The US is giving its European vassals what they've been asking for, and it's brutal

Russia Today

19-02-2025

It's the 'end of an era" and Germany is 'in disarray.' And not just Germany: 'Pandemonium' rages in Europe; the continent is under 'assault.' Its elites are 'shaken, anxious, and sometimes aghast,' as an 'ideological war' has been declared against their fiefdom, which is being 'left in the dust.' A big 'boom' has sounded, and a 'ferocious reckoning' is underway. In short, it's a 'European nightmare.'
The above are quotes from (in order of appearance), the Financial Times, The Telegraph, and The Economist (all three from Britain), Le Monde (France), Bloomberg (US), Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Bild (both Germany), and, finally, the (German) head of the Munich Security Conference Christoph Heusgen himself. Later, Heusgen, a beyond-middle-aged man and experienced bureaucrat, just cried, literally. For which he was applauded.
What happened? Have 'the Russians' finally done what whole divisions of NATO-EU politicians, generals, admirals, think tankers, media talking heads and careerist intellectuals have been feverishly promising for years already? Are their tanks rolling down the Kudamm in Berlin and the Champs Elysees in Paris already? Not that Moscow has given any sound reason to believe it wants to do such things (who'd want to conquer a heap of economic misery, demographic malaise, and cultural pessimism, really?) But that has never mattered to European 'elite' fantasies.
No, it's not that: The Russians are not coming. Indeed, it's the other way around. As in that 1970s Hollywood horror movie where 'the call comes from inside the house,' the sum of all fears for NATO-EU Europe is now emanating from Washington. How ironic.
For it's not Russia but the all-new Trumpist US that is panicking its own subjects: The Americans are leaving. Or, at least, they have made it brutally clear that they are tired of babying their EU vassals, who need to get ready to stand on their own feet. What an idea! A bloc of roughly 450 million inhabitants and in possession of modern (if steadily declining) industries – defend itself? What's next? Asking healthy adults to walk, breathe, and eat on their own?
The timing, at least, of that overdue dose of tough love from Washington is not entirely fair, to be sure: The US, after all, has profited from its European colonies as well; and especially recently Washington's policies have mightily deindustrialized, subverted, and generally crippled NATO-EU Europe. Very much with the help of the proxy war and puppet regime in Ukraine, the American empire has begun to devour its most loyal, submissive, self-abasing subjects – and now it's asking the sorry remnants to stop being so clingy. It's harsh, no doubt.
Yet geopolitics is not about fairness but power. And the comprador 'elites' of NATO-EU Europe have only themselves to blame for letting the US treat their countries like dirt. Now things are escalating quickly: A genuine reset, maybe even a new détente between Russia and the US is a real possibility. That's a very good, sensible thing for the world. But for the Euro-vassals, even this propitious turn of events comes with a very bitter taste: Washington has told them that they need not be in the room when serious powers talk. And Washington is right.
Being first systematically abused, fleeced, and then dropped – as in that very, very bad relationship every good friend would tell you to get the hell out of – would be awful enough. Yet things are even worse for a Europe that has made itself kickable as perhaps never before. Because Washington is not simply threatening to abandon it. The vassals should be so lucky! No, what Washington is really suggesting is a whole new and very raw deal: You, vassals, stay under our command and influence. In fact, we want even more of that. And in return we, your overlords, owe you nothing. Call it Mafia 2.0: all the extortion, none of the 'protection.'
That was one but not the only message of the already famous speech that US Vice President J.D. Vance delivered at the Munich Security Conference. The speech, not long but packing a punch and well worth listening to in full, touched on various issues, including a terrorist attack in Munich that coincided with the conference, the authoritarian suppression of dissent with abortion in Britain, the recent canceling of elections in Romania, the upcoming vote in Germany, and, of course, migration. The silly hysteria around allegations of Russian meddling in Western politics and Greta Thunberg and Elon Musk also got a mention.
What kept these topics together was one simple but important idea: Vance reminded his listeners that genuine security – it was a security conference after all – is not only a matter of defense against outside threats but also requires domestic stability and consent inside countries. That, in turn, he argued, means that the NATO-EU vassals are running their fiefdoms all wrong. Vance admonished his listeners that they marginalize and suppress opinions and political choices which genuine democracies should, instead, accommodate.
