Yves here. Former ambassador Chas Freeman observed that it was unnatural for EU countries to be dependent on the US for security, which then dictated substantial elements of their foreign policy. He said they needed to grow up. As the post below describes, that process is starting, with the biggest states, France, Germany, and Poland, jockeying for position.
By Andrew Korybko, a Moscow-based American political analyst who specializes in the global systemic transition to multipolarity in the New Cold War. He has a PhD from MGIMO, which is under the umbrella of the Russian Foreign Ministry. Originally published at his website
French President Macron’s declaration on Wednesday that he’s flirting with extending his country’s nuclear umbrella over other continental allies shows that he’s throwing down the gauntlet to Germany and Poland for leadership of post-conflict Europe. Outgoing German Chancellor Scholz published an hegemonic manifesto in December 2022 that later took the form of what can be described as “Fortress Europe”, which refers to the German-led attempt to lead Europe’s containment of Russia.
This concept requires Poland subordinating itself to Germany, which unfolded over the first half of last year but then slowed as the ruling liberal-globalist coalition started taking a more populist-nationalist approach towards Ukraine ahead of May’s presidential election. Even if this started off insincerely, it’s since assumed a life of its own and created a new dynamic in the latest circumstances brought about by Trump’s return whereby “Poland Is Once Again Poised To Become The US’ Top Partner In Europe”.
Poland’s economy is the largest of the EU’s eastern members, it now boasts NATO’s third-largest army, and it’s consistently sought to be the US’ most reliable ally, the last point of which works most in its favor amidst the transatlantic rift. If these trends remain on track, Poland could prevent France or Germany from leading post-conflict Europe by carving out a US-backed sphere of influence in Central Europe, but it would have a shot at leadership in its own right if conservatives or populists come to power.
The sequence of events that would have to unfold begins with either of them winning the presidency, and this either pushing the liberal-globalists more in their direction ahead of fall 2027’s parliamentary elections or early elections being held on whatever pretext and then won by conservatives or populists. Poland’s former conservative government was very imperfect, but their country served as a bastion of EuroRealists (usually described by the Mainstream Media as Euroskeptics) during those eight years.
Should it reassume that role upon the return of conservative rule in parliament, perhaps in a coalition with populists, then this would perfectly align with Trump’s vision and could result in Poland either leading similar domestic political processes across the continent or at least in its own region. Even if only the second-mentioned scenario materializes, it would most effectively prevent liberal-globalist France or Germany from leading Europe as a whole by bifurcating it into ideologically competing halves.
France’s nuclear weapons are the ace up its sleeve though that it might play for keeping some conservative/populist-inclined societies under liberal-globalist sway by extending its umbrella over those countries which fear that Russia will invade but that they’ll then be abandoned by the US. That might help reshape some of their voters’ views if they come to feel dependent on France and thus decide to show fealty to it by keeping their ideologically aligned governments in power instead of change them.
This doesn’t mean that France will succeed, but what was explained above accounts for Macron’s unprecedented proposal in the context of his country’s Great Power ambitions at this historic moment. A lot in this regard will likely depend on the outcome of Romania’s domestic political crisis, which readers can learn more about here, since the liberal-globalist coup against the populist-nationalist frontrunner in May’s election redux could further entrench French influence in this geostrategic frontline state.
Few are aware, but France already has hundreds of troops there, where it leads a NATO battlegroup. It also signed a defense pact with neighboring Moldova in March 2024, which could hypothetically include the deployment of troops to there too. France’s military presence in Southeastern Europe places it in a prime position for conventionally intervening in Ukraine if it so chooses, whether before or after the end of hostilities, and suggests that Macron will focus on this region for expanding French influence.
Should progress be made, then three other scenarios would be possible. The first is that Poland and France compete in Central Europe, with the first eventually extending its sway over the Baltics while the second does the same over Southeastern Europe (within which Moldova is included in this context due to its close ties with Romania), thus trifurcating Europe between them and Germany. In this scenario, Germany would also have some influence over each Central Europe region, but it wouldn’t predominate.
The second scenario is that Poland and France, which have been historical partners since the early 1800s, cooperate in Central Europe by informally dividing the Baltics and Southeastern Europe between them in order to asymmetrically bifurcate Europe into imperfectly German and Polish-Franco halves. The Polish part would either remain under partial US influence if Poland continues aligning with the US even under liberal-globalist rule or the liberal-globalists might pivot towards France and away from the US.
The final scenario is that all three employ their Weimar Triangle format to coordinate tripartite rule over Europe, but this is dependent on the liberal-globalists capturing the Polish presidency in May and then aligning with Berlin/Brussels over Washington. It’s therefore the least likely, especially since the liberal-globalists might pivot towards France instead of Germany/EU as a compromise between their ideological, electoral, and geopolitical interests ahead of fall 2027’s parliamentary elections.
Regardless of what ends up transpiring, the “military Schengen” that was pioneered between Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands last year and to which France expressed an intent to join will likely continue incorporating more EU members in order facilitate these three aspiring leaders’ interests. Germany needs this for its “Fortress Europe” plans, Poland needs its allies to swiftly come to its aid in a hypothetical war with Russia, while France needs this to entrench its influence in Southeastern Europe.
What’s ultimately being determined through the interplay of France, Germany, and Poland’s competing leadership plans for post-conflict Europe is the continent’s future security architecture, which will also be influenced to varying degrees by Russia and the US, be it jointly through their “New Détente” and/or independently. There are too many uncertainties at present to confidently predict what this emerging order will look like, but the dynamics described in this analysis account for the most likely scenarios.
