Powered by glolg
Display Preferences Most Recent Entries Chatterbox Blog Links Site Statistics Category Tags About Me, Myself and Gilbert XML RSS Feed
Tuesday, Jan 06, 2026 - 22:58 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Some National Resolutions (Part I)

Because what's a new year without some of those?


Germany (& Europe In General)


Well this statement is... quite concerning
此地无卒三百名?
(Source: tvpworld.com)


Beginning with the German Chancellor, Merz made sure to emphasize that "We are not a pawn of major powers" in his address, which was immediately (and correctly) noted by commentators that, well, this is exactly what a pawn would say (while already implicitly acknowledging that Germany is not a major power). Put it this way, if a bank or real estate company feels the need to insist very explicitly that they are financially solvent and rumours of bankruptcy are unfounded... most everybody understands what's most likely coming next.

The (thus far unjustified) assertion would be echoed by other European Union leaders, with their "Coalition of the Willing" busy planning yet more talks, having held twelve summits in 2025 already. It would not be missed that all these sessions had resulted in next to no concrete military support for Ukraine, with E.U. nations trying to shame Belgium into releasing Russian funds to Kiev... while refusing to back them up if said funds have to be returned to Russia, due to legal action or otherwise. Well, as explained in 2020 after Soleimani's assassination (coincidentally also on January 3rd), the primary motivation behind the formation of NATO and the E.U. was never Russia/the U.S.S.R.; it was first and foremost to prevent Europe from plunging everyone into a third world war, because once is happenstance, twice might be coincidence, but thrice would just be dumb.

Because let us consider the current European Union - even after Brexit, the E.U. has over 450 million people and a combined nominal GDP of some US$20 trillion, dwarfing Russia's population of less than 150 million, and nominal GDP of about US$2.5 trillion. On the nuclear warhead front, France does have nearly 300 of those (even excepting American deployments), and while this is somewhat less than the over 4000 nukes retained by Russia, one figures that the discrepancy shouldn't matter much if it comes down to that dimension. Given all this, it has to be asked: why has the E.U. been dragging their feet over Ukraine for years and blaming the Americans (some 9000km away) for whatever they did or did not do, instead of rolling up their sleeves and aiding Zelensky themselves?!



Euey, you gotta move out of my basement and be your own man.
Uncle Sam! How can you be so heartless?!
Son... you are EIGHTY YEARS OLD.
(Source: Midjourney, with appropriate prompt)


To Zelensky's credit, he has long recognized that Europe "cannot guarantee Ukraine's security without America" (i.e. are pretty useless), and to the E.U.'s credit, their foreign policy chief has at least acknowledged that the U.S. National Security Strategy's assessment that Europe is facing (Greco-Roman-based) civilizational erasure and free speech concerns is indeed true, over haughty denunciations by usual suspects and wannabe regional bosses France and Germany (who should be able to handle their own problems then, right?). The former is currently hosting yet another meeting in Paris to try and wrangle some concrete security guarantees from the European lot, and I would be delighted if they make me eat my words... but I doubt it.

The fundamental reason is, again to reiterate, that Europe have historically been their own worst enemies. The Polish Prime Minister has just warned that "Europe must unite or it's finished", which may be broadly true, but this appeal would have been far more convincing had his President not just insisted that Poland had to be ready to defend their Western border with Germany. And heck, Nawrocki isn't even wrong either - Poland had to rebel against Germany in 1918 to reclaim independence after being partitioned (a third time) and annexed in 1795, only to get betrayed and partitioned again by Germany and the Soviets in 1939. Strictly speaking, Poland does have as much to fear from the latter-day Prussians as the Russians from how past intra-European pacts have held, and the ongoing Russian propaganda on partitioning Ukraine has had some effect because Europe does remember* their (long) history.

As colourfully expounded on back in 2020, Europe's recorded history has basically been one long war (if of varying intensity) with some time-outs in between, and while historians have raised 1815-1914 as a relatively peaceful century, it might be noted that the major European powers were busy warring (if one-sidedly) and conquering the African continent for much of that time. One feels justified in claiming that their long peace after 1945 was mostly down to the U.S. security and economic umbrella - and staying put to ensure that neither France nor Germany got any funny new ideas, as so often happens.



Uncle, we have resolved to finally do something!
Yes! *proudly rubs tear from eye* and what would that be?
...we resolve to volunteer you.
(Sources: euronews.com, bloomberg.com)


The strangest realization about it all, is how opinion on NATO and the transatlantic "alliance" has remained so staunchly pro-Europe, on the Reddit default subs; any remotely-fair reading of the situation would have to recognize Europe as complete free-riders on security, which might have been a somewhat more-popular and socially-acceptable opinion when Obama (correctly) said it. It is oft countered that Article 5 of NATO had only ever been invoked for the U.S. (after the 9/11 attacks), but this was more of a European initiative that was accepted as a nice gesture. Had the U.S. mainland actually come under attack (say by a mutated Canadian moose army), there was never much that Europe could have done to help, given that they have next to no relevant force projection or logistical capabilities.

Now, the point of saying all this isn't to put the Europeans down - I've just visited Finland and Estonia last year, they were very hospitable and one hopes no untoward harm befalls them - but they have some serious problems, probably stemming from the fact that the continent was never truly unified (unlike America, China and the Russian core). Sure, they can sing karaoke and throw down beers together when the going's good (which it has mostly been), but the threat to Ukraine has regrettably witnessed E.U. members repeatedly throw each other under the bus in an attempt to shirk responsibility.

Returning to Spain's overt rejection of spending 5% GDP on defence and negotiating a 2.1% target - instead of just signing off and then underspending, as most of the other Europeans are probably going to do - as a representative case study here: one finds it hard to condemn honesty, but when the Spanish Prime Minister explained that a 5% commitment "would be incompatible with Spain's welfare state", one wonders why the Americans - or heck, the other Europeans - would be happy with his candid explanation.

Of course, everybody knows the real reason: since Spain are at the Westernmost end of Europe (and thus furthest from primary threat Russia), they have figured that if Russia indeed clears the useful speedbumps Poland, Germany and France and gets to their borders, it's over anyway, and any marginal spending wouldn't matter; they would just sue for peace as much of Europe did within two months for World War Two... which does make Europe's current insistence for Ukraine to fight on no matter what and drain the Russians for us (without actually helping - until next time, we swear) sound rather unbecoming...


[*About this, the common retort is that "sure maybe these things have happened so many times before, but it definitely can't happen again!"; do forgive me if I do not find the form of this argument very convincing.]



comments (0) - email - share - print - direct link
trackbacks (0) - trackback url


Next: Some National Resolutions (Part II)


Related Posts:
A Reordered World
In For A ₽enny, In For The ₽ound
All He Wanted For Christmas
The First Of The Balloons
Tongues Of Conflict (Part I)
Back to top

Copyright © 2006-2026 GLYS. All Rights Reserved.