Why Europe Won’t Fight
Posted on April 10th, 2009
by Patrick J. Buchanan |
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“No one will say this publicly, but the true fact is we are all talking about our exit strategy from Afghanistan. We are getting out. It may take a couple of years, but we are all looking to get out.”
Thus did a “senior European diplomat” confide to The New York Times during Obama’s trip to Strasbourg.
Europe is bailing out on us. Afghanistan is to be America’s war.
During what the Times called a “fractious meeting,” NATO agreed to send 3,000 troops to provide security during the elections and 2,000 to train Afghan police. Thin gruel beside Obama’s commitment to double U.S. troop levels to 68,000.
Why won’t Europe fight?
Because Europe sees no threat from Afghanistan and no vital interest in a faraway country where NATO Europeans have not fought since the British Empire folded its tent long ago.
Al-Qaida did not attack Europe out of Afghanistan. America was attacked. Because, said Osama bin Laden in his “declaration of war,” America was occupying the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia, choking Muslim Iraq to death and providing Israel with the weapons to repress the Palestinians.
As Europe has no troops in Saudi Arabia, is exiting Iraq and backs a Palestinian state, Europeans figure, they are less likely to be attacked than if they are fighting and killing Muslims in Afghanistan.
Madrid and London were targeted for terror attacks, they believe, because Spain and Britain were George W. Bush’s strongest allies in Iraq. Britain, with a large Pakistani population, must be especially sensitive to U.S. Predator strikes in Pakistan.
Moreover, Europeans have had their fill of war.
In World War I alone, France, Germany and Russia each lost far more men killed than we have lost in all our wars put together. British losses in World War I were greater than America’s losses, North and South, in the Civil War. Her losses in World War II, from a nation with but a third of our population, were equal to ours. Where America ended that war as a superpower and leader of the Free World, Britain ended it bankrupt, broken, bereft of empire, sinking into socialism.
All of Europe’s empires are gone. All her great navies are gone. All her million-man armies are history. Her populations are all aging, shrinking and dying, as millions pour in from former colonies in the Third World to repopulate and Islamize the mother countries.
Because of Europe’s new “diversity,” any war fought in a Muslim land will inflame a large segment of Europe’s urban population.
Finally, NATO Europe knows there is no price to pay for malingering in NATO’s war in Afghanistan.
Europeans know America will take up the slack and do nothing about their refusal to send combat brigades.
For Europeans had us figured out a long time ago.
They sense that we need them more than they need us.
While NATO provides Europe with a security blanket, it provides America with what she cannot live without: a mission, a cause, a meaning to life.
Were the United States, in exasperation, to tell Europe, “We are pulling out of NATO, shutting down our bases and bringing our troops home because we are weary of doing all the heavy lifting, all the fighting and dying for freedom,” what would we do after we had departed and come home?
What would our foreign policy be?
What would be the need for our vaunted military-industrial complex, all those carriers, subs, tanks, and thousands of fighter planes and scores of bombers? What would happen to all the transatlantic conferences on NATO, all the think tanks here and in Europe devoted to allied security issues?
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the withdrawal of the Red Army from Eastern Europe and the breakup of the Soviet Union, NATO’s mission was accomplished. As Sen. Richard Lugar said, NATO must “go out of area or out of business.”
NATO desperately did not want to go out of business. So, NATO went out of area, into Afghanistan. Now, with victory nowhere in sight, NATO is heading home. Will it go out of business?
Not likely. Too many rice bowls depend on keeping NATO alive.
You don’t give up the March of Dimes headquarters and fund-raising machinery just because Drs. Salk and Sabin found a cure for polio.
Again, one recalls, in those old World War II movies, the invariable scene where two G.I.s are smoking and talking.
“What are you gonna do, Joe, when this is all over?” one would ask.
Years ago, we had the answer.
Joe stayed in the Army. He couldn’t give it up. Soldiering is all he knew. Just like Uncle Sam. We can’t give up NATO because, if we do, we would no longer be the “indispensable nation,” the leader of the Free World.
And, if we’re not that, then who are we? And what would we do?
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
Filed under: World
Ah, Pat Buchanan, the fusion of the sublime and the ridiculous… this one being the sublime, the ridiculous being the whole faux Notre Dame controversy… as O’Donnell pointed out, the hands of Bush are far bloodier than those of Obama, and what President’s are not? But I digress. You are right that the US needs to give up the righteous addiction to making the world safe for capitalist democracy… especially since it has been seized by thieves. Some answers to your obviously rhetorical questions… we could seal our borders and sort out who belongs here… we could end our silly War on Drugs and come up with a sane, alcohol-like marijuana policy… we could implement county-level carbon management and reward efficiency and get our oil consumption way down… we could work across party and religious lines to educate about birth control and reduce abortions to a medically necessary minimum based on health concerns, without criminalizing anyone…. there’s more, but that’s a start, no?