What could possibly go wrong?
In a sense, it will go very wrong once those countries start discussing common rearmament plans.
The French would like everybody to buy French or some French-dominated European systems (especially if they provide the atomic umbrella), the Germans everybody to buy German, the Poles buy from South Korea, countries like Belgium or Denmark buy from the USA, cooperation to design and manufacture important pieces of equipment have been often plagued by dissension (France+Germany for tanks in the 1960s and now, Germany+USA for tanks in the 1970s, France+Germany for aircraft now, France+Germany+UK+Italy+Spain for aircraft in the 1990s, Austria+Greece for AFV in the 1980s…)
My guess is that all this will soon degenerate into bickering as individual or multilateral projects go astray without coordination.
Exactly. It will be very problematic. Even the EU Defence Fund, which looks the easiest part to agree, will be extremely difficult. No matter how much the poodles bark. Once each country descends to the practicalities of this and notice that their strategic objectives are quite different from those being pursued by the ones barking the most well…
The noises in the hen-house will be heard in New Zealand.
One other problem – corruption in some of the countries will basically hoover up the money there with little of use to show for it. Yes, the weapons will be in the inventory, but the support and infrastructure required to actually use them will basically be there only on paper. Bulgaria’s new F-16s currently are sitting and waiting in the US because graft meant that hanger, runway and support facilities are not ready and inspections by the US have shown serious defects that currently render them unusable for F-16 operations.
The hypocrisy of the EU is embarrassing. According to news i have read at El Pais (Spanish) “the leaders of the 27” have agreed that they will have to agree on a EU level plan of about 800 Billion € to boost military spending, though most of it will be budgeted by each member state (not EU money) with the premises that such military spending “won’t count on the fiscal compact”. That money will have to be used to fund “pan-european projects”, whatever they are, and “joint purchases”. The reason to justify this: is that there is an “existential threat”. Here is where the hypocrisy comes in full. How easy is to find reasons to justify something that would be impossible to do without breaking the rules that these people have imposed to any other kind of public expenditure including public investments. So the supposed sacred “financial stability” and “economic sustainability” cows can be milked without consequences only when such expenses are used to rescue financial institutions or in defence spending. In any other case these rules hold. How can this be possible?
Aah! because we can hide/park such debt, can we? So why don’t we do the same, for instance, to save pensions?
Yep. But there will likely be Euro money involved as well in some countries. If Von der Leyen’s original proposal hasn’t been changed, cohesion funds disbursed to poorer countries like Bulgaria to speed-up development will be repurposed for weapons purchases. That means they will mostly go right back to France or Germany, minus whatever commissions the local compradors get to keep. It’s breathtakingly cynical.
I am having in particular issue with the term “existential threat”. As the burden of proof lies with the documentation of that threat. And that documentation is non-existent. Now how far may “national security” and the bending of principles of law and orderly conduct go? How is it possible that “national security” is above the law? Is that not Absolutism? How can it be that it is exempt from the necessity to prove it´s point? Like every other stratum of society? It cannot since – as e.g. the German Constitution clearly states – “all power emanates form the German people.”
We got rid of the king and the Catholic Church for this very reason. They were above the law. And what else is the law but objective proof?
Oppositional movements should be working this angle constantly. For some reason they don´t. When I e.g. suggest that the allegations of Russian threats of use of WMDs in the fall of 2022 are pure fiction – I am being ignored. But plz show me the money on that. I don´t see it.
It´s almost as if they all feared the truth – all of them. Because then their racism and their deep secret desire that the Russians be the bad guys because they are born that way may come to light.
Self-deception. Self-destruction. Cowardice. Is this Catholocism undead? The lies and fabrications over this are too obvious. Every high schooler could prove to the world. The king has no clothes. He is not even a king. He is a gambling-addict without any money. But the casino is a fortress. It´s time to storm it.
Interestingly Thales, Steyr, Rheinmetall, BAE and the US weapons giants all own each other. From memory the biggest shareholder of Rheinmetall these days is Blackrock and Rheinmetall has hoovered up the former constellation of German arms manufacturers. They are all major shareholders of each other, no wonder we have so much warfare.
I know this means little when it comes to jobs, taxes and so on though.
Sorry for asking, but do we have some graphics on that? I know it too as common wisdom. But what is “common wisdom” worth today when politics as like religion. You can only disprove it if you have a telescope. And even then they refuse to look through it.
Seconded. It could be quite revealing to see that whether “national champions” in the defense industry are truly national, or even European, especially considering the waves of privatization that let government-owned design bureaus, manufacturing plants, and arsenals become for-profit private entities.
RE infographics that was exactly my first thought. Here’s a link to BIGGEST DEFENSE COMPANIES EUROPE (hope it works) https://www.voronoiapp.com/military/Biggest-Defence-Companies-in-Europe-3237
It’s not a direct correlation from “Ownership of Company” to “Stocks Owned By” but it’s a jumping off point and has datasets available like which stock market it’s registered at.
Another few minutes and you can find an example of Airbus (#1 EU in the infographic above) Stock Ownership breakdown on this page https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/AIRBUS-SE-4637/company/ If you scroll down a bit there’s a Shareholders section, and a Holdings section.
