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by Aurelien
October 01, 2025
from
Aurelien2022 Website
Italian version
Source
A
newsletter devoted not to polemic,
but to trying to
make sense of today's world.
I've written several times now about the uncomfortable situation
resulting from the coming defeat in Ukraine, and the
unpleasant consequences for Europe that may result.
I now
want to make a few tentative suggestions about what how it might be
sensible for Europe to react. (The US is different, and I simply don't know
enough about the country to comment adequately.)
My purpose here is not to give unsolicited advice
to governments (unless you've worked in government you have no idea
how irritating that can be) but rather to set out in simple terms
what might be feasible.
I begin with the strategic situation, I move on
to constraints and then I set out a few possible ways forward.
First, European countries will find themselves
in a position unprecedented in their history. Remember that for all
that Europe is lazily described as the "Old Continent," its existing
political structure is very recent. Germany in its current form only
dates from 1990, the Czech Republic and Slovakia from 1993.
The unraveling of the Former Yugoslavia into
independent nations did not really finish until the independence of
Kosovo in 2008. (Come to that, Norway only obtained its own
independence in 1905.)
But more than that, the nation-state was not
traditional in Europe:
in 1914, most Europeans lived
in Empires, as they always had.
Moreover, large parts of Southeast Europe had
then only recently freed themselves from centuries of domination by
the Ottoman Empire:
colonialism lasted longer in Europe than it
did in sub-Saharan Africa, for example.
So the only vaguely comparable moment in European
history to that of today is between, say, 1921 and 1938:
between the
end of the Russo-Polish War, and the beginning of German territorial
expansion.
That period was characterized by a desperate
search for allies to avoid being surrounded or cut off, and a
grotesque and complex diplomatic dance involving, amongst others,
France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet
Union and Japan, in various combinations.
It didn't end well, as you may have heard.
From
the late 1940s until the end of the Cold War, relations were
structured, in the East by Soviet domination and occupation, and in
the West by membership of NATO and of the (then) European Community.
There were special cases like Sweden,
Finland and
Austria, but they were less "special" in reality than they were
survivors from the norms of another age.
Since then, the profusion of new states and the
progressive enlargement of the EU and NATO have brought added
structural complexity to Europe, without much in the way of
compensating advantages.
I argued
last week that the existing
political and security structures in Europe will not last much
longer substantively, since they are no longer useful, although they
will probably lead a continued ghostlike existence for some time.
And indeed, whether or not they formally exist
will make little difference to the issues I'm discussing today.
NATO is no longer an effective
military alliance, and the EU will be increasingly irrelevant to the
sort of political and security questions which will arise soon.
But in any case,
it would be wrong to assume that that the
foreign and security policies of member states were ever
entirely dominated by the two organizations anyway.
After all, the Greeks and the Turks had their own
private quarrels in the Aegean for generations, and for the Greeks
the enemy was not in Moscow but in Ankara.
And at a lower level of intensity, the complex
and multi-faceted relationship between France and Germany was a
fundamental part of each country's policy.
Meanwhile, Benelux solidarity, Scandinavian
solidarity, relations between Germany and Austria and Germany and
Turkey, complicated the internal affairs of these organizations, and
often crossed their boundaries.
But whatever formal structures may continue to exist, the reality is
that for the first time since the 1920s, European nations will have
to reflect seriously on their individual strategic situations and
how to make the best of them.
We are not in the 1990s, where Russia was on the
floor, the US seemed to be all-powerful, and both the EU and NATO
looked like promising structures to join.
Indeed, we are almost exactly at the
antipodes of such a situation...!
For Europeans, as I have previously argued, the
transatlantic link has outlived whatever usefulness it may have
retained in recent years:
the US is no longer of any value as a
counter to
Russia, not can its word be relied on.
On the other hand, the EU, whatever its other
virtues may be, is not a forum in which European security questions
can be properly addressed. So a return to bilateral and multilateral
arrangements seems inevitable.
