Got this text from a European conservative friend on Sunday, referring to the Zelensky tea party in the Oval Office on Friday: “The Europeans, including many conservatives, are going crazy. They are messaging me that the U.S. joined Putin and we need to build nuclear weapons asap.”
Gosh. Well, they aren’t going to like this Sunday night social media missive from the U.S. president:
Meanwhile, after a weekend emergency summit of European leaders (plus Canada’s Justin Trudeau) in London, Prime Minister Keir Starmer told the British people that his government is prepared to deploy troops and aircraft to defend Ukraine. Good luck with that. In 2023, a senior U.S. general told the then-Defense Secretary that the British army, which is at its lowest manpower level since the Napoleonic wars, had declined so much in recent years that it is “an entire service unable to protect the UK and our allies.” Mary Harrington, a prominent British conservative commentator, responded to Starmer by tweeting, “Not a single one of Britain’s sons should be sacrificed for a regime that won’t defend Britain’s borders.”
Starmer, like his European counterparts, might have a different war on his hands before long. In a stunning podcast interview with Louise Perry, a King’s College, London, scholar who studies civil wars, warned that Britain is rushing headlong into domestic strife, chiefly over mass migration and its disruptive effects. In fact, said professor David Betz, the Starmer government’s policies are a textbook case of how to lay the groundwork for civil war.
Betz added that conditions are the same across Western Europe. If only European leaders showed as much concern about stopping mass migration as they do about stopping Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, Europe might save itself.
Besides, who are European governments going to enlist to fight for Ukraine? A 2024 Gallup survey found relatively small numbers of Europeans willing to fight in a war involving their own country. In the EU overall, 46% said they would not fight; only 31% said they would. 50% of Britons said they would not fight, along with 57% of Germans, and a staggering 78% of Italians would refuse to join combat.
The number for the United States is much better (34% refuse to fight), but still alarming. This is no doubt an effect of two decades of astoundingly expensive U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that accomplished little or nothing, leaving many combat veterans permanently damaged. And, as the U.S. armed forces leadership has enthusiastically embraced DEI, an increasing number of American conservatives—long stalwart supporters of the military—have turned their backs on it. It turns out that the segment of the American population that disproportionately provides soldiers, sailors, and airmen would prefer that their sons not risk their lives to queer the Donbas.
In polling done prior to the Trump-Vance-Zelensky showdown in the White House, European publics are mixed in their views about Ukraine policy.
Europeans generally support continuing to stand with Ukraine, but the American president has now, to use the poker term, called their bluff. Will they do so if it involves the possibility of European troops on the ground there, risking direct conflict with Russia, with no guarantee of U.S. backing if the shooting starts? Are they prepared to pay higher taxes and see reductions in welfare for Ukraine’s sake? We shall see.
As an American living in Europe, who loves Europe, it is painful to see this breach between the U.S. and its NATO allies. But as I wrote here over the weekend, that which cannot last forever eventually won’t.
One does not have to admire Vladimir Putin or support his aggression against Ukraine to believe that the world has changed, and that continuing a losing battle against Russia in Ukraine is not worth it. Trump’s turn on NATO is a shock too to many Americans, who have grown accustomed to the postwar arrangement. But Trump understands what establishment figures do not: that U.S. voters are no longer willing to allow Washington to write checks on the American people’s account.
Russia might be a threat to Europe, but it’s not as big a threat as that posed by uncontrolled mass migration that brings into the continent unassimilated and hostile minorities. Moreover, the ability of governments and their liberal media allies to suppress discontent by demonizing Europeans who notice what their elites are doing to their nations, and hate it, is waning.
It is terribly sad for Ukraine, but both the U.S. and its NATO allies have sent hundreds of billions of dollars in financial aid and weaponry to Kyiv to help it resist Russia—and after three years, the effort has stalemated. Meanwhile, the war has had dramatically negative effects on Europe’s economy, especially Germany’s. Should American and European publics continue to impoverish themselves and risk World War III for the sake of a lost cause? Or should Western leaders find another way?
Sometimes in world affairs, the choice is not good policy versus bad policy, but bad policy versus worse policy. The United States, Britain, and their allies had to make common cause with Stalin, one of history’s greatest monsters, to destroy another of history’s greatest monsters, Hitler. After the war, the liberty of Eastern European countries was sacrificed to Stalin to keep the peace. As awful as that was, the alternative—more war—was even worse.
