A letter to the Observer this morning

Behind Simon Tisdall’s spluttering indignation (Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine has emboldened Putin and pulled the rug from under NATO allies, Observer 16/2/25) is a capitulation to exactly what Trump wants, a sharp increase in European and UK “defence” spending, so that any peace deal done in Ukraine is simple preparation for a round two at a later date and give him a free hand for an equally ruinous war with China. 

It beggars belief that anyone can argue, as Andrew Rawnsley does two pages later, that the British Army could be involved in a 6 month war in Europe without noting that it couldn’t avoid turning nuclear and being the end for all of us. Rawnsley notes that Europe has a population five times bigger than Russia’s and an economy twelve times bigger, but, in his eagerness to argue for an arms build up, he does not mention that European NATO powers already outspend Russia on their militaries by a factor of seven to one. The price, as he implicitly accepts, of being at the top predators table. The shock for Europe at the moment is finding that they are dining out with “the late great Hannibal Lector”, which makes you at the table and on the menu.

Neither Tisdall nor Rawnsley note that he cost of meeting Trump’s 5% target for the UK would be £60 -70 billion a year. Meeting this would impoverish us all to prepare for a war that would almost certainly kill us anyway. People will, rightly, resist this for both reasons. A more creative European response to Trump would be to come to a modus vivendi with the Russians, which is what they’ve been asking for since 2007, and dial down the temperature across Eurasia and in the South China Sea, so we can deal with climate breakdown and ensure global sustainable development.