by liberal japonicus
Russell suggested a new thread around Macron's speech (here and here). The title is the old name for the French nuclear capability, it is now called Force de dissuasion. Whether it will live up to the new name and this pdf from 1965, which details Soviet reaction to this nuclear capability, is an interesting read.
Not sure exactly what Russell was thinking, but I was thinking how things could play out. I imagine there are three possibilities, bad, worse, and worst. Have at it.
I’ll put this in a comment
-bad: Starmer and Macron play good cop/bad cop with Trump
-worse
worse: US pulls the plug on all US defense of Europe, ordering withdrawal
worst: Russian, emboldened by Trump’s ok, starts using tactical nukes to break Ukraine
I wonder if I’m being too optimistic…
His Orangeness could also officially change sides and provide Russia with intelligence material (if he not already does it), ask ElMu to give Russia access to Starlink and maybe even sell arms either to Russia or a state that will then hand them over to Russia. All of this in the vain hope that he will get his shares of the spoils once Ukraine has become a Russian province again.
There are already rumors that his administration is applying pressure on European alllies to reopen the Northstream II pipeline (bybassing Ukraine and delivering cheap natural gas to the West.
Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Germany, Finland?
Time to start building your own nuclear weapons. It’s the only way to safeguard yourself.
I would have added “Switzerland” to the list, but I’m 50% sure that they’ve already gone nuclear-armed, but are keeping super-quiet about it.
There are already rumors that his administration is applying pressure on European alllies to reopen the Northstream II pipeline (bybassing Ukraine and delivering cheap natural gas to the West.
This would reduce the US export of LNG. Europe currently gets about 40% of its natural gas from the US.
The Finns have shown that they can stop a Russian army. But the others? Definitely. Although I won’t be amazed if Taiwan is already there and just refraining from increasing tensions by mentioning it.
This would reduce the US export of LNG. Europe currently gets about 40% of its natural gas from the US
Whether anyone in the administration is aware of such inconvenient facts is another question. And Trump might well sacrifice US economic interest for his buddy Putin.
Good god, it’s going to be like the 80s again with Europe right in the middle of a nuclear holocaust – fun times. I’m all for showing Russia what’s what, but a new nuclear arms race makes me queasy and it’s likely going to be ineffective anyway.
Tangentially related. I just came across this handy guide for boycotting the US, lol.
https://www.buy-european-made.eu/
This would reduce the US export of LNG. Europe currently gets about 40% of its natural gas from the US.
Trump ran on, and Wright has promised to deliver, cheap energy. Cheap, cheap, cheap!
US natural gas prices are starting to increase, largely because of increased exports of LNG. If that goes on, fuel-cost adjustments kick in and electricity prices start going up as well.
Not so much in California where, as I type this, CAISO says 78% of demand is being met with renewables, 8.7% with nuclear, and 5.3% from large hydro.
CAISO says 78% of demand is being met with renewables, 8.7% with nuclear, and 5.3% from large hydro.
Now we just have to whittle down that 14%.
What russell was thinking: we step down from constructive international leadership, others step up.
It’s good that someone is doing it, but it’s probably not good for us. And it certainly represents a hinge moment rebalancing of international relations.
I appreciate Macron taking the initiative here. We’ve long thought of ourselves as the “indispensable nation”, now we get to find out just how true that is (or is not).
If it ends up meaning the end of – or at least put a dent in – American hubris, that may be a good thing. I only hope Ukraine and others don’t have to bear the brunt of it all.
I have little doubt that Macron’s offer to extend France’s nuclear “shield” to the rest of Europe would be joined by Starmer and the UK. However, I have just discovered (in the last few days, when it suddenly became important) that our nuclear Trident system is a) leased from the US, and b) serviced by them. So that may (or may not) be a complicating factor. Plus, I’m not sure what kind of shape our Trident stuff is in.
novakant: not a nuclear holocaust, if Putin is credibly stood up to. More like the theory of mutually assured destruction, which as far as I can see was not actually ineffective. Sigh. It makes me queasy too, but it looks necessary. Nobody expected the US to become a rogue state aligned with Russia like this….
