Donald Trump is the gift that keeps on giving for the western misleadership class. Any anti-democratic swindle on the EU wish list is now being sold as a remedy to the Orange Man. (And if it’s not Trump, it’s Russia).
The US is no longer a reliable defense partner, they say. We must give more power to Brussels and send untold billions to weapons companies.
The US is no longer a reliable economic partner, they say. We must increase competitiveness by weakening labor and empowering finance.
The UK voters may have opted for Brexit, but London and Brussels are “defying Trump” with a “free and open trade” declaration that includes negotiations ‘on defense and security, fishing and energy, as well as a “common understanding” of which topics will be covered by intensive Brexit reset negotiations this year.’
The strange thing about these plans, however, is that they include reliance on US weapons and energy and alignment with US geopolitical and geoeconomic goals.
Let’s focus here on how the EU is pressing ahead with plans to dramatically increase defense spending due to Trump Abandonment Syndrome.
The EU Jazz Band
Recent commentary by Rosa Balfour, director of Carnegie Europe, perfectly sums up these arguments. In a piece titled “Europe Tried to Trump-Proof Itself. Now It’s Crafting a Plan B” she explains why the EU has no choice but to redirect social spending towards the arms industry.
Balfour’s romantic version of recent history starts on February 28. That’s when “the televised humiliation of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky” took place, and “Europe realized it could no longer rely on its longtime ally, the United States.” And here she is on the jazzy wreckage:
The shocking depth and breadth of this realization cannot be overemphasized. Political leaders in European states, the European Union, and NATO displayed composure and coordination, but behind the scenes, the soundtrack was a frantic free jazz jam session with dramatic thuds and a long pause—the silence at the realization that the European comfort zone was over.
And now, what are these composed and coordinated “political leaders” doing? They announce that Ukraine is Europe’s first line of defense, make grand plans for a “coalition of the willing,” and declare that Ukraine will become a “steel porcupine”
The coalition of the willing has fallen apart. The steel porcupine was ridiculed. And while those in the Kremlin likely aren’t losing any sleep, Europeans should be. That’s because, as Balfour writes, the European Commission “can play supporting roles by mobilizing financial resources and handling complicated in-house horse trading.”
That’s one way of putting it.
The Commission is inching its way towards invoking emergency powers to push through parts of its rearmament slush fund. It’s getting pushback from the European Parliament, but the fact is Ursula can do it anyways with minimal support from EU governments. She’s likely just waiting for the right moment. Let’s look at the status of the European militarization billions.
On March 19, the Commission introduced a 150 billion euro proposal — a first installment of what’s to be at least $900 billion— for establishing the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) through the reinforcement of European defence industry Instrument.
It wants to move forward with it under Article 122 emergency powers which need only a qualified majority in the Council —as opposed to the usual consensus— which allows Ursula and friends to get around pesky vetoes from member countries. The procedure for 122 is as follows:
1) the Commission proposes a Council measure; following which 2) the Council adopts the measure in line with [qualified majority voting]. No additional elements or participants are envisaged.
This article allows the proposal to bypass parliamentary negotiations and go straight to the Council for negotiation and adoption. The Parliament’s role is reduced to submitting suggestions and requesting debates.
How’s that for your democratic rules-based order?
In an April 23 secret vote, the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affair unanimously backed a legal opinion rejecting the Commission’s attempt to bypass it on a 150 billion euro rearmament fund.
While it is a non-binding vote, it does signal opposition to Ursula’s plan, but it’s not some principled stand for the will of the people or any romantic notion like that.
No, it’s more about dividing up slices of the pie as European weapons industry lobbyists are increasingly active in Brussels and are trying to make sure their clients are rewarded. And so much of the feeble opposition is over getting a stronger “buy European” clause in SAFE (it currently requires 65 percent of war consumables and complex systems to come from within the EU, Ukraine, or EEA/EFTA states, which includes Turkiye and Norway.
