Whenever I thumb through The Wall Street Journal, usually out of boredom, I often find articles that are right for the wrong reason.

After all, Europe is weaker than a women’s soccer team playing a decent boys high school team.

American taxpayers are right to be angry about funding 70% of NATO.

However, The Journal fails to mention that Europe is weak because of America. After all, if you’re going to keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down, it’s going to cost you in money and manpower.

It’s little wonder that the Germans have no military when one of your quiet goals is to keep them down. For thirty years, the USG has said to the Europeans, “Nah, we’ve got this,” to maintain demonic hegemonic possession of a vassal continent with no domestic champion.

It was easy to maintain this possession, especially when a drunk like Yeltsin was running the Russian show… into the ground.

It was easy to maintain this possession when Europeans were trying to talk themselves into becoming a superpower no one wanted (including the European populace). They only want freedom of movement (to holiday) and a common currency (again, to holiday).

But the elephant in the room is Ukraine. Let’s face it; if Ukraine were beating Russia, no one would give a toss about what kind of military Europe has. Because it wouldn’t matter. But now, Moscow is viewed as a direct threat.

That’s because Ukraine is getting its ass kicked. I do not mean to be flippant. It’s a fact. Ukrainian casualties outnumber Russian ones by seven to one. The Ukrainians are taking an extraordinary - and unnecessary - beating. And the West is running out of ammo, patience, and eagerness.

Let’s see what’s going on.

Be Careful What You Wish For

From The Journal:

The British military—the leading U.S. military ally and Europe’s biggest defense spender—has only around 150 deployable tanks and perhaps a dozen serviceable long-range artillery pieces. So bare was the cupboard that last year the British military considered sourcing multiple rocket launchers from museums to upgrade and donate to Ukraine, an idea that was dropped. 

France, the next biggest spender, has fewer than 90 heavy artillery pieces, equivalent to what Russia loses roughly every month on the Ukraine battlefield. Denmark has no heavy artillery, submarines, or air-defense systems. Germany’s army has enough ammunition for two days of battle.

This is plainly embarrassing. If Pooty-Poot wanted to invade, he probably could.

But that’s the thing. Russia never had designs on continental Europe. Sure, it wanted to keep its sphere of influence intact. But it wasn’t going to roll through Europe anytime soon.

The damn neocons saw to it that Europe was scared of a Russian invasion that wouldn’t - couldn’t, really - happen. But the drumroll of war had to go on, or how was the military-industrial complex going to get paid?

Another huge issue was the cheap energy Russia was supplying Europe. America wanted a piece of that business, but shipped LNG is much more expensive than pipelined gas.

Something had to happen. And that was the Nordstream pipeline explosion.

American Recriminations

Again, from The Journal:

Much of Europe’s industrial capacity to make weapons has eroded over years of budget cuts, and turning that around is a challenge at a time when most governments face budget constraints amid slow economic growth and aging populations, as well as large political opposition to cutting back on welfare spending to fund defense.

Europe has “systematically demilitarized itself because it didn’t need to spend the money,” thanks to the lack of an apparent threat and U.S. military dominance around the globe, said Anthony King, a professor of war studies at the University of Warwick. “They have basically gone to sleep.”

The Ukraine war has made clear the depth of Europe’s problem.

We’ve established that Europe’s weapons readiness is in a dire state. And yes, they could’ve done more to prepare themselves over the last thirty years. But again, why would they? They had the U.S. do everything for them.

Instead, Europe built good infrastructure, fair to middling healthcare, and an uneven economy in the intervening years.

But lately, Europe’s deindustrialization is happening because they approved of and upheld the sanctions the US applied to Russia. There’s no more cheap energy in Europe. The euro, more toilet paper than currency, invites capital flight to America.

In short, Europe is getting a raw deal because of its vassalage status vis-a-vis America.

How bad is it? Again, from The Journal:

European nations have pledged billions in aid to Kyiv but have said they face economic constraints and production limits on weapons. If the U.S. pulls back from providing the bulk of aid, Europe doesn’t have the stockpiles to make up the difference, nor can it resupply Ukraine and rebuild its own forces at the same time. The head of NATO’s military committee, Dutch Adm. Rob Bauer, said this year that Europe could now “see the bottom of the barrel” in terms of what it could offer Ukraine.

The European Union looks unlikely to keep a promise to supply a million desperately needed artillery shells to Kyiv by this spring, achieving only around a third of that so far. North Korea, an impoverished dictatorship with a population of 25 million, has shipped over a million shells to Russia in the same period, according to Western officials and Russian government statements.

If communist North Korea is outproducing you, it’s really not good, is it?

Wrap Up

Homer Simpson once said of alcohol that it was “the cause of, and solution to, life’s problems.”

I think America may feel the same way about Europe.

Europe isn’t a single cohesive unit, much to the chagrin of most US politicians. It’s a diverse economy with goals relative to its internal self. It’s not here to be the “hegemon.” Europe doesn’t care.

Soon, Europe may find itself between the US and Russia during peace talks.

Have a great day.