Let's be fair but let's not idealize Vance or the US, either: His criticism of Brussels, Paris, Berlin, London etc. and their Centrist-authoritarian habits is fundamentally on point. Yet it is ironic and especially shameful for the Euro-vassals that it took an American, a representative of a de facto oligarchy/plutocracy, to tell them about democracy.
Moreover, and more importantly, Vance was, of course, deeply dishonest, too: His criticism of European attacks on essential freedoms made no mention of the single most important and most violently suppressed opinion of them all: namely resistance against the apartheid state of Israel and its genocide of the Palestinians. There, Vance and his Trumpist friends are just as bad as their European vassals, at least. Vance, in short, had a big point while also engaging in a big lie.
More generally, it was clear that the US vice president was biased and intended to support, in particular, those on the right, with an affinity for Trumpism, against being 'firewalled' out of European politics. Indeed, without mentioning the party by name, he made it clear that he wants the German establishment to accept the AfD as a normal part of the political system. He also demonstratively met with AfD leader and chancellor candidate Alice Weidel (and not with irrelevant lame-duck chancellor Olaf Scholz: that's what you get for grinning sheepishly when they blow up your pipelines). Judging by the polls, such a 'normalization' of the AfD would make it part of the next government – a prospect about which Berlin's cartel of traditional parties is still in denial.
Vance's pointed – and again, factually correct – attack on the manner in which elections have recently been suppressed in Romania aimed in the same direction. Even Germany's stodgy Centrist-conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has acknowledged that the official pretext for annulling the election (bad Russia, of course…) was 'extraordinarily thin.' Vance used the occasion to fire a loud warning shot across the European bow: He singled out former EU commissioner Thierry Breton's bizarre praise for the Romanian operation and less than hidden threat to do the same in Germany, in case German voters dare vote in a manner Brussels won't like. The US vice president, in effect, told his listeners: Don't you dare.
Let's zoom out for a moment: What was the broader significance of the speech – apart from announcing that the Euro-vassals will be on their own as far as security is concerned but will remain under intense American influence regarding their domestic politics? Three points stand out:
Number one: Appeasement does not work. And I mean, of course, not regarding Russia, but the US, which is Europe's real problem. We have seen repeated attempts to do precisely that – appease Washington by promising to buy more liquefied natural gas and arms and spend more on defense (a lot, a ruinously lot more). And yet: the Euro-vassals still got socked in the eye as never before.
Point number two: 'Values' are not your friends. After years of the arrogant invocation of allegedly superior 'values,' the Euro-vassals got the 'value' treatment themselves: Vance pointedly started his speech by declaring that Washington believes that it is Europe – no, not Russia or China - that has abandoned the right 'values.' Indeed, the US vice president's whole speech was also a textbook application of the rhetoric of values to meddle in other states' business. So that's what that feels like, his listeners might have thought, if they were capable of self-reflection.
And point number three: If you wish to put Munich 2025 into historical context, forget about 'Munich 1938.' The endless, stupid comparison of everything with what happened between Hitler and Chamberlain back then has, of course, made its umpteenth appearance now, too. To be frank, it seems the only thing spent Western ideology cadres such Timothy Garton Ash, his Noltean clone Tim Snyder, or the information warriors at The Economist can ever think about.
And yet, in reality, the other Munich Europeans should actually recall now is that of 2007. That's when they were warned, extensively and in detail, by none other than Russian President Vladimir Putin. Many remember his speech then as above all a warning regarding Russia's security interests – one that was flippantly disregarded, which is one reason the West has now lost a war against Moscow. But Putin's 2007 Munich speech was more than that, namely a fundamental if short analysis of the enormous dangers inherent in US power and especially American domination. A wiser Europe would have listened and balanced against this obvious threat. A very, very unwise Europe decided to instead throw in its lot with Washington as never before, come what may. Now a reckoning is due.