Reality –What a Concept. (Which the Europeans Don’t Grasp).
The Trump administration is causing an intercontinental meltdown. Politicians in Europe, Canada, and the US are wetting the bed over its latest moves. I’ll cover the domestic meltdown in a future post. Today I’ll focus on the furriners.
Trump himself started the hysteria by announcing from DC that he and Putin had agreed to begin negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. His deputies, Vice President Vance and SecDef Hegseth, then delivered some home truths right in blunt terms right to their faces.
Hegseth said Ukrainian membership in Nato was not in the cards, and further, that Ukraine could not expect return of all territories lost since 2014. To which the Europeans took extreme umbrage. Premature concessions to Putin! Ukraine must go into Nato!
These are only concessions to reality, something to which the Europeans have a very doubtful attachment. Trump, and/or Hegseth and/or Vance and/or Rubio are apparently going to have to go all Colonel Jessup on them: You Can’t Handle the Truth! Because they obviously can’t.
It’s also beyond bizarre that the Europeans should want Ukraine in Nato, especially given their extreme neuralgia at spending money on defense. Ukraine in Nato would (a) provide no additional defense to Nato beyond what it is providing outside it now, and (b) because of Article 5 would increase Europe’s risk of going to war with Russia, a prospect that it apparently holds in dread.
Or does it? On the one hand, it wrings its collective hands and wails how Russia is an existential military threat. On the other, it has stubbornly refused to make a serious effort-or any effort at all-to strengthen its own defenses. So actions don’t match words. Why should we take them seriously?
And here’s where something else Hegseth said has the Europeans’ panties in a wad. Defending Europe is up to. . . Europe. The US has to focus on a pacing threat from China.
OMG! That’s undermining Nato!
No. Again, more reality.
As for Nato, it was formed when Europe was on its back and did face an existential threat that was also a threat to US interests. That was almost 70 years ago. Europe is off its back. The USSR is gone, and Putin’s Russia is a pale simulacrum of that. China was not a major threat to US interests then. It is now.
In other words, the threats Nato faces are far diminished, the Europeans are far better positioned to deal with, and the US has business elsewhere So deal with it.
But no! Uncle Sucker has to do it!
And the Euros are stamping their little feet and shooting off their fat mouths.
In the fat mouth (and other body parts) category is German Defense Minister (an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one) Boris Pistorius says that the remarks of Vance (more on him below) and Hegseth are “unacceptable.”
Yes, we get that reality isn’t acceptable for you. But there it is. Lump it or like it, as you will.
Former German Defense Minister [sic] and current EU President Ursula von der Leyen said “Ukraine needs peace through strength. Europe wants peace through strength.”
This being the woman, mind you, under whose “leadership” the German military trained with painted broomsticks and had an abysmal operational readiness rate in aircraft in particular.
Then there’s little Manny, who like other Europeans is demanding a seat at the table:
Hop along like a good little froggy now. The reality (there’s that word again!) is that to get a seat at the big boys table you need to buy in. The buy-in at this table is hard power. Of which Europe has none. By choice.
Europe is willing to fight to the last Ukrainian and the last American dollar. That doesn’t get you into the game no matter how much you harrumph and whine.
You see, America is being selfish!
Yes. And?
How dare the US be guided by the interests of <checks notes> the US? The nerve of those people, right?
Well, you can hop along right after Manny, Dominique. You look after Europe’s interests, the US will look after ours.
Vance’s broadside, delivered at the security conference in Munich that followed hard on another mass atrocity by an immigrant (from Afghanistan), dropped truthbombs on subjects beyond Ukraine, and as a result sparked more hyperventilating (e.g., the Pistorius remarks above). Vance lambasted Europe for its virulently anti-free speech policies and attitudes, its cultural malaise, and its suicidal immigration policies. All right on target, and precisely for that reason a trigger for hysterical shrieks.
To which Vance no doubt says: “I don’t really care, Margaret.”
Face it. Europe is a dysfunctional mess. It is a continent of Lilliputians who want to tie down Gulliver and get him to do their bidding. The analogy is exact. Per Wikipedia:
The Lilliputians reveal themselves to be a people who put great emphasis on trivial matters. For example, which end of an egg a person cracks becomes the basis of a deep political rift within that nation. They are a people who revel in displays of authority and performances of power. Gulliver assists the Lilliputians to subdue their neighbours the Blefuscudians by stealing their fleet. However, he refuses to reduce the island nation of Blefuscu to a province of Lilliput, displeasing the King and the royal court.
Europe to a “t.” Well, Europe, Trump-Gulliver doesn’t give a damn if he displeases you. You are going to have to face Blefuscu on your own, and deal with your own internal (and self-inflicted) dysfunctions.
Like Robin Williams pointed out years ago: Reality . . . What a concept. And one the Europeans haven’t yet grasped, and show no signs of doing so any time soon.
The chief European gynecologist Ursula used to say in 2022 that Russians are in the business of stealing microchips from washing machines.
And after that: Russians are a military threat! So let’s give away all our weapons! (To neo-Nazis in this case)
No, they can’t handle the truth.
Comment by A.russian — February 15, 2025 @ 12:49 am
There’s a “centrist” twerp in British politics, Rory Stewart, formerly a Conservative MP. It has just been revealed that his wife makes a living running a nutcase “charity” that aims to teach the principles of ‘woke’ to Afghan women. It seems that this outfit has been funded by USAID.
They are all at it, aren’t they? Corrupt to the core.
No doubt corruption will turn up in the Trump administration too but let’s hope it’s corruption on Our side rather than Theirs, and corruption of few rather than many.
Comment by dearieme — February 15, 2025 @ 8:02 am
We in Europe despair of our leaders. Smug, stupid, purblind cowards. They think they are somehow protected from a reality-repulsive force field, like some kid who has just read a sci fi comic.
Babylon Bee has just published a joke about Europeans wanting JD Vance as the next European president. I wonder if it’s a joke or a poll.
Comment by philip — February 15, 2025 @ 4:21 pm
I’ll second what Philip says about European leadership – plenty of us realise how incredibly absurd it is that we are still so reliant for our security on American technology (which OK there might be justification for) and American money (for which there is no justification whatsoever). And to be fair to Macron, he’s been talking about the need for “Strategic Autonomy” for years.
That being said, I wonder if all the very public bleating has a real and practical purpose (apart from giving The Prof blogging material!): Maybe the presence of the bad orange bogey-man in the White House is finally the catalyst the European leadership needs to get the more stubborn elements of the European population (especially in Germany) to realise that, actually yes, there really is a problem, and actually yes, we need to step up and deal with it.
Comment by HibernoFrog — February 17, 2025 @ 7:34 am
The depth and extent of the psychosis never fails to shock.
How on earth they managed to acquire power, and manage to hold onto that power, given their separation from reality, is a great puzzle. I can’t fathom it.
Adjustment back to reality, for them and for Europe, is going to be quite wrenching.
Comment by Ex-Global Super-Regulator on Lunch Break — February 17, 2025 @ 9:42 pm