But on what basis?
I try to answer that question below...
Now there are two opposite temptations here, and you should look out
for them in the torrent of words which will start to flow as defeat
looms.
- The FIRST could be described as
"rearranging the furniture."
The question there will be,
What is the least that we can actually
do, whilst still appearing to do something?
This is a standard recourse of governments,
and in the frightening and confusing world which is now
developing, we can expect it to appear very quickly.
"Better coordination," between European
states. "An intensified program of cooperation," between the
EU and NATO, inevitably "a stronger role for the
Commission," and a few off-the-wall gimmicks like a European
network of defence studies institutes, and more exchanges
between European war colleges and European defence
industries.
Yes, it's a pretty grim and unimaginative
list, but push a button and that's what you'll get in the short
term.
You'll notice that all of these proposals
begin from the solution, without asking what the problem
is.
But is "better coordination," necessarily
even part of the answer?
In the abstract, international coordination
is a good thing. In reality, it often just means that
representatives of different countries sit in stuffy rooms
endlessly arguing about detail and torturing written texts into
a final form that nobody likes, but that everyone can just about
accept.
Such a process very often reveals and
exacerbates differences rather than resolves them, and generates
texts and even "action plans" which just reflect the lowest
common denominator, and so often produce nothing of value at
all.
The thinking behind such proposals is
necessarily that the interests of the different countries are
sufficiently similar that with a little flexibility on all
sides, compromise is possible.
In reality, this is rarely the case when
significant issues are involved.
NATO exercises with other countries?
Who cares enough to argue?
EU Training team in Guinea-Bissau?
Who cares at all?
For decades now, European states have not
been obliged to take sides on genuinely difficult and divisive
issues.
Ukraine looked at first like an easy win
for Europe, and everybody wanted to be associated with a
victory. Now, European nations are sticking together out of fear
of being seen as the first to jump off the sinking ship.
But there will come a time when the ship has foundered, and at
that point, enormous divergences of interest will become
apparent. That's obvious even now, but it will be a lot more
obvious as all of the grim and divisive second- and third-order
consequences play themselves out, including many that we can
only guess at, at the moment.
And of course differences and dissent within
an organization are always much more damaging than any amount of
argument between independent states, because they hurt the
organization itself.
- The SECOND temptation is too wild
and impractical schemes, sometimes seriously intended, sometimes
just put forward to make a political splash.
They almost always follow the template of
solutions offered to problems which are essentially
unidentified. (remember "We must do something. This is
something. OK, let's do it...?)
Under this heading we will see proposals for,
-
a "European NATO"
-
a new European Defence Treaty
-
a European Nuclear Deterrent,
strategic alliances with other countries (we'll get back
to you with the details)
-
a new European Army
-
a Commissioner for Defence in the EU,
...and no doubt many others, most of which
will have been tried at some time in the past and failed.
Recent announcements about equipment purchases and increased
defence spending come into this category, because there is no
consideration of what such initiatives would actually be for or
what they are intended to produce. They are essentially
hand-waving: ("We must do something...")
Some things are clear straight away.
Nations will not spend 5% of their GDP on
defence, because even if they wanted to do so and their
parliaments voted the money, it could not be spent.
The Western economy, including that of
the US, is simply not capable of supplying the resources to
spend the money on, and there is no sign that western states
could significantly enlarge the size of their armed forces
anyway, either by recruitment or by conscription.
The main effect of extra money being
available would be inflation, as demand increased but
probably not supply. (Ironically, spending on mundane items
such as clothing, construction and vehicles would probably
benefit the economy overall, but only to a small degree.)
And what is this equipment for?
Nobody knows, except to underpin political
slogans about "defending against Russia." So far as I can see,
exactly no thought has been given to practical issues.
So, Minister,
you are going to increase your tank fleet
from 150 to 250 vehicles.
