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Poland’s foreign minister, Radek Sikorski, who’s married to DC swamp creature Anne Applebaum, is one of more belligerent voices in Europe. He’s now making the rounds talking about trying to shoot down Russian missiles over Ukraine. First it was an interview with the Financial Times in which he claimed that Warsaw must do so in case the missiles are heading towards Poland. Later in the week, he told the BBC it would be to protect nuclear power plants in Ukraine. The idea of bringing Poland into the conflict has long been floated, but Sikorski’s comments are one of the biggest endorsement yet by a high-ranking Polish official.
Are his comments sincere or are they part of Polish efforts to position itself as a role model in the US vision for the ongoing reinvention of Europe?
Let’s first look at Poland’s lead role in the US plan to drag Germany further into the New Cold War morass and current efforts to pressure Berlin into ponying up for militarization efforts in Europe, and then circle back to Sikorski’s comments.
The New Tip of the Spear?
If Germany is often criticized for not pulling its weight in NATO, Poland is the opposite. It’s the poster boy for what Washington wants in Europe.
It’s obedient, fervently anti-Russian, and has a large military, which is now the third-largest force in NATO with 216,100 personnel, behind only the US (1.3 million) and Turkiye (481,000). Most importantly, Warsaw isn’t hesitant to throw money at the US military industrial complex. In August, the government approved a draft budget that will see nearly five percent of its GDP go to defense in 2025 — tops in NATO.
“Poland will hopefully be [an] inspiration for others,” says Michal Baranowski, a Warsaw-based defense and NATO expert at the German Marshall Fund.
No doubt. Problem is that Poland is also still a middle income country that doesn’t have the economic clout to assume a political leadership role in Europe. But with friends in high places and allies in like-minded Eastern European states it’s pushing more than ever for the as-of-now-still-wealthy Western Europe states to keep up the belligerence towards Russia with ever more financial commitments.
On three issues the Baltic countries, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Romania, largely agree: double down on the New Cold War and increasingly finance it on the back of Germany in order to stay in the good graces of Washington.
These are all countries that lead the way in the EU in the percentage of GDP given to Ukraine in financial aid, as well as percentage of GDP spent on defense. From the US perspective, they’re role models. Now they need to show Germany the way — particularly to pony up for the proposed EU defense bonds.
Sikorski was probably previously best known for his quickly-deleted public thank you card to the US for the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines:
Presumably with help from Applebaum, the other member of the power couple, Sikorski is now a leading voice on how Europe should go about cementing the transatlantic relationship no matter who’s elected president in November.
Kaja Kallas from Estonia is now EU defense minister who is proposing a €100 billion eurobond issue to pay for more buildup against Russia.
Wojciech Przybylski, an analyst with think tank Visegrad Insights, told Politico the following: “Kallas forms the link between Poland, the Baltic basin and the Nordics — Denmark, Sweden, Finland…From a Central European perspective, she is the best we could imagine.”
Poland is led by Donald Tusk, another politician rolled off the Atlanticist assembly line and who knows his way around Brussels having served as the President of the European Council from 2014 to 2019.
He’s very close to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. If she has a plan on how deal with Russia and Ukraine if/when the Americans walk away, she’s playing her cards tight to the vest. More likely is she hasn’t a clue other than pressing for more money and hoping that will lead to some happy outcome.
Poland might also be getting additional input over a whole lot of EU money. Piotr Serafin, a Tusk confidant and Poland’s European commissioner in Brussels, looks likely to be in charge of the EU Commission budget portfolio, one of the most powerful positions as the bloc is set to sort out its seven-year spending plans. Expect more schemes to get around the ban on the EU budget funding defense purchases and less money to more traditional items like agriculture and regional development.
All this means that Tusk, Serafin, and Sikorsky (and Applebaum?) are going to play a major role in EU defense policy and are likely going to push harder for what the US wants the EU to do regarding Russia.
Another thing this group has in common is that they belong more to the Davos crowd and it’s doubtful they’d have qualms about offering up Poland as the next sacrifice on the altar to dethrone Putin and theoretically usher in an era of Western plunder in Russia.
They’re also getting more confident in pushing back against the EU power center in Berlin.
When some in Germany began piping up again about the multi-billion-dollar Nord Stream pipeline that was destroyed in the Baltic Sea harming the country’s economy, Tusk insisted it was in fact German backers of the pipeline who should “apologize and keep quiet.”
Berlin also opposed Kallas’ nomination as EU foreign minister, but Tusk threatened to torpedo the candidacies of other European Council position hopefuls supported by Berlin, and Germany quickly backed down.
Now the Polish-Baltic contingent, supported by Washington, is pushing for EU defense bonds. Germany has long opposed common EU borrowing (despite making an exception for Covid recovery funds), but will it stick?
Germany’s 360-Degree Turn
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s much-hyped Zeitenwende was supposed to herald a new era of Germany leading European defense, but the government wrongly assumed it would be a breeze. Instead the economy is in recession, the country’s debt brake rules mean increased military spending means cuts in other areas, and when that’s coming on the back of record immigration numbers it’s not a recipe for public support.
Germany’s ruling coalition is essentially a lame duck government already (elections aren’t for another year). Insurgent parties opposed to Germany leading a remilitarized Europe are surging, and the government is being forced to retreat back to a pre-Zeitenwende position where it pleads with its US masters that it’s doing enough.
