Eastern Europe's Second Chance

Geography doesn't change. To a slightly lesser extent, neither do historic patterns.

Even if Ukraine wins the Russo-Ukrainian War, Russia will still be to the east from Central Europe. 

She will be back in one form or another.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, liberation, and joining NATO - helped with a lot of ahistorical thinking on both sides of the Atlantic - there was a bit of hedging that there was time to rebuild Central European economies and civil society before a threat from the east came back. For almost three decades the former Warsaw Pact members of NATO let their military capabilities and investments fall closer to 1% of GDP as opposed to the 2% minimum.

The events of the last decade have sobered up everyone from Estonia to Bulgaria, but for most of those nations, by free-riding on their richer nations to the west for national defense, they lost or allowed to almost die what domestic arms manufacturing they had remaining from communism.

Everyone - well those who are paying attention - now realize the existential requirement to have at least the most basic domestic production capabilities to defend yourself, regardless what accountants may say.

The last year is seeing once strong medium powers in Central Europe bring capacity back online. 

Good for them, good for all alliance members;

Still wary of Russia, their Soviet-era master, some former Warsaw Pact countries see helping Ukraine as a matter of regional security.

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“Taking into account the realities of the ongoing war in Ukraine and the visible attitude of many countries aimed at increased spending in the field of defence budgets, there is a real chance to enter new markets and increase export revenues in the coming years,” said Sebastian Chwalek, CEO of Poland’s PGZ.

State-owned PGZ controls more than 50 companies making weapons and ammunition – from armoured transporters to unmanned air systems – and holds stakes in dozens more.

It now plans to invest up to 8 billion zlotys ($1.8 billion) over the next decade, more than double its pre-war target, Chwalek told Reuters. That includes new facilities located further from the border with Russia’s ally Belarus for security reasons, he said.

Other manufacturers too are increasing production capacity and racing to hire workers, companies and government officials from Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic said.

...

Chwalek said PGZ would now produce 1,000 portable Piorun manpad air-defence systems in 2023 – not all for Ukraine -compared to 600 in 2022 and 300 to 350 in previous years.

The company, which he said has also delivered artillery and mortar systems, howitzers, bulletproof vests, small arms and ammunition to Ukraine, is likely to surpass a pre-war 2022 revenue target of 6.74 billion zlotys.

...

Czech arms exports this year will be the highest since 1989, he said, with many companies in the sector adding jobs and capacity.

“For the Czech defence industry, the conflict in Ukraine, and the assistance it provides is clearly a boost that we have not seen in the last 30 years,” Kopecny said.

David Hac, chief executive of Czech STV Group, outlined to Reuters plans to add new production lines for small-calibre ammunition and said it is considering expanding its large-calibre capability. In a tight labour market, the company is trying to poach workers from a slowing car industry, he said.

Defence sales helped the Czechoslovak Group, which owns companies including Excalibur Army, Tatra Trucks and Tatra Defence, nearly double its first-half revenues from a year earlier, to 13.8 billion crowns.

The company is increasing production of both 155mm NATO and 152mm Eastern calibre rounds and refurbishing infantry fighting vehicles and Soviet-era T-72 tanks, spokesman Andrej Cirtek told Reuters.

He said supplying Ukraine was more than just good business.

“After the Russian aggression started, our deliveries for Ukrainian army multiplied,” Cirtek said.

“The majority of the Czech population still remember times of a Russian occupation of our country before 1990 and we don´t want to have Russian troops closer to our borders.”

The Poles and the Czechs, in addition to having the industry, have a martial tradition going back over 1,000 years. 

There is no downside to having them strong. They'll bring their neighbors along with them. 

There Must be Consequences for Germany

I lived and worked with Germans for years. In their young years, my children's second language - mostly to help their father shop - was German. I have a great affection for Germany and Germans - but with great affection comes great expectations.

I know that my expectations for Germany is not that out of alignment with many Germans, however those Germans and their view of Germany are not presently holding power. As one does with things one values yet does not meet their potential, honest affection requires one to speak up and if needed take action.

The final part of the Merkle administration was problematic, but under the present SDP government led by Olaf Scholz - the Cold War socialist and Soviet apologist, Germany's irresponsible stance in the face of European and NATO security requirements cannot go without consequences. The present, "Just do enough in security to look like we're doing something, but not too much..." should be called out for exactly what it is.

Germany, even more than France, is the keystone to Europe. Too many nations look to her for leadership culturally, economically, and security. Poland is an emerging leader, but she does not have the population or GDP power to match Germany.

Though Germany's present dysfunction is multi-causal, the core of the problem is that the German people chose the wrong leader at the wrong time.

We're going to go to Foreign Policy and Politico to demonstrate. 

The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has an essay in FP's Jan/Feb edition. It is a long and winding apologia, but look at this Salamanderesque quote from Scholz;

The world must not let Putin get his way; Russia’s revanchist imperialism must be stopped. The crucial role for Germany at this moment is to step up as one of the main providers of security in Europe by investing in our military, strengthening the European defense industry, beefing up our military presence on NATO’s eastern flank, and training and equipping Ukraine’s armed forces.

Germany’s new role will require a new strategic culture, and the national security strategy that my government will adopt a few months from now will reflect this fact. For the last three decades, decisions regarding Germany’s security and the equipment of the country’s armed forces were taken against the backdrop of a Europe at peace. Now, the guiding question will be which threats we and our allies must confront in Europe, most immediately from Russia. These include potential assaults on allied territory, cyberwarfare, and even the remote chance of a nuclear attack, which Putin has not so subtly threatened.

The transatlantic partnership is and remains vital to confronting these challenges. U.S. President Joe Biden and his administration deserve praise for building and investing in strong partnerships and alliances across the globe. But a balanced and resilient transatlantic partnership also requires that Germany and Europe play active roles. One of the first decisions that my government made in the aftermath of Russia’s attack on Ukraine was to designate a special fund of approximately $100 billion to better equip our armed forces, the Bundeswehr. We even changed our constitution to set up this fund. This decision marks the starkest change in German security policy since the establishment of the Bundeswehr in 1955. Our soldiers will receive the political support, materials, and capabilities they need to defend our country and our allies. The goal is a Bundeswehr that we and our allies can rely on. To achieve it, Germany will invest two percent of our gross domestic product in our defense.

Sounds good, but it is just cover.

Of course, serious nations know 2% is a floor, not a ceiling - but there it is.

Earlier this year there was all sorts of talk about boosting spending and getting that floor reached as soon as practical. His words above seem to signal that.

Really? From Politico on Monday,

Germany on Monday walked back its promise to swiftly raise defense spending to at least 2 percent of its economic output — breaching the key commitment made days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to become a more serious military force.

Berlin also sought to play down internal warnings about delays to a flagship procurement of new fighter jets.

During a government press conference, Chief Spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit scaled down expectations for Germany’s defense spending, telling journalists that the 2 percent target would be missed not only this year, but also likely next year: “It’s still open whether that [goal] will be achieved” in 2023, Hebestreit said, adding that his “cautious expectation” was that Germany would still meet the target within this legislative period, which ends in 2025.

...

The 2 percent pledge had been a key promise of Scholz’s Zeitenwende speech to the German Parliament in February, just days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in which the chancellor said: “We will from now, year after year, invest more than 2 percent of gross domestic product invest in our defense.”

