unknown troubles, makes us bear the ones we know, rather than shake them off and take up others that might be still worse. People and nations, I suppose, have a tendency to take refuge in the familiar, even when the familiar is no longer working as it should.
It takes a brave soul to say: “What we are doing is not working; let us try something different and new, to achieve a new and better result ….”
Re the caption photograph is Macron really taller than Comrade Starmer or is he standing on an orange box?
Yes, its net-zero recycling from the Elysee.
The box was originally for Sarkozy.
Rats are suprisingly comfy on their hind legs – hence Macron’s variable height
It’s not that Britain and France are too poor, it’s that they prioritize social welfare over defence.
“Yet behind the scenes in Europe’s capitals, a dispiriting refusal to abandon the dogmas of old still lingers.” This is to be expected. The new dogmas will bring new political leaders and end the political careers of Macron and Starmer.
Russia is able to finance a war but Britain and France are not able to do a bit of defense spending? Of course many mainstream economists also told us the Russia would not be able to finance their war, while they also have to deal with Western sanctions.
The thing is, war economies defy conventional economic dogma’s. Or rather, that many of these dogma’s are probably wrong.
The author talks of moments in time when we are forced to re-appraise our long held conceptions.
NATO and the EU are entities predicted on fear of Russian invasion.
What real fear should Britain have of that?
Our nearest neighbours in the EU do not pay us for our military deterrence in NATO, our security guarantees to and for their security. And they punish us for our non membership of the EU. France actively engages in and encourages the mass migration of the BAME horde that invades our country by boat every year. France is hand in hand culpable for every single boat.
How about we come to an independent non aggression agreement with Russia?
The EU was not developed out of fear of the,USSR. There are books, memoirs, history available …
NATO was though.
Let’s be fair, they both need to become more American, protect their borders, cut social spending and invest in their defence, and neither will do that.
Let’s just have the damn war, then we can settle down in the New Caliphate.
I volunteer to be the first Whisky Imam.
Tom McTagues previous job: staff writer at The Atlantic. That’s where Ann Applebaum (CIA) is screeching about brining down Putin. This issue is too serious to be hijacked by globalist ideologues.
It’s annoying when an author tries to be clever and talk rubbish about the UK becoming more French (and vice-versa). It may have sounded good when you rushed for the deadline but it actually comes across like gibberish.
Failing leaders often use war or the threat of war to distract people.
So Europe wants to build an army so that it can invade and defeat Russia – thereby ensuring that the very thing it fears – Russian invasion of Europe – is a certainty.
Who – besides you – says that Europe wants to build an army so that it can invade and defeat Russia?
NATO/US/EU
Gosh. Starmer’s even titchier than Macron.
France has had ” Illusion of grandeur ” for at the last 150 years
And it works ( for them )
Since 1870?
Actually yes, though perhaps the coup of Napoleon III .
Presumably the word VICHY is never mentioned?
Strangely, the French Right doesn’t have a problem with it.
It worked well in in 1870. 1914, and 1940, so why not now?
Yet another benefit of Brexit. Now we can see all the wranglings that used to be behind closed doors.
NATO has developed ‘interoperability’ of members defence forces over 80 years; common planning, operational doctrine, tactics, communications, weapon systems, etc. De Gaulle and France flounced out in the 1950’s because French wasn’t the standard language, France wasn’t the lead member, and France didn’t dictate NATO policies and strategy. It would make absolutely no sense to start from scratch replacing the frameworks and so on set up by NATO just to please a nation whose military credibility rests solely on its Foreign Legion. The only practical policy would be for the European nations to take over the leadership of NATO, with France abandoning its pretence of ‘la Gloire’, and pitching in.
So if Russia had financed state on state agression from Eire to UK, or Mexico to USA, C/W sunwheel and SS tattoo’d fighters, then parked their tanks on UK/US lawns, the UK or US resistance is “subjugation” of a neighbour? I carry no torch for Putin and his sick cronies but also i call out BS when i see it. This article is a waste of media oxygen and unturd have recently taken $75 (59 whole british pounds, and falling) from my employer as a subscription renewal. I was wavering due to the amount of filler and BS on the site recently and this renewal maybe the last time, i don’t know.
Your employer pays your UnHerd subscription?
