Enemies at the gate! Wake up, Europe!

Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin see eye to eye (Source: here)

In a recent post, I pointed out that Europe faces major internal threats as the Far Right looks set to make significant gains in important European elections over the coming months (see here). In the same post, I also pointed out that it could be bedtime for democracy in the United States if Donald Trump is elected President in November of this year.

Of these two threats, the one coming from the United States is clearly the biggest. After all, Europe is made up of sufficiently many individual countries that even if fascists assume power in a small handful of European Union (EU) member states they will not have enough power to shape policy at European level. At worst, they will make it harder for Europe to take decisions, which is hardly anything new, since the EU requirement of unanimity in most decisions has paralysed EU for many years already.  

Trump is the most immediate and serious threat to Europe for three reasons: First, Trump has indicated on a number of occasions that he is fed up with NATO. Second, he is extremely favourably disposed towards Russian President Vladimir Putin. Third, he is not supportive of Ukraine in its defence against Russian aggression.

Given Trump’s views, it does not take a great genius to spot a scenario in which Trump withdraws from NATO and ends American support for Ukraine. This would lead to a rapid Ukrainian collapse and allow Putin to focus on his next European target as he seeks to rebuild the Soviet Union. He will most likely target one or more of Georgia, Moldova, Serbia, or perhaps one of the Baltic states.

It is deeply ironic that Russia should even pose a threat to Europe. European military capabilities and resources in general are vastly superior to those of Russia (with the exception of basic commodities). However, Europe is not superior to Russia in the one area that really matters right now, namely willingness to stand together to confront an external enemy.

Why is Europe so weak in the face of external threats? One reason is undoubtedly Europe’s long history of tribalism - it is just difficult to agree on anything when Europeans are so culturally inflexible (see here). Still, the United States is also displaying pathetic weakness in the face of fascist aggression, so clearly European Culturalism is only part of the problem.

The truth is that democratic governments generally have a hard time confronting fascist dictators. Every European - more so than Americans - knows what it is like to have two world wars fought on own soil. The hatred of war runs deep here. Democracies answer to electorates, which, in Europe, do not want to die on battlefields, nor see their sons die on battlefields.

Indeed, the hatred of war runs so deep in Europe that, perversely, politicians will do almost anything to avoid upsetting actual and potential enemies. Case in point: Europe continues to trade with Russia through third countries in Central Asia, basically paying for Putin's war in Ukraine. The chart below shows European car exports to Kazakhstan. Clearly, Kazakhstan has not suddenly gone mad for European cars. Rather, these cars are going to Russia via Kazakhstan.

European cars exported to Russia via Kazakhstan (Source: here)

Meanwhile, European military support for Ukraine, although greater than that provided by the United Kingdom and the United States, is clearly not enough to enable Ukraine to fend off the Russians.

As if that was not bad enough, Western democratic governments even make it difficult for other democracies and vulnerable populations under attack from fascists to defend themselves. For example, US President Joe Biden continues to insist that Ukraine must not use its weapons to attack targets within Russia. Yet, it is this very rule, which has enabled Russia to build the supply lines that made recent Russian gains in Ukraine possible. The US is seemingly also willing to ditch international rule of law in order to support fascist governments; Biden recently attacked the International Criminal Court, when its prosecutor applied for an arrest order for Israel’s genocidal leader, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Non-action against - or even outright support for - fascist aggressors by Western democracies are deeply misguided attempts to contain conflict. They are doomed to fail. Fascists do not respect international law. Fascists do not respect democracy. Fascists do not respect human rights. When fascists are allowed to win one conflict, they will soon start another conflict, usually picking on a smaller neighbour or weak populations. Fascists only know the language of force and they can only be stopped with even greater force.

This was the lesson of Spain in the 1930s, when Europe and the United States similarly failed to stop a fascist dictator, who at the time was overturning a legitimately elected democratic government using military means. Franco’s war in Spain proved to be highly beneficial to both Italy's Mussolini and Germany's Hitler, whose armed forces were able to use the Spanish Civil War to gain invaluable battlefield experience and to test weapon systems, which would soon be unleashed on the rest of Europe.

Today, Europe and the United States are repeating the mistakes of Spain the 1930s. Western leaders are tolerating fascists – Putin and Netanyahu – as they stage an illegal and unprovoked invasion of a peaceful neighbour in Ukraine and commit genocide in Gaza against Palestinians, respectively. Their ‘successes’ will not only encourage their own supporters, but also like-minded fascists waiting in the wings elsewhere.

Of course, history also shows that democracies eventually face down fascists, but in delaying they are multiplying manyfold the cost and associated suffering of doing so, compared to acting decisively much sooner.

We are living in a period of exceptionally weak Western leadership. Democratic leaders will rather squirm out of international commitments than stand by what is right. This weakness deepens disillusionment about democracy among voters; we risk that voters in Western democracies also get seduced by the deceptive decisiveness of fascists.

Which brings us back to Trump. If Trump is elected to the highest office in the United States in November he will quickly dismantle the basic safeguards of democracy, especially the independency of the judiciary. If this happens, the balance will swing decisively in favour of fascism in the United States, and, by extension, in the rest of the Western world.

The Age of Democracy will be over.

Almost all of us, especially Europeans, will regret if this happens. Europe urgently needs to recall the most important lesson from its own history, namely that the ONLY way to stop fascism is with violence. A good place to start would be to build a European defence capability, which answers to the European parliament and can act independently of the United States and NATO.

The End