Trump’s new orientation towards China is leaving European leaders bewildered, argues Mike Wayne

Remember the off ramp? Well it’s back. When Russia first invaded Ukraine in February 2022, there was initially much talk of the need to secure a negotiated settlement, to give Russia an off ramp. Quite quickly that modulated into the need to make sure Russia was not rewarded for its aggression, as EU leaders were brought into line with Washington’s strategic objectives which was to isolate Russia, not have it integrated economically, through oil and gas exports (remember all those GAZProm adverts in European Championship football matches?). After all, the remorseless expansion of Nato to the borders of Russia was designed precisely to dictate terms. As the political European elites were appraised behind closed doors of the new realities (and oil pipelines between Russia and Germany detonated under the sea), so too the media narratives, which are aligned with and amplify foreign-policy objectives, were refashioned.

It has been amusing to watch EU leaders look like rabbits in the headlights as the new sheriff in town, and his emissaries, fan out and tell them that Europe and by extension them, is no longer that important as America pivots towards confronting the mighty economic fact of China.

Brutally left out of initial normalisation talks with Russia and bluntly told that they have no real place at the table, the EU’s political leadership were very publicly humiliated. Such humiliations are usually reserved behind closed doors. For public consumption it is all talk of alliances, shared values, collective security, fraternal relations and other decorative add-ons designed to conceal Western imperialism. This was the kind of break in diplomatic relations not seen since the US told Britain that its Suez adventure in 1956 was an unsanctioned act of imperialist ‘sovereignty’ that forgot its place in the post-Second World order, namely, a junior lieutenant, not the Commander in Chief.

Stung, the EU leaders hastily arranged a photo-op where they could try to reassure their publics that they still have a role to play in the world. Starmer emerged talking about British troops policing some future putative peace deal, as if anything he said or did mattered a great deal on the international stage. This was followed by reports from the right-wing press that Britain does not have the military numbers to put boots on the ground. This was accompanied by an earlier photo of Starmer in battle fatigues, evidently reliving 2003’s invasion of Iraq. Poor Starmer, he is determined to go to the grave having never once done an original thing in his life. Everything about him, domestically and in the foreign-policy arena is a desperate crib from the Blair playbook in an era where the conditions, both economic and political, for the ‘success’ (in his own terms) of Blairism have utterly vanished.

Once again, contemporary liberalism has allowed the hard right, here in the shape of President Thump, to look reasonable, when he says ‘the killing must stop’. Trump the Peace Dove is as unlikely as it sounds, as soon as one remembers his plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza of the Palestinians in cahoots with the world’s most ‘moral’ army, the IDF (that is at least according to the IDF’s own public-relations operations). Yet as absurd as this sounds, it gives the cue to all the European hard right aligned with or at least seeing a strategic advantage in sticking close to the new US orientation, a chance to strike the pose of peace to their own national publics. And that is a pose that is going to resonate more and more, because amidst the disarray in Europe’s political leadership at the about turn, a new narrative is emerging. It is one which Thump has himself been pressing for some time: Europe must spend more on its own defence.

Indeed across Europe, defence spending has been going up significantly and the political and military defence establishment in the UK see a fantastic opportunity to reverse falling defence spending as a percentage of GDP. Currently at 2.3%, their eyes light up at the thought of 3% or 3.5%. To justify this, all the old stereotypes, the image-excrement of mass-media commentary, will float to the top of public discourse. Putin, or whoever is next, is the new Hitler, threatening Europe with a blitzkrieg. Never mind that Russia could not even defeat Ukraine, existential threats must be invented so as to convince us that war abroad and austerity at home is something to which we just have to acclimatise ourselves. Building on one of the few successes the left has had in recent years, the anti-war movement in the UK must now work to forge awareness of the links between corporate rule here and the war machine abroad.