Eg. Shareholders show the top 3 being the Governments of 10% France, 10% Germany, 4% Spain. Then you get a British company called TCI Fund management at about 3%. Some more private companies from UK, France, and US. And the rest of the info is hidden behind a paywall or would take more time to find elsewhere.
And then a somewhat useful article about Airbus Ownership. https://simpleflying.com/europes-manufacturing-juggernaut-who-owns-airbus/
What seems interesting is this “Thus, the remaining 74.1%, or nearly 590 million shares, are in free float and are controlled by outside third-party investors, most of whom are American. Other American asset management organizations maintain significant stakes, including the Vanguard Group, which controls 2.5% of the firm, and BlackRock Advisors, which owns roughly 1.2%. Investment firms Fidelity Management & Research, Invesco Advisers, and PRIMECAP Management all maintain smaller shares. Two British firms, TCI Fund Management and Capital International, each control significant shares as well, with 3% and 1.6%, respectively.”
It’s not much, but it’s a start for those curious.
They could gather, naked, holding hands in a circle around a blazing bonfire, on a moonless night, in a deep, dark, ancient European forest and ….
…….ask, from the depths of their very beings…..
“What would Satan do?”…….
..Right on schedule. We again let Poland try to show us they are capable of making their own decisions, and they quickly degenerate back to the hyenas they are. Only a decade or two more to go now before they get taken back apart and put back under adult management for another go.
Macron may say that he will extend the French nuclear shield east but you can only trust him as far as the door. The next day he is likely to say the opposite as he changes his mind all the time – sometimes on the same day. And it’s not like France has a stable government and Macron’s position is totally secure. Do you really want to have your country’s security depend on Macron?
Another factor is that there are fractures in Europe that will work against common security. The Baltic States would love to have Europe declare war on Russia tomorrow – while they stayed back to make the sandwiches. Hungary and Slovakia want no part of the lunacy that has enveloped European leaders of which a few privately support those two country’s stance. More countries will join this mini-block over time.
And of course the war in the Ukraine has severely undermined the European leadership as they have revealed themselves to be incompetents. Efforts to replace them with the right (as the left has been systematically destroyed in the EU) are encountering fierce opposition and the cancelling of the Romanian election has shown the depths that they are willing to plumb to keep power for themselves. So any new power configuration is going to be compromised right from the get-go.
He said they needed to grow up.
If this is what it means to “grow up” then you can count me as a child. I think Lavrov’s recent comments on Napoleon, Hitler and Europe’s attempts to dominate Russia, and the outcome of those attempts in death of millions, is apropos.
He meant grow up and operate as mature countries who as much as they could, chose their own destinies.
Jeffrey Sachs used those same words – time to grow up and have an adult foreign policy rather than doing whatever the US dictates. Sachs also pointed out that US and European interests have many common points but are not identical.
Yes. But actual growing up at this particular juncture requires the politicians to be a calming force on the populations. Instead, what I see on the ground here is that they are turning up the stridency of russophobic rethoric and fearmongering about “Evil Putin,” which is like throwing barrels of gasoline into the fire of the Euro PMCs and assorted loonies, who then amplify it exponentially. Hard as it may be to believe, Euro PMCs at this point are probably even more divorced from reality than their brethren on the other side of the pond. Meanwhile loonies, particularly in Eastern Europe, have such visceral hatred for and desire for revenge upon Russia, that feeding it may backfire badly if and when Euro elites finally decide or are forced to seek detente or some other accommodation with Russia.
Frankly, even Fortress Europe would be an improvement over the current Madhouse Europe, but I remain skeptical that the EU will get its act together enough to pull it off.
I’m soooo glad the UK is out of all this.
If Starmer thought he’d get a lookin at EU defence spending, surely he must realise he’s on a hiding to nothing.
This analysis is interesting, but it is more a diagnosis of continuing problems and fantasies than an indication of what happens after NATO and the European Commission (von der Leyen and Kajas) admit defeat of their ultra-marvelous adventures in Ukraine.
If I may put it this way: What of the PIIGS? The PIIGS, who likely will end up footing the bill? That is, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain. As an Italian commenter has a pointed out, the same Euro Commission that didn’t want to give 300 billion euro to Greece now wants to send 800 billion euro to non-member Ukraine (?). Oh.
The economic disadvantages to the PIIGS are enormous. Living as I do in the Undisclosed Region of Italy, I will point out that Italy is second in the EU in industrial production and, as I discovered recently, first in value added in agriculture. Spain is not so far behind Italy in these regards (having a smaller population).
I tend to think it unlikely that the Lithuanians want to deal with the tenderness of the Poles, who consider them to be bumpkins. Likewise, the Czechs, who will recall Polish misbehavior during the 1938 crisis — a crisis much quoted these days with important details left out.
The French and Germans have limited influence in the former Yugoslavia, because they fomented the mess there, which still hasn’t been settled.
See this article from today’s Links for the English (and I do mean the English) angle and deceptions:
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/03/05/europes-facing-saving-theater-on-ukraine/
from the astute Joe Lauria.
For those who read Italian, Barbara Spinelli, who is a power in her own right, describing the disasters of the rearmament effort (that will land on Italy):
https://www.nuovatlantide.org/barbara-spinelli-cronaca-interno-politica-il-nemico-delleuropa-e-il-riarmo-di-ursula/
Barbara Spinelli’s father was the remarkable Altiero Spinelli, who wrote a manifesto on European integration while a prisoner of the fascist regime on the island of Ventotene. Ernesto Rossi, Eugenio Colorni, and Spinelli worked together (during their “spare time” as prisoners) and are considered the Italian “fathers” of integration as well as participants in creating the post-war constitution and new social order.
