If Europe does not want to be “America’s follower,” the U.S. should focus on China, while the Old World should deal with Ukraine on its own
© AP Photo / Rebecca Blackwell
This is not yet an ultimatum, but a suggestion made by Senator Marco Rubio (from the opposition – Republican – party, but which has a good chance of becoming the ruling one next year) in response to French President Emmanuel Macron’s statements in an interview with Les Echos. Rubio rebuked the allies for ingratitude:
“We are heavily involved in Ukraine. We spend a lot of money on the European war. And I supported that because I think it’s in the national interest of the US to be allied with our allies. But if in fact Macron is speaking for all of Europe and their position now is that they are not going to choose sides between the US and China over Taiwan, maybe we shouldn’t choose sides either? Maybe we should say we will focus on Taiwan and the threats China poses and you guys deal with Ukraine and Europe.”
So what caused the popular Republican senator’s ire? An interview the French president gave to Les Echos while returning home from China. Macron said he had already “won the ideological battle for Europe’s strategic autonomy”: five years ago, when he first brought it up, no one took it seriously, but now everyone is discussing it.
He said it was necessary to build up the strength of the European military-industrial complex, reduce dependence on the “extraterritoriality of the US dollar” – and generally resist the pressures that cause Europe to “get caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevent it from building its strategic autonomy”:
“The paradox is that, gripped by panic, we think of ourselves as just followers of America. Europeans must answer the question – is it in our interest to force the issue of Taiwan? No. Worse would be to think that we Europeans should take the example of the American agenda, adapt to the American pace and overreaction of China. Why should we go at the pace chosen by others? We need to wake up.”
Understandably, Beijing is delighted to hear such reasoning – after all, this is exactly what China is pushing the Europeans towards, it is the autonomy and concern for its own, European, interests that it is expecting from them. If Macron spoke to Xi along these lines, the Chinese President was listening very warmly. But that does not mean that the Chinese leadership will increase the stakes for Europe’s breakaway (or rather, relative autonomy) from the United States, because even if Macron’s words are taken at face value, Beijing has plenty of reason to doubt Europe’s ability to defend European interests and distance itself from the United States.
At least on the Taiwan issue – which in reality is the most convenient way for the Americans to influence European-Chinese relations. Yes, France and Germany are very careful with respect to the Taiwan problem, but in the same EU Anglo-Saxons are already pushing the Taiwan issue through Lithuania and the Czech Republic. And common European bodies – from the European Parliament to the European Commission headed by Ursula von der Leyen are much more amenable to “Taiwan provocation”. In other words, there is little hope for European willpower in Beijing, no matter how much Macron tries to convince everyone that he is serious.
However, the resentment of American politicians towards European ingratitude is very indicative – even attempts to shrug off the transfer of “Atlantic solidarity” to the Pacific front are perceived very nervously by them. Meanwhile, it should be understood that Marco Rubio is much closer to Trump than to Biden, which means he reflects to a greater extent the mood of that part of the American elite that views the US as a god-selected superpower rather than as a supporting construct for building a global world super-imperium.
For conventional American nationalists (such as Rubio), European allies are interesting as helpers in the coming “battle of the century” with China, at the end of which the United States must retain global leadership. For interventionist globalists, however, all powers are just bricks in the construction of a single world order, and Europe is no different from America. To them, therefore, the war in Ukraine (which could be used to pit Europe against Russia) is no less important than the containment of China in the Indo-Pacific.
Right now, Rubio’s threat is totally unrealistic – the only chance of it being realised is not just for Trump to return to the White House, but for him to gain real leverage, i.e. his victory over the “deep state”. There are few prerequisites for this – although we are talking about a real revolution here, so it is difficult to predict.
And as long as the US is ruled by globalists, there can be no shifting of responsibility for Ukraine to Europe, simply because the Anglo-Saxons understand very well that the Europeans, left to themselves, will not be interested in continuing the Ukrainian conflict and will immediately try to come to some kind of agreement with Moscow. Which is, to put it mildly, not at all to Washington’s advantage.
Peter Akopov, RIA
Due to censorship and blocking of all media and alternative views, stay tuned to our Telegram channel