More like the theory of mutually assured destruction, which as far as I can see was not actually ineffective. Sigh.
A little-appreciated aspect of the MAD strategy is the time delays involved. The US DEW-line radars and whatever the Soviets used gave 18-20 minute warnings for land-based ballistic missiles. That was enough to ensure a return strike got off or at least that the ELF signal got sent to the submarines.
The distance from France to the principle Russian cities is much smaller, the transit time is less, and the missiles don’t have to fly as high. If France-Russia are playing that game the time to make a decision is less, so trigger fingers on both sides have to be a bit more twitchy.
Pakistan-India makes me nervous for the same reason. Or Iran-Israel if the Iranians get the bomb.
Oh, FFS. Trump officials in talks with Ukrainian opposition politicians, in (rumored but denied) attempt to get their support to oust Zelenskyy.]
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/06/ukraine-opposition-leaders-confirm-talks-with-us-but-deny-plot-to-oust-zelenskyy
Look at the various poll numbers, and weep (not).
The second most popular potential candidate is Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK, who trails Zelenskyy by more than 20 points. A former head of Ukraine’s armed forces, he accused Trump on Thursday of sabotaging western unity.
Speaking at Chatham House, he said: “We see that it’s not just the axis of evil and Russia trying to revise the world order. The US is finally destroying this order.” Zaluzhnyi warned that Nato would soon “stop existing”, as the US tore up its postwar commitment to European security.
Nobody expected the US to become a rogue state aligned with Russia like this….
For the sake of argument, I’ll say that the democracies in Western Europe should have at least considered they were demanding a lot from the US that they didn’t want to pay for, and it would eventually bite them in the butt.
During WWII the US took on the cost of being the armorer of last resort. That’s never gone away — no one else has 11 carrier strike groups or is preparing to spend over a trillion dollars to maintain a nuclear umbrella. The EU is certainly not asking how much they should be paying for those services. Then the US became the consumer of last resort. Everyone runs a trade surplus with us. Then the US became the key investor of last resort. Almost all the big businesses from Ford to Apple manufacture elsewhere. Trump is less graceful about it, but Biden recognized the problem. Among other things, the CHIP Act was a straightforward demand that Taiwan (via TSMC) pour a ton of money and technology back into the US.
Macron is saying a variety of things. He’s not saying that France should build and maintain a couple of carrier strike groups so they can hold the Atlantic open to reach French Guiana. That’s an official part of France (as I occasionally ask, how long is the EU’s land border with Brazil :^)), and is the EU’s launch site for military satellites.
For the sake of argument, I’ll say that the democracies in Western Europe should have at least considered they were demanding a lot from the US that they didn’t want to pay for, and it would eventually bite them in the butt.
Agreed.
no one else has 11 carrier strike groups or is preparing to spend over a trillion dollars to maintain a nuclear umbrella
As far as this is concerned, the US adventures in foreign wars (Vietnam etc), and clear wish to be THE SUPERPOWER and foe of communism, as well as the commercial interests of Eisenhower’s military industrial complex, lulled the EU and UK into thinking that that state of affairs would last forever. Big mistake. Huge.
Your point about the time delays involved in the previous MAD situation was interesting. My (second) instinctive reaction was to think that might make it even more of an effective deterrent, but I can’t now think why (except in the sense of “even more horrifically dangerous”). Ah well, no doubt we will have plenty of time to think about these matters.
we step down from constructive international leadership, others step up.
It’s good that someone is doing it, but it’s probably not good for us.
For someone who wants desperately to be seen as powerful and important, Trump has an impressive talent for destroying his standing. And that of the country as well, of course. Not that he would ever give thst a second thought; or even a first one.
I don’t think the solution here is a new arms race, neither nuclear nor conventional. As we can see in almost any conflict of the past 25 years, military power alone is pretty useless in achieving political objectives. I’m also not buying “the US as victim of its own generosity” storyline and would go more for a “imperial overreach intertwined with rampant neoliberalism” narrative.
