Boris Johnson is a known liar and Eurosceptic though his Eurosceptism stems from political opportunism that he's now wedded too rather than than it being a deep rooted belief of his (of which he none, other than choose the path that benefits him the most personally).
His article mixes some valid points with opinion and political ideology. But lets go through it shall we
So come on then, Europe. Show us what you’re made of. From Davos to Munich and across the capitals of the old Continent, the clamor is rising to a crescendo.
We can’t stand Donald Trump, European politicians say. We can’t trust Washington anymore. We can no longer rely on American military leadership, and so—this is the hour of Europe! It’s time for European strategic autonomy!
According to senior officials in the European Commission, Mr. Trump’s surrealist trolling over Greenland has fatally gashed the Atlantic alliance. “A line has been crossed,” says Ursula von der Leyen, “that cannot be uncrossed. . . . Europe must become more independent in every dimension that affects our security.”
This is mostly arcuate, but Trump wasn't trolling with his Greenland ambitions. This is just excuse making for bad behaviour.
Virtually every European leader has noted the tearful ovations that greeted Mark Carney’s speech at Davos—according to which the free world is apparently going to be led by (checks notes) Canada.
Tearful ovations...lol that framing. Carney's speech was indeed well received at Davos, where he set out a much better vision of the world then the what Trump offered in his rambling incoherent gibberish speech. Canada may not become the leader of the free world but at least it's playing a constructive role.
So they have been chiming in: Friedrich Merz, Emmanuel Macron, even the U.K.’s beleaguered Keir Starmer. It’s time for some kind of stand-alone European military effort, they say, or at least more collaboration.
My friends, I agree—but on what are you proposing to collaborate? We hear something about a European nuclear umbrella, apparently to be offered by France to Germany. We hear about joint defense procurement, but then we have been hearing this kind of thing for 50 years, and nothing has come of it.
Well yes there is discussions about France offering a nuclear umbrella to other European countries which is a relatively new development in the last year or so. But joint procurement yes that's been discussed on and off for 50 years and not much as indeed come of it. But Johnson doesn't elaborate on why this has historically been the case and what's changed. Traditionally it's the like's of France that have pushed for this sort of thing, but not all European countries felt the need, Eastern European states preferred to rely on the US. Several European countries have their own competing defence industries and were worried that a joint procurement system would harm their own industries. There was also no funding for it an at an EU level. What also should be noted is the US consistently discouraged and undermined European attempts to do so fearing they would lose out on European weapons purchase, lose influence over European militaries and European becoming a potential competitor to the US defence sector.
What's changed is that up till recent most European countries felt they could trust the US and rely on it, the majority no longer feel that way. Our reliance on the US defence has left us open to blackmail from the US. The EU was forced to take a bad deal on trade because it was fearful of US cutting off arms sales to Europe to give to Ukraine and Trump in effect threatened to tear up that deal and apply more pressure on Europe over Greenland. It also saw the US switch off albeit temporarily some of the weapon systems it supplied to Ukraine to pressure Ukraine into negotiation's.
These debates are trivial, and irrelevant, because right now Europe has a golden opportunity to assert its strategic independence. If Europeans want the chance to seize leadership from the U.S. and do things differently, then this is it.
Europe is trying too assert it's strategic independence, but given it's present deficiency's it's not something that can be done overnight. It's a 10-15 year process.
There is a real war on our Continent—as opposed to a nonexistent U.S. “threat to Greenland.” It is a cruel and hideous war in which Vladimir Putin is increasingly torturing the Ukrainian population, bombing their electricity supply, so that women and children are freezing to death in temperatures of 15 below.
Again he just dismisses the Greenland situation as a joke so he doesn't have to try to defend Trump's actions, which is convenient because he's later on going on to tell us that Europe should get back into bed with the US.
Does Europe actually want this war to end? Then what are we doing about it? If we care about the suffering of these Ukrainians, as we say we do, then for God’s sake let’s give them the means to take out the factories that make Russia’s drones. Why are the Germans still sitting on their arsenal of Taurus cruise missiles? Fears of “escalation”?
Yes of course Europe want's the war to end. Why no Taurus, precisely they fear escalation. But Moz seems to have forgotten he was auguring previously the Ukraine should takes Trump's deal and part of the reason for that was the fear of escalation to nuclear war, mean't fighting on just wasn't worth the risk of miscalculation. If it's European flim-flam then it's also Moz's flim-flam.
The history of the war so far is that the only person who fears escalation is Mr. Putin himself. If we wanted to show real strategic European autonomy, we would launch a concerted operation to impound the shadow fleet—the sanctions-busting oil tankers that are helping Mr. Putin to fund his war machine. Will this crop of European leaders have the guts?
I actually agree with this, go after the Shadow fleet, it's something I've advocated for before.
We Europeans could show our commitment to a free and sovereign Ukraine by sending a contingent of European troops—“boots on the ground”—to one or more of the parts of Ukraine that are completely safe. Their mission wouldn’t be to fight, or to put European lives at risk, but to make the essential point that the decision to invite foreign soldiers onto Ukrainian soil is a matter for Ukraine, now and forever. It isn’t a matter for Mr. Putin.