You do know that nobody is going to build
a factory for you, so your order will be tacked onto the end
of others, and it will be at least five years before you see
your first tank. You didn't?
And that you will need to completely
revise the structure of your Army, create new units, find
new commanders and subordinates, and order all sorts of
ancillary and support equipment. You didn't?
You'll need to decide an operational
concept, and whether, for example, you want armored or
mechanized brigades and whether they are for home defence or
deployment, since requirements will be different. You
haven't?
Because tanks are no use by themselves,
you'll need to define orders of battle, work out which other
types of weapons you will need (armored fighting vehicles,
artillery etc. etc) and place orders for them. You haven't?
We are dealing, of course, with a preternaturally
dim political class, and government structures which these days
scarcely function.
But we're also dealing with a completely
unprecedented situation, where, for the first time in a hundred
years, European governments each have to devise an individual
national defence and security strategy.
From strategy ultimately come missions, tasks and
doctrine - what do you want the armed forces to do Mr. President? -
and without doctrine there is no point in buying this or that
equipment.
During the Cold War, NATO had developed doctrines
and an elaborate set of Force Goals. These Goals were seldom reached
in practice, but they did provide some sort of context for national
defence planning.
After the Cold War, there were deployments in
Bosnia and then in Afghanistan to provide a
degree of collective context, and, since that time, things have,
well, drifted a bit.
Suddenly, western nations are confronted with
existential questions which they have no experience of dealing with
and to which, in my view, there are probably no satisfactory answers
anyway.
Consider:
in the 1920s and 1930s, defence in Europe was
basically home-grown.
Military service was the rule, and even small
countries often had their own defence industry.
Technology was advancing quickly, and
equipment generally had a short life before being replaced by a
more advanced version, or by something else:
five years in-service for a fighter
aircraft would be a long time.
Production was rapid, and support was not
that complicated.
Literally none of that is true today:
imagine that your Air Force desperately needs
a new multirole aircraft.
There are a restricted number on the market,
the investment is colossal, it will take ten years for your
fleet to be completely delivered, and the aircraft, with
upgrades, will remain in service until 2060.
You have to try to imagine what possible
roles the aircraft may have in a generation's time, as well, of
course, as taking account of the plans of your neighbors and any
allies.
But in many ways the problem is more fundamental than that.
What are your armed forces actually for?
(Hand-waving answers about fighting and
winning wars are not allowed.)
It is so long since national governments were
obliged to confront this problem that it's not even clear how they
could go about it.
At least in the 1930s, when fear of a
general war was widespread, European nations could look at their
neighbors, or their traditional enemies, to give them some idea of
where to start.
That is not possible now. Indeed, one of the
benefits of NATO and the EU has been to bury traditional enmities to
the point where war between western European states now seems
unthinkable.
In any case, no western state has military forces
really capable of damaging the others.
Strategically, therefore,
"Europe" (we'll come back to those inverted
commas) now finds itself militarily weak, without the
possibility of rebuilding its military potential seriously,
unable to rely on the US as a balancing factor, and confronted
with an angry and resentful military superpower which is likely
to pursue its interests without a great deal of sensitivity
towards those of its western neighbors.
Europe will be constrained by the lack of any
obvious strategy, by the need to invest in systems with no idea
whether they will ever be needed, and by the decline and
possible disappearance of existing multinational structures.
The largest constraint by far, though, is the
lack of any real security policy concept. Now it's important to
understand that "security" in this sense means much more than "defence,"
let alone "military."
It is a policy for ensuring the security of the
country, by whatever means seem best.
But expressions of blind rage, spite and
hostility towards Russia do not count as security policy, and for as
long as those continue, Europe will be suspended in an intellectual
void.
It will take time for the present crew of
political shysters and psychotic managerialists to be washed
out of the system, but it has to happen.
If that means a Russian strike on European
territory in retaliation for some piece of nonsense launched from
there, then I fear that is what we are going to get.
