From 1987 onwards, the executive branch of the US government has been issuing an annual NSS (National Security Strategy) document, and the Trump administration followed that tradition the other day.
That was the only tradition it followed. For every one of the document’s 33 pages constitutes an about-face on America’s traditional policies, alliances and strategic goals – indeed on the way she sees herself in the world. Not to cut too fine a point, Trump has destroyed the post-war world order in one fell swoop.
This legal document is bitterly critical of Europe, and it’s difficult to describe the criticism as unfair. The NSS states that:
“The larger issues facing Europe include activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.”
The continent’s sole hope lies in “the growing influence of patriotic European parties”, without which “it is more than plausible that within a few decades at the latest, certain NATO members will become majority non-European.”
A translation is in order. “Patriotic parties” are mostly, though not exclusively, such fascisoid groups as Germany’s AfD, while “non-European” should be more accurately rendered as non-white. Let’s call a spade a spade, shall we?
Most of the patriotic parties so close to Trump’s heart are also consistently pro-Putin, as, for all his half-hearted pronouncements to the contrary, is Trump himself. Thus, while Europe is facing “civilisational erasure”, it’s in America’s strategic interests that Putin’s war on the Ukraine should stop, so that Trump could restore “strategic stability” with Russia.
If that means throwing the Ukraine under the bus, then so be it. Had the Donald been president, that war wouldn’t have started in the first place, and he could now stop it instantly – but for certain “unstable minority governments” in Europe that harbour “unrealistic expectations for the war.” One such expectation is that unprovoked fascist aggression mustn’t be rewarded, but then the Donald did tell you it’s unrealistic.
The document states that: “We will oppose elite-driven, anti-democratic restrictions on core liberties in Europe, the Anglosphere, and the rest of the world, especially among our allies.”
No such opposition is mentioned to the rather more terminal restrictions of that kind in the country with which Trump wishes to restore “strategic stability”, meaning to form a new alliance. This makes one doubt the sincerity of his commitment to democratic goodness. At least here, in the Anglosphere traditionally allied with America, dissidents are only cancelled, not defenestrated or poisoned with radioactive compounds.
Then the NSS document echoes the Kremlin’s gripe by stating America’s commitment to “ending the perception, and preventing the reality, of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance.”
Do let’s add a touch of reality to that much-maligned NATO expansion. The Soviet Union, so aptly described by Reagan as an “evil empire”, enslaved every nation it could all along the perimeter of Russia. Some of those nations were incorporated into the USSR, others merely controlled by it. The control was absolute and violent, as in Eastern Europe, or soft, as in Finland (hence the term ‘finlandisation’).
Those nations hated the Soviet Union, as concentration camp inmates hate their guards. When that colossus tottered, they broke free instantly. However, Eastern Europeans, unlike their western neighbours, knew their history. They knew that sooner or later their perennial oppressor would grow new muscle and come again.
That’s why they sought – begged for – the kind of protection they hoped NATO could provide. NATO agreed to provide it, taking the side of the victims, not their oppressors. The Kremlin screamed bloody murder, of course, claiming that expansion was a preparation for a full-scale attack on Russia.
Everyone knew that was tosh. NATO was created and is maintained as a purely defensive alliance designed to thwart Russia’s aggressive expansion throughout her history – and especially in the past 100 years. It’s because Russia is still pursuing such ambitions that Kremlin chieftains are so riled about the growth of NATO.
The NSS statement thus tells all other victims of Russian imperial conceit, such as the Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, to abandon any hope of liberty. They are in the Russian sphere of influence, and there they’ll remain in perpetuity, or at least while Vlad’s best friend lives in the White House.
Now, I could happily sign my name to much of the NSS criticism of Europe, including Britain. Our civilisation is fighting a rearguard action against the onslaught of barbarians, most of whom are already within our gates.
Wokery, ecozealotry, unrestrained immigration, denial of academic and civil liberties, Marxist economics, demographic replacement are all vices going unchecked and unopposed. Moreover, Britain and continental countries have all neglected their defences ever since the big war, relying instead on the US to protect them. I don’t know about “civilisational erasure”, but civilisational erosion is plain for all to see.