In this case, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock would be correct to describe the Zeitenwende as a 360-degree turn. Berlin is back to hyping its military expenses in an attempt to convince the inconvincible in Washington and Eastern Europe that it’s doing enough.
While Russia and Asian countries were meeting at the at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok to discuss more connectivity via trade corridors, investment, and trade settlement agreements, Germany was hosting the Ukraine Defense Contact Group. Scholz and his defense minister Boris Pistorius talked up the country’s plans to budget for what amounts to an iron dome — despite, as Gilbert Doctorow points out, would be hunks of worthless air defense metal with billion dollar price tags against Russia’s hypersonic missiles.
Zelensky in Germany
no German flag in sight pic.twitter.com/Lxdg0xLt6e
— What the media hides. (@narrative_hole) September 7, 2024
The EU has been so worried about Russia, but it has completely turned over the EU henhouse to the US foxes. It is now clearer than ever that the EU is a vehicle of US foreign policy in order to ensure Russia is bordered by unfriendly states to its West and in the Caucasus (although the US and EU are finding limited success there).
The EU is the economic appendage to NATO, and it will be mostly Germany that must pick up the tab for weapons procurement and economic support to ensure that anti-Russian governments in former USSR states remain safely in power. Dealing with a deindustrializing economy in recession? Tough luck. Time for Germans to get over their aversion to debt.
As the Council on Foreign Relations notes, “…many countries, such as Poland and the Baltic states, are more willing to entrust their security to the United States than to their European allies.” And so they do as they’re told by Washington, welcome in US missiles and bases, and are more than happy to band together in efforts to cajole Germany into sacrificing for US imperial interests.
While the German ruling coalition is beset by infighting, and the road ahead looks bumpy, representatives from Poland and the Baltic and Nordic states are reportedly gathering to align their positions before meetings of EU leaders in Brussels. Their alignment is driven by three issues: Russians out, Americans in, and bleed Germany dry by getting it to pay for more and more of it.
Von der Leyen and company are all too happy to go along as long as it means more centralized power. EU purse string tools that used to be applied in an attempt to enact Brussels’ uniform liberal order across the bloc are now more about disciplining states that stray from Washington’s imperial orders. That’s why money originally withheld from a country like Hungary over allegations of corruption, lack of an independent judiciary, and other violations was recently used as a bribe to gain Budapest’s temporary support on Ukraine. And it’s why politicians of any stripe are welcomed into the mythical “center” in Europe as long as they pledge fealty to NATO.
Yet, the alliance’s unifying force in an unwinnable war against Russia is already struggling to paper over the fallout in the form of declining living standards and the increasing authoritarianism necessary to hold the line.
As evidenced by Germany’s position in which it is stuck between the demands of its own citizens on one hand and those of other EU countries and the imperial capital on the other, there are no easy ways out of the corner Europe has backed itself into. And it’s likely to tear the bloc apart (not such a bad outcome) — if the US doesn’t use it as cannon fodder against Russia first (not such a great outcome).
Like so much of recent European history, it’s largely going to be decided in Germany. Two members of Sahra Wagenknecht’s surging antiwar party (BSW) lay out the stakes:
There is no feasible military option for the Europeans…With the Ukraine resolution and the nomination of Kallas as the EU’s chief diplomat, the European Union now appears to be replacing the USA as the dominant pro-war bloc in the Ukraine war. However, this will further isolate the EU in terms of foreign policy.
Above all, the USA will try to pass on the enormous costs of this war – and peace could become even more expensive – to Europe.
While European voters increasingly favor a settlement to the war — which was never all that popular to begin with — and a less bellicose policy overall towards Russia, they are increasingly ignored. In Germany, with each successive election two parties (the BSW and Alternative for Germany) who favor an end to hostilities with Russia are getting too popular to ignore. And yet Berlin is preoccupied with keeping them out of power at all costs. This is the overriding concern even as the US and the Atlanticists in Europe drive the clown car over a cliff.
Sikorski’s Comments — Bluster or Foreshadowing?
Back to the comments from Sikorski who unsurprisingly did not volunteer for the front lines after Poland’s “duty” to start shooting at Russia would inevitably lead to the country at war.
Any military implications of such a move are above my pay grade (maybe some readers can comment), but the main area of fighting in Eastern Ukraine is far away (Pokrosk, for example, is roughly 1,300 kilometers from the Polish border). Would Polish involvement make much of a difference anyways? Trying to shoot down Russian missiles wouldn’t provide more men — unless it’s just a prelude to wider involvement — or make up for lack of military industrial capacity in the West.
Other officials in Warsaw have also said that Sikorski’s comments do not reflect the position of the government, and NATO currently opposes such a move. So why is Sikorski making these comments and why now? A few possibilities:
Domestic Politics. The Polish armed forces response to an unidentified object — probably a military drone — entering Polish airspace from Ukraine last week is being widely criticized for potentially exposing the country to a foreign air attack. They were apparently prevented from shooting it down because they could not identify it, and the military must verify an object before downing it to avoid accidentally hitting civilian objects. If Sikorski’s comments were meant for domestic consumption, however, why deliver the news in interviews with the Financial Times and BBC?
“Hold Me Back, Bruh,” i.e., Post-Project Ukraine Positioning. Sikorski’s comments could be seen as preparation for the inevitable Ukraine loss with demands that Europe, i.e., Germany must do more. As Poland aligns itself more closely with the Baltic states, Romania, and the Czech Republic in a bid to pressure Germany into okaying joint EU defense bonds, it could be they are preparing to blame Berlin for not going far enough.