Regarding MAD, I think it is indeed mad on an ehtical and spiritual level, but even if one just wanted to ignore that, it also has a lot of faults on a logical and practical level:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction#Criticism
https://hir.harvard.edu/salvation-or-annihilation-is-mad-mad/
I hear echos of Rumsfeld complaining that Germany (and Japan) had lot its/their martial spirit. I wonder how that came to pass. I also remember that the function of Nato was „to keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down“. Well, one out of three achieved. [/sarcasm]
Germany used to be quite happy about being kept ‘down’ on the military front and others used to be happy about us being happy about it*. It shows how effed up everything is right now that this mutual happiness will have to end.
*maybe except the RW Polish government of a few years ago that tried to build up a public image of a belligerent Germany that was just waiting to do a redo of 1939 together with Putin but could get little traction because Merkel as Hitler and the Bundeswehr as the Wehrmacht were clearly the wrong casting choices for the movie.
I certainly don’t think it was “generosity”, as I hope my 08.22 made clear. And as for “military power alone”, I don’t think we would be where we are if Ukraine had not given up its nuclear weapons. However, there are too many linked counterfactuals to work through, so it is a moot point. One thing seems certain: with players like Trump and Putin in the ascendancy, weakness is inadvisable, and the arc of history does not after all seem to be bending towards progress, justice or anything else we might once have hoped for.
Regarding the first part, I was responding more to Michael’s initial point, it’s a matter of tone and narrative.
How important this is, can be seen in Germany and elsewhere right now, where every hawk trying to establish a European military industrial complex now feels emboldened by Trump to chide the Europeans for having been lazy freeloaders. This is historically wrong and also politically dangerous. Also, it should be remembered how the USSR was succesfully bankrupted by the war in Afghanistan and the arms race. I wouldn’t want that to happen to us.
While I’m all for Europe to be more independent, we have to proceed with caution, rely on our strengths and carefully balance the military aspect with all the other important factors (environment, economy, energy, social justice, democratisation, soft power, integration etc.) that will determine Europe’s future.
I agree that Ukraine probably wouldn’t have been invaded if it hadn’t given up its nuclear arsenal, but we don’t really know for sure. Putin could have just gambled that they wouldn’t use it anyway, thus are the game-theoretical pitfalls of the MAD theory.
Regarding “military power alone” I was referring more to the fact that the US could have kicked Russia out of the Ukraine within a month or so had they wanted to, and I don’t think it’s only the nuclear deterrent that kept them from doing that. They also overthrew Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi and the Taliban within a few weeks but all these adventures ended in desaster. They could have easily stopped Netanyahu’s overreach simply by refusing to supply arms and support etc.
This all goes to show that at the end of the day military might is actually not as important as some want to make it seem.
FWIW, a ranking of NATO countries’ defense spending as a percent of GDP, before and after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Not sure what lessons to draw from it other than to say the European partners have pretty clearly taken the threat of Russian expansion seriously. It’s unclear from the numbers what percent of US spending, specifically, is relevant to NATO.
How important this is, can be seen in Germany and elsewhere right now, where every hawk trying to establish a European military industrial complex now feels emboldened by Trump to chide the Europeans for having been lazy freeloaders.
You are closer to all this than I am, of course. But from here what catches my eye is the fact that “Support Ukraine!” seems to have become the position of parties both in and out of government. There may be minor parties which don’t. And likely disagreements about how best to support them. But the unanimity is striking.
wj, I’m definitely for supporting Ukraine, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t like certain militaristic politicians and lobbyists hijacking the crisis for their own longstanding agendas.
Here’s an interview with Erik Prince on the shifting nature of war and combat that could leave even the US at a big disadvantage. Such as using cheap drones to strike targets several miles distance foregoing the expense of artillery and missiles. And AI-controlled autonomous weapons.
Erik Prince – War Will Never Be The Same (YouTube)
Sorry, but I ain’t giving Eric Prince my ears or eyeballs.
As far as the “shifting nature of war”, it’s worth remembering tha 9/11 was 19 guys with box cutters.
