- Love is like war…
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Dear reader,
“Love is like war,” argued Henry Louis Mencken — “easy to begin but very hard to stop.”
What is the war presently raging in Ukraine… but proof?
Four years ago this day Mr. Putin ordered his men into Ukrainian property.
Many forecasted that the Russian strongman would gobble Ukraine within days.
Four years — and well in excess of one million lives later — the war rages yet.
Its culmination is nowhere within sight.
Easy to begin… but very hard to stop.
Not Justified — But Provoked
Mr. Putin is of course the high villain of this crimson tale — and justly so. He went, rudely, where he was not invited.
His hands are red with the blood of perhaps millions. That blood he can never rinse it away.
Yet I do not accept the cries that Mr. Putin’s atrocity was “unprovoked.”
For years the North Atlantic Treaty Organization poked and prodded the Russian.
It pledged to bring Ukraine into its ranks. It handed Ukraine weaponry. It assisted in ousting Ukraine’s democratically elected pro-Russian president in 2014.
Yet I let it pass. I would simply note that the governance of Ukraine has never been a primary security interest of the United States — or even a secondary security interest of the United States.
Germany’s Iron Chancellor, Bismarck, once argued that the entire Balkans were not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier.
Is all of Ukraine worth the bones of a single American pilot, or tanker or infantryman?
I do not believe it is. There are those who believe otherwise.
The Battle Between “Liberal Democracy” and the “Trump-Putin Axis”
A certain Simon Tisdall. Mr. Tisdall is a foreign affairs commentator for Britain’s Guardian.
And he believes America’s “anti-Trump majority” must join Europe to scotch the Russian menace:
- Despite all the obvious obstacles and difficulties, it’s imperative that Europeans, and the pre-midterms, anti-Trump American majority, begin to speak with one voice — and match words with actions. And where better to start than in Ukraine, the actual and symbolic frontline in the battle between liberal democracy and the Trump-Putin axis?
I was unaware that the Trump-Putin axis existed. I was under the impression that “Russiagate” has been powerfully repudiated by fact.
Yet as I have argued before in these very pages:
The Europeans do not truly fear Mr. Putin and his alleged dreams of European conquest.
They fear instead that the United States Army will take ship at Calais… and sail away from Europe.
They fear they will be forced to underwrite their own security.
And this is the great bugaboo that alarms them.
That is because the entire European project shelters beneath the mighty wings of the American eagle.
Let the Americans Defend Us While We Build Welfare States
Let the United States tend to our defense, Europe has said since the conclusion of the Second World War.
We can repurpose our swords into plowshares.
We can then erect lavish welfare states to maintain our citizens in opulence.
We Europeans have expressed a distinct taste for butter — for costly butter.
If the United States withdraws its guns, we will be forced to purchase our own.
And we cannot afford these guns if we maintain our extravagant butter purchases.
Most importantly, the mighty United States has quieted our quarreling.
We have plenty of quarrels, to be sure. Many are ancient. They extend roots deep into our soil… and coarse deeply through our blood.
Should the United States release us from its protective fold? We may rediscover the quarrels above-described.
We may discover that we Europeans are not primarily Europeans — but primarily Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, Belgians, Spaniards and Dutchmen.
Did you watch the recently concluded Olympic games in northern Italy? You observed German flags, Austrian flags, French flags, Swiss flags, Norwegian flags, Swedish flags, Finnish flags flying proudly.
Our airy-fairy dreams of a unified and borderless Europe may therefore die the death should the Americans walk away.
Europe Has Created a Bogey Man
The central imperative of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty Organization has been — famously — to keep the Americans in… the Russians out… and the Germans down.
Hence the European horror at a potential American exodus.
Yet, again, I do not believe it is because Europeans fear the Russians coming in.
European overlords do a lot of yelling about it. They shriek that the Ukrainian hors d’oeuvre will not satiate Mr. Putin’s vast territorial hungers.
They argue he will next gobble Poland and the Baltic states. All of Europe will appear ultimately upon his dinner plate.
Thus Mr. Putin must choke upon the Ukrainian snack… if Europe will endure.
Do I stretch the facts? Only slightly perhaps — if at all.
Yet their greatest concern is keeping the Americans in.
Let’s Keep the Germans Down
Europe as a whole has always feared a unified, dominant Germany.
The more Germanies the better, said the French.
And if the Americans are no longer in… Europe fears the Germans will rise up.
They do not fear the return of a mustachioed Austrian corporal. They do not fear Auschwitz will resume its ghoulish operations.
They understand that this year’s Germany is not yesteryear’s Germany.
Yet Europe is an ancient civilization.
And its distinct nations have historical… memories.
Do Europeans truly want German auto factories converted from auto production to tank production?
I do not believe they do.
They would prefer that the Americans manufacture tanks — and that the Germans manufacture autos.
They would prefer that American Abrams tanks prowl Germany’s Grafenwoehr training grounds… not German Leopard tanks.
Thus the Europeans want the Americans in.
It is not because they want to keep the Russians out — but because they want to keep the Germans down.
They fear they must become normal nations again… should the Americans walk away.
That is, Europeans do not fear Russians.
In reality, they fear themselves.
Brian Maher
for Freedom Financial News
