British PM Starmer and French President Macron have proposed a ‘coalition of the willing’ with “boots on the ground and planes in the air.” Starmer, from a country where 25 percent of children are below the poverty level, said that “It’s time to act, not talk, to defend the West.” President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen added that Europe needs “to rearm” and we should turn Ukraine into a “steel porcupine that’s indigestible for potential invaders.”
Behind the headlines and all the public huffing and puffing we find several caveats; other countries doing the “heavy lifting” are not named; a plan must be developed; a month long pause in the fighting must precede the deployment of troops; to succeed the effort must have “strong US backing.” This is not understated because Lord Dannet, former head of the Army told the BBC “the UK military was ‘so run down’ it could not lead any mission in Ukraine.” And we read that in Germany, soldiers are practicing with broomsticks painted black instead of with rifles. Finally, no mention is made of the fact that Russia has already ruled out Europe’s participation in any peace deal. Other than that the proposal is good to go.
What all this means is that war mongering European leaders (plus many Democrats, liberals and putative leftists here) are ‘willing’ to send soldiers to their deaths in the war in Ukraine that’s already lost. This is reminiscent of when George W. Bush introduced his national security strategy in 2002 with the phrase “coalition of the willing” — before the US invaded Iraq.
I’ve thought long and hard about why European leaders are incapable of working toward peace. Have these characters totally lost touch with reality? Is it because they can’t admit, even to themselves, that the UK/US used Europe for its own ends and otherwise doesn’t give a whit about the Continent? Is it because they can’t acknowledge this because, as part of the pro-war Atlanticist Establishment, they’ve been absolutely complicit in America’s predatory behavior — and have constantly lied about it? Is it because the European ruling class benefits from their own MIC? Shares in European defense giants soared to record highs today.