Greg, there isn’t a “we” here anymore. The culture wars, or rather the Democrats’ cave-in to Maoist-feminists and racist neo-Malthusians on the issue of abortion ruined our society.
“We” go off and fight because it’s preferable to staying home and fighting, and agreement on any national-level policy issue has become impossible. This country needs to split into at least two parts, although fifty or a hundred would be better. That way, people could choose to be governed according to principles they actually believe in rather than being subjected to more of this hopelessly one-sided farce of a compromise.
You may desire America to recede. But will you like what comes forward?
Matt, with all due respect, I assert that there is no ‘they,’ nor was there ever. And my opinion is that the Democrats erred in the 1870s when they pulled troops out of the South in return for stealing the Presidency, making what eventually happened in the 1960s inevitable and far more damaging. Foreign military adventure as violent escapism from domestic decadence? What is this, 100 AD? Perhaps it is…
For Europe it’s a case of been there done that, whatever military ventures got us we don’t want it anymore. US militarism as model the past half century for the fruits of picking fights immures their armies.
Without empire to bulwark, Europe needn’t be oh so conveniently intimidated to military action by any mouse that roars. And where Europe’s leaders perceive self interest exercising expeditionary forces, Europeans, inured to the sensational doctrine of freeing and democratizing, chasten their countries’ gameness.
Luis de Agustin
“You may desire America to recede. But will you like what comes forward?”
I think I wouldn’t mind. Would “what comes forward” bother me living, as I do, in North Carolina? Would the United States lack any capacity to actually defend itself (rather than meddling in others’ affairs)?
We are such an arrogant nation. For years, we have “come forward” and have inflicted untold misery to people around the world. I guess it’s nice to have the leviathan looking outward, rather than focusing its loving attention on me in particular. But that’s not a very good reason for the kind of foreign policy we have.
Greg,
It is possible that there never was a “we”, and, in retrospect, I see that you were correct to call me out on my omission of race as a factor in this whole matter.
I don’t think the 1870’s occupation was sustainable, though. We put our Republic under stress both in the Civil war and in the Reconstruction period that followed. That stress probably made the 1960’s worse than they’d have otherwise been.
In either case, the Roman example is relevant…
Joe:
Things are bad enough has it is. We are in deep iin to the chinks. The Russians are flexing their muscles. And despite what the TAC and its readership thinks the Iranians having the bomb is not a boon to humanity. The United States has on the whole been a force for good in this world. We stood off the Russians so Europe could prosper and now “Old Europe” stabs us in the back. It is the European way after all but I think the smaller countries of the world are not going to like living in a multi polar Russian, Chinese, Islamic world.
I’m still trying to find out why exactly the USA caused two world wars.
Very few people know that without Franklin Roosevelt’s august 1939 guarantee to Poland the Polish government might have negotiated with Hitler about the 1919 Versailles injustices.
Had not the USA sent millions of USA boys to Europe in 1917, the war caused in 1914 by Britain would have ended in 1917 in a British capitulation: no Versailles, no Hitler, no Stalin, no Mao tse Tung.
Possibly there would have been other disasters, but not the ones just mentioned.
For those who think that Germany caused the 1914 war:
E.D.Morel, ‘Truth & The War’, 1916, London.
Just finished reading Hugh Byas, ‘Government by assassination’, London, 1943, 1944.
Byas was a British journalist who was in Tokyo from 1909 until mid 1941, thereafter he lived in the USA.
On page 364 one finds the Japanese idea about the world order:
The USA has the Americas, Germany has Europe except Britain, Russia is big enough as it was, the British empire, outside of Asia, could also remain, Japan would rule East Asia and the south Seas.
Franklin Roosevelt’s idea was different: the USA ruling the world, with Russia, a Smaller Britain, and China as junior partners.
See for example:
Robert E. Sherwood, ‘Roosevelt und Hopkins’, 1950, Hamburg (Roosevelt and Hopkins, New York, 1948) .
As both Stalin and and Mao tse Tung had other ideas than being the USA’s errand boys FDR’s idea was a disaster, but a disaster for which some 50 million people died.
What strikes me most about Byas’s book is how anything he blames the Japanese for, seeing themselves as superior and destined to lead the world, the USA still can be blamed for.
Despite the fact that the USA was and still is the most militaristic nation that ever existed, it has some 600 military bases all over the world, the USA still seems to think that it is the moral leader of the world.