And then, surveying the wreckage with
incredulity, a new set of leaders, with luck wiser or at least less
delusional than their predecessors, will have to start
effectively from zero...!
The next major constraint is the impossibility of any military
challenge to Russia.
Now there is no reason to suppose that the
Russians have any desire to engage in conflict directly with the
West (though see below), nor that they see any advantage in
doing so.
To the extent that such a conflict ever
began, Russian conventional missiles would devastate much of
western Europe, while Europe (or for that matter the US) would
not be able to respond in kind.
The Russians have a mostly impenetrable air defence screen, and any western aircraft that came close enough to
launch missiles would be lucky to survive.
Western air forces would be fortunate to manage a
couple of missions before they and their airbases were essentially
destroyed.
In theory, this constraint could be overcome by
the development of anti-missile systems and their deployment on a
massive scale, but in practice this is not going to happen. Since
the Russians aren't going to seek a ground war, and the country is
too far away to launch serious air attacks against it, this is a
major complexity, as well as a major constraint.
In that context, the third major constraint is the lack of an
obvious collective strategic interest, either within NATO or the EU
(and remembering that the two are largely, but not entirely
identical in membership.)
In the past, this was less of a problem.
In the Cold War, for example, all European
NATO
nations could expect to be involved in a general war with the Warsaw
Pact in some way.
Access to Soviet planning documents after 1990
confirmed what many had suspected:
for the Soviet Union, a possible
war, which they may quite seriously have expected the West to start,
would be the Big One, The Final Battle, involving
nuclear weapons and occupation of the whole of Europe. (There were
detailed plans for the occupation of the Iberian peninsula, for
example.)
Whilst NATO never made plans at that level of
ambition or detail for political reasons, it was still generally
accepted that a future war would be apocalyptic and all-inclusive.
Nothing remotely like that situation exists
today.
The Russian concern is not with acquiring
territory but with securing its borders and pushing possible
threats as far away as possible.
This comes fairly close to a zero-sum game,
as we'll see, and Russian demands will be mainly political and
military, rather than territorial.
In NATO, nations sit by convention in English
alphabetical order, so that you now find Poland next to Portugal,
and Sweden next to Spain.
But just ask yourself for a moment,
what overlap there is in their strategic
interest...
Fair enough,
But their strategic situation is not the same,
and neither has anything whatever to do with the strategic situation
of Spain and Portugal.
In effect, there is already an implicit division of Europe into,
-
Near neighbors of Russia
(including Norway, Sweden, the Baltics, and Finland)
-
Farther neighbors of
Russia (including
Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria etc.)
-
Distant neighbors of
Russia (including
Germany, France, Italy Spain and the UK)
In the last case, it's hard to see that there is
any real commonality of interest with Russia's Near neighbors.
However, alliances and even political
understandings tend to take this commonality as read:
Estonia is a NATO member, North Macedonia is
a NATO member, therefore... well, perhaps not very much,
actually.
The thinking behind alliance and political
linkage is often expressed as "freedom is indivisible" or "the
security of one is the security of all," or some similar formula,
which is only doubtfully true if we attend at all to
history.
It's not just that beyond a certain size the interrelations between
large numbers of states become unmanageable, it's also that your
quarrel rapidly becomes everybody else's quarrel as well.
There is no reason to suppose that in any future
crisis between Lithuania and Russia, nations further West have
anything to gain by involving themselves on Lithuania's side. They
may or may not have sympathy for one side or the other, but actually
providing practical or even political support is more likely to
inflame the crisis than prevent it.
History suggests that alliances aren't always a
good idea anyway.
Although the "clockwork" image of the start of
the First World War is recognized to be an oversimplification, it's
true that the War became generalized at the point it did because
Russia felt it had no alternative but to support Serbia against
Austria, whilst Germany felt it had no choice but to support its
ally Austria against Russia.
In each case, the tail wagged the dog...
