So some early morning Monday thoughts on some of the developments in Europe as it has been a fairly astonishing weekend on that front. Will look forward to @Shady Ray and his thought.
1. German chancellor Scholz' announcement that Germany was going to spend 2 percent on defense starting like, NOW, is one of the more earthshattering pronouncements in European politics that I can remember. Something else that got somewhat lost-- he also admitted that a nuclear deterrent is required to defend Europe. A SOCIAL DEMOCRAT said that. This is something the Germans would quietly admit to us but would dance around with their public. Do not take that to mean that Germany will build their own deterrent. NATO is a nuclear alliance and even within the EU itself, France possesses a deterrent. But what I would read into that is two things-- first, that we can now begin to discuss seriously a European defense policy funded mostly by Germany with France (and to a lesser extent German) firms becoming the big winners. Second, NATO is not going anywhere for a long, long time. It is highly unlikely that Europe would feel 'OK' with only France as their umbrella. The other two big nuclear powers-- the Brits and us-- are not in the EU and all the other EU nations are signatories to the non-proliferation treaty. That will not be broken. So if this holds, what I think you will see is something that successive U.S. administrations have wanted for some time-- a Europe more capable of taking on responsibility for its defense conventionally but explicitly married to NATO and the U.S. as a strategic partner. There will be some bumps along the way, for sure, but this is a positive development. In the short to medium term, you will see more of the U.S. in Europe, particularly on the eastern flank, as those nations want our tech and our capabilities, which is something the EU minus Britain simply doesn't have right now.
2. I want to talk about what is happening to Putin's carefully curated network of influence and information warfare in Europe. We are watching it get dismantled as I type this. The EU announced that two sources of Russian state propaganda directed at the external world-- Russia Today (TV) and Sputnik (online/print)-- are now not allowed to operate within the EU. At the state level, governments are beginning to unplug the network of daughter and cousin outlets that serve as amplifiers for those outlets-- I mentioned that the Czech Republic, for instance, killed twenty-two of them. In Slovakia, the national authorities are announcing that spreading support for the war and Putin's propaganda will be criminalized under the same statutes that made it illegal to praise or support Nazism or the Soviet Union after 1989-- they were written to outlet the "advocation of totalitarian regimes." On the financial and economic front, the sanctions are sweeping and unlike previous rounds, every indication is that a key difference will be in enforcement-- states will look to enforce and sanctioned entities will have to struggle to find workarounds. In previous versions, the states put them on the books but for the most part tried to apply them as liberally as possible. The EU is closing itself to Russian airplanes. Massive companies like BP are getting out AHEAD of sanctions by divesting in Russian holdings because they understand the headwinds of public opinion and potential legal actions against them. Look for Russian companies to be excluded from upcoming nuclear tenders in the EU space, where believe it or not ROSATOM was a favored partner for new plants. Putin's "friends" in the EU are now on the total defensive and making their arguments quietly because they don't dare to speak up publicly. I could go on and on about this but the bottom line is that Russia has turned itself into a pariah state that for the time being has defenders kind of like Venezuela or Iran have defenders. They exist but are going to keep their heads down for a long time.
This is important especially because as the world came out of COVID, it wasn't just the United States that had irresponsible populism gaining ground. Putin and Russia have blown their chance at influencing those movements openly and the movements themselves will have to do a huge tap dance around the "Russia" question.
3. On the flip side, Putin did something no U.S. president since GHWB during Desert Storm has managed to do-- turn the United States into the good guys. With almost every single warning from the U.S. proving accurate and with the U.S. speaking clearly and with sober restraint about what we can do to stop it, U.S. leadership in Europe is looking pretty damn good for the time being. Some of the signs about this are in how the EU is acting-- all of these earthshattering moves, some of them outrunning the pace of the United States, are coming without any recent from the United States urging them to do it It's just happening. It is a good sign when an Alliance leader doesn't have to poke and prod recalcitrant members to do stuff. This is a tremendous window of opportunity and we need to behave with what I would call "firm restraint." We need to decide what is core for us and not budge, we need to let Europeans get to the decisions we want them to make on their own, and we need to not push our gains to the point that we look craven and opportunistic. It's basically all on us now.
I could keep going but I don't want too go more longcat here in a thread that moves so rapidly. And the situation changes hourly. Slava Ukraini!