As Ukraine creates a stab-in-the-back narrative, maybe Sikorski also wants to make sure its neo-Nazi groups don’t blame him and Poland.
Deterrence. Sikorski’s comments could be seen as a rather humorous attempt to dissuade Russia from going all the way to Lviv, as some in Moscow like Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev support.
Escalation. Sikorski’s comments could be a sign that some neocon Atlanticists want Poland to get involved in the conflict in a desperate attempt to stave off Ukrainian defeat and continue to extend Russia. His connection to Applebaum and neocon circles in Washington make it more likely that the comments are part of some harebrained plot to keep the show on the road. Sikorski’s comments come at the same time that The Blob breathes new life into Russiagate theories by accusing Russian news media of meddling in US elections. If not designed to condition Americans for war, it sets up a potential Trump administration for round two of discredited Russiagate. Any move by Poland to exacerbate the conflict would also go a long way towards locking a Trump or Harris administration into it.
In the minds of people like Applebaum and the Kagan-Nuland Family Industrial Complex behind the Institute for the Study of War, the crackdown on alleged Russian disinformation operations and escalating the war are one in the same:
“The notion that the war is unwinnable because of Russia’s dominance is a Russian information operation…The Kremlin must get the United States to the sidelines, allowing Russia to fight Ukraine in isolation” from @TheStudyofWar https://t.co/CAq5TpK2dK
— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum) March 27, 2024
The most frightening part of this is that these people might really believe this and won’t be convinced otherwise until the nukes start flying — if that would even convince them that reality is not a Russian psyop.
It’s clear that this Applebaum-ISW neocon crowd doesn’t want to give up no matter how dire the outlook, which has been clear with the recent debate over allowing Ukraine to send long range missiles into Russia Some neocons like Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan and at the Pentagon seem to be throwing in the towel, admitting that Russian military assets are out of range of ATACMS and giving Kiev the green light would only invite more blowback. The ISW is saying “not so fast” with an August 27 report listing “hundreds of known Russian military objects in range of ATACMS.”
A closer look at Sikorski’s comments raises some interesting questions. In the FT he was talking about the need to shoot down objects flying towards Poland that have not yet reached Polish skies, and the BBC reported him saying that Russian missiles could accidentally hit one of Ukraine’s three nuclear power plants.
Importantly, he said that Poland has a “duty” to shoot down such objects despite NATO opposition to it doing so.
“Membership in NATO does not trump each country’s responsibility for the protection of its own airspace — it’s our own constitutional duty,” he said.
There’s almost no way that Poland would take such a step without the go-ahead from Washington, but it’s possible to envision a scenario where Warsaw moves ahead despite public disapproval from NATO with Sikorski and Polish actors working with tacit support from factions of the Blob, potentially timed to make it that much more difficult for a future president to extricate the US from an expanding war with Russia.
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Those poodles bark too much and too loudly. They may believe they can get away with repression but in Poland according to this article from April nearly 75% of Polish are against direct military involvement against Russia. They will need a “Goebblesian” campaign to convince the populaces but IMO that is not going to work. Polish authorities other than Sikorsi, might not be as interested in such a move.
But yes, too many countries plus the EU have selected as top “diplomats” individuals which are instead warmongers. Not everybody in the EU looks favourably on the nomination of Kallas and it will be interesting to see how the hen house reacts as things go sour.
Ignacio: Indeed. In my comment directly below, I removed a rather sour comment about Kallas. So I am glad that you commented on her warmongering. Yes, many in the EU cannot fathom how she even reached her position, given that she seems irrational about Russia.
But then her main colleagues are van der Leyen and Metsola. I detect a pattern. Harmful mediocrities, all of them.
I’ll hazard a guess: our friends in the intelligence community.
DJG, How can anyone not make sour remarks about Ms Kallas when she openly calls for the defeat and balkanization of Russia. Estonia has about 1.4 million people. And she’s soon to be the EU’s chief diplomat. At most she helps to realise Ms von der Leyen’s goal of equal male and female numbers in the halls of her regime.
Modern neoliberals don’t do propaganda campaigns. They just do and ignore all protest, suppressing where expedient. You can do anything if you’re never accountable.
Sikorski has a fondness, a talent even, for spaffing out of his mouth – no doubt a family trait passed down the generations and reinforced by a well chosen marriage.
The simple truth is that Russia has already noticed that Poland, as a member of NATO and a key part of the Ukraine’s military infrastructure, is already at war with Russia. And the unfortunate fact is that Russian no longer needs Europe and has turned it’s back on all but a few countries which have the misfortune to be located there.
The war will end in Russia’s favour or in a nuclear apocalypse. If the former, and particularly if the Arthurian Trump, becomes it’s future as well as it’s once President, I can imagine him pulling US forces out of Europe and holding back while Russia forces reparations out of the majority of countries in the EU and being quite happy to demonstrate to the rest of the world how it can punish recalcitrants who refuse to pony up el pronto.
In the end, maybe after a good kicking, Poland will act real nice and apologetically, pay up, and negotiate for whatever slice of the Ukraine it finds desirable, and it will guarantee it’s section of the boundaries of the electronically controlled, mine-strewn wasteland which will serve as a buffer zone between the West and the real world.
Sikorski will long be elsewhere by then.
Many thanks for the details of how the new EU members are likely to be the last EU members to join. Expansion is a disaster.