It is Europe’s right to decide where to go from here regarding Ukraine—but even Starmer recognized in his weekend statement that nothing is possible without the United States. As unpleasant as it is, Trump is forcing Europeans to face their own collective weakness and to make hard choices based on the world that is—not the world that was for the 50 or 60 years after World War II, and then immediately following the Cold War.
Moral power is not the same thing as material might. In a story that might be legend, Stalin was supposedly told in 1943 that the Pope might be influencing Western diplomacy. “The Pope?” the dictator said. “How many divisions does he have?”
A cruel and cynical remark? Of course. But Stalin had a point.
The Ukraine conflict now calls into question—how many divisions does Europe have? That is, what are European nations, whose moral support for the Ukrainian cause is undeniable, prepared to sacrifice to continue backing Kyiv? Acerbic British historian David Starkey said over the weekend that, like it or not, the postwar order is over. The American-led West is no longer an unchallenged hegemon on the global stage. The failed wars to spread liberal values to Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya have discredited the “end of history” worldview.
“We’ve been lying to ourselves,” said Starkey.
The conservative historian went on to say that the government of the United Kingdom refuses to defend its own frontiers and persecutes ordinary Britons for asserting traditional patriotic values.
“And yet,” said Starkey, “we are supposedly all going to line up and fight for patriotic values in another country when we’re suppressing them in our own!”
He blasted successive British governments for living on moralistic vanities while presiding over the absolute economic decline of the country. Westminster follows, says Starkey, “a policy at home and abroad of entire rhetorical fiction.”
“They somehow believe that incantating the right words will somehow bring about policy and change. …What Trump is doing, and it’s magnificent—he’s crude, he’s brutal, he’s in many ways preposterous, this orange figure—but he’s confronting people with the fact that there are brutal facts. The world is real. You can’t magic it.
Indeed. The spell of liberal enchantment is broken. Official Washington is learning this now, the hard way, under the new administration. Now, it’s time for Brussels, London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, and everybody else on this side of the Atlantic to face brutal facts.
Trump Breaks Spell of Liberal Enchantment
U.S. President Donald Trump
Photo: SAUL LOEB / AFP
Got this text from a European conservative friend on Sunday, referring to the Zelensky tea party in the Oval Office on Friday: “The Europeans, including many conservatives, are going crazy. They are messaging me that the U.S. joined Putin and we need to build nuclear weapons asap.”
Gosh. Well, they aren’t going to like this Sunday night social media missive from the U.S. president:
Meanwhile, after a weekend emergency summit of European leaders (plus Canada’s Justin Trudeau) in London, Prime Minister Keir Starmer told the British people that his government is prepared to deploy troops and aircraft to defend Ukraine. Good luck with that. In 2023, a senior U.S. general told the then-Defense Secretary that the British army, which is at its lowest manpower level since the Napoleonic wars, had declined so much in recent years that it is “an entire service unable to protect the UK and our allies.” Mary Harrington, a prominent British conservative commentator, responded to Starmer by tweeting, “Not a single one of Britain’s sons should be sacrificed for a regime that won’t defend Britain’s borders.”
Starmer, like his European counterparts, might have a different war on his hands before long. In a stunning podcast interview with Louise Perry, a King’s College, London, scholar who studies civil wars, warned that Britain is rushing headlong into domestic strife, chiefly over mass migration and its disruptive effects. In fact, said professor David Betz, the Starmer government’s policies are a textbook case of how to lay the groundwork for civil war.
Betz added that conditions are the same across Western Europe. If only European leaders showed as much concern about stopping mass migration as they do about stopping Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, Europe might save itself.
Besides, who are European governments going to enlist to fight for Ukraine? A 2024 Gallup survey found relatively small numbers of Europeans willing to fight in a war involving their own country. In the EU overall, 46% said they would not fight; only 31% said they would. 50% of Britons said they would not fight, along with 57% of Germans, and a staggering 78% of Italians would refuse to join combat.
The number for the United States is much better (34% refuse to fight), but still alarming. This is no doubt an effect of two decades of astoundingly expensive U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that accomplished little or nothing, leaving many combat veterans permanently damaged. And, as the U.S. armed forces leadership has enthusiastically embraced DEI, an increasing number of American conservatives—long stalwart supporters of the military—have turned their backs on it. It turns out that the segment of the American population that disproportionately provides soldiers, sailors, and airmen would prefer that their sons not risk their lives to queer the Donbas.