Why must Ursula’s commission sideline the Parliament and some member states in order to spend 900 billion on military purchases? They lay it out in their proposal. There’s the usual nonsense about Russia:
The EU and its Member States now face an intensifying Russian aggression against Ukraine and a growing security threat from Russia. It is also now clear that this threat will persist in the foreseeable future, considering that Russia has shifted to a war-time economy enabling a rapid scaleup of its military capabilities and replenishment of its stocks. The European Council therefore underlined, in its conclusions of 6 March 2025, that “Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and its repercussions for European and global security in a changing environment constitute an existential challenge for the European Union”.
There’s also the Trump abandonment syndrome:
At the same time, the United States, traditionally a strong ally, is clear that it believes it is over-committed in Europe and needs to rebalance, reducing its historical role as a primary security guarantor.
One itching question is what happens to this latter selling point now that the Trump administration has tied itself to Ukraine through the so-called minerals deal, but surely if the European powers have made it this far on manufactured crises, they’ll be able to overcome that hurdle by pointing to Trump’s insistence on what they call an unjust peace for Ukraine.
And so “rearmament” by supranational emergency decree it must be—with Balfour from Carnegie and all the other plutocrat court jesters at the transatlantic think tanks cheering this on as a victory against the autocratic hordes outside the garden walls. Here’s Balfour again summarizing the mood among this crowd:
…a trajectory of change has been charted, and it has transformative potential—not just for the European continent, but also for the global reordering of post-American international relations. The jazz band has picked up rhythm, even if the melody is not fully harmonic.
I’m not sure if that’s music Balfour is listening to or the jangle of gold and silver. While it can be difficult to hear anything over the din coming from the elite ‘Spirit of 1914,’ there’s always one chord missing from the militarization genre. Surely Balfour, the jazz aficionado, must know that curiosity was considered one of the essential ingredients to the music. If we apply that to her extended jazz metaphor we might start asking some questions like:
- Why does the EU need to perform this whole militarization song and dance routine at all?
- Why can’t there be peace with Russia?
- Why did European nations help sabotage past Kiev-Moscow peace negotiations?
- Why did the EU help the US overthrow the government of Ukraine and use the country as a battering ram against Russia?
- Why does the EU elite so crave war with Russia?
- Is the EU not more secure and prosperous through friendly ties and trade with Russia?
And why must the EU, which collectively already ranks second in the world in defense expenditures, spend boatloads more? How much will make it safe, competitive, and independent?
These questions are never addressed. It’s simply treated as the natural order of things that Russia is the EU’s enemy and it must get big expensive weapons because Trump bad. The sad thing is, this relentless messaging pumped out of European media is working — at least according to the EU’s own polls. That wouldn’t be entirely surprising considering this message is endlessly pumped out of EU media.
Either way, European governments are running with it. Sixteen countries are asking the EU for fiscal leeway to spend big on defense — requests that are never made during the endless social austerity.
Yes, the citizens of the bloc will continue to see their standard of living fall, but don’t worry, EU enlargement and spending more on militarization will lead to more “competitiveness.” Can’t you feel it already:
Profit margins for Weapon and Ammunition at Rheinmetall went up from 23% to 28.5% from 2023 to 2024. Of every Euro in public money spent on weapons from Rheinmetall, the company makes 28.5% return on sales, quite spectacular even compared to other Rheinmetall business. pic.twitter.com/SvKmjNcB30
— Isabella M Weber (@IsabellaMWeber) April 28, 2025
Despite considerable hurdles for the European defense industry (and a brief cooling off period due to tariff shock), their stock prices are going through the roof as investors expect Brussels to come through with endless support.
About those hurdles…
Research by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) shows that Europe increased its imports of weapons two-and-a-half times over in the past five years compared with the previous five years with two-thirds coming from the US.
Even others at Carnegie Europe have doubts about the EU scheme. Here’s Judy Dempsey, nonresident senior fellow at Carnegie Europe:
Tell Poland. It is rapidly building up its defense infrastructure by purchasing American kits. When Warsaw wanted to shop elsewhere, like in South Korea, it came under huge pressure from Washington not to do so. This is an important point. The United States wants Europe to take more responsibility for its defense but not at America’s military industrial expense. It is a major military supplier of components to many European countries. Making that break would take time and a political will for Europe to build up a common defense and procurement strategy.
