Hurty words and transatlantic fracturing
Key Market report for Monday, 17 February 2025
A few weeks ago Steve Bannon promised "days of thunder" from the moment of Donald Trump's inauguration and indeed, Trump and team have been carpet-bombing us with executive orders, deals, statements, speeches and radical policy moves so much that they are hard to keep up with. One of the most gratifying drive-by policy shootings have been the Defence Secretary Pete Hagseth's speech to NATO and Vice President JD Vance's address to the Munich Security Conference. Mr. Hagseth reaffirmed that European NATO members would have to contribute 5% of their GDP to NATO and said that Ukraine won't become a member of the Alliance.
He also made it clear that if European nations wished to place their own troops there to fight against Russia, that they're on their own. Within NATO and the EU, everyone pretty much knows that Ukraine will never be accepted into either club, but stating this out in the open is a different thing altogether. Just like in the Soviet Communist Party, the members do know the truth, but acknowledging it or speaking it out is simply unacceptable.
The reason Hagseth caused so much consternation at NATO was that the big lie was necessary to keep the Ukrainians fighting and dying in their war against Russia. For as long as they do, there's hope for a miracle turnaround, some kind of a crisis in Russia that could help topple Vladimir Putin from power, or some way to escalate the war to a full-scale Russia-NATO confrontation.
If the Ukrainians surrender, then it's game over. Trump's DefSec just dashed Ukraine's hopes of ever becoming a NATO member, which could precipitate peace in Ukraine. The panic about peace breaking out is why it was necessary to reward the speech by Ukraine's president Zelensky with a long standing ovation and many taps on his shoulders (he also got a long standing ovation before he even began to speak). It's the least the European leaders could do (plus back it up with more billions of their taxpayers' money).
It then had to be the British to come out and reassure the world that Ukraine should still become a NATO member, of course, so carry on fighting. Prime Minister Starmer also pledged that the UK is ready to place their troops in Ukraine to defend freedom and democracy there. So, so surprising. And I always thought that Britain was merely the loyal, but reluctant ally, following the U.S. lead in all the imperial misadventures, and never hesitating to berate the uncouth Yanks when things went awry.
JD Vance, on the other hand, roasted the Europeans about their record on freedom and democracy, citing many cases of their citizens being arrested and punished for crimes "as heinous as" silently praying on the sidewalk for three minutes. German police now go door-to-door, confiscating people's communications devices to curb "hate speech," or whatever they label as such. Usually, it's just German people voicing disagreement with migrants killing ordinary Germans or supporting the AfD party. Vice President Vance said that the United States has no use for allies who are afraid of their own people.
For his part, Chancellor Scholz made it look like he actually had a backbone when he issued an irritated and rather rude rebuke of JD Vance's criticisms, defending the German government's right to proscribe the political parties they dislike and to defend their nation against misinformation, disinformation, and other kinds of information they generally wished weren't true. Democracy, you see, is only good if people vote the right way. If they don't, so much the worse for them: elections can be cancelled, people can be silenced or imprisoned, and political parties can be disqualified from participating in democracy and freedom in Europe.
To put an appropriate touch on the farcical gathering, Munich Security Conference's Chairman Christopher Heusgen added some real, actual weeping to all the gnashing of teeth. The gathered dignitaries rewarded Heusgen's pathetic, contemptible stunt with empathy and a loud applause. Even hugs were offered to the distraught warmonger who is merely longing to extend the war in Ukraine and send other people's children to die and be maimed defending democracy and freedom* (*some restrictions do apply). Poor, poor Chairman Heusgen, not even his BFF Samantha Power with USAid money could console him from the hurt inflicted by the bad, no good Trump people. So sad. If Trump accepted President Putin's invitation to participate in Victory Day Parade in Moscow on 9 May this year, many European hearts might break.
In all, we could be witnessing the fracturing of the EuroAtlantic alliance after 76 long years. It was an alliance that never should have been. In 1945, the USSR defeated the Nazi monster at the cost of 27 million casualties. The Soviets received help from the US and other allied nations, but as much as 80% of the Wehrmacht was destroyed by the Red Army. Hitler himself said that the armies he sent westward were merely "fire brigades" by comparison. But the great alliance between the USSR and other Western powers was deliberately destroyed and the USSR was made into an enemy - needlessly and gratuitously.
In 1946, Winston Churchill gave his famous Fulton Speech in front of US President Harry Truman and declared that the USSR was the enemy of the West. Less than three years later, NATO alliance was born. A year later, Greece and Turkey were added. In 1952 NATO added Western Germany and only then the USSR reciprocated by creating the Warsaw Pact. Hostility and cold war were contrived where friendship and constructive cooperation could have been cultivated. This wasn't inevitable; it didn't occur spontaneously: it was made to happen that way by the British imperial ruling establishment.
Today hopefully, this dangerous drift of history could be reversed and set straight. European political class will have to catch up or they'll end up swept from the scenes and replaced by different actors, more suitable to the irreversible march of the multipolar global order.
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