On the idea that the nuclear weapons in Ukraine should have been kept, Dr. Cheryl Rofler at LGM has pointed out that
1) Ukraine did not have the codes to activate the weapons, those remained in Russian hands. Without the codes they are just dangerous tchotchkies.
2) unlike diamonds, nuclear weapons are not forever. They need specialized expensive maintenance and eventual replacement.
At best Ukraine could have sold them to the higest bidder. They gave them up for worthless security assurances instead.
I’m definitely for supporting Ukraine, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t like certain militaristic politicians and lobbyists hijacking the crisis for their own longstanding agendas.
novakant, I share the irritation. But with politicians, that kind of behavior is unavoidable. Rather often, sadly, hearing that stuff is the price of getting the right thing done.
Note that all sorts of politicians do it. It’s just less jarring (an so less noticable) when it’s politicians whose agenda one agrees with.
unlike diamonds, nuclear weapons are not forever. They need specialized expensive maintenance and eventual replacement.
Things being how they are in Russia (and have been for a couple of decades now), it wouldn’t be particularly surprising if Russia’s nukes were no longer particularly reliable. As in might well fail to launch. And likely to fail to explode if they did. Due to poor, or nonexistant, maintenance. Or even critical parts being pilfered and sold off.
Not something anyone would want to count on. But perhaps something which would cause Putin to keep backing down on his proclaimed “red lines.” Like a man trying to bluff thru with a busted flush.
Things being how they are in Russia (and have been for a couple of decades now), it wouldn’t be particularly surprising if Russia’s nukes were no longer particularly reliable. As in might well fail to launch. And likely to fail to explode if they did. Due to poor, or nonexistant, maintenance. Or even critical parts being pilfered and sold off.
I am not a tyrant, but if I were in Putin’s shoes and funding nuclear maintenance at 10%, I’d damned well make sure that meant 10% of the arsenal got full maintenance and the rest rotted. They do still launch ICBMs from time to time under the label of testing/maintenance. I tend to view those as also a demonstration to the West that Putin can launch missiles that work properly. I’d assume the warheads get similar treatment: he has warheads that will perform as expected when he wants them to.
I’m also not buying “the US as victim of its own generosity” storyline….
Agree. The US gets a lot out that deal. The “generousity” is definitely in our national interest, and is actually a rather low cost bargain considering the size of our economy.
As for “ripping us off” when we send pieces of paper to other countries in exchange for “real stuff” I should think we are getting the best of the deal…but merchantilist believes continue to hobble rational thought, right up there with nostrums like “government spending is just like your family budget” and “government should be run like a business” (like dude, have you never worked for a boss, JFC?).
Just what we need…a rearmed Europe. I sincerely hope they have learned a few things since August, 1914.
PS: contra Charles, the essence of war never changes….only the tools.
merchantilist believes
I’ve been thinking lately that one way to sort of make sense of Trump’s economic thinking is to consider him a mercantalist. I doubt he thinks of himself in that way, my sense is that he is mostly motivated by his gut rather than philosophy or theory. But it seems to fit with his generally zero-sum, nobody wins unless someone else loses outlook on life.
I’m sure this occurred to other folks long ago, but some of us are… slower on the uptake.
In any case, it’s back to the future, 17th C. Style.
Couldn’t resist sharing this essay with the peanut gallery…
https://annehelen.substack.com/p/this-is-how-we-fall-out-of-love-with?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2450&post_id=157561303&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=s9ot&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Definitely struck a chord with me.
As for “ripping us off” when we send pieces of paper to other countries in exchange for “real stuff” I should think we are getting the best of the deal.
For a lot of people, those “pieces of paper” are somehow real. Sort of like gold. The idea that they (or electrons representing them) are only pieces of paper is beyond their comprehension.
bobbyp — thanks for that essay.
I set my blender on “frappe”, but it didn’t nuke anyone, and the fruit smoothie didn’t even glow.
Maybe I should ask for a refund.
And, of course, here in chilly New England, “frappe” means this – what the rest of you all call a milkshake.
Except in Rhode Island, they call it a “cabinet”. Always so oppositional, is little Rhodie.