This commitment, which is in line with what all members of the NATO military alliance agreed to in 2014, was reiterated by Scholz in an op-ed in Foreign Affairs on Monday — although he no longer said the commitment would be upheld “from now on.”

Last month, it had already emerged that Germany will likely miss its 2 percent target in 2023 as the regular defense budget of about €50 billion will slightly shrink by about €300 million. Only a comparably small first tranche of a massive €100 billion special military upgrading fund is expected to be paid out.

Scholz is not an honest nor a reliable partner. Besides public shaming, what can be done? As outlined many times, there is Plan Salamander;

In NATO, General and Flag Officer billets are distributed amongst nations in a rather complicated way, but this formula is controlled by NATO – and as such – can be changed.

Entering argument: take the present formula for “fair distribution” and multiply by .75 any nation that spends 1.5% to 1.99% GDP on defense. Multiply by .5 any nation that spends between 1.25% to 1.499%. Multiply by .25 1.0% to 1.240%. If you fall below 1%, you get nothing and your OF5 (Col./Capt) billets are halved. 

1.25x for 2.01%-2.25%. 1.5X for 2.26%-2.75%; 1.75x for 2.76% -3.0%. 2x for +3.01%.

The NATO nations facing Russia directly are smaller and poorer than Germany and are all spending - or soon will spend - responsibly. 

All relationships that are successful and respectful have a common formula; reward positive behavior; punish negative behavior.

Going by to Scholz's article in FP, he reminds everyone what is really driving this. Something going back for decades with him and his cohorts; a thinly disguised dislike of NATO and the Anglo-Saxon influence that comes with it. Like their Western Frankish brothers out of Paris, for a thousand years there is a pull on the German people to control Europe. NATO, be design, will prevent that.

What won't? The EU;

More broadly, the EU must overcome old conflicts and find new solutions. European migration and fiscal policy are cases in point. People will continue to come to Europe, and Europe needs immigrants, so the EU must devise an immigration strategy that is pragmatic and aligns with its values. This means reducing irregular migration and at the same time strengthening legal paths to Europe, in particular for the skilled workers that our labor markets need. On fiscal policy, the union has established a recovery and resilience fund that will also help address the current challenges posed by high energy prices. The union must also do away with selfish blocking tactics in its decision-making processes by eliminating the ability of individual countries to veto certain measures. As the EU expands and becomes a geopolitical actor, quick decision-making will be the key to success. For that reason, Germany has proposed gradually extending the practice of making decisions by majority voting to areas that currently fall under the unanimity rule, such as EU foreign policy and taxation. 

Europe must also continue to assume greater responsibility for its own security and needs a coordinated and integrated approach to building its defense capabilities. For example, the militaries of EU member states operate too many different weapons systems, which creates practical and economic inefficiencies. To address these problems, the EU must change its internal bureaucratic procedures, which will require courageous political decisions; EU member states, including Germany, will have to alter their national policies and regulations on exporting jointly manufactured military systems. 

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NATO is the ultimate guarantor of Euro-Atlantic security, and its strength will only grow with the addition of two prosperous democracies, Finland and Sweden, as members. But NATO is also made stronger when its European members independently take steps toward greater compatibility between their defense structures, within the framework of the EU.

Enough of coddling Germany and not rewarding responsible security partners. Time for NATO to at least start to make a point, and make it publicly. 

The EU's Real Enemy - the United States?

If you are an American who lived on the European Continent, specifically Western Europe, you’re very familiar with an exceptionally sharp strain of anti-Americanism that resides in a significant percentage of their ruling elite – an adult version of the middle school mean girls. Though present in all nations to one degree to another, it is especially acute in Germany and France for slightly different reasons but are all working towards the same goal; degrade American influence in Europe.

The best way for this political and corporate anti-Americanism to find a lever of power is through the the trans-national and anti-democratic modern iteration of the European Union – made even more problematic with the departure of Great Britain who once played a balancing role between the Continental powers as she has for centuries.

Why primarily France and Germany? To start with, this is part of the sibling rivalry between the children of Charlemagne for primacy in Europe that has churned Europe over the last thousand years. The Anglo-Saxons on both sides of the Atlantic kept getting in the way of their return to the struggle.

Their armies under various blood-soaked leaders moved across Iberia to Moscow and back for centuries in order to be THE driver of power and influence on the continent. The European Union, once the “trade association” nose was in the tent, is now seen – fairly – as a mechanism to centralize power so The Smartest People in the Room™ no longer have pesky minor powers and – Buddha forgive – voters getting in their way. Without checks, power only seeks more power for itself. The morphing of the EU is just the latest example.

Not unlike their American counterparts who would like the USA to extract itself from foreign entanglements (NB: as I have written through the years, I am sympathetic/supportive of these efforts), many of the strongest proponents of the EU just want the USA to go home.

The Europeans, while benefiting from the WWII/Cold War leftover presence of the USA, want it to end and the influence that comes with it. If any opportunity to push back against the USA appears, they have their talking points ready to dirty up the reputation and standing of the USA. If that can be done while blaming Eurocrat failures on the USA as well, even better.

You know the Americans, citizens of that mongrel nation whose gene pool is full of religious zealots, failed revolutionaries, slaves, economic refugees, grasping second sons, criminals, and their descendants – spoiled with a continent overflowing with food, water, minerals, forests and open land they don’t even appreciate.

Loud. Fat. Pushy. Americans.

The usual snarled insults cobbled together by smug people who get much of their opinions of the USA by reading The Washington Post or The New York Times. “I know America, I read your newspapers.” That is right after, “I’ve been to America. I spent a week in DC/NYC/Boston/Chicago. I studied a semester at Brown.”

If you are used to countering America’s resident self-loathing Left, these are easy to deal with, and even entertaining. 

Don’t laugh too much though. Their externalized insecurity is a mortal danger to Western unity by constantly working to divide the West and undermine its cultural, economic, and military strength. When those snotty 20/30-somethings get in their 40s, 50s, and 60s in the Eurocracy, they start to get access to the levers of power and influence. That is when they can make trouble.

For my generation, we used to sneer and poke fun at the useful idiots of the 1980s anti-nuke/anti-war protest movements in Europe – clearly useful idiots for the Soviet Union – but we’re not laughing too much now, one of those fools is the Chancellor of Germany.

Knowing these people is as important as tracking what they say and do. With the East ablaze or rising to challenge the West, this is what the Eurocrats want to train their ire at – to the west across the Atlantic.

There is a lot to unpack in this ... whatever you would call it in Politico - but let's dive in;

Nine months after invading Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is beginning to fracture the West. 

Top European officials are furious with Joe Biden’s administration and now accuse the Americans of making a fortune from the war, while EU countries suffer. 

Funny opening, and telling. No, Putin is encouraging useful idiots in the West to do the fracturing for him.

As for the second part of the pull quote...just let that soak in. As if EU nations have nothing to benefit from keeping the Russians east of the Dnepr, and not threatening the Vistula. 

“We are really at a historic juncture,” the senior EU official said, arguing that the double hit of trade disruption from U.S. subsidies and high energy prices risks turning public opinion against both the war effort and the transatlantic alliance. “America needs to realize that public opinion is shifting in many EU countries.”