Sending a contingent of troops to Ukraine would just be a token gesture Freeing up a few hundred to a a few thousand Ukrainian troop's isn't going to change much, but certainly those European troops would be targeted by Russia, who would go out of their way to do so. The decision to invite foreign soldiers into Ukraine is a matter of Ukraine, that's never been in question.
Above all the Europeans should rectify the disgrace of last December when, after months of fine words, they failed to do the right thing, unfreeze Mr. Putin’s assets, and give the cash to the Ukrainians as a down payment on the war reparations that Russia will inevitably owe. The European Union should have unfrozen the $140 billion in the Euroclear bank account. The U.K. should have shown a lead and unfrozen the $15 billion in London. Why didn’t we? Why didn’t we Europeans have the balls to show independence from the U.S., and to go the extra mile for Ukraine? Because we were afraid of being sued? By Mr. Putin? In what court? In what world?
The whole thing is beyond pathetic. European statesmen say they want strategic autonomy. Liberal Europeans clap their perfumed hankies to their noses and proclaim their revulsion at the boorishness of the Trump administration.
This is Johnson being disingenuous. Firstly the EU and Britain did not have the ability to unfreeze those assets as those assets where not held by the EU or the UK government but by private banks. In the EU's case they provided political guarantees to Belgium to protect Belgium/Euroclear but were unable to legal guarantees to satisfy the Belgium government and Euroclear. Nevertheless what Johnson omits is that the EU found another way (as it so often does) to get the needed funds to Ukraine. There is also no world where Russia ever gets those assets back until after the war has ended and Russia has paid compensation (which will likely be far more than the frozen assets are worth)
It is true that the Americans can be maddening, true that the White House is sadly deluded if they think that Russia wants peace. There is much more that the Trump administration could do to get this war over. We must pray they do it. But what, mes amis, is the European alternative?
So Moz do you agree with Johnson the White House is deluded, is that American flim-flam?
Unless these European leaders are prepared to do something brave and perhaps very expensive to make good their rhetoric, the best hope for this economically stagnant, welfare-addicted Continent is to maintain the strategy that has worked for the past 100 years and more. That is to do everything we can to persuade Americans of the truth that their security is bound up with ours, and that in return for that commitment we are willing to spend more on defense, and glad to accept the continued reality of American military hegemony in Europe.
Johnson wonders into politics here. Economically stagnant, Boris how come that economically stagnant continent outperformed the UK when you were running the UK? Welfare addicted, just standard right wing attack line. Johnson here unironically demonstrates why Europe has historically found it so hard to purse joint procurement, because we had so many politicians who said lets rely on America. We still have people who say the same after what's gone on last year, but they are a minority now.
The Ukrainian generals know that reality. It would be impossible for them to keep going without some of the technical support that America still provides. It is idle and foolish to pretend otherwise.
True, but it would impossible for Ukraine to go on without Europe either. Europe provided 99% of the aid last year, France alone provides 2/3 of the intelligence Ukraine receives Ukraine would have lost by now had it just been down to either one.
It is also dangerous, exactly what Mr. Putin wants: just as it is dangerous to pretend that there is some European alternative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The last time I looked, the U.S. supplies 70% of NATO spending and almost all of its nuclear deterrence (depending on what you believe about the French force de frappe), as well as 95% of heavy-lift capacity.
Putin's invasion of Ukraine has been a disaster on the battlefield but Trump handed him a major victory by severely undermining NATO to the point we have no idea whether the US is committed to Article 5 or not. There isn't an alternative to NATO...yet, though it will likely just be a variant of NATO without the US.
American military spending is indeed 70% of total NATO countries spending. But it's not supplied, the US isn't committing all that to NATO nor are they required to spend that much, the US chooses to do so (they are not forced) because it allows them to project power around the world and maintain military dominance over everyone else (something they view as in their own self interest). NATO wasn't involved in that Venezuela operation for example. That's something the US chose to do on it's own.
I'm not sure why Johnson is questioning France's nuclear deterrent, just for the sake of it. France has 250 nukes, there is no reason to suggest they aren't capable of using them.
95% of heavy lift capability is also an exaggeration. Yes European NATO nation's don't have enough heavy lift capability, though it's not really an issue when it comes to supplying Ukraine, more an issue if European nations have to fight themselves. It's not an insurmountable issue though, it's something that will take time but it is just a matter of building large aircraft.
European leaders need to be serious. They either need to show that they mean it—that they are willing to do something big, risky and strategically autonomous to help Ukraine, which they show no sign of doing—or else they need to put a sock in it.
Most of them are. Most of them want Ukraine to prevail, but do not want to get involved directly in fighting, Johnson knows this himself and if he was PM he would face the same constraint Stammer presently does. He wouldn't be sending in UK troops alone and he certainly was never going to be a leader who could rally Europe to do the same when most of Europe had contempt for him after his Brexit negotiations antics. Europe realises the mistakes it's made and is trying to address them but it's not going to happen overnight. It has shown strategic autonomy both in preventing Ukraine from being bullied into a bad peace deal, it's stepped up to support Ukraine when the US stepped back and stood up to the US over Greenland. What does Boris Johnson want us to do, get back into bed and a subservient relationship with a US under Trump that's demonstrated little more than hostility to Europe. Trump one was something European could allow themselves to think was an aberration in US politics and normal service would be resumed afterwards, Trump two has broken that illusion.