Cranial Secondary Explosions in Europe
As I said in the just earlier post, there have been numerous secondary explosions in Europe after Vance and Hegseth carpet bombed them last week. Mostly of this variety:
Kind of entertaining, actually. For a variety of reasons. To put this is dialog form:
US: “We’ve been carrying you Europeans for too long. You need to increase your military spending dramatically and take responsibility for your own defense, especially as it relates to Ukraine and Russia. We’re especially uninterested in defending you if you continue to act contrary to American values relating to free speech, democracy, etc.”
Europe: “How dare you tell us what to do! Since you are going to insult us, fine. We’ll look after our own defense! To arms! To arms! Troops to Ukraine!”
US: “Uhm, OK.”
Maybe Trump is a genius at psychology, using insults to get Europe to do what he wants them to. Genius probably not required though, when dealing with idiots.
Insofar as the commitment to rearm and become self-reliant is concerned, Macron has called an “emergency meeting” with (some) EU heads of government to discuss taking the lead in securing the defense of Ukraine, and boxing bruiser Keir Starmer signaled the UK’s willingness of sending British troops as part of the effort, and the need to enhance UK defense spending. On the pundit side, the FT’s King of the Clueless, Gideon Rachman, has issued a clarion call that “Europeans need to reduce their dangerous dependence on an adversarial America.” I say clueless because it the US has become adversarial precisely because of a determination to rid itself of Europe’s parasitic dependence.
Europeans are talking about the “existential” challenge posed by Trump saying “sayonara” and pivoting to Asia.
The market apparently considers these promises to be at least somewhat credible: European defense stocks have risen on this hawkish rhetoric.
Color me skeptical. Whinging about money being diverted from non-defense areas of government began about 3 seconds after Starmer’s oped was published. Poland’s Tusk immediately squelched talk of deploying troops to Ukraine. And I recall Oaf–excuse me, Olaf–Scholz promising 3 years ago to commit Germany to rebuild its defenses. A promise that has not even started to be fulfilled: if anything, Germany’s military is more moribund today than when he made the promise.
Regardless, that’s their business. You’re on your own, folks! Which is what you’ve been saying you wanted all along, right?
Other cranial secondary explosions relate to Vance’s criticism of Europes anti-freedom, anti-democracy politics. Chancellor Scholz and Vice Chancellor Habeck took umbrage at Vance’s interfering in German politics. Nevermind that both publicly supported Harris and have trashed Trump.
CBS struck a “we’re all Europeans now” pose with a paean to Germany’s censorship state:
This was after the MSM’s Queen of Vapidity (quite an accomplishment, given the competition), I Don’t Really Care Margaret Brennan. attempted to tell an incredulous Marco Rubio that ackshually the Nazis came to power because Weimar Germany had weaponized free speech. Who knew! (Ackshually Weimar had restrictions on speech quite similar to those of modern Germany, and in fact banned public appearances by Hitler for some time).
Here’s the bottom line. Europeans are incensed: Americans don’t care. If they defend themselves–great: it’s what Trump has been on about for almost 10 years. If they don’t–oh well: not our monkey, not our circus. If they censor themselves, again that’s their problem. If they censor us, or attempt to throttle our innovation in AI (the subject of another Vance Letter to the Europeans), well we’ll add that to their pile of problems.
Go your own way. And stay out of ours.
Our UK army is now so tiny that I wonder how many reluctant soldiers it would need to render it undeployable. I must say I would heartily disapprove – if you join a uniformed service with a hierarchical structure then you must obey all legal orders.
But humans are humans. When the lawyer/politicians who infest this government have repeatedly made their contempt for our troops clear, how do you expect people to react? When soldiers contemplate what happened to so many of the men sent to Afghanistan or Iraq by the previous Labour government why would they assume that everything will be different this time?
Never mind: the bosses of our armed forces seem to be keen to pursue DEI so that should assuage all worries on this front.
Comment by dearieme — February 17, 2025 @ 5:42 pm
So, JD Vance has discovered democracy in Romania may not yet be very strong and decided to tell Europeans about it. Wait until he finds out who Ceausescu was.
I also find it supremely entertaining that he has mocked Europe’s vulnerability to disinformation while rebroadcasting disinformation about what Thierry Breton said about Romania.
If a US VP can be disinformed through a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then maybe it’s not Romanian democracy we should be most worried about.
Comment by Ivan — February 17, 2025 @ 6:44 pm
So when is the US pulling it’s forces out of Europe (surely the next logical step)? “Oh hang on!” I hear you say, “we need those bases to support our global operations blah blah.” Well maybe the price of us hosting them just went up – Trump would understand that.
Anyhow it’s now looking like Trump’s proposed deal hasn’t even survived first contact with the Russians (quel suprise). So much for the master peace maker – the Nobel committee can look elsewhere.
Comment by David Mercer — February 18, 2025 @ 10:59 am
Looking forward to reading the contortions of truth and logic Craig is going to use when he defends Trump branding Zelensky a dictator who shouldn’t have “started it” while describing Putin as a great man who is interested in peace.