In the 1930s France believed that it was
strengthening its position by alliances with Poland and
Czechoslovakia, yet came to understand that it was not deterring
a resurgent Germany, and that its notional allies were actually a
source of weakness, a situation which is far more common than people
like to admit.
This is not to say that states geographically removed from Russia
will have no issues with that country. (The French are
understandably angry that the Russians have been undermining their
position in Africa, for example.)
But it's hard to see what the continuation of a
military alliance would do to solve, or even alleviate, such
problems.
The real danger is that distant
states become sucked into conflicts not of their own
devising and not of their own seeking...
This has been happening ever since there were
states, and there is no reason to think the danger has gone away. It
is most likely to show itself in an irrational and pointlessly
confrontational reaction to
the defeat in Ukraine.
There is nothing sillier than making faces and
mouthing insults when you have nothing to back them up with, but
Russia, heir after all to centuries of suspicion about enemies to
the West, is likely to over-interpret sulking and hissy-fits as
something more serious.
After all, you can imagine a Russian pundit
saying,
look, Germany was effectively disarmed in
1931 and see where they were decade later...
You can't be too careful! Indeed, if we are not
content with the disaster of Ukraine and we want another and
bigger one, that could well be Russian over-reaction to childish
threats from the West.
If you accept then, that Europe (with or without the US) has no
serious chance of facing up to Russia militarily, and that in any
case the strategic interests of its member states will be too
diverse to make this practicable, much of the current cloud of
uncertainty is dissipated, or will be when reality finally sinks in.
However, understanding this and drawing the right
conclusions, are frankly beyond the current display of garden gnomes
we have as leaders.
At some point though, in different ways in
different countries,
more realistic leaders will emerge,
because they always do.
We must hope that this does not take too
long...
What can we say about the options they will have?
Well, firstly these options will be very much
a product of geography and population.
For the Near neighbors of Russia,
there will be little choice but to adopt a conciliatory policy
towards Moscow, to seek good relations and avoid doing anything
that might upset the Kremlin.
Intelligently managed - as was the case with
Finland after 1945 - this does not have to be a
disaster.
Indeed, wise politicians, if there are any,
should be able to perform a balancing act between Russia and the
West:
the difficulty now is that one side of
the balance is a lot weaker than it used to be.
The danger, of course, is that widespread
resentment of this subordinate status will bring nationalists
to power, with unpredictable results.
Here, I fear, there is the real possibility of
overreaction by Moscow.
Moving into the Baltic States, for example
pour encourager les autres would not be difficult to do
(it's been done before) and there's nothing in practice that the
West can do about it.
The Farther neighbors will likewise have
to avoid provoking Moscow, and begin the slow and delicate process
of rebuilding political and economic relations.
They will very much be the weaker players,
but on the other hand, for the foreseeable future Russia will
not be terribly interested in them, as long as they do not
appear to constitute a threat.
They will be encouraged to ask any remaining
US forces to leave, and to become de facto neutrals.
Whether this is feasible with anything like the
current European political class, I doubt:
indeed, some entire political systems may not
survive the wrenching series of changes required.
The Distant neighbors, where we can
include Britain and France, but also
Germany, Italy and Spain,
will have the most freedom of action, and much of the rest of this
essay is devoted to them.
Being relatively distant does not mean the task
is necessarily easy. (For example, the British will have to accept,
however difficult it might be, the depth of historic Russian
paranoia about London's "hidden" activities, and learn to allow for
it.)
But the one thing that is clear is that Europe is
in the process of moving out of the post-1945 mould, and back to
something much more traditional.
In that context, the Distant neighbors
will increasingly detach themselves from the others, not least
because they have no resources available to influence Russian
behavior towards closer neighbors.
And what about this Russian behavior?
I have no idea what the Russians will do, and
I'm not a specialist in the country.
But we can make use of Inherent Political
Probability, and a bit of history, and consider what a large and
powerful nation in this situation might do.
