EUROPE STANDS UP: DEFENCE IS ITS PRIORITY

On Sunday European leaders met to discuss what had happened on Friday in Washington, and how they were going to respond to it. Ukraine is the central focus of their attention, their own defence close behind.

On Monday, March 3rd, The British Prime Minister stood in front of a silent and paced out House of Commons to make a speech of critical importance – nobody spoke it against it, the House was, unusually and surprisingly unanimous in its appreciation.

Keir Starmer laid out a number of important deals. Loans to Ukraine financed by the Russian assets held in the UK, that would be used to build a new factory to supply Ukraine with some 2,000 air defence missiles whose export would be guaranteed by the government., creating 200 jobs in Belfast.

In addition to all of this the government would continue its plans to increase defence spending, allocating money from the national wealth fund, and the defence increase. Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor is as I write this about to announce a financial package to uplift the defence industrial base in the UK to produce more of we need faster.

Yet there were also caveats to the Prime Ministers speech, and for these he cannot be criticized because they are a situation created by politicians of all parties over many decades, the legacy of which leaves Britain little choice.

The UK is bound up in the American military, technology and intelligence systems so tightly it would be impossible to extricate itself in less than a generation. Our SSBN fleet needs American Trident-2 missiles, our Air Force needs American AWACS systems and maritime patrol aircraft, our carriers need F-35’s and the future AUKUS SSN is bound up with technology only the UK and Australia are permitted to share. Therefore closeness with America must continue – but quietly over the next generation, a greater independence must be sought.

Completing the trade deal with the US is also essential to keeping the UK out of the tariff war that’s now been unleashed and will do nobody any good.

Part of our responsibility is agreed with 47, to find ways of getting proposals from Ukraine to end the war. It has never said it would not, but it suits 47’s agenda to frame it in such a way. Sadly they feel that cutting off arms aid is needed to pressure Ukraine – because all they want is a peace deal at any price, regardless of what it does to Ukraine. Too many politicians are talking about ‘Ukraine having no part in this, its only America and Russia that will decided for them’, which sadly has been echoed on Fox, by at least one senator and that the administration seems happy to embrace.

Despite the challenges, Britain’s position at present, seems to be a good one, hovering on the line between Europe and the new version of what was America.

It is not just Britain. The Poles also feel essentially bound to America for much the same reason, whereas the Germans and many others see keeping the US happy as no longer a priority. The administration in the US seems to feel it doesn’t matter what European leaders think or do. That’s both naive and disrespectful.

This morning EU President Ursula Von Der Leyen, laid out an extraordinary €800 billion Euro ($842 billion USD) plan to rebuild the EU’s defence capabilities and support Ukraine,

€650 billion will be made available by changing the way fiscal controls are agreed and will be loosened to allow governments to raise the necessary fund over the next four years. But they can only do so for defence appropriations. As much as €200b of that will be allocated to supporting Ukraine.

The €150 billion will come from the EU budgets and will be used to invest in a pan-European military industrial infrastructure to produce the weapons Europe needs to re-arm.

The nations of the EU and the UK & Norway & Canada, along with Turkey have agreed to work more closely in using what’s available, developing new technologies and equipment that everyone will buy and utilize to work more smartly and in unison to a more integrated industrial and purchasing base for the whole continent.

Norway announced that it was looking at using some its €1.7 trillion Sovereign Wealth fund to strengthen not just its own defences, but work with Ukraine to fund and field more and more domestically produced systems.

A very large defense finance package then, that aims to increase substantially the military force available to the EU+, working with NATO and each other to re-arm the continent. There is no longer any way to avoid what should have been done three years ago, and that was made perfectly clear.

The argument now is that if the war ends in Ukraine this year, it will take five years for Russia to ready itself for aggression against Europe – and by then Europe will be ready to defend itself so effectively it will deter that aggression.

Yet there remains the elephant in the room. The United States is unquestionably in an indecent hurry to get this war shut down and over with regardless of its consequences. Its desire to curry favor with Moscow is blatant and running separately from anything Europe can do. Their lack of interest in the European attempt to reach points of negotiation with Ukraine that the US will find acceptable before taking them to the Russians is obvious. Quite what the rush is to placate Putin is disturbing, but seems far more important than seeing a democratic Ukraine at peace and free.

The US seems happier to let Ukrainian civilians die by cutting off aid, than have Russia loose soldiers fighting against it. It’s a preposterous algorithm they seem too willing to adopt. One day we will find out why, and it won’t I suspect, be a pleasing discovery.

Either way the British and the Europeans with Canada and Turkey seem willing to move forward in a major re-armament program unprecedented this century.

There are those who know the EU well enough to be cynical about if it will ever get it done. Yet this time I think it will, despite the spoiling tactics of Orban & Fico.

It’s the cynicism in America about the Europeans and their role vis-à-vis Ukraine that bothers me. EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Katja Kallas flew to Washington to be told that Marco Rubio was too busy to see her. Yet he has made time to see the Hungarian Foreign Minister. The collusion with Putin and allies of Putin is too grotesque. The dismissiveness of European interests will come back to bite the Americans when the orders for weapons and ammunition don’t come to the United States.

Britain has to tread a fine line for now, and speed its way out of the reliance on America it has over many decades, allowed itself to partly integrate with. There is much of a view privately here, that if a faster disengagement was possible, even one that cost us money, we should take it. There just isn’t the money to take that step just yet. Too much else rides upon a sustained relationship. But we all know the so called ‘special relationship’ is an empty chimera.

America has changed for the worse. It’s no longer the leader of the free world. That much we have to accept. The incoming German Chancellor and I, I find, speak the same language. He is quick to see the realities and where it must lead to, and says so. His influence will be critical in the coming years.

Be proud of Europe+ today. It has made a huge step forward and has made that leap of faith. Now it has to make it happen. This time, despite some foot dragging by countries like Spain and Portugal – and even France who’s president is leading from the front while his cash strapped government undermines the process at home, the majority will finally get their act together. Spain and Portugal see things from a very different perspective, it’s all ‘so far away’ from them – until it isn’t. France is panicked about where this money will come from when it’s already in breach of just about every EU fiscal rule going.

The fact is defence spending in Europe is low even with these vast amounts of money. Its never going to reach Russian levels of GDP – if it did we’d have armies so vast we’d be in Moscow in a month. It is doable for Europe and it will aid employment, skills and new technology, and it will generate quality paying jobs. And without the downside of how Russia has gone about it.

As Teddy Roosevelt (probably Americas most interesting president), said, “Talk softly and carry a big stick” – a lesson 47 needs to learn. And Bill Clinton’s less erudite but still, on point comment about international politics and diplomacy; “…never stop smiling even though you’re eating shit”. Combine both of those comments, made nearly a century apart, and that’s the world as we need to manage it today. To get through this period in our history, we’ll need determination, guile, a big stick, a lot of smiling and we’ll have to eat a truck load of shit if we’re going to come out the other side as respected power on the world stage – with Ukraine embedded with us, where it belongs.

The Analyst

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Track a commodity: Price of a 155mm HE Shell in February 2022 $800. Price of the same shell in February 2025: $3,544