Almost comically lacking in self-awareness. Which nation tried to warn, pre-war, against reliance on Russian energy? What was the European reaction?

Another top official, the EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell, called on Washington to respond to European concerns. “Americans — our friends — take decisions which have an economic impact on us,” he said in an interview with POLITICO.

Why yes; the decision by the USA for over half a century to subsidize European defense with American taxpayer largess sure did have an impact on Europeans. It gave them the opportunity to spend not just on unsustainable welfare states, but in virtue signaling and corrupt green energy policies built on Russian gas, Chinese solar panels, and clear cut American forests. 

The U.S. rejected Europe's complaints. “The rise in gas prices in Europe is caused by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Putin's energy war against Europe, period," a spokesperson for Biden's National Security Council said. Exports of liquefied natural gas from the U.S. to Europe "increased dramatically and enabled Europe to diversify away from Russia," the NSC spokesperson said.

This is, of course, correct.

An American official stressed the price setting for European buyers of gas reflects private market decisions and is not the result of any U.S. government policy or action. "U.S. companies have been transparent and reliable suppliers of natural gas to Europe," the official said. Exporting capacity has also been limited by an accident in June that forced a key facility to shut down.

In most cases, the official added, the difference between the export and import prices doesn't go to U.S. LNG exporters, but to companies reselling the gas within the EU. The largest European holder of long-term U.S. gas contracts is France's TotalEnergies for example. 

I am shocked ... SHOCKED ... that the French would try to profit while shifting blame to the Anglo-Saxons. Next thing you know, the French might actually facilitate the migration of uninvited military aged males by the hundreds of thousands across the English channel to the Anglo-Saxon homeland. You never know ...

It’s not a new argument from the American side but it doesn’t seem to be convincing the Europeans. "The United States sells us its gas with a multiplier effect of four when it crosses the Atlantic," European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton said on French TV on Wednesday. "Of course the Americans are our allies ... but when something goes wrong it is necessary also between allies to say it."

Amazing. Just read it again. It is almost high art.

Despite the energy disagreements, it wasn't until Washington announced a $369 billion industrial subsidy scheme to support green industries under the Inflation Reduction Act that Brussels went into full-blown panic mode.

“The Inflation Reduction Act has changed everything," one EU diplomat said. "Is Washington still our ally or not?”

Not content with meddling in the laws of their member states, the EU now wants to control the American legislative process? Hey, I didn't like the stupidly named Inflation Reduction Act either, but these are the people the Europeans like running America, so take it up at the next World Economic Forum discussion roundtable on ESG. 

...the EU sees that differently. An official from France’s foreign affairs ministry said the diagnosis is clear: These are "discriminatory subsidies that will distort competition.” French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire this week even accused the U.S. of going down China's path of economic isolationism, urging Brussels to replicate such an approach. “Europe must not be the last of the Mohicans,” he said.

I'm not even sure what that means.

The EU is preparing its responses, such as a big subsidy push to prevent European industry from being wiped out by American rivals. "We are experiencing a creeping crisis of trust on trade issues in this relationship," said German MEP Reinhard Bütikofer. 

"At some point, you have to assert yourself," said French MEP Marie-Pierre Vedrenne. "We are in a world of power struggles. When you arm-wrestle, if you are not muscular, if you are not prepared both physically and mentally, you lose.”

If the Europeans had that much of an attitude towards Russia, there probably wouldn't be a war in Ukraine right now.

Behind the scenes, there is also growing irritation about the money flowing into the American defense sector.

Well, this is were I stop laughing and my blood goes cold.

The U.S. has by far been the largest provider of military aid to Ukraine, supplying more than $15.2 billion in weapons and equipment since the start of the war. The EU has so far provided about €8 billion of military equipment to Ukraine, according to Borrell.

According to one senior official from a European capital, restocking of some sophisticated weapons may take “years” because of problems in the supply chain and the production of chips. This has fueled fears that the U.S. defense industry can profit even more from the war. 

For decades, USA based voices have pleaded with Europe to spend more on defense, to take the threats to our collective civilizations seriously, to maintain their sovereign defense industries, but from the loss of Dutch submarine building capability to the disappearance of the once spunky Belgian military - here we are in 2022. 

The diplomat argued that a discount on gas prices could help us to "keep united our public opinions” and to negotiate with third countries on gas supplies. “It’s not good, in terms of optics, to give the impression that your best ally is actually making huge profits out of your troubles,” the diplomat said.

No one benefits from this except for the enemies of the West from Russia to China. These are the same useful idiots from the 1980s are with us today ... just with more power.

Perhaps we expect too much from France, Germany, and their auxiliaries. There are equally strong friends of the USA in these countries that we should do more to encourage and raise their profile. While doing that, there are other emerging power centers in Europe who could use more support from the USA and may actually appreciate it.

The smaller European nations don’t trust France and Germany all that much, for good historical reasons. Most of the Europeans in the “new territories” in the east like the USA. They see the Americans as a more reliable guarantee of safety from hostile powers in the East, having a few centuries of experience of the Western European Frankish tribes carving them up for fun and profit – irrespective of local desires. Collectively these nations are not that large in GDP or population - not much more than Italy (for now), but that’s OK. They have the correct geography.

If we shape this relationship correctly, we don’t have to permanently garrison this part of Europe. Poland is already establishing a new paradigm of proper levels of security investment. Once NATO’s eastern front calms down a bit, we can rotate through forces for exercises and training. Perhaps even create some combined training and logistics bases ready to scale up in case of trouble in Mordor. A template we should have put in place in Western Europe decades ago.

Reward positive behavior and let the French and Germans continue their millennium-length struggle – peaceful this time – in the west; keep them frothing in Brussels and Strasbourg while the forward-looking nations try to set up the next thousand years of Western progress in a positive direction.

Perhaps.

Getting Our Head Around German National Solipsism

Over at The Tablet, Jeremy Stern has a real meaty article on “our” German problem. I lived in and around Germans for years and still try to get a grasp on what they want and why. As you would expect being that Germans contribute more to America’s DNA than any other group, there is a familiarity to Germans and Germany … but that only get you so far until you find yourself in an “uncanny valley” where you realize that you are not quite in sync with those around you. They are not us, and likewise…and that should be fine and good for everyone.

America’s view of their relationship with Germany and what we think Germany’s relationship with Russia should be is just that – America’s view. People and nations have agency, and what “we” think makes sense for them to do – all clear and logical – may not be what they think makes sense for them to do. It is this paradox that Stern appears to be trying to get his head around. 

…the crimes of national solipsism and wishful self-contradiction remain as German as ever. See, for example, the performance of Chancellor Olaf Scholz over the last two weeks, during which he helped lead a pledge for Ukraine’s candidate status as a future member of the European Union, then dispatched his foreign policy adviser to clarify that Ukraine shouldn’t expect EU membership “just because you’re attacked,” then made an obviously unrealistic demand for more German voting weight in the European Council and greater representation in the European Parliament as a condition of Ukrainian membership. In other words, Germany supports Ukrainian accession to the EU, and the reason it probably won’t happen is that Germany will block it—a by-now familiar maneuver that has left many of the states stuck between Germany and Russia rubbing their eyes in disbelief.

