November 9 — Day 990b — continued

EUROPEANS ARE BETTER AT HISTORY THAN THE AMERICANS

American fecklessness and its implications has not been lost in Europe. In the Old World, the Russian threat is clear and enough European states have an invasion by Russia of their country imprinted in the national DNA, for unchecked Russian aggression to be well-understood as something that cannot be ignored.

The incredibly violent first half of the 20th century in Europe, and the mostly peaceful and highly prosperous past 80 years or so, plus Balkan wars and Middle Eastern wars triggering massed migration, likewise have forced European politics and politicians to take the implications of major war, and failing to do enough to prevent one, a lot more seriously than in America.

The Europeans also have not forgotten most NATO states sent troops to Afghanistan to fight and die alongside Americans, and like the Ukrainians, the Europeans have noted American commitments in Vietnam, Iraq, Syria and most recently in Afghanistan and noted the outcomes.

The Europeans are fully aware that the Americans spend an inordinate amount of time complaining about how European security and stability is a distraction and that Europe isn’t doing its fair share, and Ukraine is proof.

Meanwhile, actual numbers, contrary to the US mainstream rhetoric, Europe has committed distinctly more money to supporting Ukraine than the US, marginally more weapons. Those trajectories are widening. I have written on this repeatedly, and it is well-documented.

Although this American double-standard is irritating in European capitals, the real importance is that the leadership of most major European states appears to have come to a conclusion similar to the Ukrainians: as allies, at best, the Americans are unreliable.

However, the flip side of trying to work with a superpower that has the geopolitical version of ADHD, is that the dynamic works both ways.

I know you can find articles about the US being “the irreplaceable ally”. I don’t buy it. Hogwash. The net effect of long-term US policy towards European security, has been to marginalize the US as a national security player in Europe. The Europeans, being Europeans, are too polite to say that out loud. But it’s still happening.

To me sitting in Kyiv, it seems like about 1/3 of Europe is already committed to stopping Russian aggression, and they are thoroughly frustrated with Washington playing fast and loose with NATO and European security.

As we saw this week, in Paris, Berlin and London senior officials reacted to Trump’s election and a possible American surrender and retreat from European security with public calls for Europe to man up and pay a lot more to build up their own militaries. They are talking openly about the Americans cutting and running.

For me, the significance is that saying something like that by a senior European elected official in 2022 was politically taboo. Clearly, now it isn’t.

Which means, a European public discussion of how to keep the continent peaceful, and contain Russia, with the Americans quitting and going home, is inevitable.

And that, I think, will demolish the loopy logic behind the other half of the present American wishful thinking on Ukraine, i.e. that the way to peace is a European tripwire force deployed between the Ukrainians and the Russians. Image attached of a nice UN Ghanian patrol in Lebanon.

A Ghanian team prepares for a patrol in Lebanon, January 2022. Official UN image. The headline for the article was “UN Lebanon mission becomes pioneer in gender-sensitive peacekeeping”. Some UN critics have charged that peacekeeping missions tend to find new activities because they almost always can’t do what they are supposed to do, which is to keep the shooting from happening.

Remember the 100 Ukrainian brigades? Europe right now would struggle to field five brigades in Ukraine, and it would still be a token force utterly unable to keep the two sides from killing each other.

We have all manner of examples, right now, of what happens when a war is papered over with a “peacekeeper” force with bad rules of engagement and too much combat area to be responsible.

Lebanon, and Israel, and Syria, and Gaza have taught us, an incapable peacekeeper force not dense enough on the ground is just a recipe for more casualties and more escalation. You want the Golan Heights but several hundred times bigger? Try shoving a few European combat brigades with zip combat experience into a space between the Russian army and the UAF, and all their drones and artillery, and watch what happens. Image of UN troops running after their patrol got bombed, attached.

UN peacekeepers react following a bombing attack in 2007 in Lebanon. The idea behind peacekeepers in south Lebanon is to keep the Israelis and Hezbollah from fighting, which has not really worked.

Once again, I am on the record that as far as I am concerned the British infantry is second to none, and I have personally witnessed Bundeswehr combat staffs from company through brigade at work. I know the French Zouaves got to the top of the Malakoff Heights first. (Image plus the 93rd at the Battle of Alma, so I can work in a Crimea War reference).

Two images of previous British-French intervention against Russia following Russian aggression in east Europe. On the left, French troops salute a flag following the capture of Malakoff heights on Sept. 8 1855, during the Crimean War. On the right, an Highlander from 93rd Regiment (Sutherland) disputes ownership of a trench with Russian infantry during the Battle of Alma, Sept. 20 1854. British foot guards and line infantry also participated in the successful assault. Both engagements were near Sevastopol.

My view, the Russian and Ukrainian armies are light-years ahead of NATO on how to kill the other guy on a battlefield and get away with it, that anyone thinking a NATO force separating the two sides in Ukraine could stop the shooting, as far as I am concerned, is either monumentally ignorant, or actually wants to see lots of military funerals in places like Poole, Kassel and Marseilles.

Even if NATO soldiers were willing to deploy to Ukraine to be a tripwire force might be found, I have to wonder, how many would still agree to do that, after they were told they would do so without air support? I don’t understand how European air support to a tripwire force in Ukraine would work, even theoretically. It’s absurd.

The fact some Trump administration guys were willing to push all of this on the WSJ may speak to the ignorance of the sources or the newspaper’s editors, I don’t know, but in the real world of European security the proposition is laughable, it’s not even a suggestion one might make drunk in a bar.

I’ll close with a link to a study from the Kiel Institute which, bottom line, concludes that absent the will to back Ukraine now, Europe will pay at least ten times the price in unavoidable rearmament and support to millions of Ukrainian refugees that will flee to Europe.

It’s not at all clear the Europeans will step up as the Americans thrash and cut and run. But for the Europeans, the writing is on the wall.

https://www.ifw-kiel.de/publications/the-costs-of-not-supporting-ukraine-33410/

IDF infantry and the UN’s UNIFIL peacekeeper contingent eye each other in a (2024?) image from south Lebanon. During recent fighting between Hezbollah and the IDF the UN force in the area has largely had to hide in fortified compounds. According to Wikipedia Indonesia, Italy, India, Nepal, Ghana and Malaysia contribute the most troops. Spain, China, Ireland and France also make up a large presence.