In short, the diagnosis is of a north-south split, because no one in southern Europe is going to take Polish pretensions seriously. And an ascendent Germany? Oh.
One should mention that
1) those Southern European countries still face the decades-long problem of waves of immigration coming from North Africa and the Levant (but originating as far as Erythrea or Afghanistan);
2) at the same time, the Northern European countries have not been very forthcoming in helping them cope with it;
3) all the while, the absurd policies of the EU in Syria, Palestine, Libya, and possibly in the future, Armenia, may well result in further flows of displaced people desperately trying to come to Europe;
4) and as if this was not enough, unabated flows of drugs from South America, directly of via Africa, and from Asia, also end up on the shores of the PIIGS.
All those great power games about who ascends to become the top dog are fun, but I suspect Europe will be soon abruptly reminded of the sheer, very tangible, very immediate problems affecting its soft underbelly.
vao:
Thanks. All of these are insightful observations. Libya is a horrifying mess that is a sore spot in Italy, even if it was partially self-inflicted.
According to a December 2024 poll and statistical report by Censis, the Italian statistical bureau, Italy also gave citizenship to more new citizens in 2024 than any other country in the EU, some 200,000. Of course, many are children of the Italian “diaspora,” who can petition for citizenship ius sanguinis, and would especially be USonions and Brazilians.
In the Undisclosed Region, there is much effort at regularizing migrants and integrating them into Italian society. By the time immigrants go to work and put their kids in school, the families are swiftly assimilating. This may be why we don’t have the random car attacks as in Germany.
This point is central, and I thank you for making it: “My guess is that all this will soon degenerate into bickering as individual or multilateral projects go astray without coordination.”
–As Barbara Spinelli and Marco Travaglio keep pointing out: You can’t have a unified army if you don’t have a state, and no one wants to turn the EU into a state. And you can’t have a unified army with an association of 27 different countries with 27 foreign policies. And I, for one, won’t stand for Kaja Kallas deciding on Italian foreign policy.
“And you can’t have a unified army with an association of 27 different countries with 27 foreign policies.”
Kind of like a variation of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire on steroids?
If they could include the RF in their vision of the future they would have a stronger hand in a multi polar world. And I wonder where Turkey fits.
Korybko writes as if the “liberal globalist” faction in the US, the dominant element in the “liberal globalist coalition” that controls NATO and shapes European policy, has been defeated once and for all by Trumpian “populism.” Thus Europe must figure out how to go it alone, or rather how to divide power between its three most prominent nations. Is this really a sound assumption? Our “internationalists” advocating continued US hegemony are not just the “liberal” sectors of the Establishment. Our foreign policy institutions are completely infested by neocons; our military leaders still see the world through the prism of unipolar US primacy; and we have a massive “military-industrial complex” that drives military spending and war-mongering as ends in themselves and have the money and influence to do so. They all have somewhat different, but convergent interests in maintaining US hegemony in Europe.
I doubt there are a handful of Republicans in Congress who really agree with the Trump administration on Ukraine, but they’re all too scared to challenge him directly (witness the ultimate war-monger Lindsay Graham’s boot-licking performance in throwing Zelensky under the bus after the Great White House beat down). Does Trump’s position here really signal a sea-change in US policy? Or will the “people with briefcases” dressed in “dark suits” eventually get their way, as they always have in the past?
@pjay at 8:50 am
Re “the men in dark suits” who really call the shots.
I think that Trump has tried to defang the “Deep State” by simultaneously attacking the places it hangs out: USAID, the CIA and FBI and other places within the foreign policy sphere. He has dissolved USAID, fired disloyal people in the CIA and FBI and placed people loyal to him to head up the CIA, FBI and National Intelligence. Those were among his very first actions. To ensure his own political and personal survival and dispose of Project Ukraine he had to do these things. At the very least he doesn’t want to face years fighting off more Russiagate nonsense as he did in his first term.
This is not to say US foreign policy will become “nice”. It will be focused elsewhere (against China) and will recognise the US operates in a multi-polar world. The European leaders whom the pre-Trump faction installed in the years following the Iraq war (as per Larry Wilkerson) will go away in due course.
I think the premise is faulty. The US has so far not left Europe, and I don’t think it will soon.
Leaving Europe for real would mean abandoing bases and missile sites, giving up the “signal sharing” that allows NSA to enlist local spy agencies to spy on neighbouring politicians and abandoning the carrots and sticks to bribe and punish the post-office career of European politicians. I haven’t seen any movement in this direction.
What I think the US is doing is renegotiating what we might refer to as the vassal agreement. (A vassal agreement is what was in place between a king and his noblemen during feudalism laying out right and obligations.) The vassal agreement that has been in place for some time gave European countries the right to send or not send troops to its overlords conflicts and the right to pretend to be independent as long as it never threatened to actually be independent where it mattered. It also gave European countries the right to maintain an industrial economy and chart domestic policies a bit to the left of the US as long as capitalism itself was never threatened (because then it is Gladio time).
The US has now most cruely taken away the pretense of being independent. European leading politicians try to maintain the illusion by making up non realistic plans on how to win the war in Ukraine while waiting for it to end (at which point they can proclaim it Trump’s fault for losing Ukraine).
The US is also chipping away on the economic rights and independent domestic policies.
