Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street
On Friday, school students across Germany demonstrated against the threat of conscription into its growing armed forces. While this is slated as ‘voluntary’ for the time being, young men will have to have a medical examination to see if they are fit for service – something that will be used if, or probably when, it becomes compulsory. This is one sign of the growing drive to militarism and rearmament across Europe to which its leaders are now compulsively addicted.
Today there will be yet another ‘summit’ in Downing Street where Keir Starmer will be joined by the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron. It is aimed at shoring up support for the Ukraine war in the face of efforts by the US to reach a peace deal in the conflict which is nearly four years old and which Ukraine is losing.
The meeting is likely to endorse the views of Defence Secretary Pat McFadden where he tells the media that Russia must not be rewarded for aggression and that Ukraine should not be left defenceless. But these statements are a cover for the fact that these governments, acting as part of NATO, are themselves involved in a proxy war with Russia over Ukraine, and are willing to bring Europe ever closer to war by attempting to provide an ever-greater number of weapons to Ukraine. The beneficiaries of these policies are not the ordinary people of Ukraine, who are growing increasingly war-weary and resisting the conscription that is largely avoided by the children of their rulers, but the military everywhere and the arms dealers, who fear peace in Ukraine as a threat to their profits.
The European NATO states are quite simply opposed to a peace deal and will do everything they can to prevent it. The truth however is that most wars end in negotiation, and so will the one between Russia and Ukraine. Such a peace deal at the beginning of the war was scuppered by among others then prime minister Boris Johnson, because the West thought Russia could be defeated. The situation has not got better for Ukraine – or for Russia – since then. Many people have gone into exile or hiding to avoid conscription. The latest corruption scandal in Ukraine goes right to the heart of the Zelensky government. Every supposedly new development in available weapons which was meant to turn the tide of the war has not done so. Casualties on the battlefield are appallingly high, and Ukrainians face a very harsh winter with much energy supply damaged.
This war does not benefit the people of Europe or the wider world. They want peace, not war, but are being dragged into a growing militarism which endangers their and their children’s futures and which is being paid for out of their wages and public services.
For the first time since the Second World War Europe cannot rely on the US government to join in its support for the war. Trump clearly wants to end the war and is putting pressure on both Ukraine and the European governments to make this happen – so far unsuccessfully. But the new strategic document from the US demonstrates a change towards what it calls the ‘western hemisphere’, a renewed potential military intervention in Latin America, as we are already seeing with the illegal attacks on Venezuela and the growing number of US navy ships in the Caribbean. This restatement of the Monroe Doctrine says that ‘We will deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere,’ underlining how much Trump sees the region as the US ‘backyard,’ (an interesting contrast to how it is seen when Putin raises the same demand). At the same time it justifies continued military pressure on China, especially over Taiwan, although this is not the priority it was under the Biden regime. There is also a desired disengagement from the Middle East and Europe.
This will be much easier said than done, but the contempt from Trump towards the European governments is palpable, as is the barely veiled Islamophobia about migration to Europe, and the encouragement for far-right forces in those countries. This puts the European governments between a rock and a hard place. They hate Trump but have to suck up to him. They are desperate to increase their arsenals and armed forces but know that it is extremely difficult for Europe to fight a war with Russia without US support.
If I had to guess, it is that a deal is likely sooner rather than later, because of the state of the war, the weakness of the Zelensky government and the intransigence of Trump. Russia’s economy is also under strain, but Putin has international resources at his disposal, as witnessed by his trip to India. But it will not stop the instability in eastern Europe, the alarming number of military manoeuvres in the Baltic and north Atlantic, the Nato troop increases in Poland and the Baltic states. Nor will it stop the increase in arms production, the growing threat of nuclear weapons sited in Europe, the conscription of young people to fight in wars that only benefit our rulers.
We are in highly dangerous times and we need to respond accordingly. On 20 June the second European international peace conference takes place in London. Make sure you are there.
Source: Counterfire