Beyond the considerable political pressure, there’s also the fact that lead times when it comes to defense capabilities are long. So part of the EU’s strategy is to send billions more to Ukraine so it can build up its defense industry. The rationale is that it is a far cheaper place to manufacture weapons than Western Europe, and it already has a defense manufacturing sector up and running. Okay, then.
But are there some chinks in that logic?
For one, Ukraine is now the world’s biggest arms importer, absorbing 8.8 percent of global transfers. Two, Russian Kinzhals might have a say in the output from Ukrainian weapons manufacturers.
It’s hard to see what this all does for European competitiveness, let alone the average Josef, Jose, or Giusseppe. Here’s Balfour on this should be sold to the proles:
Politically, to ensure public support for rearming Europe and to offset the inevitable costs, defense efforts ought to be part of a broader strategy of economic and technological innovation. Indeed, these efforts could boost Europe’s stagnant economy. At the EU level, the recipes are available in recent recommendations addressing competitiveness, productivity, and technological innovation.
Indeed, Trump’s first 100 days are pushing the EU to put some momentum behind projects that have been underway for years. Tying these objectives with the enlargement of the EU to include Ukraine, Moldova, and the Western Balkans adds a new perspective to upscaling the single market. Expanding the EU and deepening the relationship with other European countries—like the UK, Switzerland, and Norway—would counter the fragmentation that great power competition and political disruption at home are inflicting on the continent.
It’s scary for its rote, simplistic confidence. Nowhere in this hopeful Powerpoint is there an appearance of the considerable downsides, which at the more disastrous end of the spectrum happen to include the complete destruction of Europe.
Perhaps the best hope is that these fools’ plans for EU rearmament plans are just a giant racket. But one could say the same about the US military industrial complex, and look at what that has unfurled: endless death and destruction and numerous lost wars. One key difference between the transatlantic militarization schemes, however, is that the US is isolated between two oceans. The EU borders not only Russia, but also a collapsing neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine, making its embrace of a military-industrial complex a far riskier proposition.
Rackets have a way of taking on a life of their own. Indeed, one could argue the EU’s current trajectory is that of a zombie driven along by its Russophobia — and redistributing money upwards in the name of that hatred. Problem is that life expectancy isn’t long for zombies and those around them.
Trying to fool Russia.
Zelly and Trumpy put on a show and manage not to laugh as they do it.
Zelly sells off Ukraine, allowing massive obsolete arms transfers to Syria Burma and Ukraine. Money flows elsewhere.
Winners are Grinners.
The Europeans, especially the Nordics, have had a nice life: mostly ‘free’ health care, mostly ‘free’ education, five weeks of vacation every year, pretty good maternal leave, social housing, support for family life, mostly organic fresh food. Spending money on improving the life of their people, instead of passing it on to military-industrial complex, has been going on for the last 50 years, at least. This has got to stop! We in the US don’t have all that … so the EU can’t have it either. It’s all about dragging the EU down to the US level!
I don’t think that it is so much Trump as the Russians being the bogeyman. NATO contributions have to go up up to 5%. Why? Russia. We have to cut pensions and infrastructure. Why? Russia. We have to cut heating to pensioners in the wintertime. Why? Russia. We have to ban parties that do not agree with us. Why? Russia. We have to censor the internet and send the police to every person that protests on the net. Why? Russia. We have to break down doors to private meetings of religious people. Why? Gaza – but it could be Russia next time. For the European kleptocrats, Russia is the gift that keeps on giving.
Yep, still fighting the Crimean War 270 years later.
And they’re still fighting the Crimean War( 1853-1856) after 270 years.
typo again: 170 years. Give it another 100 years. / ;) They’ve already outdone the UK-France Hundred Years war lasting from the mid-1300s to mid-1400s.
Because Oceania has always been at war with EuraAsia, eh? Oh — and when is the “two minutes hate” sister?
There are no NATO contributions.