When Germans want something to happen, it happens fast and is done well. When they don’t want something to happen, the reaction is equally stark. When they are wallowing in self-doubt, like we have seen with the slow rolling of promised support to Ukraine and self-contradictory statements – that is a signal that the Germans are in a quandary between what they want to do and what they want to be. There are Germans who want their nation to be more involved as the Czechs are, but they are not the Germans in power.

It is more than the fact that Germany is being led by the SDP. We’ve already covered the SDP’s compromised leadership with regard to the Soviets and now Russians – if you are not up to speed then do a bit of reading on the topic. Even though a war wages just a few hours east of Berlin, as we often see here as well, the left has old habits and beliefs it cannot let go of.

Under Merkel, the previous CDU/CSU/SDP coalition government was more Russophilic than the center of the German center-right – and now it is firmly in the left. 

Scholz still refuses to say whether he would like Ukraine to win the war, and frequently calls for a “cease-fire” rather than a Russian withdrawal.

There is, moreover, an undeniable Sprockets-like undertone to these policy gyrations, as difficult as they can be to follow day-to-day or month-to-month. On the same day that the strategic Lyman railway hub fell to Russian forces, Scholz tweeted airily from a convention of Catholic pacifists (who were apparently debating whether Jesus was trans), “Can violence be fought with violence? Can you only create peace without weapons?” Indeed, Herr Chancellor.

Don’t forget, Scholz was – not making this up – part of the group of SDP youth in the 80s who danced with their GDR counterparts and played the useful idiots protesting NATO etc. I know these guys; I couldn’t stand them in the 80s and my opinion has not changed that much since.

Even though there are philosophical reasons for their externalized self-loathing, make no mistake, they are very much capitalists. Schroder’s millions for being a toy of Putin is just one example, but there is big money to be made in the east – a common theme for all of Germany history.

There is no sense in pretending that Putin could never afford a gas embargo, German officials have come to believe, given the experience of sanctions. After the imposition of Western sanctions in March, Russian exports increased by 8% in April. The explosion in the value of Russian commodity exports means Putin’s current account surplus this year may double from last year, making the loss of his foreign exchange assets irrelevant. The West’s arrogant miscalculation about the size and importance of Russia’s economy contributed directly to ruinous dynamics that routinely convulse Western democracies: spiraling inflation, cost of living crises, a looming rise in immigration and refugee flows as supplies continue to fall. The consequences of the anti-Russia sanctions have been worse, Germans argue, than if we had imposed no sanctions at all.

While Olaf Scholz may have multiple fraud scandals in his past and all the political charisma of a former mayor of Hamburg, a more credible explanation for the gap between German rhetoric and policy with regard to Ukraine is that Berlin simply believes Moscow was right—right that the sanctions regime was doomed to fail, that Western financial and military support for Ukraine is unsustainable, that trans-Atlantic unity will fray, and that Russia will eventually win, no matter what kinds of weapons Germany provides or where it buys its gas. If Germany has a “special responsibility” to “remember history,” many German officials believe, it probably shouldn’t risk an economic catastrophe for the sake of the Donbas.

Never underestimate the ability of money to steer nations away from the right thing. This is a German problem. The Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians have even more reasons to use the excuses the Germans are using, but they are not. Though I do not accept this excuse, some do – it has to do with WWII;

The first thing Americans tend to forget about the war and the occupation period is that Germans experienced it very differently than Americans did. When Franklin Roosevelt announced a war policy of “unconditional surrender” in Casablanca in 1943, various U.S. officials opposed it for a number of reasons—but whatever its efficacy, there’s no doubt about how the policy was implemented. Allied strategic bombing campaigns killed approximately 400,000 civilians in Germany, wounded 800,000 more, and rendered 7.5 million homeless. The bombing of Hamburg killed 37,000 people in one week; the firebombing of Dresden killed 25,000 people in three days. Civilians, of course, were not collateral damage, but often deliberate targets of the Allied air raids.

Stern goes in to more details, but yes – this is always in the background and feeds a subtle anti-Americanism amongst Germans that everyone encounters. It is understandable from an objective point of view. Not a majority opinion I don’t think, but not insignificant.

The way the Cold War ended suggests the democracy promotion myth was both effective and justified. From a distance of 75 years, it is also clear how it warped and in some cases deranged Americans’ understanding of a defining moment in their own history. Four generations of Americans have now grown up under the assumption that a primary legacy of “The Good War” is that the United States brought freedom and democracy to people and places where it had never existed before. In the case of Germany (among others) this isn’t exactly true—Germany before 1913 had a parliament, freedom of the press, and intellectual freedom, in some cases more robust than in the United States at the time.

In reality, the eventual West German growth miracle owed more to German corporatist economic principles, and to the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community, than it did to any free-market values introduced by the United States. It would likewise take a special kind of self-deception to mistake Germany’s greatest postwar achievement—one of the world’s most effective and admirable welfare states, which harks back to Bismarck’s social bargain with the German labor parties—for a postwar American import. Yet it was the example of “democracy promotion” in Germany (and also Japan) that U.S. politicians and statesmen repeatedly invoked in their later misadventures, from Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq.

Though in part this seems not to be germane to Ukraine, I think it is. Americans see the world through our experience and tend to forget the experience of others. Yes, America and Germany are both free nations in the West, but we see the responsibilities and possibilities of being in that club differently. 

Today, the United States is once again putting itself at the center of someone else’s story—invoking Lend Lease and the Marshall Plan and the Berlin airlift to conjure the happy ending we’ve already determined is required of the Ukrainian nightmare. Rather than aim for a “dirty, contemptible compromise,” Washington has—rightly or wrongly—made support for an unconditional Ukrainian victory a litmus test for the American democratic ethos, even as American voters have started to lose whatever interest they had in helping the heroic Ukrainians. Convinced of their own centrality to the drama, U.S. leaders can’t or won’t understand that many U.S. allies can’t and won’t stake their futures on whatever the American position happens to be at any particular moment—because according to the internal logic of American partisan warfare, that position will be reversed every few years.

No one fears and loathes this toxic U.S. political dynamic more than our allies in Berlin. For them, Donetsk and Luhansk are simply not worth a Lehman-style contagion in Germany’s energy sector. Neither, for that matter, is Odessa, or Kyiv, or Transnistria, or the Suwalki Gap. And why, they ask, should it be otherwise? There is “our relationship with Russia [in the] future” to consider, as Scholz’s foreign policy adviser reminded Germans last week after the chancellor’s trip to Kyiv. “That is at least as exciting and relevant an issue.”

Americans are entitled to wonder what all this means for Germany’s status as a member of the Western alliance. What we’re no longer entitled to is surprise.

America must do what it and like-minded nations feel they must do to support Ukraine, but we should stop asking Germany to do and be something that it is not. We should acknowledge that reality. By doing so, we may actually get more help out of her than if we stubbornly try to make her something she is not at this stage of the game.

She is trying to stay in the middle of the road by doing as little as possible to stay in good standing with her allies and friends, while not completely burning the bridge to business and cheap energy in Russia. The longer the Russo-Ukrainian War goes on, the thinner the supports of her position will grow. At some point she will have to pick a side.

I Guess we Need a "Bad Ukraine Takes" Series

About the only institution I hold is more contempt than the UN in so far as its inability to do anything well related to its core mission is probably the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Over at the National Interest, Ramon Marks just about gives me an aneurism.