Comment by derriz — February 19, 2025 @ 10:57 am
Yeah, I wonder how many dollars of digital advertising it took to convince a Trump that Ukraine started the war. Or why JD Vance thinks calling Trump a victim of Russian disinformation is an insult rather than a maximally flattering hypothesis compatible with the facts.
Comment by Ivan — February 19, 2025 @ 1:01 pm
For once I agree with David Mercer. The closing of (at least some) US military bases in Europe will be the next shoe to drop. I assume the reason Vance didn’t announce that in his speech is that it will take time to decide what bases to close. As for Europe raising the price of them ‘hosting’ US military bases, I suspect that would just give Trump an additional excuse to do what he wants to do anyway. To quote the famous Hungarian poster after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, “Konets tovarich!” (It’s over, comrade!).
Comment by koshmap — February 19, 2025 @ 1:02 pm
So it’s not absurd to openly deny the legitimacy of Romanian (and Georgian) elections with zero evidence of foreign interference but it’s absurd to deny modestly successful comedian’s (cc President Trump) legitimacy after he literally forewent the presidential elections?
You can’t make it up.
No, they can’t handle the truth.
Comment by A.russian — February 20, 2025 @ 5:03 am
@ Ivan: It’s similarly hilarious that Trump responds to Zelenskyy’s comment that he was immersed in Russian disinformation…by regurgitating yet more of the Kremlin’s attack lines! Can there really be any doubt now that Russian sleepers have taken control of the US govt?
@ derriz: Like “Trump” on Truth (sic) Social*, I believe “Craig” may well be a MAGA AI psy-op. How else can one explain these unbelievable changes in opinion?
* There’s no way the real man has the wit nor attention span to type out such messages.
Comment by David Mercer — February 20, 2025 @ 12:28 pm
It seems a bit harsh to say that Ukraine started the war when it seems actually to have been the CIA, staging its coup in 2014, and the Clinton Administration ignoring the promise that Bush the Elder’s administration had given Russia at the time of German reunification.
I don’t really understand the US objection to Russia promulgating its own Monroe Doctrine. Just as the US decrees its own right to loot, maim, and kill in the Caribbean, Central America, and conceivably South America, Russia wants to hold the whip hand over Belarus and Ukraine – or, at the very least, to reduce them to buffer states rather than active enemies.
Many people might reasonably look askance at this policy but that category can’t possibly include the ruling classes of the USA.
Comment by dearieme — February 20, 2025 @ 1:20 pm
Much of what Vance had to say at yet another European Security Conference wasn’t new.
USA has been urging Europe to get real on defence for thirty years. Instead they promoted the worst Defence Minister ever to head the EU. UvdL.
What really spooked the cry babies was the attack on moralising progressivism. If importing millions of Muslims, ignoring rapes and rising crime, supporting kidnappers and terrorists, etc. is ok then the values of Europe and USA have diverged so far that USA has no shared interest in Europeans’ safety.
Will Europeans wake up? Of course we won’t, we’re too woke.
Comment by philip — February 21, 2025 @ 3:01 pm
Trump’s proposal to take a lien on Ukraine rare metals etc may turn out to be a stroke of genius.
Ukraine doesn’t have many rare earths – and no history of mining for them. The piffling amounts seem to be concentrated on the Uke side of the front line.
Any cobbled together peace keeping force is an obvious dud. Once Putin has rearmed he’ll ignore it or roll over it.
But if USA and USA miners have rights to large tracts of exploration land Putin might think twice before antagonising some very powerful western interests.
The meek will inherit the earth, and the powerful will inherit the rare earths.
Comment by philip — February 21, 2025 @ 3:10 pm
Oh, I remember that Gorbachev interview, where he recalls Secretary Baker telling him “We intend to cause the collapse of the USSR and hence of the Warsaw Pact, but don’t worry, it’s not that bad: I promise we won’t let them into NATO”.
Comment by Ivan — February 21, 2025 @ 4:22 pm
Hey US, support us militarily while we socialists create a gigantic welfare state and regulate the heck out of it. Meanwhile, we will enact protectionist trade policy and pay lots of subsidies to our businesses.
Darn, we need more labor since our people don’t seem to want to work. Can’t figure it out. They aren’t having babies anymore either. Hey, Muslims, come on in.
Gee, I wonder why people are getting raped, knifed and beaten on the streets. Must be Trump.
Comment by Jeff Carter (@pointsnfigures1) — February 22, 2025 @ 9:15 am
The Europeans are suffering under a delusion that can only be described as a category error.
They describe themselves as ‘Allies’
They do not realize that the Boss doesn’t ‘do’ Allies or Alliances
When people speak in the presence of the Boss and say the word Allies, what the Boss actually hears is the word ‘Vassals’
Comment by Simple Simon — February 23, 2025 @ 1:03 pm