Implicit in the article, with its discussion of Germany and the German economy, is a split between the core EU of France, Benelux, Germany, and Italy — the big economies — and a bunch of whackjob, resentful small countries enjoying the subsidies.
I note that in the history of the EU, accession to the EU for Portugal and Spain settled issues of democratization. (Some Spaniards may argue that Spain is too democratic now — those darn Basques and Catalans are always asking for more local autonomy.) I also note that Spain is an economic power to reckon with, unlike, say, Latvia.
Likewise Greece, which solidified democratization through the EU. Unlike, say, Latvia, with its many stateless citizens. Meanwhile, we see the oh-so-enlightened Scandinavian countries drift into neoliberal limbo and stagnation. And, now, NATO.
And then there is the special case of eternal drama queen Poland. The government wants reparations from Germany. The government wants to confront Russia. This is the future of the EU? The Polish future for the EU is no EU.
I note that Italy is “hesitating” on use of its Storm Shadows. Meloni is, errrrr, deciding. Internal problems in her coalition indicate a no: Foreign minister Tajani of the Forza Italia has already said no. It would be odd indeed if the Berlusconians held a séance and then walked out on the government. But stranger things have happened (the recent Sangiuliano love-affair crisis)
The news in this essay is all pretty bad — except that it also foreshadows a split that is long overdue. Let the Poles engage in their own foolhardiness and pay for their own vanities.
You are on point.
Plus, long-time unsuccessful EU applicant, Türkiye, is now going to apply for BRICS membership. The inevitable result of success there is for Türkiye to eventually leave NATO, once they are sure of their ground, and join the SCO. Another BRICk in the wall. Where will the EU and NATO be then?
Europe will revert back to what it historically always has been: a damp, unimportant continental appendage, paralyzed by internecine chaos, situated at the margins of Eurasia’s civilizations. I suppose nature is healing.
“Berlin also opposed Kallas’ nomination as EU foreign minister, but Tusk threatened to torpedo the candidacies of other European Council position hopefuls supported by Berlin, and Germany quickly backed down.”
How did Germany, “the engine running the EU,” get so weak so quickly?
I’ll hazard a guess: our friends in the intelligence community.
When it comes to Olaf Scholz, it is well-known that he has been implicated in several major scandals: Wirecard, the Elbtower in Hamburg, the preferential treatment given by the RAG-Stiftung to René Benko’s then suspiciously speculative, now insolvent ventures, the tax exemption regarding the shenaningans of the Warburg bank…
Rumours have been circulating for quite some time that Scholz’s lack of spine is due to the fact that some powerful people have very incriminating kompromat about him. But this may be conspiracy theory.
“Scholz’s lack of spine”
That’s the understatement of the year. Watching this weakling be insulted and threatened in public by Biden was educational and very worrying.
You forgot the children’s home in Brandenburg
I am probably giving Sikorski too much credit, but I wonder whether there is something else going on under the surface. Poland has received about 246 billion euros from the EU since accession, and contributed about 84 billion in return, making it by far the largest beneficiary of EU largesse. Thanks to such transfers and heavy investment by German manufacturing firms, it has become moderately prosperous. This visceral and outspoken criticisms of Brexit by Tusk and Sikorski (who was at Oxford with Johnson) may have had something to do with anxieties about the continuing viability of net transfers from countries like the UK (and, more especially, Germany) to Poland: if the UK was to cease being a contributor, then more of the burden would fall onto Germany, which might revolt against the cost.
Poland is now about to become a net contributor to the EU. In May the World Bank estimated that the reconstruction costs of Ukraine would be about $480 billion. It has become increasingly apparent that the US does not wish to foot that bill, or at least most of it. That means the EU would have to become liable for the costs, for want to anyone or anything better. That burden could prove consequential, given that it seems that the US is reducing its deficit with the EU, via expensive LNG and the IRA. The secular decline in German manufacturing will likely have very serious consequences for Poland, as an adjunct workshop for Germany.
Therefore, not only will Poland now have to contribute to much more to EU coffers out of a stagnating or declining income, but the contribution may explode if the US stiffs the EU with the Ukraine bill.
That may help to explain why Poland feels obliged to double down on ‘victory’ in Ukraine, so that Russia will have to foot the bill, or a large part of it. It is also possible that Polish ministers may have recognised the failure of the Ukrainian war effort, so their bellicosity is a way of proving their fealty to the US, which will surely not repay such loyalty and devotion by forcing Poland to effectively disgorge much of what it has received in EU subsidies over the last 20 years in order to reconstruct Ukraine? I mean, the Americans wouldn’t do that to their loyal Polish ally, would they…? Moreover, by being so bellicose the Polish government is also sending an unsubtle message to German opponents of aid to Ukraine: if you try to back away from the Ukrainian liability (regardless of your mounting economic problems) it will mean you will perforce force us to pay all the more, which means we will turn again from being a close collaborator with you on almost all aspects of EU policy to being even more of a thorn in your side than under Law & Justice rule.
