Junk’s army makes no sense

Jean-Claude Juncker (Junk to his friends) must have his brain addled by Glenfarclas whisky, which he’s rumoured to consume in toxic amounts.

Since president-elect Trump doesn’t have much time for supranational setups, his ascent casts a dark cloud over Junk’s vocation, which is making all power in Europe concentrated in the hands of an unaccountable Brussels elite.

So much more desperate Junk is to look for a silver lining. Now he thinks he has found it in the fact that Trump’s distaste for supranational setups seems to extend to NATO.

Of course, Donald’s experience has taught him to see life primarily in terms of dollars and cents. Preferable as this outlook is to one based on ideology, it’s inadequate when applied to geopolitics.

But be that as it may, Trump’s objection to NATO springs largely from the inequitably large contribution America makes to its budget. I see his point: the US pays 70 per cent of NATO’s budget though the other 27 members have a greater combined GDP.

Moreover, only five of them comply with the NATO guideline of spending at least two per cent of GDP on defence – which number doesn’t include Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Britain qualifies, but only by including MI6 in the defence rubric. And Latvia and Lithuania, who have more than most to fear from Russia, spend hardly anything on defence at all.

All this is outrageous. But it takes an awful lot of Glenfarclas to deduce that therefore the EU needs its own army acting, in Junk’s words, as “the principal global security provider”. He must have been in his buckets, not just cups.

Leaving the logistics of this aspiration to military professionals, even a rank amateur equipped with a pocket calculator will know that, to begin to realise this aspiration, Europe will have to double its defence spending – at least.

Junk and his jolly friends surely must understand this. Implicitly, therefore, they are ready to invest in rebuilding Europe’s defences – hoping that the Russians don’t attack during the years such a massive programme would take.

But if the EU is prepared to boost its defence spending to such an extent, Trump’s major objection to NATO vanishes. Following it out of the window is the need for an EU army, presumably led by Junk as generalissimo and Tusk as the vanguard commander.

An EU army wouldn’t just compete with NATO – it would destroy it. That would surely put an end to any US presence on the continent, leaving the EU to its own devices. One can see Col. Putin’s eyes light up even as we speak.

For Russia would have Europe badly outgunned even in the unlikely scenario of Europe doubling its defence spending. At the moment, the two European nuclear powers, Britain and France, have 515 nuclear warheads between them. Russia has 7,300.

Also, Russia has 15,398 tanks, including the new generation that has revolutionised tank design. Britain, Germany and France together have about 1,300 tanks, many of which are just armoured self-propelled guns. Even doubling that number would leave Europe in dire straits.

The same picture pertains in every weapon category. The upshot of it is that Europe can’t defend itself against Russia without America’s help.

But forget armaments. The most vital weapon in any country’s arsenal is its wisdom to perceive danger and its will to defend against it. Alas, one observes a deficit in those areas on the part of both the EU and the US.

Junk’s musings have nothing to do with defence. They represent nothing but an attempt to increase the EU’s power by drawing more resources under its umbrella. Indirectly, there’s also a hope that Britain will reverse Brexit, having found herself in a military vacuum between the US and the EU.

Should push come to shove, the EU would effectively surrender faster than you can say ‘Munich’. This wouldn’t represent an intolerable change of status for Western European leaders: they’d simply become satraps to Moscow rather than Brussels.

There’s no logic to Junk’s hare-brained ideas at all, other than federalist self-aggrandisement. However, there’s no logic to Trump’s distaste for NATO either.

Europe needs America, but then America needs Europe too. To put this into mercantile terms so dear to Trump’s heart, for Europe to act as a profitable trade partner it has to be prosperous, which it wouldn’t be under Russian domination.

For historical evidence, look at the economies created before 1990 by the same Germans in the west of the country and in the east. When it comes to economies, Russia has a Midas touch in reverse, even if she doesn’t occupy the space physically.

However, the most powerful arguments for collective security lie outside Trump’s comfort zone. Americans have had an innate belief in their historical mission ever since 1630, when their leader, the Puritan lawyer John Winthrop, delivered an oration in which he alluded to Matthew 5:14 by describing the new community as a “city upon a hill”.

People – including many Americans – who see America as merely a business concern with uncertain cultural antecedents are making a bad mistake. They ignore the messianic metaphysical premise that’s as important to Americans as their vaunted pursuit of happiness.

A country can change its economy, military alliances and even laws. One thing it can’t change is its metaphysical premise, provided it’s deeply enough ingrained. Thus America has to pursue a global role to remain America. The sooner Trump realises this, the better it will be for his own country.

NATO is a proven instrument of America realising such ambitions – whatever we, or Junk, may think about them. Casting Europe adrift is simply not an option for either party.

Hence, while Junk’s idea of a Yank-free defence is downright crazy, Trump’s isolationist noises are ill-considered too. He must think again.