How does one start here? I don't have much whitespace in my calendar today, so let me just pull this jewel out. 

The West is going to have to figure out how to resolve the Russo-Ukrainian War while simultaneously bringing lasting stability to Ukraine and Europe without pushing a paranoid Russia further into China’s arms. A Congress of Vienna-type approach could be an option under the multilateral framework of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), founded in 1975. Headquartered in Vienna, over fifty-seven countries are members of the OSCE, including Russia, NATO countries, Finland, Sweden, as well as peripheral Eurasian states such as Mongolia. The OSCE might be the only realistic diplomatic framework under which all relevant parties might try to begin to address the centuries-old problem posed by Russia’s deep-seated fears of the West.

What, you mean this OSCE from the third week of FEB?

Staff of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which has been monitoring the situation in eastern Ukraine, began to pull out of the rebel-held city of Donetsk on Sunday as fears of a possible Russian invasion grew.

A Reuters journalist saw several armoured cars being loaded suitcases and leaving the mission's headquarters.

The OSCE said in a statement that "certain participating states" had told their citizens at the mission to leave within the next days. It did not name the countries but said the mission would carry on with its work.

These Model UN rent seeking types are just plain useless unless to anyone but themselves. They claim expertise based on a record of failure - over-credentialed and underperforming. 

They craft Tiffany-clad agreements that don't survive the next dawn and then complain at the next obscure conference sponsored by some over-capitalized government bureau that they just didn't have a chance...etc...etc...but next time...

This is all malformed by iffy history;

Despite the suffering and destruction inflicted by these French invasions, when it came time to make peace, the victorious powers were generous. The Quadruple Alliance, the victorious coalition of Great Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia, did not exact punishment or revenge on France. Instead, it moved to create a better structure to maintain stability among European nation-states. France was not forced to pay crippling indemnities to the victors and its borders were reestablished as they were in 1789, not carved up by occupation forces. In 1818, a defeated France was welcomed into the Holy Alliance (the Quadruple Alliance’s successor). French king Louis XVIII, who was restored to the throne after Napoleon’s defeat, even appointed Talleyrand as his foreign minister, the same position the cold-eyed realist had held throughout the French Revolution and under Napoleon. Following agreements reached at the 1815 Congress of Vienna, the Holy Alliance engineered the longest period of peace that Europe had known, founded on balance of power principles. Except for the 1854 Crimean War, Europe enjoyed broad peace for the first forty years after the Congress. Peace then endured for another sixty years without a general war until 1914.

After the huge bloodletting of the Napoleonic Wars, is was the manpower, economic, and general exhaustion that provided a few decades of peace.

A couple of generations to produce more bodies for their armies, and ... (NB: these numbers are just approximations from multiple sources)

- Russo-Turkish War, 1828-29: over 100,000 Russian, unknown Turkish casualties dead, wounded, captured, or missing

- First Schleswig War, 1848-51: 17,000 casualties 

- Second Schleswig War 1864: 17,000 casualties

- The Crimean War, 1853–56: 675,000 casualties

- The Franco-Austrian War, 1859: 38,000+ casualties

- Austro-Prussian War, 1866: 173,000 casualties

Franco-Prussian War, 1870–71: 1,150,000 casualties

Russo-Turkish War, 1877–78: 400,000 casualties

That doesn't even include the events of 1848. 

We are already seeing a whole raft of bad takes resulting from the still ongoing war in Ukraine. I've held off, but I couldn't help myself.

The only way you would have the conditions for a "Congress of Vienna" would be if NATO APCs were on every street corner in Moscow and the remains of the Russian government east of the Ural mountains.

That isn't going to happen. As such, if you desire a long peace in the east you will need to ensure that Ukraine defeats Russia and sends her forces home to deal with their politicians.

Give Russia land or create another frozen conflict and war will be back sooner.  

Either way, war will be back. It always is. Just pick your period of peace and your magnitude.

Lawdy, we need to pray for each other. The Smartest People in the Room™will test our patience. Do not let these people claim positions of authority they have not earned by performance. They will just create condition for thousands of others to die for their hubris and vanity -  again.

Second Russo-Ukraine War D+0 Quicklook

It appears that the Ukrainian Ambassador to the UN was correct last night – the Russians have declared war on Ukraine.

As we are still inside the first 12-hrs of the invasion, there is a lot we simply do not know, but things are clear that this will not be a focused invasion simply to secure all the territory of the breakaway parts of eastern Ukraine. No, this is something much larger.

There is a lot of bad and confusing OSNIT going on, but one thing is clear, northwest of the capital Kyiv, Russian airmobile forces coming from Belorussia have seized and are attempting to maintain control of Hostomel and the Antonov International Airport (GML) there. That is a clear signal they are planning to take Kiev and the entire country.

The Ukrainian city of Hostomel, near Kyiv, is under attack by more than Russian 20 attack helicopter.

The helicopters will be in danger of Stinger missiles delivered by the Baltic states and Grom missiles delivered by Poland, showing the importance of foreign military aid. pic.twitter.com/ZdY58QW5lu

— Visegrád 24 🇨🇿🇭🇺🇵🇱🇸🇰 (@visegrad24) February 24, 2022

Now the question is how well the Ukrainians will hold up under the assault. That will determine if this will be a short or a long war.

To speculate more than that right now would be silly – there simply is not enough in open source to get a firm picture.

There are a few things I am willing to put on the table this AM.

1. The remaining delusions about the post-Cold War security arrangements in Europe should be firmly buried. History is back and she has her Festivus pole front and center. She has some issues with us, and we’re going to hear about it.

2. NATO has a German problem. While all the “right people” will not shut up about how wonderful former Chancellor Angela Merkle was, people need to be very clear eyed about what a complete disaster she and the German political class have been over the last two decades. They have starved what should be continental European NATO’s most potent military into irrelevance. Her disastrous feel-good, ethno-masochistic immigration policy weakened European cohesion and fed the worst parts of European political subcultures. Yes, she made a lot of well meaning Germans feel good about themselves, but it was a sugar-high that rotted the teeth and poisoned the national metabolism. While willing to defend Europe to the last Pole and Germany to the last American, she decided to preen in her neo-pagan EuroGreen superiority onomastic politics by ditching clean nuclear power and through the complete corruption of her elite, shacked herself to Russian energy oligarchs and thus the Kremlin. Germany needs to fix herself, and NATO needs to work around her and punish her until she starts to behave like a constructive 21st Century security partner.

3. As our friend Jerry Hendrix pointed out yesterday, the moral leaders in NATO right now are the Baltic Republics and I would add Visegrad nations. You can throw Romania in there too. France will go hot and cold as she fights her desire to do the right thing for European security while at the same time nurse her 1,000 year old drive to be the premier leader of Western Europe. Serious but weaker nations will lean on a reluctant USA and limited United Kingdom … simply because - to be frank - much of the rest of the alliance is not that capable.

4. In line with #1 above, it is time for Finland at least, and probably Sweden, to join NATO. They both have a long and bloody history with the Russians and should see clearly what time it is.

