Trump’s Right: The US Is Doing Way More Than the EU in Ukraine
The EU’s interests rest in de-escalating the Ukrainian Conflict so that their companies can quickly get to work economically colonizing that country via the scheme that Zelensky proposed during last month’s Davos Summit for them “to take patronage over a particular region of Ukraine, city, community or industry.”
Former US President Trump just made a strong point about the EU’s participation in the NATO proxy war on Russia through Ukraine when he said the following: “We just gave $40 billion on top of another $16 billion. So, we’re in for $56 billion. But when you look at Europe – and Germany, and France and all these other countries – they’ve given a tiny fraction, a tiny, tiny fraction of what we’re giving. We’re giving $56 billion and they’re giving a few billion dollars. And they’re the ones who are affected much more so.” What he didn’t do, however, is explain why that is, hence the purpose of the present piece.
On the one hand, most Europeans with few exceptions like Poland and the Baltic States have pretty much always freeloaded off of the US when it comes to military cooperation, while on the other, there’s a good reason why they’re not “leading from the front” when it comes to the Ukrainian Conflict. Regarding the first, the bloc’s interests lie in having the US subsidize their security so that they can focus more on their socio-economic affairs, while the second suggests that the EU isn’t as concerned about Russia’s ongoing special military operation in Ukraine as its representatives make it seem.
It’s this observation that deserves to be elaborated upon a bit more. To begin with, despite virtue signaling fealty to their American overlord, the EU’s “Big Three” – France, Germany, and Italy – are reluctant to get too militarily involved in Ukraine. It’s not just that they’re being flooded with refugees and are now also forced to manage the massive self-inflicted damage to their economies caused by their strict compliance with the US’ anti-Russian sanctions, but that they simply don’t have the appetite for participating in a prolonged proxy war against Russia.
The military equipment that they’ve thus far sent to Kiev is useful for them insofar as the fascists can test them in the field in a real conflict, which can provide insightful data for their manufacturers about these wares’ actual effectiveness in battle. The “Big Three” likely already realize that Kiev can’t win since its daily casualty rate is unsustainable and its ridiculous arms demands mean that they’d have to practically deplete their entire arsenals in order to give their proxy even just a slim chance at victory, which isn’t considered worth such an investment that would also leave their own countries vulnerable.
Without realizing it, Trump extended credence to the speculation that the “Big Three’s” recent trip to Kiev was actually intended to float a potential ceasefire since he unintentionally raised awareness about their lack of commitment to this proxy war against Russia. Strictly complying with the US’ anti-Russian sanctions is pretty much all that America can rely on the “Big Three” to do with respect to this conflict since they’re unlikely to step up and take on the major military role that Poland already has. Unlike Poland, they don’t have any neo-imperial fantasies to role-play in Ukraine.
They’re only interested in the amount of wealth that they can extract from the country once the conflict ends via the scheme that Zelensky proposed during last month’s Davos Summit when he offered them “to take patronage over a particular region of Ukraine, city, community or industry.” Put another way, he’s literally inviting his overlords to economically colonize Ukraine, which naturally piques the interest of the “Big Three”. For their future investments to be secure and profitable, however, they need to ensure that Zelensky agrees to a ceasefire as soon as possible.
This doesn’t mean that they’ll be successful right away in this respect, nor that they’ll eschew shipping symbolic military equipment to that country for the self-interested purpose of obtaining real-time data from the field, but just that they don’t have any stake in escalating the conflict. To the contrary, their interests rest in de-escalating it so that their companies can quickly get to work economically colonizing Ukraine. Trump of course didn’t realize it during Friday’s speech, but he accidentally drew attention to this if one takes the time to reflect on what he said about the EU’s lack of military commitment to Kiev.