As for the Crimean War, I can’t understand this at all. For those in positions of influence in the UK (in France it’s virtually never mentioned) and who have actually heard of it, the Crimean War is the ultimate national expeditionary disaster, and has gone down in popular cultural history as a series of dreadful blunders by a stupid aristocracy-led military in a futile war with no purpose. It’s second only to World War 1 as a traumatic episode which must under no circumstances be repeated.
And yet, reading Barbara Tuchman’s book The Proud Tower, I was left with the impression some Western European countries were eager to go to war with RU in WWI to cut it down to size before it grew more powerful, in the sense that the Triple Alliance – Germany, Austria-Hungary (the two together had a long border with RU, and Italy – were eager to go to war against the Triple Entent – UK, Russia, and France. (Noting that Italy left the Triple Alliance and joined the Triple Entent when WWI began.) At least that’s the impression the book left with me. / my2 cents.
As for the way history is taught in most k-12 schools, well, those who do not remember the past… etc. / ;)
Well you should read Christopher Clark on the subject: he’s spent a long time in the archives and is very good on the run-up to WW1. European feelings about Russia were varied and complex, but in the case of Prussia they were a mixture of traditional fears of the barbarians from the East (Teutonic Knights etc) and the pragmatic fear that a rapidly industrialising Russia would pose an existential threat to a country with no natural frontiers and a revanchist France on the other side. The French (who had long-standing and deep cultural relations with Russia) allied with the Russians against the Prussian threat, but this was very unpopular domestically, with leftist politicians demanding to know why France was allying itself with a repressive absolute monarchy.
It’s clear now that nobody wanted a general European War. The Austrians wanted to smash the Serbs, the Russians thought they couldn’t stand by, and mobilised to deter the Austrians, which didn’t work, after which the Germans had to mobilise to protect their ally, and when they saw the Austrians were actually going to war, they thought they had no choice but to attack Russia, but needed to deal with France first, which brought Britain in eventually. But whilst there were some enthusiasts for quick knock-out blows, nobody wanted the war they got.
Thanks for the Clark reference. I will check out his work. And you are right in saying ‘nobody wanted the war they got.’
The war they got was the first war fought by the newly industrialized powers against each other. The industrial production of materiel changed the battlefield in ways the generals had never experienced and who, unfortunately, could not overcome their lifelong approach to battlefield tactics.
The boys were not home by the first Christmas after the war began.
and adding, without meaning to make a claim based on authority, which I do not:
I have an uncle, a great or great-great (not sure the right familial reference),who lies in Flanders Fields beneath the the crosses row on row. He died in a mustard gas attack. It would be wrong for me to claim this as an authority for my comment. But, my god, how many wars are we USians to endure to satisfy some EU aristocrats’ claims?
It certainly hadn’t helped that Kaiser Wilhelm II undid Bismarck’s lifetime of assiduous efforts to keep Russia onside. I don’t think that Europe has ever treated Russia as a “normal country” ever since.
Oddly enough, we can read from the nato.int itself:
Anyway, we all use the sayings like “thin red line” and “charge of the light brigade” to depict the blundering futility of the British way of playing the “great game” they made up in their paranoid little brains, don’t we? The Crimean War the first war ever, I believe, where a government used pure propaganda to create public support for a war that nobody needed.
No, it has an infrastructure budget to cover NATO premises, headquarters and the like. But that’s all. The “contributions” they are probably talking about are national military forces “contributed” in the sense of being made available to NATO under certain circumstances. NATO has no other “contributions” apart, if you really press it, from civilian and military staff made available for HQ and policy jobs.
Well, we can agree that Rev Kev, I and NATO are talking about contributions, and you are talking about “contributions”. I guess there’s a difference somewhere.
Again, from nato.int:
and
It’s all about commitment and contribution (the word appears 8 times on that page alone), at a rate set by NATO Defence Ministers.
I would really like to see some better English-language sources on this. Mostly what I have seen seems to draw from UK sources. But I am more interested in Napoleon III as he seems at the center of much of the problems in Europe at the time (that, and the fact that the “New World Order” didn’t seem to anticipate the rise of Prussia which threw the entire scheme into the trash bin).