We also have milkshakes, but they don’t have any ice cream in them, they’re basically just flavored milk.
In any case, no nukes are harmed in the making of these frosty beverages.
“The 10 May 1907 Harrisburg Daily Independent newspaper promoted some new ‘Fountain Frappe Drinks’ with exotic names and good prices: Buster Brown 10c, Ping Pong 15c, and Honey Dew 5c.”
Perhaps not-so-good prices with many people making less than a dollar an hour in 1907. A loaf of bread was about 5 cents.
In today’s money calculating from 1913:
Buster Brown: 3.24
Ping Pong: 4.86
Honey Dew: 1.62
For a lot of people, those “pieces of paper” are somehow real. Sort of like gold. The idea that they (or electrons representing them) are only pieces of paper is beyond their comprehension.
Gold doesn’t pay interest. According to the CBO, FY2024 outlays for interest on those pieces of paper was $949B. Larger than any of Medicare, Medicaid, or the DoD. Among single programs, only SS was larger. I live in terror that Trump will manage to stumble into a bout of stagflation. I’m old enough to remember my wife’s and my first mortgage, at 14.5%.
“Most NATO members now meet its target of spending 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense, but Trump is shifting the goal posts by demanding 5 percent of GDP — well beyond the 3.4 percent that the United States itself spends.”
Well, since we don’t spend the new 5% target, I suppose that means he won’t defend this country either. Quelle surprise.
..I don’t think the solution here is a new arms race, neither nuclear nor conventional. As we can see in almost any conflict of the past 25 years, military power alone is pretty useless in achieving political objectives…
If your political objective is not to be invaded, then having armed forces sufficiently powerful to deter that is far from useless.
Trump having decided that the US is not going to be any kind of guarantor of Europe’s security – or even a semi-reliable ally – means that European rearmament is inevitable.
It’s sad, and it will be expensive and politically painful, but it\s inevitable nonetheless.
I think we’ll be lucky if “all” Trump does is not be a guarantor or semi-reliable ally.
If Europe has anything Russia wants – minerals, water, you name it – they better arm up real good and real fast.
(Speaking as a USian who is watching the world shift, utterly appalled and horrified by my own country. Admittedly, not for the first time.)
Putin has always believed that he has an inherent advantage over the US because he is effectively president-for-life (after the end of the Medvedev term), which lets him play a longer game knowing that his agenda will not be disrupted. The US goes through potential agenda shifts every two years and our negative partisanship means that the GOP can be counted upon to flip its support for foreign policy agendas based entirely upon who is in the Oval Office at any given time.
And now that The Cabal is busy trying to dismantle all our foreign policy institutions to make them subject to executive whim, we will be left with even less consistency in our long term goals.
All it would take is one Bronzer Caligula urge to start something in Greenland/Canada/Panama that gets our military entangled and we are looking at the potential loss of Ukraine and Taiwan while the US and EU are forked by Trump’s foolishness.
Putin and Xi have agendas and attention spans, not urges and temper tantrums.
If your political objective is not to be invaded, then having armed forces sufficiently powerful to deter that is far from useless.
Exactly. Of course you need more than military power as well, but it is the basis on which everything else will have to rest. And it’s either your military power, or that of a truly reliable ally.
I’m sorry to report that Kevin Drum passed on Friday, March 7.
May his memory be a blessing, he’ll be missed.
Nooooo, he was a lovely man.
I know lots of you already get Josh Marshall, but for any who don’t, even though I haven’t even read this yet, the dramatic sub headline makes it irresistible (at least to me): The bottom line is Democrats have about 48 hours to convince D senators to clip Elon’s wings. It’s still totally doable. But it has to happen in the next 48 hours.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-backchannel/will-dems-pick-up-their-sword/sharetoken/3c71f657-f446-4e37-846e-a08a8d38aa8f
If I were a Democratic senator right now (thank goodness I am not) what I would be saying to everyone who would listen is that the budgets that congress had approved as outlined in the Constitution have been thrown into chaos by Trusk’s use of DoGE as a retroactive line-item veto that usurps the power of congress. And, furthermore, that my fear was that Trusk would seize whatever funds they had carved out using this unconstitutional power in order to pay for a tax cut on the ultra wealthy at the expense of main street Americans.
