What if Uncle Sam has dementia?
Deep worries about US, Tanks for Ukraine, A new Czech president
History of the Present (fortnight ending 15 January 2023)
What if Uncle Sam has dementia?
As another January brought more chaotic scenes in the U.S. Congress, with one Congressman having to be physically restrained in the argy bargy around the election of the Republican speaker of the House, I've been thinking about an undercurrent of anxiety that now constantly runs through European life. What if we can no longer rely on the Americans? What if the US is past it? What if Uncle Sam has old-age dementia?
Nearly 80 years after 1945, it shouldn't matter so much to Europe. A community of nations with a larger population and a similar economic size to the US should be able to stand up for itself. But for all the talk of 'European sovereignty' and 'strategic autonomy', we still can't. Ukraine has again reminded us of that. Were it not for US military aid, Ukraine – for all the incredible bravery and skill of its own people, for all the stalwart support from Poland, the Baltic states and the UK – might have fallen to Putin, the Hitler of our time. 'It's worse than that,' a senior EU official said to me privately last week. 'The main economic aid last year came from the US too.' The EU has finally got its act together, with €18 billion due to flow to Ukraine in 2023, but Washington acted faster, bigger, more decisively.
As for the 'city upon a hill': is there anyone in Europe who still thinks the US is a model of democracy? We hope to have an empirical answer to that question next month, when some opinion polling done for ECFR, in collaboration with our Oxford University project on Europe in a Changing World, is published. One of the survey questions is 'which of the following countries comes closest to having a real democracy?'. I wonder how the US will score.
Yes, the mid-term elections went much better than many had hoped, both in terms of the peaceful conduct of a free and fair election and in the poor showing of the Trumpians. Yes, the Biden administration is giving many examples of constructive policy and statecraft. Yes, many Americans are mobilising to defend and reform their democracy. But one still has to worry a lot about the 2024 presidential election. Is 80+ year old Joe Biden really the best the Democrats can come up with? If Trump got back into the White House while war was still raging in Ukraine, that would be a disaster for Ukraine, Europe and the world.
And underneath this, it's hard not to see the familiar long-term signs of a great power in decay.
Some time ago, a friend sent me the page from the poet-singer Leonard Cohen's journal that I reproduce above. It echoes my feelings entirely.
German Tanks for Ukraine
I've spent most of the last fortnight writing a long essay about Ukraine in our future, for the New York Review of Books, my old intellectual home. It will come out in advance of the first anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.
Meanwhile, on 20 January, there is a meeting at the US base in Ramstein, Germany, to decide on what arms Western allies will now send to Ukraine. The key question is whether the German government will both send some of its own Leopard 2 main battle tanks and allow others to be sent by other European governments. I am profoundly convinced that Germany has a historical responsibility to do this – and that this will be, as I argued in a recent column, actually the shortest path to a durable peace.
A New Czech President
The results of the first round of the Czech presidential election just came in, showing the former Czech NATO general Petr Pavel just a shade ahead of the populist oligarch Andrej Babiš. One should never count one's chickens before they hatch, but it seems likely that the votes that went to the other candidates will flow mainly to Pavel. We would then again have a respectable occupant of the seat of Václav Havel in Prague Castle, after the truly disgraceful interlude of the presidency of Miloš Zeman. Watch this space.
And a Tip...
Listen to these lectures on You Tube by Timothy Snyder on The Making of Modern Ukraine. They are about much more than Ukraine - they might really be called The Making of Modern Europe - and he's a terrific lecturer. (Just ignore the jokes for Yale undergraduates.)
This writer is truly an American at heart.
The tone of this article clearly presents a story line the USA uses to align the EU, convincing them to destroy their economies for the greater good. Greater good being America's strategy. Pretty sad to see how simple it has been for the US to manipulate the EU over Ukraine and the US battle to prevent the de-dollarization.
In history the powers that be have changed time and time again. Step back and look at the real facts from a far without emotion and think again about why the EU should support the US as it slips out of power. The US being the 1 presence that continues to cause wars all over the world allowing its military industry to survive and a country with depleted resources, to have controlling factors in resources around the world.
Why?