The emerging vassal contract looks more like what exists in Latin America with more naked plunder and controlled local leaders. The flip side is that the more naked plunder and control means that it is easier to base parties on opposition to said plunder and control so like in Latin America we could end up with clear US puppets versus anti imperialists. So I don’t think it is actually a winning strategy for the declining US empire, and events might derail it. (I would like to point out that the current nationalistic parties are not anti imperial, when in power they just wants to dismantle the welfare systems and blame it on immigrants. Similar to the far right in Latin America they might prove to be the most loyal vassals.)
great summary, this seems spot on.
Douglas Macgregor, a former military adviser to Trump who was posted by the Army so long in Germany that he is pretty fluent in German, disagrees.
He says the US only needs 2 European bases: Ramstein and one in Italy (I forget the name). We don’t need NATO to keep them. We can cut deals with Germany and Italy.
Remember the other really key base for us is Incirlik and the Turks aren’t very fond of the Europeans, so the US row with them would not affect their decisions much.
Aviano? The other place with B-61s is Ghedi but I believe that´s only Italian Air Force.
https://militarybases.com/overseas/italy/
It lists 8 locations:
Aviano Air Force Base in Aviano, Italy
Camp Darby Army Base in Tirrenia, Italy
Caserma Ederle Army Base in Vicenza, Italy
NAS Sigonella Navy Base in Sicily, Italy
NSA Gaeta Navy Base in Gaeta, Italy
NSA La Maddalena Navy Base in La Maddalena, Italy
NSA Naples Navy Base Naples Italy in Naples, Italy
Naval Computer and Telecommunications Station Naples, Italy
> https://militarybases.com/overseas/italy/
> It lists 8 locations:
> Aviano Air Force Base in Aviano, Italy
By convention, a US Air Force facility located outside of the US is an ‘Air Base’, not an ‘Air Force Base’. If the soi-disant experts at militarybases.com can’t even get something so trivial as that right, why should we pay attention to anything that they say?
Frankly they are not even a government agency. I don´t know who they are.
But the list of the stations was designed in an agreeable way. And it really was only about the places. That at least I assumed wouldn´t be fake.
I don’t think the US needs all its bases in Europe for force projection outside of Europe so if that’s what MacGregor means, I don’t disagree with MacGregor.
I am more thinking about how many bases the US needs in Europe to make sure that the security establishments are so tightly entwined that European politicians stays in the habit of treating public revelations about how US spies at them as unfortunate embarrassments. And I have seen far too little comments about that, because most commenters treat the polite fiction that European countries are independent allies as a starting point.
I was glad to see Joe Lauria lay it out from the perspective of European politicians acting as essentially vassals (Europe’s Face-Saving Theater on Ukraine, Consortium News, linked in Links). That is the perspective I think needs to be applied. And from that perspective I don’t see US giving up control over Europe. I see it as changing the deal to Europe contributing more troops and money for the US empire. British India had a large army, but political control over where it was deployed rested in London.
Though it’s always hard to know with Trump, because some of the things he says, he actually means. So maybe one day US bases in Europe actually start closing, but so far they haven’t.
I see this as far more likely in the short and medium term than any efforts at actual european political independence. Yes, their leashes may currently be strewn on the ground, but the entire cadre of european leaders, officials, secretaries, staffers, commentariatii, etc have been hand picked to a man and woman to be compliant underlings to the neoliberal empire. That it has collapsed is not matter. The dog will naturally seek a new master. The leaders all the way up to Macron were not picked for their independence, or drive to improve their nations fortunes. The were picked as administrators to enable further wealth extraction and that is all.
This applies I think especially to the younger elements of the political class. Modern EU politics is closer to the imperial clientelism of Lebanon than an independent Europe. I do not expect the situation to change for at least a generation if not longer.
I wonder who started the rumour Trump would announce exit from NATO…
Either way it´s a disaster. Federal bonds in Germany will go up they say and thus homeowners become even more of a luxury and the housing issue in Germany remains a square to be circleded. Whilst there are 2M unused apartments which we know of in Germany. And as soon as you wanna touch rents and landlords´ privileges you run into a brickwall. They are squeezing and squeezing until nothing will be left. And the worst part: Zero opposition. 2024 will go down in history as the demise of the last hope via BSW. Targeted non-stop. Smeared. Despised. And many leftists who supported them initially fell for the PR because they are uneducated children. It appears to be true: once you have lived under authoritarian rule as in the GDR or the USSR you seem to be more mature in your views on state and elite power.
The imagination of a new EU armed to the teeth (albeit worthlessly so) trying to navigate between US, RU, China and India gives me the creeps.
p.s. Martyanov says Poland has ordered Apaches worth $300M.
Looks like many forgot that the threat to withdraw was also made during the DT1 regime. It is hard to believe what a serially mendacious conman says, be it DT or anyone else.
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/natosource/trump-confirms-he-threatened-to-withdraw-from-nato/
I did listen to that “speech” of his in its entirety for the first time in my life for this very reason…of course the NATO-rumours turned out to be just rumours.
The last time I did anything comparable was – ahem – Obama´s Address to the Nation in 2008.
While I was sitting in an apartment 2 blocks away from the US Embassy in Romania… six months after NATO´s fallout session with Russia on Ukraine in that very same place.