OT, but I was drawn to Crimea war as a US civil war history “buff”. Common expression here is the civil war was the first “modern” war, as though Crimea, Italian Unification, French intervention in Algeria had no effect on western armies or were totally unknown to Americans. In fact, Sec War Jeff Davis sent three west pointers to Europe specifically to learn from the engaged armies resulting in American adaptations such as the 12 lb “Napoleon” gun-howitzer and McClellan cavalry saddle. And of course one of Nappy III’s other enterprises here giving us Cinco de Maya.
Thanks for your comment. Sec War Jeff Davis from the state of Mississippi served as US Secretary of War from March 7, 1853 – March 4, 1857 under US President Franklin Pierce. He was later president of the Confederate States from February 22, 1862 – May 5, 1865. ( I had to look this up.) I learn so much reading NC.
There’s a thought that if France hadn’t been defeated on the Fifth of May (Cinco de Maya) at the battle of Puebla it would have come in on the side of the Confederacy during the US Civil War. If France had come in on that side the war might have turned out differently. We’ll never know. Thanks for the Napoleon III reference. He’s almost forgotten now but played a huge roll in the 19th century.
Outside of simple plundering, most wars are driven by fears the rival is becoming more powerful. Russia was concerned about the military growth of a hostile government on its border. Europe is concerned with Russia mobilizing. But in this case Russia has yet to mobilize enough troops to even contemplate extending into western Ukraine. I get that Poland wants a buffer on its border. But neutrality for Ukraine, Russia’s own request, would have accomplished that. But simple solutions like that are not profitable.
Is Rosa Balfour a member of the same family as Arthur James Balfour?
I haven’t found any definitive links on the internet.
I’m just thinking about that as Keith Kellogg’s family background comes to mind. And a host of others like Kennedy…you get the picture.
Just relates to my thesis about this “new paradigm” not being so new.
Indeed, and that genealogical entropy among the elite is rampant.
Where is Colonel Smithers when we need him? ;^)
JD Vance in the famous Signal chat clearly wants a EU navy to send to fight the Anshar Allah in Yemen. Trump’s war mongering on Greenland gives the motivation to build it.
The vassal relationship gives the EU countries the right to come up with their own motivation for doing the empires bidding. Sometimes those motivations are internally contradictory, but the media is mostly language siloed, so most people don’t notice when the governments return from Council meetings with different stories of why it has to go this way.
If we are lucky, neoliberalism causes enough inefficiencies to delay the project until Trump has mad-emperored the empire onto the grave yard.
Are steel pork pies the latest strategic armaments advance on the Useless fonda Lyin’s washing machine chips?
If the US’s EU NATO allies intend to drag Europe into a pointless war with RU then the US should get out of NATO, imo. / ;)
Why does the EU elite so crave war with Russia?
Connor, maybe we should start treating political speeches as the performative actions that they actually are.
European elites don’t crave war with Russia, but they need to justify somehow to their own populations the militarization of EU and the large-scale austerity that they intend to implement in order to prepare for large-scale war.
The post-WWII world order has collapsed and European oligarchies are scrambling to position themselves for the next all-out conflict.
According to SIPRI, the world is arming itself at a rapid rate (Europe, North America, East Asia and Middle East), and for some countries this has been going on for a decade already. To borrow a phrase beloved by Brian Berletic, we are dealing with ‘continuity of agenda’, not with little Kaja Kallas’ whims…
‘Many countries have also committed to raising military spending, which will lead to further global increases in the coming years.’ This is the future now: wars, austerity, repression. Personally I call it fascism-in-the-making, but I am know to favour the doom-and-gloom camp, as opposed to the head-in-the-sand crowd.
“Many countries have also committed to raising military spending…”
Which leads to a conundrum: the goal of raising military preparedness (more equipment, troops, ammunition, etc) is to protect Western Europe’s “way of life” against enemies intent on destroying it.
But if all that militarization is paid by erasing the way of life (i.e. less money for schools, public health, public infrastructure, social housing, libraries, museums, etc) then why should anybody bother about taking part in that defense? If the proposed way to protect EU nations implies one has to give up what is worth protecting — then the motivation to fight will have disappeared as well when the barbarians finally arrive.