Don’t defend or defer or demure – counterpunch.
My Senators are Warren and Markey. Don’t know for sure, but I’m gonna guess that Warren is a no. Markey is apparently on the fence.
So I’ll be on the horn to them tomorrow.
I’m normally pretty much opposed to government shutdowns, but at the moment the government is such a toxic dysfunctional mess that a shutdown might not actually be a bad thing.
In any case, I do not want to give Trump et al an inch. About anything.
In any case, I do not want to give Trump et al an inch. About anything.
There’s absolutely nothing to be gained by giving Trump an inch (or a red cent). About anything. And apparently never has been.
Don’t be too sure that Warren is a no, russell. See TPM’s current tally as of Monday night.
FWIW, I sent this to Warren and Markey earlier:
I left voicemail to the same effect at both their DC offices. I still have not managed to communicate with an actual person at “my” Senator’s offices, or at Rep. Katherine Clark’s DC office either.
Any tips/pointers/links to living human beings a constituent can actually reach at any of these offices will be greatly appreciated.
–TP
Called Warren’s and Markey’s Boston offices, went straight to voicemail, so left a message. Also sent a written message via the online contact forms on their websites.
All of this will basically turn into a +1 on the NO column as tabulated by staff, but it’s better than nothing.
Thanks for jumping in, Tony P.
From today’s Times:
US vandalism gives Gaullists the last laugh
European distrust of America is now mainstream but it puts Britain in an awkward spot
Edward Lucas
From a tomb in the provincial village of Colombey-les-deux-Églises, a subterranean chuckle is audible around Europe. As 80 years of transatlantic trust evaporate in eight short weeks, the late French leader Charles de Gaulle’s undying scepticism of the United States is being dramatically vindicated. Lifelong Atlanticists in Britain, Germany and other countries now sound Corbynite in their disdain for the hegemon’s bullying, greedy and capricious behaviour.
Timothy Garton Ash, the Oxford University historian, headlined his recent newsletter “America the Horrible”. In a scathing speech in the House of Lords, Andrew Roberts, a historian (and Churchill biographer) revered in American conservative circles, said the “sheer brutality” of the Trump administration’s behaviour had thrust Britain into “totally uncharted territory”. Friedrich Merz, an apostle of his country’s “Westbindung” — transatlanticism as lodestar — now says his priority as Germany’s next chancellor is to “achieve independence from the US”. Denmark, an even closer US ally, is reeling from Trump’s Greenland gambit. “We have all turned into Gaullists,” says Caspar Veldkamp, the Dutch foreign minister.
The Trump camp seems oblivious to all this. When transactionalism rules, ties of friendship and shared values are for suckers. Take a recent social media assault on Poland after Radek Sikorski, the foreign minister, objected to Elon Musk’s implied threat to turn off the Starlink satellite system in Ukraine. Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, accused him of “making things up” and told Sikorski to “say thank you” for Starlink (which Poland pays for), without which “Russians would be on the border with Poland right now” — apparently unaware that Poland has a 130-mile frontier with Russia’s highly militarised Kaliningrad exclave. Musk followed up by posting “Be quiet, small man.” (Sikorski is six foot tall, a crack shot, and was a prizewinning war correspondent in Afghanistan in the 1980s.)
This is no one-off. Earlier President Trump had snubbed the Polish president, Andrzej Duda, showing up an hour and a half late for a meeting and then giving his visitor a grudging 11 minutes.
The dismay, disgust and growing dread now felt among America’s friends in Europe ends a disagreement that has hamstrung their security for six decades. After the Eisenhower administration humiliatingly forced Britain and France — its top wartime allies — to abandon their attempt to seize back the Suez Canal from Egypt in 1956, Paris and London drew opposite lessons. The French decided never to trust the Americans again. They built their own nuclear arsenal and minimised their military and intelligence ties to Washington. In 1966 President de Gaulle, exasperated by US domination of Nato, withdrew France from the alliance’s military command structure. He pushed for the Common Market — now the EU — to counter Soviet and American influence. Thereafter France argued constantly for European “strategic autonomy”, “emancipation” and “sovereignty”. Emmanuel Macron gave extra oomph to these arguments, calling Nato “brain-dead” and noting America’s “gradual and inevitable disengagement” from Europe.