Over the last year or so, the debate has moved on from “I was responsible for Ukraine’s victory” to “I wasn’t responsible for Ukraine’s defeat, so don’t blame me,” and on the basis of that, a struggle for control over what exactly happens when the pieces have to be picked up. For the moment, it’s all bluster and talk of money, but the real question is future relations with a powerful Russia, and what sort of non-provocative military posture for Europe to adopt. (Some may remember I wrote an Essay on this a couple of weeks ago.) I doubt if the presence or absence of US forces makes much difference at this point: if anything their continued presence is likely to complicate things politically for the Europeans without providing much benefit for them militarily.
France, as you would expect, is starting to revert to its Gaullist heritage, and reviving its ambitions to play the leading role in European defence issues that it has sought for thirty-five years now. This doesn’t necessarily mean a kind of Euro-NATO, but rather more emphasis on collaborative European projects (of which there are many already, of course) and more coordination on security policy issues, led by France, as well as ad hoc operational coordination. The French would be happy with an outcome where they had had the major voice in shaping the post-Ukraine European defence concept, and there will have to be one. And they are gently reminding everyone that they are the only nuclear power in the EU. I don’t think either Germany or Poland are likely candidates for leadership: in each case there are historical sensitivities and worries about capability. Having a big army is only a small part of the competition for dominance.
“I don’t think either Germany”
The last word not yet uttered on that…
I could even imagine in some tiny circle Germany will try blackmail the rest with a friendly reminder that Germany could build nukes within a year if they wanted to. I wonder if those German-French coops on tanks and missiles will eventually bear fruit. I doubt it.
p.s. What about those renewed threats directed at Hungary/Slovakia kicking them out of EU?
“Germany could build nukes within a year if they wanted to”
I think Germany could build nukes within 2 weeks if they needed to. There’s no shortage of any of the resources needed, except perhaps the will to power.
Don’t mention that to Macron.
We won´t!
You don´t want to cause a heart attack do you, poor fella.
more delicately—Japan could build nukes in another sphere. . .
Mr Macron is too young to have learnt the lessons of throw weight and strategic depth at school as we all did while hiding under our desks for practice. They will get Eurobonds out of this but will waste them.
Today’s promise by Mr Putin to the dead marine’s mother should put all these fantasies to rest. The pressure will slowly continue to ramp up until a new security apparatus is in place. Real diplomacy or military-technical means .Her sacrifice will not be in vain was the promise.
@NC
What about a summary on all European military joint ventures, the ones that were shleved and the new ones like hypersonic missiles.
Grok says Europe is at least 5 years away from a working hypersonic missile.
Martyanov today showed a report from Europe that estimated they are decades away. Separately, he discussed how for nuclear deterrence the key is delivery systems not warheads in inventory. France (and the UK) have very limited delivery capability per a report published in the Times.
I posted Martyanov below about the same time you posted ;-P
Make the 5 years 20 years.
Paris Air Show last year, NATO´s Kerstin Huber
Elusive hypersonic arms need Western teamwork, NATO researcher says
https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2024/06/19/elusive-hypersonic-arms-need-western-teamwork-nato-researcher-says/
And other sources have confirmed this view since.
MSM of course make not a peep about this.
Yesterday AI told me, without my consent, that there were two billion working-age people in the US. I’m gunna get scatological if/when they get quoted as credible. Corn and diapers. In rhyme and meter.
The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking: Self-Reported Reductions in Cognitive Effort and Confidence Effects From a Survey of Knowledge Workers
Grok says that people should not pay attention to things that Grok says.
Here is Bloomberg´s latest on hypersonics. Of course Bloomberg is not really a serious outlet. But they won´t fail in at least quoting DoD correctly.
https://archive.is/2JGlO
The idea to field missiles by Oct. feels like PR and must-do performative duty much less than true satisfaction with a weapon that works.
Some great comments above, just to add my two cents (two bucks for inflation):
I know it is quite pedantic but Korybko uses adjectives and labels like “globalist” and “liberal”. To me, these are ambiguous terms that can mean different things to different people. For example, a “liberal” in the UK or some continental countries is a bit different than in the US. Even in the US, it is pretty vague. Plus, loaded terms tend to shift meaning over time. I still don’t know what a “globalist” is. It sounds like Dr. Evil in the Austen Powers movies or something. Perhaps just a bit of working definitions for loaded terms would be helpful.
On another note:
“…France’s military presence in Southeastern Europe places it in a prime position for conventionally intervening in Ukraine if it so chooses, whether before or after the end of hostilities, and suggests that Macron will focus on this region for expanding French influence…”
I don’t see much chance of France unilaterally intervening in any significant way in Ukraine. That almost seems like a bit of a joke. The EU has talked about and incorporated more CFSP/CSDP into its treaties for many years. Simply put: they don’t have the capacity to project hard power abroad in any significant way (outside of NATO). We have seen the limitations of even a united NATO, so France acting unliaterally to affect outcomes appears a big stretch. It might appear as typical post-colonial hubris.
re: Germany´s THE LEFT PARTY and its rapprochement to NATO
There you have it.
Whils I thanked Jan van Aken opposing the Iraq War (I know that´s long time ago) he since found his true colours and now has voiced his ridiculous views on “national security” as one of two new leaders of DIE LINKE party in Germany.
German alternative news site NACHDENKSEITEN
Jan van Aken’s plea for a so-called defense overturns the program of the LEFT
March 6
(German)
https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=129757
“(…)
In an interview, Jan van Aken (co-chairman of the Left Party) left central parts of the Left Party’s program behind and, by moving closer to NATO’s portrayal of the causes of the war in Ukraine, largely transformed the party’s peace policy into its opposite.