Is Pat suffering from schizophrenia? I totally agree with his take here which is very perceptive as he often is, very very often in fact, but then he veers off into lala land. Pat’s right to the Europeans Afghanistan isn’t worth the bones of Prussian or French grenadier. Neither is Obama going to bet his presidency on a counter insurgency war in the mountains of Afganistan. The troops he’s put in which are way below what the military requested are essentially buying him and his advisors time to figure out what to do without the far right running around screaming about appeasement. He, Clinton, Gates and Holbrooke are total realists who can do cost/benefit analyses. There’s no enthusiasm for this war in the US outside Bill Kristol’s bathroom so by the end of this year or early next once Obama has some of his domestic priorities taken care of I expect him to cut his losses in Afghanistan, explain why he’s doing it to the American people, and be applauded by all except the far right.
Pat’s right, The Europeans don’t consider Afghanistan worth the bones of a Prussian or French grenadier. Neither is Obama going to bet his presidency on insurgency war in the mountains of Afghanistan. The new reinforcements which were far smaller than asked for by the military are essentially a holding operation while he and his advisors figure out what to do. By next Spring he, Gates, Clinton, and Holbrooke (realists all) will be cutting their losses. There’s no more support for this war here than in Europe. The only people upset will be the far right who will attempt to whip a campaign for a big new investment in military action and thus tie another stone around the neck of Republicans.
Bill,
The Europeans did not stab us in the back. The getting and taking in the relationship that was NATO was mutal and whole beneficial to the US. Much in the way that Enzo the Baker got a small thing from his “Godfather”, so the US got its few small things from Europe.
The Europeans American “Godfather” provided plenty of protection to ensure a prosperous neighborhood, and the Europeans performed the small favors we needed, whethwer that be providing real estate, modifying their laws to suit our needs, participating on our endeavours, and supporting our actions with words and UN votes.
The relationship has been good for all involved. The real question now is, what use is NATO still? If not as an alliance to contain the Soviet Union, then as a members only club that provides political cover and the appearance of internationalism for the action the US feels it needs to take in the world. NATO continues to be a win for the US, regardless how much one might want to bash “Old Europe”.
The article is pretty stupid Russia is not going to invade any part of Europe it would be suicidal it has everything to lose and nothing to gain.
It is more likely like the case of Japan in 1904 or the recent Georgian regime in August use third parties to incite conflict against Russia to justify EU and US policy against Russia. to weaken the Russian state.
Its already has the mass amounts of land and natural gas and has agreement with Central Asian countries on possible oil and gas contracts.
It has not bombed the Panski Gorge in George since 2003 the home of international terrorism were militants organised and conduct attacks in Russia even after Beslan.
This talk of a resurgent Russia is just to justify conflict with it so they can get the Caspian and Central Asia oil and gas reserves as defined in Brezinskis 97 book The Grand Chessboard.
@Bill Pearlman,
US a force for good you should check out what they did in the 90’s in Bosnia and what they have created now in Kosovo. They created an international Islamic network.
It was western powers that gave support and aid to Marxist terrorist like Trotsky who lived in 3 years in NYC against the Czar and the so called “revolution” itself was financed by western international bankers especially Jacob Schiff of New York and it was western banks and industry to propped up the new regime as well as western press.
And let’s face it the people who invented communism and ran it in Russian killing the Tsar and his family were not exactly Russian and did not identify themselves as such.
It’s the US that is flexing its muscle across the globe and it’s pretty clear they help arm and prepare the Georgians to attack S Ossetia and Russia.
Jack:
No argument about Bosnia. Personally I couldn’t believe we came down on the side of Moslems over people that helped Jews in WW2. But don’t stick us with a scumbag like Trotsky. If a guy who is Jewish by sheer accident of birth ( Phil Weiss is a prime example ) But then spends the rest of time turning on his own people. Is he Jewish. You tell me.
MattSwartz; “This country needs to split into at least two parts, although fifty or a hundred would be better.”
The country already is split into fifty parts called “states.” You would not hardly know it anymore, though, because so much political power and wealth has become centralized in Washington, D.C. which then forces one-size-fits-all policies on the entire country. What may work for people in Texas should not be forced on the citizens of California and vice versa.
Hopefully, we will see the centralization of that power (nonviolently) reversed with all of these “state sovereignty” resolutions being passed by various state governments this year. It would be nice for people to have 49 other options available if the political/cultural environment in their state no longer suited them. However, it is hard to be optimistic about that happening.
Britain has been there since day 1 in afghanistan and Brits dont regard themselves as European so any statements by a european union diplomat or spokesperson does not represent Britain