The way I see it, the Ukraine war is no longer about victory or defeat per se, as who is going to pay to clear up the mess, especially after the US vulture capitalists have seized much of what remains worth taking. This is perhaps why Russia has not been as aggressive in territorial terms as many have predicted: it wants the Ukrainian reconstruction bill to be an apple of discord, causing the West to fall out amongst itself (and EU member states to fight like rats in a sack over the liability). This is curiously reminiscent of the inter-war period: the Soviets defaulted on their debts to France, who could not pay the UK, who could not pay the US, the allies then attempting to recover the money from Germany, poisoning inter-war diplomacy and aggravating responses to the Depression; it is possible that the contest over who will pay what and to whom will likely be as complex and acrimonious now as it was then. Indeed, the UK has still not settled its WW1 debt to the US: https://yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300247183/the-long-shadow-of-default/ (British action in 1934 had ‘consequences’ for the terms of US support to the UK during and after WW2). A repeat of all that might be just what Russia wants.
Perhaps the Russians are not motivated to “clean up the mess” .
If many Ukrainians migrate to Europe, Canada, and USA, the Russians may only want to build up enough infrastructure to support Russian allied Ukrainians.
A weakly transformed “mess” could result in a demilitarized zone for Russia and migrant costs pushed onto Europe/USA.
Does Ukraine really have to be made whole and reconstructed?
WWI involved existing debts, money spent on all sorts of weapons and war related expenses. Ukraine so far has received already existing weapons from West’s arsenal, not newly minted things. And some aid money. But the estimated 480 billion is all in the future. It was not Germany (except stupid Annalena) that told Ukraine to not settle for the Istanbul peace, but US/UK (https://www.rt.com/news/603708-ukraine-istanbul-us-nuland/). As such, the liability rests squarely with the USUK.
If EU doesn’t pay, they have the opportunity to pick even more white refugees and balance a bit their demographics shot by the US 20+ years of the war on terror… I am sure Russia will ultimately not mind having an emptied borderland in the west…
This may be collateral but it illustrates the craziness of the warmongers at the same time as thousands of young Ukrainian men flee the country. This article in Spanish says that even when controls have been strengthened at both sides of Romania-Ukraine borders in the region of Manamures the numbers of young Ukrainians fleeing in increasing. It is a risky crossing but they choose trying it.They counted 3800 young men in 2023 and about 7000, so far, in 2024 (only in Romania). All them cite a deteriorating situation in Ukraine and the risk of conscription. When the young ones below current conscription minimum age (25) get their first job they are immediately “interviewed” by the military and fear being conscripted any time soon. The populace has to pay with their lives for the desires of the warmongers as usual.
It is Maramures, not Manamures- not much mana to speak of there…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz8cbwR_6ms
In 1935 Poland had a bigger army than Germany: in 1939 it folded.
In Warsaw Pact Poland was regarded as least reliable military.
Sikorski was with Johnson in Bullingdon Club at Oxford when he borrowed British Citizenship. He is going to be like Colonel Beck who buried Poland in 1939
Maybe as practice, Sikorski should start by shooting down missiles flying over Poland, since there were couple of instances of these and AFAIK none was downed, as mentioned in the article. Also it looks like asking to run straight into a debacle, because NATO AD aren’t that great, so I’m not even sure it will accomplish anything besides shooting expensive long rang missiles to chase cheap Gerans (+ new contracts to replenish stocks, of course at inflated prices).
Couple of points. First of all, recall that there is no “NATO budget,” no “western budget,” no “fair shares,” no “common defence.” There is a small NATO infrastructure budget and that’s it. The US has an enormous, bloated, defence budget which is spent overwhelmingly on national programmes and forces, and very largely outside Europe. The actual US military contribution to any “defence of Europe” is pitiful, both in terms of deployed units and financial and other resources, and the US is militarily incapable of intervening decisively in any general European conflict. European countries have defence budgets today comparable with those of the Cold War, but get much less capability from them (as does the US) because of galloping equipment cost inflation and diseconomies of reducing scale. Buying a few more shiny toys won’t help: as I’ve repeatedly pointed out, no western state, including the US, is in a position to fight a war of any real intensity any more. The EU budget is already overcommitted and even if some elaborate mechanism could be found to establish a small fund for buying weapons, it would take forever and not produce much.
Second, what we are seeing here, as, for example in Macron’s comments earlier in the year, is the beginning of jockeying for position in a post-Ukraine Europe, where the US has ceased to count for anything very much. Recall that NATO was always the product of an unsayable contradiction: on the one hand Europeans hoped to use the US as a counterweight to Soviet influence in Europe, but on the other hand they were never sure they could trust the US to actually live up to its obligations. Thus, US forces forward stationed in Europe and vulnerable to attack. In the words of the unofficial NATO motto of the Cold War, “make sure the first soldier to die is an American.” And European nations didn’t scruple to make use of the US in their mutual disputes, and still don’t.
But all that’s disappearing fast now. In the event of a serious political confrontation with Russia in thebycaers to come, Europeans can’t rely any moron the US to be a counterweight, and the US is anyway steadily being pushed out of Europe. What we are seeing is the beginning of the struggle to see who will have the major roles in European defence in the future. NATO will still exist, because its members find it pragmatically useful in various ways, but the action will be elsewhere. The US will huff and puff but its influence is already declining precipitously. No European state is mad enough to want to fight Russia, but there are important political prizes to be gained in playing the key role in a future European security system. There are only three serious contenders: France, Germany and Poland (the British could not play this role for political reasons.) France and Germany have large independent defence industries, and are members of European collaborative military projects. Poland isn’t, which is why it’s shown so much interest in buying; for example, equipment from Korea.