By Bernhard Trautvetter.
Here is my transcript of the interview with Jan van Aken on Deutschlandfunk on February 26, 2025
(German)
https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/zu-schuldenbremse-und-verteidigung-interview-jan-van-aken-linken-vorsitzender-100.html
JvA:
“We need money for national defense. We all agree on that. Russia is an aggressor. That’s why it needs national defense. But now the big question is, what do we need this special fund for? It’s not about national defense, it’s not about Russia; it’s about equipping the Bundeswehr to be able to intervene militarily anywhere in the world. I think that’s wrong. … Germany is not being defended in the Hindu Kush, Germany is being defended on the border with Russia.”
Like the NATO lobby, Jan van Aken attributes the characteristic of being an aggressor to Russia alone, despite the many wars that NATO and the USA have waged in violation of international law since the end of the Cold War. His choice of words also implies that Russia is not a European country. In doing so, he is following the propaganda of our country’s leading media.
(…)
The demand for a policy of pure national defense is still based on the narrative of Russia’s aggressiveness; thus, it is based on a “justification” without any valid reason.
Jan van Aken also ignores the fact that in the nuclear age only diplomacy can bring security – that means building a peace order of common, mutual security, as required by the Treaty on the Unification of the Two German States and, for example, the European Charter of Paris (1990) .
(…)
With these positions, a relevant part of the LEFT, right up to its top, is placing itself outside its own program – The LEFT program contains the statement that the party’s international policy is based on four principles:
(…)”
Sounds all very much like the history of a GREEN PARTY 2.0.
p.s. perhaps now people understand my desperation…
Mr. van Aken should explain what he means with the phrase “Germany is being defended on the border with Russia”. Does van Aken really think that there is a joint border between Russia and Germany? And how on earth can he claim that Russia is a threat to Germany?
The german Left is a basket case.
I would go as far as replace “basket case” with “poisoned apple”.
We have currently not a single party in the German parliament that is opposed to the military buildup.
And if AfD argues in favour of cooperation with Russia that´s merely lip service. If they want tanks what the hell are those tanks for? Taiwan?
Martyanov a bit on French and British WMDs via SSBNs
first half:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvh-7W4fCO0
A few points:
1. Note how Macron’s push for leadership offsets the collapse of French influence in Africa. The revival of an interwar Little Entente is a substitute for Francafrique. Alas, CEE offers little by way of an adequate substitute for France’s loss of discounted African mineral inputs or strategic leverage.
2. Does this European defence scheme risk repeating the fate of the European Defence Community in 1954 (the Pleven Plan, sponsored by Acheson)? Then the issue was supposedly the risk that French units might be subordinated to German commanders, hence its failure at the hands of the Gaullists and PCF. The risk of the new scheme is perhaps of a scrap over who gets what out of the trough at a time when Europe as a whole is going down (in large measure because of its militaristic turn). The whole purpose of the EDC was to get Europe to cover its own defence costs and so reduce the burden of the free ride on the US; once it failed the Europeans (Beyen, Spaak, etc.) turned to forming the EEC, which required a high CET in order to bait France. This discriminated against US goods (per Adenauer to Mollet: “Europe will be your revenge” for Suez). Thus the effect of the free ride was amplified by the tariff, causing the rapid diminution of the US gold stock as the French and Germans built up large dollar claims, with the French (Rueff, Giscard) then having the effrontery to attack ‘exorbitant privilege’. Trump’s crudities are so many chickens coming home to roost.
3. Macron has been pushing for debt sharing since 2017: essentially having the Germans underwrite French debts. He repeatedly came up against German obduracy. But his wildest dreams are now being fulfilled: per Monnet, he is ‘not letting a crisis go to waste’. Merz – like an Atlanticist scorned – is now pressing for ‘independence’, but his domestic fund (which admittedly contains an infrastructure component) and this new European fund will presumably accelerate the diversion of resources from the productive civilian economy to the largely parasitical military economy even as Germany loses its export markets. Germany had run surpluses as a hedge against its ageing demographics. If those surpluses turn into deficits, partly because German taxpayers are underwriting the cost of the European defence fund, does this not risk a sharp reaction within Germany against the whole scheme, perhaps to the advantage of the AfD?
4. The supposed benefits of ‘military Keynesianism’ are being asked to do a great deal of heavy lifting. It supposedly brought the US out of Depression (not Martin Wolf’s recent argument). But the evidence from the 1940s is mixed: https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/world-war-ii-america-spending-deficits-multipliers-and-sacrifice. The US was a war profiteer on an epic scale thanks to the massive transfer of capital from the UK to the US, most especially prior to 1941. In effect, the UK provided a huge stimulus package. However, once the US entered the war, the benefits of military Keynesianism became rather less obvious, and it is noteworthy that the Democrats performed poorly in 1944 and had lost Congress in 1946: much of the promise of the New Deal continuing from war into peace turned into ashes.
5. The peace dividend in the 1990s made sense as the boomers moved into middle age. However, reversing that dividend at the point when the healthcare costs of the boomers are increasing rapidly, and in the context of economic stagnation and rising prices, is a recipe for political unrest, especially once the consequences of this massive gaslighting campaign on the part of European governments and the MSM become apparent. Moreover, is it wise to increase the military capacity of European countries just in time for the control of expanded armed forces to fall into the laps of the Far Right? Does this not make the ‘Extreme Centre’ – yet again – the useful idiots of the fascists?