By the same token, criticism of the Ukraine as a country riddled with corruption even at high levels of government is equally justified. The recent scandal that, according to that Putin stooge Peter Hitchens, tore a “halo” off the Ukraine’s head, is indeed abominable.
Of course, that halo existed only in Hitchens’s Kremlin-weaned imagination. Everybody knew even before the scandal that corruption was rife in the Ukraine. By the same token, Poland’s government was not only corrupt but also nasty in 1939. Yet Western powers came to her defence, knowing their own turn would come next.
The conviction existed at the time, to be enshrined in post-war treaties, that national borders shouldn’t be changed by force. Holding them inviolable was the only way of preventing a global catastrophe.
Yes, many aspects of both Europe and the Ukraine are loathsome. Yet none of them justifies the betrayal clearly spelled out in the NSS document.
As far as Trump is concerned, NATO is dead de facto, if not yet de jure. This at a time when Europe has woken up to the need of arming herself. The awakening isn’t complete – the bleary eyes are still being rubbed, and the legs are sliding out slowly from under the blanket. But there’s no chance of going back to sleep. All Europe needs is some time, and that’s what Trump is denying it.
Russian jackboots stamping out the Ukraine’s liberty won’t stop if successful. A subsequent attack on a NATO country, probably one of the Baltics, while a distinct possibility before this NSS document, has now become a certainty.
Since it’s clear that Trump’s America won’t honour her obligations under the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty, Europe will then face a stark choice. It’ll either have to go to war with Russia or sit back and watch former Russian satellites returning to her orbit one by one.
Europe has Russia outmanned and potentially outgunned, but none of this matters in the absence of will, the readiness to die defending freedom. That’s why there’s every danger that a soporific Europe will choose the second option, thereby putting a noose over its own head and kicking out its supporting stool of moral rectitude.
All the ‘patriotic parties’ Trump sees as his natural allies, are isolationist, which in this context means pro-Putin: neutrality in the face of evil is tantamount to its support. Such parties are undermining whatever will to resist is still extant in Europe.
Europe’s hope of survival lies with the Ukraine, whose heroic army is fighting not only for her freedom but also for ours. That’s why it’s not only morally but strategically necessary for the West to unite in its commitment to stop evil from engulfing the continent.
The NSS document states clearly that America no longer sees herself as part of that unity. If anything, her sympathies lie with the aggressor, not his victims, present and future. “Strategic stability” with Russia is mentioned as a goal; strategic stability in Europe isn’t.
I hope that Europe will finally jump out of bed and go to work, redoubling its efforts to stop the fascist juggernaut rolling in from the east. Freedom is worth fighting for, and it’s certainly worth straining financial sinews for.
As for the US, Trump’s misreading of her national interests is lamentable. He seems to want both to eat his proverbial cake and have it, meaning both to keep America’s leadership of the West and to forgo her commitment to it.
Trump is being disingenuous when describing that position only in terms of costs, not benefits. Yes, the US has been contributing disproportionately to the defence of the West. But that investment hasn’t been without dividends.
America has been able to bankroll her prosperity with promiscuous borrowing only because her debts are denominated in dollars, the world’s reserve currency. The Bretton Woods system established in 1944 paved the way to America’s status as a superrich superpower, with all Western currencies pegged to the dollar, which itself was pegged to gold.
Nixon (unfathomably seen as a conservative) destroyed the link to gold in 1971, after which US debts have been settled with paper only, and the paper has been flying off the Fed’s printing presses. That practice is in danger of collapsing if America abandons her concomitant commitments to European security.
Europe will have to tighten its belt by what Trump calls “paying up” for her own defence. But America’s belt will have to add a few holes too if the US no longer wishes to be the leader of the free world. Yet Trump seems to think America can continue to lead the West while allying herself with its existential enemies.
Things don’t usually work out that way, and I hope America doesn’t act in the spirit of Trump’s NSS document. A vain hope, I know, but one has to hope for something.