In polling done prior to the Trump-Vance-Zelensky showdown in the White House, European publics are mixed in their views about Ukraine policy.
Europeans generally support continuing to stand with Ukraine, but the American president has now, to use the poker term, called their bluff. Will they do so if it involves the possibility of European troops on the ground there, risking direct conflict with Russia, with no guarantee of U.S. backing if the shooting starts? Are they prepared to pay higher taxes and see reductions in welfare for Ukraine’s sake? We shall see.
As an American living in Europe, who loves Europe, it is painful to see this breach between the U.S. and its NATO allies. But as I wrote here over the weekend, that which cannot last forever eventually won’t.
One does not have to admire Vladimir Putin or support his aggression against Ukraine to believe that the world has changed, and that continuing a losing battle against Russia in Ukraine is not worth it. Trump’s turn on NATO is a shock too to many Americans, who have grown accustomed to the postwar arrangement. But Trump understands what establishment figures do not: that U.S. voters are no longer willing to allow Washington to write checks on the American people’s account.
Russia might be a threat to Europe, but it’s not as big a threat as that posed by uncontrolled mass migration that brings into the continent unassimilated and hostile minorities. Moreover, the ability of governments and their liberal media allies to suppress discontent by demonizing Europeans who notice what their elites are doing to their nations, and hate it, is waning.
It is terribly sad for Ukraine, but both the U.S. and its NATO allies have sent hundreds of billions of dollars in financial aid and weaponry to Kyiv to help it resist Russia—and after three years, the effort has stalemated. Meanwhile, the war has had dramatically negative effects on Europe’s economy, especially Germany’s. Should American and European publics continue to impoverish themselves and risk World War III for the sake of a lost cause? Or should Western leaders find another way?
Sometimes in world affairs, the choice is not good policy versus bad policy, but bad policy versus worse policy. The United States, Britain, and their allies had to make common cause with Stalin, one of history’s greatest monsters, to destroy another of history’s greatest monsters, Hitler. After the war, the liberty of Eastern European countries was sacrificed to Stalin to keep the peace. As awful as that was, the alternative—more war—was even worse.
It is Europe’s right to decide where to go from here regarding Ukraine—but even Starmer recognized in his weekend statement that nothing is possible without the United States. As unpleasant as it is, Trump is forcing Europeans to face their own collective weakness and to make hard choices based on the world that is—not the world that was for the 50 or 60 years after World War II, and then immediately following the Cold War.
Moral power is not the same thing as material might. In a story that might be legend, Stalin was supposedly told in 1943 that the Pope might be influencing Western diplomacy. “The Pope?” the dictator said. “How many divisions does he have?”
A cruel and cynical remark? Of course. But Stalin had a point.
The Ukraine conflict now calls into question—how many divisions does Europe have? That is, what are European nations, whose moral support for the Ukrainian cause is undeniable, prepared to sacrifice to continue backing Kyiv? Acerbic British historian David Starkey said over the weekend that, like it or not, the postwar order is over. The American-led West is no longer an unchallenged hegemon on the global stage. The failed wars to spread liberal values to Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya have discredited the “end of history” worldview.
“We’ve been lying to ourselves,” said Starkey.
The conservative historian went on to say that the government of the United Kingdom refuses to defend its own frontiers and persecutes ordinary Britons for asserting traditional patriotic values.
“And yet,” said Starkey, “we are supposedly all going to line up and fight for patriotic values in another country when we’re suppressing them in our own!”
He blasted successive British governments for living on moralistic vanities while presiding over the absolute economic decline of the country. Westminster follows, says Starkey, “a policy at home and abroad of entire rhetorical fiction.”
“They somehow believe that incantating the right words will somehow bring about policy and change. …What Trump is doing, and it’s magnificent—he’s crude, he’s brutal, he’s in many ways preposterous, this orange figure—but he’s confronting people with the fact that there are brutal facts. The world is real. You can’t magic it.
Indeed. The spell of liberal enchantment is broken. Official Washington is learning this now, the hard way, under the new administration. Now, it’s time for Brussels, London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, and everybody else on this side of the Atlantic to face brutal facts.
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