- First of all, they will want to
ensure that the sacrifices of the War are not in vain, and
cannot easily be reversed. That means that no military threat
can be launched against Russia which puts any of those gains in
question.
This requires a ring of states around Russia
which are non-threatening, not just because their own military
capacity is very limited, but more importantly because no
foreign forces are allowed on their soil.
This effectively dictates a Quisling
regime in Kiev,
which becomes an effective ally of
Moscow, and takes primary responsibility for hunting down
and eliminating any fanatical nationalists that survive.
It also demands effective neutrality in the
Baltic States and Finland, and possibly in
Sweden and Rumania as well.
- Second, and as a slightly different
point, they will want to be able to say that the wider
objectives of the war have been met.
This may well require the wholesale
dismemberment of Ukraine and the effective control of
its political system and its economy, as well as substantial
influence over the political systems of its Near neighbors.
More widely, they will seek something like
the outcome envisaged in their 2021 draft treaty with NATO.
That draft was rejected - unsurprisingly,
since accepting it would have been politically impossible at the
time - but I suspect that the Russians will be back soon with
something substantially similar.
Thus, they will encourage, by overt and
covert means, voices in Europe suggesting good relations with
Russia, and they will cause problems for any more assertive
actors.
There are a number of political and
economic levers available to do this overtly, and of course
if they want to rattle sabres there will be no shortage of
sabres to rattle.
There is also an almost unlimited range
of possible covert operations, with which the Russians have
much experience.
- Third, they will want to weaken and
undermine western influence elsewhere.
For example, the loss of the
US Rammstein
airbase in Germany would massively complicate any US attempt to
mount operations in the Middle East.
The Russians have already been busy
undermining the French position in West Africa, feeding off a
poisonous tradition of anti-French resentment that most
English-speakers are unaware of, and off the remains of a
historical memory of Moscow's support for "liberation movements"
during the Cold War.
It's doubtful whether the Russians expect to
replace France in these countries - they don't have the depth of
knowledge or the capability, and Wagner has shown itself
incapable of fighting the jihadists - but their purpose is
essentially negative:
to undermine French influence there.
We can expect the same sort of attempts in
the rest of Africa and also in
Latin America, where the Russians
will attempt to undermine the US position.
More generally, they will seek to weaken
NATO, which they consider a threat, and probably the EU as well.
All of this is fairly elementary.
The question is how, if at all, to react.
I say
"if at all" because by now I think we are past the point where
knee-jerk opposition to everything the Russians do makes any sense.
In practical terms Russia's Near neighbors will have to be
considered as part of their sphere of influence, and there's nothing
much that can be done about it.
But remember I said earlier that I am concerned
here with security policy, not just, or even mostly, military
and defence issues.
Security policy includes everything
from diplomacy through police and customs, to intelligence, to
defence and the military, all, at least in theory, as part of a
common strategy.
So the first thing that has to be worked out is
an overall strategy towards a victorious and angry Russia.
The first priority, obviously, is not to make things worse. The West
would come off significantly worse in any armed clash, and it has
every interest in de-escalating and calming the situation.
That said, it is not obvious, for the reasons
given above, that "the West" will be able to develop a common
position.
So let us confine the argument to the Far
neighbors, notably Britain, France,
Germany, Spain and Italy,
who are all a long way from Russia and do not need to involve
themselves with its more immediate neighbors.
For them, Russia does not have to be the
only, or even the main, priority.
For example,
many western and southern European states,
face a much greater threat from uncontrolled immigration,
generally organized by criminal cartels, and accompanied by
their representatives.
There are parts of many European cities now where
drug gangs effectively rule, and where the forces of the state,
including health and emergency services, cannot go for fear of
attack.
Sober voices now characterize countries such
as Belgium and the Netherlands as
incipient narco-states, where the state's monopoly of
legitimate violence is no longer guaranteed.
There are areas of French cities run by drugs
gangs more numerous and more heavily armed than the police.