Security requires ends consistent with your means as well as vice versa. If your strategic objectives stoke up trouble, you’ll never be secure for long. Another way of saying you can’t defend the indefensible.
“French have prioritised retaining national autonomy, even at the cost of paying more for less.”
We should all take a lesson from the French. Sometimes paying more for less turns out to be worth it in the long run. In the light of Trump and populism, one wonders whether the American captains of industry who handed that industry to the Chinese now regret their decision. Given their behavior, I’m guessing no. Like the French nobility who walked up to the guillotine with their heads high, prideful to the end, convinced of their own justifications. Why did they do it? Because they couldn’t stand the thought of ‘paying more for less’ in terms of wages, environmental protections, and other such inconveniences and reducing GDP and profits. China offered to sell them more for less to get the factories and industry their nation lacked. They thought they were getting more for less, but in hindsight, have they? How much has Trumpism already cost them? How much more will it cost going forward? Will the next populist leader raise the bill even higher? History rarely lets failed ruling classes go entirely unpunished.
The French are in a better position than most of Europe, including the UK. They invested in nuclear energy and are reaping the rewards as Germany suffers from their lack of foresight. They invested in defense enough that they will be less than completely helpless in the event of a NATO collapse. They paid ‘more for less’ for specific purposes. I always admired De Gaulle for his hard headed pragmatism, and hard headed pragmatism will be the order of the day going forward. I disagree with the author insofar as he seems to suggest the French share the fruits of their prudent investments with a German government that hoarded its wealth while abandoned its own defense, and bought ‘cheaper’ Russian gas. What do the French gain from being fettered to the corpses of Germany and the UK any more than they already are? Might they be better served to leave the EU entirely and pursue their own interests. Might they get a far better deal from Trump or Xi by doing so?
As much as he gets right, this author seems to take the European solidarity movement as a given and a priori good for Europeans, but this risks doubling down on the same internationalist outlook that has already demonstrably failed. One cannot simply organize a government over some strip of land and declare it to be a ‘nation’. The concept of the nation implies things about shared values, languages, and a common culture that cannot simply be willed into existence by a political faction or a leader. As breaking with the US requires European nations to coordinate more and make decisions collectively that go beyond economics, there are likely to be conflicts and opportunities for one or several nations to decide that their interests align more with the US than with other Europeans.
It would be refreshing if the bright minds in the editorial team could once in a while try to analyse solutions and not constantly tell us in an elegant way how bad things are and how weak, stupid and dysfunctional Europeans and Europe are and have been. I have said this in other comment sections, just to prove a point.
That comment was so good, it was worth saying twice.
The past is the failed agenda of net zero, “all immigrants are good immigrants”, and a debt-funded nanny state. It’s time for the lazy luxury belief WEF agenda to end.
The Sun King and Cromwell – what could possibly go wrong…
It would be refreshing if the bright minds in the editorial team could once in a while try to analyse solutions and not constantly tell us in an elegant way how bad things are and how weak, stupid and dysfunctional Europeans and Europe are and have been.
A most unedifying spectacle.
Sir Oink-a-lot talking tough.
Addressing Putin directly, like he has an army at his command that could make a difference.
And in the same moment, refusing to finance a military that could match his warrior rhetoric.
Everyone can see he is in self promotion mode & nothing more
This is why Europe (and it seems to me Britain, in particular) is terrified of regaining its independence from the US after eighty years. So, rather pathetically, it is trying to keep the war in Ukraine going in the hope that sanctions will force Russia to stop. Britain is also sending journalists out (as on RTE last week) to promote laughable theses about Russia trying to retake control of eastern Europe (bar the Baltic States, which they will retake). Meanwhile, Germany is thinking about Konigsberg and Poland and Hungary are dreaming of picking over the entrails of Ukraine. As WB Yeats once wrote about another political earthquake, “all changed, changed utterly …”.
Author makes many valid points. US has been right to insist on enhanced reciprocity regarding defence spending in a more uncertain World. However for some decades it hasn’t been in the World’s interest that everyone was armed to the teeth either. Proliferation risk was not in US interest. It had/has more power because of it’s proportionate defence spending and it needs to be a little careful what it wishes for. Europe undoubtedly is slow to awaken. But economically it remains a collective power house, even if one excluded a couple of Nations who might never enter a coalition of the willing. Russian threat could be just the bonding element needed.
