In a recent article for Consortium News, journalist Patrick Lawrence writes that as “European leaders continue to import a version of US militarism, rearmament will cost the continent its postwar social contract.” Lawrence claims Europe has found itself in a crisis as a consequence of US imports including irrational Russophobia, a proxy war in Ukraine, and support of Israel’s siege in Gaza.
The journalist adds that since the mid-Cold War years, Europe has wavered between two contradictory impulses — ”asserting its sovereignty and succumbing to an undignified dependence on American power”.
Dr. Radhika Desai, author and professor at the University of Manitoba, Canada, spoke with Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program on the subject Thursday. Desai said Lawrence’s article exposes the “tension” between the US and Europe — specifically between what the US wants and what the European public wants.
“He exposes tension between the demands that the US is making and the incumbent governments in Europe's capitals are eagerly acceding to, on the one hand, and what the people want on the other,” said Desai. “Basically what the US is demanding from Europe is an enormous self-sacrifice. Essentially, it is almost like they are requiring Europe an enormous amount of self-harm.”
“The self-harm creates tension because anything that requires the other party to do things that are contrary to their own interests is going to be an unstable arrangement,” she continued.
“And that means that while at the moment the incumbent governments seem to be playing by the US rulebook, it is not guaranteed. It is quite possible that the ordinary people of Europe, because they want welfare states, because they don't want war, because most of them would rather have decent relations with Russia, will vote in governments that will put this matter into question.”
Desai added that there is a “myth” that Europe has been able to afford a welfare state because it did not have to spend money on military concerns in the past. But there is no “contradiction between security and welfare,” she explains.
“This is a false [idea] which is being set up because what the Americans want is for Europe to persist on its neoliberal path to follow the US. And that means spending more on the military and using that as an excuse to reduce the welfare state,” she claimed.
Not only are Europeans going to lose their welfare state by following the US down a path of neoliberalism, but they are also going to lose it at a “very great rate,” she added.
“Their productive economy, particularly in Germany, but also in much of the rest of Europe [will be lost]," said Desai. "So I think all of these things are essentially part of the sacrifice that the US is demanding, and it is so great that we cannot expect this to be a stable situation.”
Sputnik’s Garland Nixon noted that in order for a country, or a nation, to maintain a balance between national security and economic interests, a “competent diplomacy” is required—especially one which acts in good faith. And right now, he explains, the US empire is not allowing that.
“You can have security by arming yourself to the teeth or you can have security by building good relations with your neighbors,” Desai explained. “But the US has now found itself in this sweet spot where most governments in Europe are willing to do its ludicrous bidding, even though it harms their own interests in a whole multitude of ways."
“The US itself is spinning out of control. And a lot of what's going on in terms of the pursuit of policies in all conflicts, whether it is in Israel, or Ukraine, or China or what have you, the decisions are being made by people who do not have an overall plan,” she added.
“NATO, insofar as it performed any kind of role whatsoever, it was that it provided some degree of coordination to the western side in the Cold War. But once the Cold War was over, NATO should have been bound up. The fact that it has been kept going has only meant that NATO is getting more and more incoherent,” concluded Desai.
Because the US is demanding that European countries spend more on their defense and military, the direct result will be of a greater European power in NATO. And the greater the power that Europe has, the more likely they will disagree with the US, the scholar suggested.
“Members of NATO will assist the party or parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other parties, such action as it deems necessary. So, if I decide if I'm the ruler of one of the countries of NATO and one of my fellow NATO members has been attacked, and in fact, if I decide that I want to send just 100 helmets as Germany did in the early phase of the Ukraine war, that is considered okay, that's all I'm going to contribute,” Desai explained.
“And I might, I may even decide that I do not wish to do anything. So this is the structure of NATO. The incoherence is continuously growing... The more members there will be, the more there will be dissension,” she added. “And the more self-harm the US demands from the Europeans, the more forces will arise, whether on the street or from the capitalist classes themselves which say, 'no, this is not working for us.'”
26 October 2023, 17:35 GMT
On Wednesday, NATO foreign ministers met to discuss a proposal for a $108 billion five-year fund for Ukraine. The proposal is in preparation for a future without US support should former President Donald Trump win the 2024 US presidential election.
In early March, former President Donald Trump met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. According to Orban, Trump will “not give a penny to the Ukraine-Russia war and therefore the war will end” as its “obvious that Ukraine on its own cannot stand on its feet.”