I don’t think this is going to work, though. Poland has been regarded as a loose cannon for a long time: when I was talking to the Polish military in Warsaw some thirty years ago, soon after the political transformation and how nationalistic gung-ho they were for conflict. And even academics and journalists seemed to find the idea of provoking a crisis with Russia acceptable. (In those days, of course, the US was much more of a force in the world than it is now.) Sikorski’s ramblings can only confirm the widespread distrust of the Poles in certain European capitals.
Indeed, and many thanks. The US has been using Ukraine in order to reassert its authority within the EU, to offset its deficits with China and to asset strip Europe. However, some of these aspirations are inherently contradictory: for example, the transfer of capital from Europe to the US is subject to rapidly diminishing economic and political returns – if it continues for much longer it risks impairing US authority in Europe, so subverting Washington’s attempts to have Europe function as a buffer or vent for American manufactures and carbon exports.
It seems to me that France’s sudden turn to bellicosity has been animated by the need to reconstruct an inter-war Little Entente for several reasons. First, to force the Germans to agree to debt sharing (the keystone in Macron’s strategic arch). Second, to dilute British attempts to use central and eastern European fears to influence EU policy formation from the outside. Third, to force Europe to rely on its own resources, and so develop manufacturing capabilities of its own. Finally, and perhaps most importantly from the vantage point of Paris, to offset the dramatic loss of French influence in its former African empire, which has been a staggering blow to French amour-propre, given the huge investment of political capital made by French policymakers in Africa since the late 1940s, and most especially since de Gaulle.
It is possible that the second and last of these objectives may have some temporary traction, but the first and third objectives seem likely to fail. The more debilitated the German economy becomes, the more reluctant it will be to agree to debt sharing. The more Europe loses access to discounted resources from the Global South, the less able it will be to develop its own manufacturing capability – it cannot tolerate significant additional reductions in wages, and nor is there an appetite to encourage sufficient immigration from Africa and the Middle East to force down wages in order to enable European manufacturing to compete with China, Vietnam, etc. Indeed, it is possible that the last redoubts of European industrial superiority – in high end production and luxury goods – will soon come under intense stress as China seeks to dominate all levels of almost all markets.
Fitting typo!
I agree with your assessment regarding the hyper-bellicosity of various leaders from “Old Europe” and that it should be understood as jockeying for advantageous positions in a Post-Maidan Europe.
But this take above is plainly wrong. The US Empire isn’t disengaging from Europe. Rather it’s strengthening its grip (with the help of some Eastern quisling nations). Where do you see it in retreat?
Yes, I would also ask this question. Poland may have been regarded as a “loose cannon” for a long time, but that is precisely the reason the US has elevated its status. “Loose cannons” that hate the right enemies are useful. They always have been. The “loose cannons” in Ukraine were pretty useful as well. I understand the historical reasons why European countries feared Russia and wanted the US as committed protector after WWII. But I cannot for the life of me accept the argument that the US is becoming an increasingly weak sister. If that is the case, why, then, are the leaders of the leading EU countries committing to increasingly suicidal policies that really *only* benefit the US (at least in the medium term, if not the long term)?
I keep bringing this up, but it was not that long ago that Western European leaders were much more rational, or “realist,” toward Russia, and actually put up resistance to some of the US belligerence in the world. Those leaders have been “disappeared,” replaced by complete lackeys. My own view, stated simplistically, is that however these institutions have been perceived by European leaders over the years, NATO and, increasingly, the EU, have been mechanisms of US hegemony. If not, how do we explain the fact that their policies favor the US (or, more accurately, US-centered economic and geopolitical interests) while undermining the interests of most Europeans?
Perhaps today’s European leaders actually believe that “keeping the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down” is good for them. I honestly don’t know. But I do know that from the perspective of “Atlanticists” over here, we have been anything but reluctant participants who were dragged into our role as global protector from the Forces of Evil. What we are reluctant about is giving that role up as our ability to maintain it wanes.
“I understand the historical reasons why European countries feared Russia and wanted the US as committed protector after WWII.”
I really don’t and I grew up in a former Warsaw Pact country. Orban doesn’t seem to understand these deep reasons. If anything, Russia was mostly reactive and opportunistic through its history and expanded in lands/people either inferior technologically (as all the othercolonial/settler powers), or divided some hapless victim (in conjunction with the Germans or Austrians, or both.
After 1991, as after WWII, the Russians only wanted to have peace, lick their wounds, and recover, maybe get some modicum of prosperity. Of course the private interests in Europe and the US had other designs with that lands riches…
You can’t have influence unless you can actually do things. Whatever some fantasists in Washington may think, the US no longer has the military capability to significantly influence conflicts in Europe, thus it can no longer serve as a counterweight to Russian military strength, which is itself increasing. (Not to mention its disastrous internal national problems.) If it cannot be a counterweight to Russia, then its ability to influence Europe starts to disappear. Politics is very brutal, and you can’t turn up at a poker game and demand that everybody still treat you as though you had the cards you used to have.
The US has extraterritorial bases in the most important European country – Germany – monitors all communication there, has agents in the secret services and influences the selection of major politicians. Case in point is Philip Missfelder. He was the up and coming young politician of Germany´s most important party – the CDU – was head of the US-Germany parliamentary group and widely reckoned to be a contender for the succession of Merkel. But in 2013 he dropped his role in the US-Germany parliamentary group and in 2014 did the unthinkable: with former chancellour Schröder – who had famously opposed the Iraq war – he went to Putins birthday party in St.Petersburg. A few months later he was dead after a fall down the stairs. His parents suspected foulplay but were denied an inquest.