Author fails to make two key points. Firstly the swing towards more isolationist US policy may prove temporary. That doesn’t mean complacency then returns but the doomsayers on the relationship medium term are likely to be wrong. Trump is an aberration. The US knows the West’s strength is through the ‘collective’.
Secondly Putin and Russia are much weaker. If they can’t retake Kursk region they can’t roll into the Baltic States anytime soon. They can be highly disruptive and look to undermine Europe, but mass Army Groups of well trained and equipped mobile units do not exist. (The Polish Army could probably be in Moscow within a week). UK, French, German and Polish forces alone would significantly bolster Europe’s biggest and most experienced Army – the Ukrainians themselves. The UK’s one at sea at all times Trident has 192 independent warheads. All of these are 10 times more destructive than the bombs dropped at the end of WW2. It’s true that to replace those warheads we need US supply but for the moment that is not a requirement. Of course any such use is unthinkable, but the point is a very significant deterrent exists and a Nuclear umbrella remains. Furthermore should Europe have to stand alone it has the industrial base to develop it’s own quickly, if not to the level of the US. That proliferation is not in the US’s interest, which is just one other reason why eventually good sense will prevail.
Some very good points. It seems clear that any European realignment must proceed with two facts in mind: 1) The US is no longer a “reliable friend”, and 2) Russia is a “forever enemy”. I would be the first to admit that 1) has come as a bit of a shock, but 2) should always have been apparent to anyone with more that three brain cells.
The U.S. is no longer a reliable friend because Europe has spent the last three decades committing (pan)national suicide. But they expect Americans to subsidize their decline with free security and unequal trade. The U.S. must step back until Europe gets its act together. A strong Europe has vastly more to offer Americans than whatever currently exists over there.
America has covered European defence because it was in their national interest to do so. The last thing they wanted was a rival bloc who no longer bought American weapons or felt the need to back the US$.
It’s a situation that has benefited both sides, and it will be interesting to see how a decoupling plays out
Well, I think Trump has basically ensured that what you say in your second sentence has come to pass.
Why would Europe trust the US going forward though? Surely the Europeans have learned their lesson? I am a big proponent of European rearmament, including nuclear rearmament. Mostly that is to deter the Russians, of course, but at the back of my mind there is the idea that Europe might need to deter the US one day. I have never once in my life thought that before (and I am in my 60s).
Considering our so called nuclear deterrent is reliant on US ‘software’, kindly fitted in Barrow-in-Furness, there is NO chance of us ‘going it alone’.
Perhaps the French might try, but given their previous record that is somewhat unlikely.
Europe must get used to the reality that they are ‘dediticci’, and have been quite deservedly since 1945, if not before.
Britain needs to prepare to “go it alone”. The technology to make a nuclear warhead has been around for 80 years, and Britain has done it before. All you need to get the thing to Moscow is a rocket of some kind, and building one of those is….well, not rocket science.
Perhaps you never “thought that before” because the dementia hadn’t kicked in yet. Why the hell would the US need to be deterred?
The US is still a friend, but one that has finally had enough of us Europeans crashing on their couch and raiding their fridge.
Friendship has to work both ways. Maybe if you kick that friend out, they won’t be your friend any more.
Bravo! What a wonderful simile!
Billy Bob is right on this.
The US didn’t provide a defence umbrella for Europe out of pure benevolence. They did it because they judged it to be in their own interests – preferable to a militarily strong, united Europe.
The worst outcome for the US would be a militarily strong Europe allied with Russia.
I hardly think that is likely. Most Europeans have met Russians….
400 years ago, would you have declared Spain a “forever enemy”?
250 years ago, would you have declared France a “forever enemy”?
100 years ago, would you have declared Germany a “forever enemy”?
What makes Russia special?
They were a major ally in WW2, even though in1939 they invaded 5 countries.
If only you were a non-Russian Slav. Then you would know.
Russia is special because it has never been an ally of Western Europe in any ideological sense. I appreciate that it was on the “same side” in WW2 (and to a much lesser extent, in WW1), but Western Europe always knew it was an enemy even then, which is why a number of people on the Allied side thought that the armies of the Western Allies should continue on and “deal with” the Soviet Union after Nazi Germany had collapsed. The cultural gulf between Western Europe and Russia is just too vast.