We in Britain took the reverse stance, hugging big brother ever tighter as economic weakness constrained our choices. Our nuclear deterrent draws on a shared arsenal of warheads, delivered by US-made (and US-maintained) Trident missiles. Our intelligence services, especially GCHQ and its US counterpart, the NSA (National Security Agency), are so close as to be almost one organisation.
Encouraged by Washington, we pushed back hard against Gaullism, treating it as cover for a French-run Europe focused on Africa and the Mediterranean, replete with featherbedding, duplication and delusions of grandeur. Frontline states such as Poland also bristled at intermittent French indulgence of the Kremlin. Britain and like-minded allies loathed any talk of a European army, defence budget, military headquarters or intelligence service. Such fears helped to fuel Brexit.
Not any more. Just these efforts — and much more besides — are what Europe now needs desperately for defence and deterrence, at home and in Ukraine. What happens if the White House dismisses Russia’s next land grab as a mere “border skirmish”, unworthy of US involvement? It can disable any weapons that use American high technology and shut down Nato’s US-run headquarters. A frantic search is on for alternatives of all kinds, from surveillance satellites to humdrum munitions production, all discussed at the Paris security conference, where I am writing this. France’s independent and flexible nuclear deterrent (unlike our one-shot doomsday weapons) could, for example, provide some kind of umbrella for Europe.
That chuckle from the cemetery is matched by whimpers in Whitehall. France is unpredictable. And undoing our joined-at-the-hip nuclear, intelligence and military dependence on the US would make Brexit seem a doddle.
One option is to play for time and try to outlast Trump. But the tempo is set elsewhere. Cakes are being baked on defence across Europe right now. Will we claim our slice, even if the Americans object? If we are forced to confront Trump on an existential question — perhaps on Canada’s survival — what happens if he calls our bluff? If we don’t, we are no more than Airstrip One.
Looks like the CR thing is still an open question.
If you’re so moved, give your Senators a holler. Especially if they’re (D)’s.
(202) 224-3131
And to be honest, I do not envy the (D)’s in the Senate the position they are in.
Kill the CR, the government shuts down, Trump and Musk use that as a way to continue tearing stuff apart?
Or let it pass, and it gives Trump and Musk free reign to use impoundment to… continue tearing stuff apart?
It’s a no-win situation, I will likely not hold it against either of my Senators, whichever way they vote.
But I have asked them both to vote NO on cloture.
This country is FUBAR, and I’m not sure what it will take to turn it around, or what it will look like when all is said and done however it turns out.
The last shred of power the Democrats have, right now, is voting against cloture. Surrender that, and they might as well go home.
Josh Marshall at TPM thinks Schumer is setting up a kabuki performance where the Dems promise to vote for cloture in exchange for permission to offer amendments — which will not pass, of course. And there would still be a shutdown anyway, until Speaker Moses deigns to bring the House back into session.
Who the hell do people like Schumer think they’re fooling with that kind of crap? Besides themselves, I mean.
My position is still exactly what I said above: no CR of any kind until Musk is ousted from any role in government. Otherwise no amount of procedural pantomime will change my mind about the uselessness of so-called Democratic “leadership”.
Elected Democrats are smart enough to outwit themselves, every single time. So FUBAR it is.
–TP
This blog says the CR is a catastrophe— it supposedly gives Trump the power to impound money authorized by Congress and takes away whatever power Congress has to fight against Trump’s tariffs.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/03/call-your-senators-this-morning-to-object-to-the-continuing-resolution-that-will-enable-cuts-to-social-security-medicare-medicaid-veterans-programs-and-more.html
I am out of my depth on this mechanics of government stuff but it sounds pretty bad.