ALBA - Unofficial Forum

It is the perpetual trap question for people like me, people who see others setting out on a path ahead that clearly leads to disaster. The question is a simple one; ‘what would you do differently?’. The problem is that if there was a handy and easy alternative path it would be obvious. You’ve taken us to a place without good options and then you ask me what to do?

This is what was going through my mind as I read about the genuinely terrifying speech far-right US Vice President JD Vance gave in Munich on Friday. The entire European continent was stunned, shocked and disorientated. Well, the people who run the continent were. I’ve been predicting this moment for a good long while.

This is the lesson from all of this for me, for people of my perspective – your mess, your problem. It feels like sitting in car whose driver has been heading straight for a cliff edge and I’ve been shouting ‘you’re about to drive off the end of a cliff’ and they’ve been saying ‘no I’m not’ and now they’re saying ‘woah, I’ve driven off the end of a cliff, what do I do now smart arse?’.

Don’t drive off the cliff. Stop driving off cliffs full stop. If I can see all these cliffs, what is wrong with you all? You seem to drive straight for them and the closer you get the more you seem to accelerate. And then and only then, when we’re plunging to an uncertain but deeply concerning fate, then and only then do you say ‘so what would you do?’.

The moment when I first realised there was no way out for people like me was when the Iraq War started going wrong (which was pretty well straight away). As things went from worse to worse, for the first time the war hawks started to take an interest in what the anti-war people had to say. ‘Well what would you do?’ they asked after locking the doors and starting the fire.

It’s happening all over again right at the moment. To get to grips with this we need to go back a bit. In 1990 everything was possible. The Cold War was over and there was a real chance to change direction. Had we done what people like me urged at the time, we wouldn’t be here.

The obvious thing to do was to do with the newly not-communist Russia was what we did with the newly not-communist Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – reach out a hand and invite them into the club. It would take time, but them being on that path would have kept them on that path. Russia would be a much harder case to turn around than smaller nations, but that was all the more reason to try.

But both the George HW Bush and Clinton administrations were firm on one thing – they weren’t going to accept a European security and economic framework which included Russia. As simply put as possible, they saw it as potentially much too powerful. They were probably right; if Europe and Russia could have followed a shared and converging reconciliation and development plan, the US would have had a serious competitor as global hegemon.

So Europe was persuaded/pressurised out of taking that path in return for US security guarantees. Basically the US said ‘look, if you keep isolating Russia like the Cold War never ended, we’ll keep militarising Europe like the Cold War never ended’. That’s the deal that got us here and that’s the deal Trump hates.

Where did all this end? Well, with European leaders running around trying to work out what to do about the fact that they offered to keep wearing bibs and eating pureed apples so long as the US promised to keep pureeing the apples and feeding them – and now the US is withdrawing its puree.

And of course if you really want to see the end point of all this stupidity, look at the Middle East. It’s not like we didn’t warn you…

So here we are, off the end of the cliff and if I say something like ‘well we did warn you’ I shall get the question shot back ‘so what would you do?’. The problem is that ‘reverse’ isn’t a solution. The people who were driving have taken us to a place where we can no longer get back to any solid ground. So what would I do?

Accept that reality. We are being driven by people who willingly underdeveloped their continental economy, willingly left itself unable to defend itself properly, willingly created and provoked a large, powerful enemy on the same continent. It did all of this to please the US so the US would allow us the benefits of its munificence. It was fucking stupid.

So there is no going back. In which case my best guess is ‘how about we take the coming hit and stop driving off cliffs?’. The truth is that Europe on its own would be in a close fight if Russia really did start to expropriate more territory and we are a long, long way from being economically self-sufficient.

We can’t defend ourselves and we can’t provide for ourselves. What is therefore happening is that European leaders are trying to work out what the closest thing they can think of to what ‘normal’ is and work out how to get to that place. It is saying ‘what if this is all just Trump brinksmanship to get our continental defence spending up? Do what he asks and then he might relent.’

But did no-one actually hear JD Vance? Is that what it sounded like to you? So what would I do if it was me? First, Europe must be able to defend its territorial interests. It doesn’t need to be able to project power globally, but it needs to be able to save itself, and it can’t. But frankly it shouldn’t need to. There is no fundamental reason why Europe needs to fear territorial threats.

So you want to know what I think we should do? Europe has no problem sucking it up and working with Netanyahu for no obvious reason. We have little real strategic interest in the Middle East but we run out of our way to accommodate ziofascism. So what is so wrong with talking to Putin? We’ve left this late and he may now fancy his chances with Trump.

And no, Putin isn’t a good man. But I firmly believe that the ‘Hitler bent on conquest of the continent’ take on him was a European construction designed to make us receptive to the enormous economic harm of a sanctions regime which those who constructed the story have come to believe.

Almost all informed commentators believe that what Putin really wanted was to be brought into the fold of world leaders and treated with respect. There is not going to be an easy kiss-and-make-up with Putin and the conversation over Ukraine would hardly be a comfortable one.

But in the end what are we really trying to do here? Surely the first and overriding meaning of ‘European security’ is to be able to live on our own continent in peace. How is that not a conversation worth having with Russia? It does’t mean concessions, it means exploration. Surely we can come up with some kind of understanding that leads us all away from a large-scale European ground war that none of us wants (including Russia).

If we can stabilise just a little peace for just a little time, Europe could then seriously begin to developed the shared continental army it has needed since the 1990s and begin to form a coherent approach to sovereignty and security.

And surely it is now time to stop playing the US game of isolating ourselves from China? It isn’t Putin giving Nazi salutes and it isn’t Jinping coming to our house and telling us that we are the biggest threat to our own citizens. Neither the Russians nor the Chinese are paragons of justice or trustworthiness, but they are the reality and another part of that reality is a US that is off the rails and quite likely to stay there.

Europe needs to buy itself some time. It knows that – but it doesn’t seem to know what it is buying time for. It currently seems to think that if it can placate Trump enough they might weather four years and, who knows, it might all go back to ‘normal’.

But it probably won’t, and so I’m telling anyone who will listen again now – it’s over, it’s a new world, the new world is filled with cliff edges. We need to stop accelerating and think. That means Europe first. And, like it or not, sooner or later, that means Russia too. Somehow. The alternative is lives lived in fear.