Public opinion - especially among the immigrant
communities themselves - is much more concerned about these issues
than about nebulous threats from Russia.
This is in turn only a part of the wider threat
from Transnational Organized Crime and various forms of
terrorism, which collectively largely outrank any "threat" from
Russia by some distance.
That said, the next priority will obviously be to develop a better
understanding of Russia and what its leaders want.
The kind of ignorant, superior,
dismissive approach that has characterized the last generation
will no longer do.
Genuine experts on the country will be
needed, and overall policy should be geared to "living
with Russia", not mindlessly opposing every
Russian
action.
Likewise, the overall intelligence effort needs
to be stepped up and improved in quality (with the emphasis on
‘intelligence') but this is not to say that Russia would be the
major target for all, or even most, European countries.
Conversely, there will be areas where European
countries and Russia can actually cooperate, and it is pointless to
seek to spite the Russians for the sake of it, the more so since it
will only further encourage an angry Russia to reciprocate.
All that said, there will roles for military forces and defence
assets generally, but primarily a political and strategic ones.
Machiavelli's dictum that,
the man who goes unarmed goes un-respected,
...is unfortunately true in international
relations, where states with capable and effective militaries
provide governments with strengths and advantages they would not
otherwise have.
This is not a simple arithmetic relationship:
the armed forces of Egypt are larger than
those of Algeria, but Algeria is a regional military power and
Egypt is not.
One of the two main roles is the assertion of
sovereignty:
a word (and concept) that has largely been
forgotten.
The existence of armed forces, even on a limited
scale, is an assertion of national sovereignty and independence.
It's not a question of banally "defending" the
country, but rather, as was the norm in history and is still the
norm outside Europe, providing a visible national political symbol.
Reverting to such a concept after generations of
marching beneath multinational flags will be difficult for some to
accept, but will actually do a lot to garner public support for the
military and promote recruitment.
It's interesting that in France, which has always
had an unambiguously nationalist view of its military, public
support is still strong and recruitment is less of a problem than in
many other countries.
Paradoxically, all this actually makes
international cooperation easier, because it will be on the basis
of genuine common interest, not obligation.
Of course it's not all parades either.
Policing air and maritime frontiers is an
important practical role for the military, and will help to
dictate where the money goes.
In this context, traditional roles such as
intercepting Russian aircraft over the North Sea will retain their
importance.
It doesn't matter whether in practice the
European A123 is technically inferior to the Russian Z456,
because the aircraft are not going to fight:
they are playing out a
traditional game which influences the political calculus of the
various countries.
The second role derives from
Clausewitz's much-misquoted and
much misunderstood dictum that the existence of the military
enables,
"the continuation of state policy with the
addition of other means."
In other words,
the military are an extra tool in the box
as needed...
Here, the brutal fact is that serious military
powers have more influence, both regionally and globally, than
unserious ones, and this is reflected in the UN and elsewhere, in
discussions about crises in the world, in the management of these
crises and in proposed solutions.
If the Canadians turned up with a plan for a Gaza
peacekeeping force, no-one would bother to listen to them.
Europe will still have two of the P5 states, and thus two of the
world's nuclear weapon states.
Some kind of "Eurobomb" is another silly idea not
worth thinking about, and the notion of a nuclear "umbrella" was
always a journalistic fallacy.
But having two nuclear powers in Europe does
have visible and measurable effects on the political balance,
and British and French cooperation on nuclear
weapons, which is obviously sensible, has only advanced by baby
steps, but is probably going to become inevitable.
A continent practicing what used to be called
"non-provocative defence" and using its armed forces as a way of
preserving the greatest degree of sovereignty and independence,
is a long way from the fever-dreams of our
current political class, but it's the only sensible way to go.
In the past, that would have been sneeringly
dismissed as "Finlandization,"
although in fact the Finns did quite well out of the policy.
We now need to learn the rules of "Finlandization
2,0"...
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