5. Ukraine waited too long to rearm. Weakened and distracted by a corrupt elite, the good parts of her nation could not get ready fast enough. After the first Russo-Ukraine war of 2014 she should have modeled the armed neutrality of Switzerland with a civilian populace trained and armed to the teeth. As we’ve discussed here before with the former Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact nations, every village needs a few ATGM militia teams trained to slow any advance through their patch of land. If Ukraine can, in whole or part, survive without vassalhood, perhaps they could get there. They can only get there if they build a nation people are willing to fight and die for.

6. Remember, the Russians hold the Presidency of the UN Security Council. The UN is a joke. OSCE is a joke. The EU is little more than a nest of rent-seeking, clock-watching grift-fest. NATO is, well, dysfunctional but better than nothing. Nations must take ownership of their own security. Yes, Taiwan and Japan I am talking to you. Study history. Be ready.

7. Is everyone clear what Russia is now? She has a small GDP and apocalyptic demographics, but she is taking what she has and is invading her neighbors, killing people, and taking land. If your nation, company, or neighbor is buying anything from them – they are paying for this military adventurism. If the press wants to do its job, start pulling that string.

Well, that’s my quicklook this AM during my 10am coffee break – now I’ve got to get back to the paying gig.

Pray for the Ukrainians. Pray that nothing stupid happens that makes this a wider war. 

Remember – weakness encourages aggression.  

You don't want to wake up like the residents of Kyiv ... to air raid sirens. 

Some Damn Fool Thing in Ukraine

Over the weekend, I hope this slide got your attention. 

As an old Operational Planner who just can’t quit the game, it got mine.

The U.S. has shared intelligence including maps with European allies that shows a buildup of Russian troops and artillery to prepare for a rapid, large-scale push into Ukraine from multiple locations if President Vladimir Putin decided to invade, according to people familiar with the conversations.

That intelligence has been conveyed to some NATO members over the past week to back up U.S. concerns about Putin’s possible intentions and an increasingly frantic diplomatic effort to deter him from any incursion, with European leaders engaging directly with the Russian president. The diplomacy is informed by an American assessment that Putin could be weighing an invasion early next year as his troops again mass near the border.

The information lays out a scenario where troops would cross into Ukraine from Crimea, the Russian border and via Belarus, with about 100 battalion tactical groups -- potentially around 100,000 soldiers -- deployed for what the people described as an operation in rough terrain and freezing conditions, covering extensive territory and prepared for a potentially prolonged occupation. 

It is best to ignore the two camps on either side of this issue; one camp “nothing to worry about” and the other is “war at any moment.” No, not quite.

Remember, Russia is not a rich or powerful nation anymore – but she is not weak. She has a stronger and better military than she did 10-yrs ago. One should never over-estimate or under-estimate Russia – nor try to look at her as you would a Western nation. She is Russia – a distinct people and culture with her own motivations.

She’s positioned 100,000 military personnel along a traditional invasion front for a reason. 

Why?

Math is math. Long-dwell deployments like this are not cheap either in money or readiness. They are not done on a whim for such long periods with this many people. 

If you’re asking for a quick-look (as in I have 30-min to pound this out and get back to the paying gig) to start a further investigation, here is how I open the discussion: this is not an exercise, this is something more. It is clear that there is a Higher Direction and Guidance (D&G) to the military to “prepare for the possibility of …” and the “…” could be a variety of different events. Let’s start with Sal’s “Red Most Likely” and “Red Most Dangerous” Courses of Action (COA). “We” in the below is the Russian Federation. 

As always, I need to establish the first five Planning Assumptions: 

Planning Assumption 1: NATO will not credibly oppose any actions we may take along the spectrum of conflict as long as our actions are limited to the territory of Ukraine.

Planning Assumption 2: EU will not credibly oppose any actions we may take along the spectrum of conflict as long as our actions are limited to the territory of Ukraine.

Planning Assumption 3: UN will not credibly oppose any actions we may take along the spectrum of conflict as long as our actions are limited to the territory of Ukraine.

Planning Assumption 4: USA, alone or with a small group of allied nations, will not credibly oppose any actions we may take along the spectrum of conflict as long as our actions are limited to the territory of Ukraine.

Planning Assumption 5: No other medium sized power, or combination of medium sized powers, will credibly oppose any actions we may take along the spectrum of conflict as long as our actions are limited to the territory of Ukraine.

(NB: I only have 30-min here, so I am skipping A LOT of steps, but hey – I’m just one guy)

Red Most Likely COA: Create a credible invasion force to pressure and destabilize the Ukrainian government to create a series desired effects – outlined in a more in-depth planning briefing – that leads to negotiations to finalize the status of Crimea and Donbass to the benefit of the Russian Federation.

Red Most Dangerous COA: Full invasion and military occupation of Donbas leading to negotiations with the Ukrainian government to finalize the status of Crimea and Donbas to the benefit of the Russian Federation. If negotiations are not agreed to in an adequately short period of time after forces occupy Donbas, execute approved Sequel Plan A to invade and occupy all of Ukrainian territory and dictate terms unconditionally on the Ukrainian government.

A few points to remember; 

- We don’t know what Putin’s Higher Direction and Guidance is – at least in open source. What we do know is that Putin is 69. If he wants to be the man of Russian history that he seems to want to be, and enjoy it, he does not have all that much time left to do it.

- The USA is distracted and after the Afghanistan humiliation on its heels, suffering under its weakest leadership since the late 1970s.

- Germany is supine, is run by a fragile and passivist coalition, and is increasingly reliant on the Russian Federation for her future energy requirements.

- France and the UK are too far away, weak, and distracted elsewhere.

- Turkey is distracted elsewhere and unable.

- The People’s Republic of China is not concerned with any action the Russians may take in Eastern Europe.

Russians are not shy about winter offensives.

What times we live in … what times we live in.

Pray for peace.

A Habsburg plan for Europe

Though I blend in well with the populations of Europe who have ready access to the North Sea, my bloodline has been unconnected to Europe for four centuries.

I am an unalloyed North American, yet as our culture is an offshoot of Europe, I keep an eye on the goings on there. You have to as Europe continues to be a source of conflict. Their waring ethno-states generate more national security problems than can be consumed internally.

That manages to bring North America in to their scrimmages.

Beyond and more impactful today than military , Europe is a source for trends that impact cultural, social, economic, and military change throughout the globe. China is trying to change that, but there is a long way to go for them to get there, if ever.

For those in alignment with me, I encourage you to read, in full, the English translation of Karl von Habsburg (yes, that Habsburg, the head of Head of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine) New Years "Speech on the Future of Europe." 

His family has been at the heart of the European project for the better part of a thousand years and remains influential for a whole host of reasons.

Ideas matter, especially European ideas. I know that is an unfashionable thing to say in today's intellectually fetid and self-deceiving environment, but it is true. 

The 20th Century was dominated by two horrible European ideas that were rooted in the late 19th Century, Communism and Fascism. Both those blood soaked socio-political movements are still with us, but in a much degraded and less dangerous form as the 20th Century efforts of both showed their less than ideal reality.

We are in the third decade of the 21st Century, and we should keep an eye on where the European project is going. BREXIT caused, rightfully, an ongoing reassessment of what they are doing to promote trade, standards of living, and security in peace as opposed to fruitless cycles of internal wars. 

Good people can argue which form European integration should take, but neither extreme - full disaggregation on one end or United States of Europe on the other - are optimal. An aggressive pursuit of the later will bring about the former, so if one wants a closer Europe - how does one get there?