To understand how Germany is ruled by the deep state one should read the books by fromer CIA agent Philip Agee. Specifically how through agents in the press, the army and the unions the goverment of Salvador Allende was brought down. And that although the CIA didn´t have extraterritorial bases in Chile. No, the US grip on Germany is as firm as ever and unless and until the bases are gone and you can have a conversation without the US listening in this is not going to change.
This reminds me of Barbara Tuchman’s reporting of Foch in WW1:
Good points !
In addition European defence budgets are padded with pension costs plus Spain includes Madrid fire service in budget whereas France includes Gendarmerie and U.K. includes MI6 and GCHQ plus 6% U.K. defence budget goes on nuclear component.
One bemusing factor in U.K. is why none of its 6 SSNs are at sea and no Astute SSN has left port for 125 days. Most of surface ships are awaiting refits and two ships HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark (?) are awaiting repairs
I think U.K. has 2 Type 45 available so long as water is not too hot for intercooler bought from US which fails
China is not in Europe. But then neither is the USA. The USA is after China and the Europeans will have to figure things out for themselves once the USA leaves them holding the bag in Ukraine. Europe has neither the talent nor the inclination to resolve differences with Russia. The USA will not allow it. Instead Europe can keep buying expensive LNG and support the USA against China with equipment and money. Europe is small fry and still doesn’t know it. Europe will be forced to pay for war against China too. The Baltics, the Pokes, the Czechs still don’t accept their geopolitical insignificance. The Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) have a population of about 5-6 million. But they certainly have some big ideas about themselves. Let’s throw Poland in for some real weight: nearly 40 million. Ms. Kallas is not planning to give anyone a break.
The Baltics, the Pokes, the Czechs still don’t accept their geopolitical insignificance.
The Pokes! What an appropriate and suggestive term for a people constantly poking its neighbours and supposed allies.
The Popes.
If they (more than the ISW-neocon- the Atlantic wind tunnel) were “serious” Sikorski or someone would be demanding US build 5 or 6 air bases in Poland on the size of Danang in Vietnam, because a real war with Russia would demand a diverse air force about the size of US’ Air Combat Command, augmented with refuelers and ISR. That needs big bases! Each a sponge for war heads.
Poland got factories to build components when it “bought ” Patriot missile systems. This is also business development for those factories, they intend paid by Germany.
What could be shot down from Polish territory? Patriot is short range less than 100 miles. But shooting missiles is good PR especially when they get away with claiming intercepts that are unverifiable.
As to firing into Russia to make any difference the Ukraine would need the huge air force described above.
What Austin said last week: ‘no silver bullets’, “headline strikes with wunderwaffen have no consequence.”
Sikorski is a headliner, a member of the ISW-neocon- the Atlantic wind tunnel!
I do not have a reference at hand, but I remember that for quite some time now Poland has been trying to entice the USA to have at least an entire brigade be stationed on a permanent basis on its territory (as a tripwire, no doubt).
I do not doubt a desire for permanent US forces. I am not aware of this, and do not know anything for certain.
But, I suspect the US has prepositioned the kit (POMCUS US Army acronym) for a large US Army deployment.
Permanent is the key word since that violates the treaties with USSR
Poland’s misleadership class is determined to cement its richly deserved reputation for peerless folly.
So far the NATO/Russia war has been using east Slavs versus east Slavs. If it switched to Poland it would be using west Slavs versus east Slavs. History points to only victor and an easier fight. And I would like to know exactly what the west Slavs would be using to fight. Sounds like PR rather than reality, but then much does these days.
Thanks, Conor for this masterly compilation. I am German and it is the big question how long this shitshow can go on. The germans are definately getting restless. Witness the cometic unprecedented rise of Sarah Wagenknecht. The shitshow is a mix of wokery gone mad and antirussisan hysteria. Reality is a bitch.
Are they? I see them getting tired of various repercussions of the war, but not quite making the causal connection to the war and their governments role in it. And downright opposition to the Hindenbock Endsieg course I very rarely encounter.
The influential and electorally important urban bourgeoisie (embodied in the Green Party) is still fanatically behind Project Slava Ukraini. I can see governing Germany getting harder, especially since both AfD and Wagenknecht will create tensions in the by no means uniform CDU/CSU. But a downright shift is not behind the corner. It will have to get much worse. And unfortunately, it will get much worse.
Yeah, but the Russophobic hysteria appears hollow. It looks like very few Germans want to fight on the New Russian Front. https://www.newsweek.com/majority-germans-unprepared-military-attack-country-poll-1854738
I’m sure many would be satisfied to fight Russia until the last drop of Ukrainian and Polish blood.
I have spoken in the last two years with only two Germans. Both of them spontaneously told me they couldn’t stand the current government. N=2 is not very significant but yet.
Hopefully their cavalry is up to the task.
Tanks for the memories.
The flying husars maybe scared the Ottomans from the gates of Vienna, but not the German panzers…
Yeah, Polish threats of shooting down missiles over Ukraine are empty. The only system capable of doing so is the Patriot (PAC-3 version) with a range of 120 km or so, and they only have 2 operational batteries. The range is barely enough to cover Lviv (60 km away from the border). Their only other system above shoulder launched missiles is Soviet era Neva’s, which don’t have the range to even reach Lviv, although the missiles are plentiful.
I was thinking that those threat represented not only the usual neocon attempts to provoke escalation, but also the underlying drive, common to Russia and the neocons, to clear out inventories of old weapons, to get those sales of new systems on the books ASAP.
