European Union (EU) fanboys (and girls) are hyping the "threat" of a Trump presidency for their own ends. Don't buy what they're selling.
Oh, please, stop the crocodile tears of anguish:
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo warned that Europe must be ready to stand alone if Donald Trump sweeps back to the White House later this year.
“If 2024 brings us ‘America first’ again, it will be more than ever Europe on its own,” he warned in a speech at the European Parliament, at the start of a year in which both European Union citizens and Americans go to the polls.
“We should, as Europeans, not fear that prospect; we should embrace it,” he argued, saying that Europe must become “stronger, more sovereign, more self-reliant.”
The alarm in "EU capitals" that Trump will abandon NATO as Russia wages war on Ukraine and threatens to keep moving west into NATO itself when Russia absorbs its conquests and rebuilds its military machine is overblown. Remember when the election of Biden did nothing to ease Euro worries despite his claim that America "is back"?
Strategic autonomy is all about weakening NATO and expelling America from Europe. It is not about opposing Russia. And in less guarded moments the EU apparatchiki are more expansive in their aims.Everything is an excuse to pursue European Union strategic autonomy at the expense of America-dominated NATO. Hell, the EU has wet dreams that Trump will kill NATO for them.
Honestly, who was in thrall to Putin? Trump or Obama?
It still amazes me that Democrats insist Putin is "playing" Trump as if Trump isn't pushing back against Russia in contrast to Obama's flexibility and retreat.
Obama began his administration ignoring Russia's late 2008 invasion of Georgia in order to begin the famous "reset" with Russia, complete with abandoning the Bush missile defense plan on the day the USSR invaded Poland in 1939. Early in his administration Obama formally declared a "medium term rule" scarily reminiscent of Britain's "ten year rule" in the 1930s that said America faced no conventional military threats. Obama famously promised Putin "flexibility" after his reelection, remember?Obama mocked the very idea that Russia was our main geopolitical foe as Romney said in a 2012 debate (to the delight of Democrats)[.]
Does any of this ring a bell?
Obama ignored Russia's violation of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty, accepted the Russian proposal for a chemical weapons agreement with Syria that did not eliminate Assad's chemical weapons or prevent Assad from using them and which helped Assad survive the rebellion, did nothing to stop election interference in 2016, refused to enable energy production in America to reduce Russia's oil sale income, pulled our last tanks out of Europe, and allowed American military readiness and war reserve stocks of ammunition to drop to dangerous levels.
Yes, Obama made late and small additions to American forces in Europe while imposing some sanctions on Russia for Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014. But the overall message was one of not provoking Russia rather than helping Ukraine fight.
Trump encourages energy production which expanded under Obama only in areas away from Obama's prior obstruction, Trump is reinforcing American forces in Poland and Germany, including adding more tanks, reestablished Second Fleet to fight for control of the sea lines of communication between North America and Europe, reestablished a logistics command in Europe to supply forces in eastern NATO, pushed missile defenses at home and in Europe, brought non-NATO Sweden and Finland into defense preparations in the Baltic region, reinforced NATO in Romania while pushing back against Russian claims to dominate the Black Sea, rebuked the INF treaty that only America was obeying, began rebuilding American readiness and war reserve stocks, bombed Syrian chemical weapons facilities despite Russia's presence in Syria, began selling lethal weapons to Ukraine to fight Russia in the Donbas, restored our military focus on conventional warfare and our focus on great power competition that includes Russia, loudly insisted that NATO members make good on their 2014 pledge to spend more on defense, strengthened our defenses against potential Russian meddling in the 2018 election, tightened sanctions on Russia, and warned Russia to stay away from Venezuela.
These contrasting positions in regard to Russia are simply off the top of my head and I assume more could be added to each category of actions with some research and thought.
Please excuse my lengthy quote, but it bears repeating in full during this age of posturing over supposed threats to our democracy and the very world that is gearing up in our media.
At worse, American military aid might be reduced as Europeans step up. Or Trump might try to leverage European financial power to pay for American military aid in a more transactional approach:
Trump seems transactional in nature. Perhaps aid to Ukraine will rely more on Europeans paying for American weapons sent to Ukraine.
Perhaps there will be something akin to the "destroyers-for-bases" deal with Britain in 1940. Although I imagine instead of bases he'd want stakes in Ukrainian strategic natural resources.
Or maybe military aid would be paid for with assets seized from Russia.
Maybe that's how Trump thinks he'll get Putin to end its war on Ukraine in a day. It won't work. But that path seems more likely for what Trump intends than letting Putin capture Ukraine and be responsible for all the evil and danger to American security that will follow that outcome.
Face it, this issue is merely more of Trump pushing Europeans to do more. That's what Trump did his first term rather than abandoning NATO.
Yet despite the actual Trump record, European Union throne sniffers will try to exploit a new "crisis" to strip away the prefix of their proto-imperial project.
I'd really like Republicans to move on from Trump for a number of reasons. Including his age. Do we really want to ignore the perils of electing a seriously old president after the last three years? Mind you, I'll vote for whoever runs against the increasingly bizarre Democrat Party's nominee since I'll have just two choices. But let's get real. Don't take European lamentations at face value. Any crisis will do. Even if it is fake.
NOTE: The image was made from DALL-E.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