Few families have more of a history - and as a result have thought the most about how it has failed in the past - than the Habsburgs. 

Somewhere between the two extremes of the European project is a middle way. Karl Habsburg has ideas closer to full integration than not, but it represents a solid starting point for discussion. There is a lot here for an outsider to agree with on its logic and long-term soundness.

Below are a few pull-quotes for you to consider. Solid work;

Today, the focus is on the integration of the six countries in South-Eastern Europe that are not yet EU members. In its latest reports on enlargement, the EU Commission rightly states that the admission of Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia to the EU is a „geostrategic investment in peace, security and economic growth throughout Europe“. 

You have to respect a Habsburg going early to the Balkans. It is what it is for Europe, and at some point needs to be resolved to the advantage of all.

The geostrategic importance of the region is clear to anyone familiar with its history. And in politics there is no vacuum . If Europe withdraws from the region, there will be all the more room for other powers to advance their interests in Southeast Europe. 

In addition to actors like Russia and Turkey who have been connected to the region and its politics throughout history, today above all China but also Saudi Arabia for instance with its Wahabism exert massive influence. The interests of these actors do not coincide with European security policy interests.

Yes, he names names. Absolutely solid. I also greatly respect his acknowledgement of the historic and modern threat to Europe from fundamentalist Islamic forces.

Europe itself must formulate and defend its own security interests.

And when I mention Russia and China, it is clear that this is primarily a matter of geopolitical interests. This should also be borne in mind by those EU member states that keep blocking this enlargement out of mostly petty national or even nationalistic interests.

I have read a quote, and my googlefu is failing me to give proper credit, perhaps it was Bismarck, that says, "In a game of five, it is best to be one of the three." A united Europe can play economically and diplomatically in a world of China, India, USA, and Russia. Divided? Notsomuch.

But we must also look to the East, where a country like Ukraine with the Euromaidan or the so-called Revolution of Dignity has made it clear that its citizens see their future in Europe rather than under Russian dominance. Undoubtedly there still are major problems in all these countries regarding, for instance, the rule of law and corruption, but they are European countries nevertheless. Anyone who takes European unification seriously must make it possible for every European country to join the European Union. That is why I also advocate upgrading the current neighbourhood policy towards Ukraine into a concrete accession perspective policy.

Even though the European perspective is of no real relevance in the democracy movement in Belarus, it is our duty to support this democracy movement wherever possible. If Europe, if the EU emphasises the rule of law and democracy the way it does, these principles must also apply towards Belarus.

In the long to medium run, this is true. To get there, Europe - specifically Germany - must make sure it cannot be subject to Russian hydrocarbon blackmail. Right now it is going in the opposite direction.

The below is why Europe is, and will remain, a natural ally of North and South America. North America especially is a nation based on the European Enlightenment. South America less so, but is getting there.

We share these ideals on balance - China and Russia do not.

... the rule of law indeed was right there at the beginning of the European idea.

...

Another essential element of European identity is freedom. Let me quote Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi: „The European ideal is freedom – European history is one slow struggle for personal, spiritual, national and social freedom. Europe will exist for as long as it continues this fight; as soon as it abandons this ideal and becomes unfaithful to its mission, it loses its soul, its meaning, its existence. Then its historical role in history will have come to an end.“

European unification, however, European politics should not aim to bring an end to Europe’s historical role, but to make use of it!

Freedom is not a given. Freedom must be won again and again. Freedom is inseparably linked to responsibility. And we cannot delegate this responsibility for freedom to the state.

To define the concept of freedom, I have to resort to the English language for it has two terms for what we call freedom: Liberty and Freedom. Both terms refer to different things. A good definition comes from Murray Rothbard, a classic representative of the Austrian School of Economics. He said: „Living in Liberty allows each of us to fully enjoy our Freedom“. In other words, only when we live in an external system of freedom can we actually enjoy and live out our inner freedom. Liberty in  English means the external construct of freedom, that is what actually creates freedom for us, while Freedom means inner freedom. For example, the freedom to think what I want. The inner freedom that no one can actually take away from me. Enjoying this inner freedom requires an external construct. It is also quite clear that implementing this concept of external freedom, Liberty, is one of the most important tasks of politics.

What got me hooked on Habsburg's work - besides his quote from Murray Rothbard, was his willingness to speak what is in many political areas, unspeakable.

 And it will be necessary to master one of the biggest obstacles to unanimity – that obstacle is the indebtedness of public budgets.

That applies to the USA as well. 

Crossposted to substack.

France's National Antibodies Wake - but too Late?

The story of Europe's growing struggle with its intentional own-goal of importing a critical mass of people who will not simply, "become European," will be an ongoing story this century.

Especially in France.

Outsiders also misunderstand the situation on the ground in France as it deals with radical Islamism. After the recent attacks, the government chose to close a mosque and an NGO suspected of ties with radical groups. But more consequential legislative action was initiated this fall, when the French government proposed a bill seeking to fight “separatism.” Building on months of dialogue with religious organizations like the French Council of the Muslim Faith, Macron suggested stemming foreign funding for mosques and the training of imams, aiming to instead privilege domestic training of religious scholars in accordance with democratic values.

The term “separatism” was chosen concertedly. Scholars such as Gilles Kepel, who has been influential in Macron’s thinking, have documented that France faces a struggle with Islamism that extends beyond terrorism. The deeper societal challenge involves the growing influence of radical groups in certain neighborhoods that exist outside the state’s purview, a countersociety that operates at the expense of women, LGBT people, Jews, and many others. Kepel’s book Terror in France recounts the trajectory of figures like Mohammed Merah, the terrorist who killed seven people, including three Jewish children, in Toulouse in 2012. At the time, Merah was seen as the ultimate “lone wolf,” a former petty criminal-turned-radical, acting on his own, without receiving orders from an organized terrorist network such as al Qaeda or the Islamic State. But years of investigations showed a different picture from the convenient lone-wolf narrative. Merah was socialized in a radical ideology that was the norm in his direct environment. From his family to his friends to his mosque (that Islamic State leaders Fabien and Jean-Michel Clain also attended), Merah’s ideological surroundings laid the groundwork for his radicalism. Rather than look at individual profiles and the psychological underpinnings of radicalism, the French government wants to tackle the ecosystems that have allowed them to prosper.

All this adds to many reports over the years of growing pressure on teachers trying to teach about the Holocaust, sex education, or even basic biology. In 2002, a book written by a collective of high school professors, The Lost Territories of the Republic, warned of alarming sexism and anti-Semitism in the French banlieues. A female professor interviewed by the Financial Times last month reported: “I don’t feel safe. If I have to show a film with a nude scene or a couple embracing, there’d be shouting, and not just the normal teenage stuff, real aggression, kids saying, ‘This is not OK. It’s not allowed.’” Male physicians have been put under pressure to avoid attending to female patients alone. Mayors have come under criticism for acceding to demands from religious groups for separate hours for women in public swimming pools. More recently, a group of Sorbonne scholars (a university not known for its far-right activism to say the least) led by Bernard Rougier published a series of empirical studies titled Territories Conquered by Islamism, warning that “Islamist networks have managed to build enclaves at the heart of popular neighborhoods.” Jews, who represent 1 percent of the French population but are disproportionally targeted by hate crimes (about 40 percent of attacks most years), have largely deserted these areas in the last decade.