Thanks very much for this dense input.
* * *
As “fascism” goes – Norman Finkelstein had this very good point 2 weeks ago – “there is no fascism in the US because there is no opposition which fascism has to destroy.” i.e. the system “works”. In Europe until there is a serious left opposition the colour of the parties in power won´t matter. We won´t have fascism. And if a point of confrontation were reached – which will never happen – it won´t matter how you call the party leading on the oppression.
AfD is seriously only an instrument for a rather superficial and childish media diversion in Germany. If you had a “revolution” 50+% of the populace voting for AfD would be on the other side. Because they detest the capitalist element of that party. In fact AfD at some point will have to make a final decision the way DIE LINKE has been making it too apparently: you are either with Russia or against Russia.
The most obvious evidence is the history of immigration legislation which was implemented always by at least two of these parties: SPD, the GREENS, CDU. AfD never made any laws, since that party has hardly existed for a decade.
The fact that NATO at the summer summit 2022 called out three threats for Europe says it all: RU, CHINA, immigration. Does that sound like the alleged AfD-oh-my-god-Nazism? Yeah. But it came from the heart of the EU. As always.
e.g. REUTERS, June 2022:
“NATO to monitor migration as risk of instability to members”
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/nato-monitor-migration-risk-instability-members-2022-06-29/
Does anybody see a single mention of “Nazism” in that text? I don´t.
In fact AfD is amplifying those very points. (Just look at the idiotic photo REUTERS chose to print along that text).
AfD if anything is their – ahem – Picture of Dorian Gray.
To quote REUTERS:
“The tragedy gave rise to debate on whether Article 5 of the NATO treaty applies to the defence of Melilla and the other Spanish enclave of Ceuta as they are located outside the boundaries that NATO considers its territory.
(…)
“No one should doubt our strength and resolve to defend every inch of allied territory, preserve the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all allies and prevail against any aggressor,” the text said.”
„strength and resolve“?! What the fuck are they talkig about? T-90s crossing the Mediterranean? Did any MP in Germany ever call out NATO as a fascist organisation for describing refugees as aggressors? This is all insane. And doing it right to our face.
Same false flag with Merz´s 500B scam. I had the same “aha”-reaction when I heard – “infrastructure”. But then what does it mean? Expanding Deutsche Bahn in a way the Chinese are doing their railway? Developing a revolutionary new transport concept for Europe? Making railway free? Trying to pick up on those concepts for car manufacturers to solve the future catastrophe that have been in drawers for 50 years? Infrastructure will be reduced to bridges where NATO or post-NATO material has to be navigated to the East. Build up military hangar capacity. Port capacity for fossiles and military equipment. ISR facilites. And so on. (As you write “diversion of resources from the productive civilian economy”). Infrastructure is such an awesomly empty vessel of a term. You can sell anything under its disguise. And the more expensive the better. If there is any reason for “infrastructure”, it´s for including it into press releases so SPD can sell this gigantic fraud to its base. Many of whom will either resign (age) or buy it due to alleged lack of alternative. To quote Marvel ex negativo: We are so fucked.
Full Metal Tapette, is quite popular on French net. This:
https://i.postimg.cc/D25M3bdq/photo-2025-03-06-22-49-56.jpg
“tapette” is for poof, and more generally, for weakling. Macron made a national speech on TV stating that France is at war and French must make sacrifice. ~70/80% people hate Macron and are tired, jokes are about the fact in COVID times he was already talking of this being a war, and the government did hold every week a “conseil de guerre”.
You and Korybko are probably not aware, which is normal when not knowing French society, how irrelevant Macronists are. But they have a solid echo chamber around them: press is all formatted in the US-Democrats doxa since Sarkozy/Hollande presidencies. Very surrealistic: government, French “deep state”, medias, most of the elites are 1% of the population but they generate 90% of the media surface, without connection with the bulk of population minus the 20% that voted Macron.
What I try to explain is that France, politically, has zero pertinency and zero credibility. And military, very little means.
Currency is € ie.. the Deutsche Mark, and state debt is huge, hold by the usual American investors. Macron’s C.V. shows he is basically a Rothschild and Blackrock nice little boy.
France will do as Germany and USA will tell him.
When USA withdrew the bulk of its troops from Syria in 2019 after the stabilization operated by Russia (they left only a bit of military in North-East in order to control agricultural and oil fields, in collaboration with Kurds and USA own Abu Ghraib growns jihadists ) all of a sudden there was emergency crisis in France, because USA didn’t tell/warn them, and the French troops there were left stranded. They did rely all the time on American provided comms, maps and logistics. They were literally stranded. Armies minister back then ( Le Drian) asked Iraq for … assistance, in taking the jihadist prisoners that were held in the French area. To what Iraq government answered “we are not your trash bin”. France went around begging Kurds for a deal in order to take these prisoners, so French troops could empty their small base and leave. And for logistics in order to leave they were begging the Turks.
For instance:
https://www.la-croix.com/France/Le-retrait-americain-Syrie-oblige-France-replier-2019-10-15-1201054360
Forget about Full Metal Tapette. EU is in fact a kind of Austro-Hungarian Empire, but around Germany. Or, some avatar of Holy German-Roman Empire.
What will happen depends much on what Merz will decide. If Russia gets hurt back it will retaliate. Putinists are very moderate, the nationalistic part not at all.
So what will post-conflict be is very uncertain and volatile.