Coverage even of only western Ukraine would presumably be intended to protect the airbases, where the F-16s would touch down before launching their cruise missiles.
I think that the whole thing is a power play by the Polish elites. The axis for the EU/NATO has been France & Germany for decades but those Polish elites see a chance to shift that axis to the east – which means that they will be running things. They don’t have a lot of meaningful allies as after all, how many divisions can the Baltic States muster up, but it seems that they want to be the “deputy sheriff’ for the US in eastern Europe so a those orders for US weaponry are an effort to bring Washington online. And seeding people like Kaja Kallas from Estonia as the new EU defense minister is part of an effort to stack positions with people who will be sympathetic to them. I suppose if this war ends tomorrow, that Poland will push Belarus to prove their worth to Washington and get them to upgrade relations with them while downgrading those with countries like France and Germany.
Simplicius argues that maybe there is a bigger game at play…
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/wayward-russian-drone-panic-nato
@ Aurelien,
While US military effort is mostly outside Europe, bear in mind that a war with Russia is not the same thing as a European war.
The USA is hardly being “pushed out of Europe.” The USA has never pushed itself more deeply into Europe. Not just in the physical sense that they now have troops in Eastern Europe (!), but also in the moral sense–seldom have the leaders of most European countries been so amenable to the American point of view.
I know that you’re a man of perspective. So take a look: today’s Russia struggles to re-establish a sphere of influence in Ukraine, while the US sphere of influence expands, almost effortlessly, into erstwhile neutrals such as Sweden and Finland.
As I’ve said before: the American republic is going to tatters, but the American empire is doing well enough. The EU is a chocolate box of compradores: you might never know what you’re going to get, but they’re sure to be soft and sickly sweet.
@ ilsm,
USA is building an extensive network of bases in Poland. Just search the terms, “base construction Poland,” and see for yourself. There are a variety of air and missile defense systems, some now operational.
Note that USA did not maintain any permanent major bases in Poland prior to the current war. The REMF’s have a lot of work to do, before large offensive combat operations can be sustained in that region. The REMF’s went in first, and the work is gradually getting done.
It takes a long time. But the war is lasting a long time, so they’re being given a lot of time. They can take that time, and use it as they like.
Even Canada, my perennial little sidekick of a birthplace, is building bases in Latvia; brigade group and air elements to deploy there in ’26.
Therefore I regard 2026 as the likely year for major escalation of the war, providing Harris wins the US election.
Aah, this is why Canada needs 88 F-35 fighter jets. I get it now.
Romania, with its vomit inducine servitude towards US (I labeled this new phase in Romanian history as neo-phanariote – the Phanariot phase was between 1715-1850, when Moldovan and Wallachian rulers were nominated by the Ottomans, among the Greek families of Istanbul Phanar neighbourhood; period in which servitude and peasnt oppression and exploitation by the boyars and the foreign voievod, full of debts to buy the possition exploded). Now Romanians have the same shit, different actors.
https://x.com/upholdreality/status/1833097558475866426
COMBATE | @upholdreality
Do you see why they’re afraid of Germany’s Sahra Wagenknecht’s left?
“Olaf Scholz is a vassal chancellor of the USA”
“We don’t have a sovereign government”
“The Greens are the most hypocritical, most detached, most mendacious, most incompetent party in the Bundestag”
https://x.com/i/status/1833097558475866426
6:58 AM · Sep 9, 2024
Is this another example of Covid induced brain damage?
I am dead serious in asking this question.
And I don’t believe he is the only Politician who might be cognitively affected by repeated Covid infections, the increase in reckless and irrational behaviour by Western Elites over the last few years is striking.
I hear you, but the reckless, irrational behavior appears typical in a hubris-filled, desperate, declining, corrupt empire. We can also revisit the classic Dr. Strangelove (from before I was even born) for a few laughs concerning irrational, reckless behavior.
The Pans have always behaved this way. This is why they lost the country for several generations…
More striking than over the previous few years before the last few years?
No covid existed or was necessary for the Bush/Blair Iraq War. Or for the 20 years of hamster-wheel futility of trying to build a ” modern Western-Industrial military” in Afghanistan. No covid there-then either.
Thank you, Conor.
Readers may be interested in: https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/the-sikorski-set-the-polish-foreign-minister-has-locked-horns-with-cameron-but-their-history-goes-back-to-the-bullingdon-club-9564492.html.
The power couple’s two sons went to Eton and Oxford and continue the paternal tradition, fake, of claiming to be dispossessed Mitteleuropa aristocracy and related to the WW2 general.
When appointed minister and speaker, the power couple had to declare their income. Most of it comes from think tank proxies for the MIC. These private education fees and Bullingdon clothing don’t pay for themselves.
“Colonel Beck was an amateur. He only got six million Poles killed by his policies. I’m going to wipe out the whole of the Polish people and leave no vestige of their culture behind|! Whaddaya think, Anne?”
“Oh Radek, you’re so strong — kiss me, you fool . . .”
Forgive my curiosity but is this Sikorsky any relation to the infamous death contractor of the same name, now a subsidiary of the death contractor known as Lockheed Martin?
Nah. Sikorsky company was founded a century ago by a Russian immigrant (Igor Sikorsky, born in Kiev, Russian Empire).
Prank with Radoslaw Sikorskiy
https://rumble.com/v5ekvoq-prank-with-radoslaw-sikorskiy.html