This was, of course, avoidable ... but for decades politicians and cultural leaders - for reasons best explained by them - refused to clearly see the problem. They were more interested in being called nice things by all the right people. To accrue personal virtue today at the expense of the security and national unity of their children's future.

For their part, the French seem to be a victim of our garbage mainstream press and are misreading the USA; 

An op-ed in Le Monde denounced a “disconcerting American blindness when it comes to jihadism in France.” Macron’s measures have frequently been analyzed through the prism of domestic electoral politics as allegedly trying to co-opt the far-right. But this analysis represents a gross misunderstanding of the French political reality. A recent poll on the upcoming French presidential election in 2022 shows a situation eerily similar to the one that prevailed in 2017, when Macron roundly defeated Marine Le Pen in the second round. The vast majority of French citizens feel deep concern over the situation. According to a IFOP survey last month, 89 percent of respondents considered the terrorist threat to be “high,” 87 percent that “secularism is in danger,” and 79 percent that “Islamism has declared war on the nation and the Republic.” Are these all National Rally voters?

While pointing to a “crisis” within Islam, Macron was careful to distinguish the majority of French Muslims living and observing peacefully from the radical minority that poses a threat. The comparisons with far-right rhetoric, which precisely refuses to make such distinctions, thus completely miss the point. For many French liberals, this fight is not easily separable from the one against the far-right—both are a defense of liberal democratic values against illiberal ideologies. French Justice Minister Éric Dupond-Moretti thus dismissed calls for emergency measures coming from the National Rally, insisting that the rule of law was the only possible solution.

There is a large mass of Americans who fully understand the challenge that France faces, and support the French people's efforts to preserve their culture from a hostile import. 

The problem is that they won't hear it from the French language press that mostly copies what it reads from NYT and WaPo. They think that is the USA, and as we know - it isn't.

As I've mentioned over the years here, in the years I lived in Europe, this topic came up not infrequently over beers with my European military colleagues.

The most sobering was one long evening in Norway at a table full of Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, Finns, me and a Brit. At a dark moment, a Swedish Field Grade army officer coldly stated, "Our politicians will wait too long and things will get too bad and then they will call on us and the police to do what we have done before in Europe. It will not be pleasant."

I didn't ask for more - we all knew what he was saying.

I wish Macron success. If the political center will not take care of the security and cultural concerns of the people, the people will seek champions on the fringes. If they cannot find a responsible way to take care of this systemic problem - through incompetence or prolonged inaction - then Europe will force itself to become something it does not want to become, or accepts its transformation in to something their ancestors fought a thousand years to prevent. 

Read all of Benjamin Haddad's article over at FP. Very well done. 

So, What Happened with Azerbaijan and Armenia?

Some of you are keeping an eye on the latest Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, so if I may, let me put down a few markers here:

1. The Caucasuss have never been in the American sphere of influence.

2. The Caucasuss are not even tangentially adjacent to American national security concerns.

With that set up, here's the summary from Anders Åslund at The Atlantic Council;

The big lesson of the Azerbaijan-Armenia peace settlement is that military power rules. In a matter of weeks, the use of force has achieved what decades of diplomacy failed to deliver. The only two relevant international players in the South Caucasus region are Russia and Turkey. The United States has taken leave, while the European Union is a paper tiger without troops.

Essentially, Azerbaijan has retaken the territories it lost in 1994, and it has captured a corner of Nagorno-Karabakh. In addition, the agreement promises Azerbaijan a transportation link through Armenia to the Azerbaijani district of Nakhichevan, which lies beyond southern Armenia. In territorial terms, this settlement makes sense and may prove durable.

OK.

Noted.

This area has, for centuries, been a concern of Turkey and Russia. It still is. There is a little religious conflict thrown in for good measure. Things could have gone in a much worse direction - with a noted concern that for inertia reasons we are still allied with Turkey;

Putin has promised to deploy a peacekeeping contingent of “1,960 soldiers with small arms, 90 armored personnel carriers, and 380 vehicles and other special equipment,” which will serve along the contact line in Nagorno-Karabakh and guard the Lachin Corridor for an initial period of five years. Meanwhile, the Armenian armed forces will withdraw.

Russian special forces, many of whom fought in eastern Ukraine, began arriving in Armenia in IL-76 transportation planes on November 10. By sending these special forces as peacekeepers to Nagorno-Karabakh, Putin has made tiny Armenia even more dependent on Russia, leaving it looking less like an independent nation and increasingly like a Russian protectorate.

War over? Good. For now, no American killed. Good. Turkey was not pulled in. OK.

Wait ... of course;

The United States seems to have withdrawn from global affairs; the EU has no military muscle; and the West in general has grown alienated from Turkey. This has left the way open for authoritarian rulers like Putin and Erdogan to seize the geopolitical initiative. 

What does the author want, the USA sticking its nose right in the underbelly of Russia where we have never had a national interest ... ever? Is there any shock that the EU is militarily two steps of useless without American enabling forces, logistics, and more importantly - will?

In geopolitical terms, the most important outcome of the conflict is the appearance of a significant Russian military presence in Nagorno-Karabakh. Russian “peacekeeping” missions already exist in three other “frozen” post-Soviet conflicts. They are present in Moldova’s Transnistria region, along with Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia. A similar Russian military force is now firmly established in the heart of the Southern Caucasus region, fulfilling one of Moscow’s long-term objectives in the region.

Maybe I'm just not sophisticated enough with my land grant university education to see the critical nuance involved with such strange adventures some see for the USA in the Caucasus, were if we did, in additional to more American families hanging gold-star flags in their living rooms, the usual suspects in Europe and elsewhere will tut-tut, micro-manage, moral-posture, and get their large papermache puppets ready for another anti-American protest.

Anyone up for another decades long garrisoning of a god forsaken part of the world? We just had a group of Americans killed as part of the Sinai peacekeeping force. That I can argue is a net good ... but the AZ-AR conflict - for decades? 

No.

If we had, in then end it would just be more American treasure expended so people far away from the fight will feel important, more untold billions of dollars burned for nothing, and no one - literally no one - will thank us for the efforts.

No thanks. We've played this game enough.

The. 

Caucasus. 

You and your Swedish countrymen first Anders. 

After you.

There is a huge problem in our think-tank and academic natsec nomenklatura that needs to be fought every time it comes up. These people are addicted to buying virtue with the blood of other people's children.

What seems like a secondary front from some think tank conference room comfortably on the other side of the planet where a few well placed virtue-forces can make all look well and easily taken care of, may to other people be an absolutely strategically important near abroad that their ancestors fought and died for over centuries to secure, and is well worth another bloodletting.

Other people get a vote on the global value of your chasing virtue unicorns.

Your little police action to help enforce artificial lines on a map could easily become a nightmare of slaughter.

I don't know know many examples history needs to give us where emotion-based national security idealism begat brutal wholescale butchery - but it is clear not enough for some.

There are things worth traveling the world to fight against - genocidal empires focused on world conquest is one, expansionist powers looking to force their will on others through control of economics and trade is another - but those are rare.

A religious and tribal feud between Azerbaijan and Armenia manifesting itself over a bunch of goat-encrusted hills is not even a 4th tier concern of the United States.