Munich 2025, peace in our time

The last week has signified the death knell of NATO. The ninety minute phone call between Trump and Putin signifies the road to a 21st century Hitler Stalin pact. The Trump administration’s proposals that the USA and Russia make peace in Ukraine without Ukraine being present at the table and mandating European NATO to provide peacekeeping forces are a return great power politics unrestrained by the rule of law.

Left wing fools who consider Putin’s Russia to be the successor of the socialist Soviet Union must be very happy.

This attack on the EU was reinforced by the Vice President, J D Vance’s speech to the Munich security conference, where he criticised the EU and member state governments for suppressing free speech, failing to halt illegal migration and running in fear from voters’ true beliefs. He refused to meet the German Chancellor and yet met with the leader of the AfD. We all know his arguments on free speech are partisan; they want American rich people’s voices to be heard and amplified by privately owned social media companies and fear Europe’s regulation of them based on a demand for truth. We also note the hypocrisy of the US free speech advocates attacks on ideas, books and teachers in schools, universities and libraries in the US. His comments on not relying on foreign technology providers by which he meant China, may come to haunt him as Europe examines its supply chains on the basis of national security grounds.  

Trump’s call for European NATO to increase their defence budgets to 5% of GDP is a naked attempt to build budgets for the US arms industry, just as the UK’s requests to have a side treaty on defence and security with the EU is also at least partially based on the economic interests of BAe.

Trump’s arguments about what does his money i.e. the arms shipments to Ukraine, buy, has a moral vacancy but it is clear that the view that “the business of America is business” has returned to the White House. The crudity with which Trump pursues his views of US fiscal and commercial interests is echoed by the UK Labour Government in positioning its ‘EU reset’;  arguing for changes in the agreements which only benefits Britian from their limited, primarily electoral, point of view. 

European NATO needs to respond. The peoples of Europe need to have a think about the quality of its leadership.

NATO needs to audit its supply chain, evaluate its security of supply, and get off any Musk owned technology.

Also, European NATO needs to ensure that its military is not using any technology controlled by the USA. Most weapons have software, many companies including Tesla controlled by Elon Musk use software to control use of product, see Corey Doctorow on the use of DMCA. Permission can be withheld, particularly through software.

The EU needs to reaffirm its commitment to not sharing civilian intelligence with countries not bound by human rights law.

As part of guaranteeing military security of supply, the UK needs to join the European Space Agency.  The UK needs to get off the F35, and Poland should think of getting off theirs too.

It is common currency that the UK Army is too small and thus the UK needs to increase the size of its army. It’s less common currency that its Navy is too large, particularly if we withdraw again  from east of Suez.