Fareed Zakaria is a journalist and political commentator I have greatly admired and respected. I have watched his broadcast as faithfully and frequently as possible. In one of his broadcasts, he observed that Putin’s premises for success in the Ukrainian war, Ukraine’s weakness and the West was tired of the war, have collapsed. He suggested that this is an opportunity for the U.S. to intervene (review his show) with its ability of sanctions and military aids to Ukraine that would probably lead to a peace deal.
It is a wise suggestion to the Trump administration. But should or would Europe completely agree?
The Americans’ decision to side with Putin in the Ukrainian war, criticism of the Europeans on immigrants’ issues, openly siding with extremists in Europe, withdrawal from the Western Front …, if not a betrayal from Europe’s point of view, is a clear signal that the two Atlantic allies are no longer aligned, and the new world order does not find the U.S. to be the leader of the free world willing to provide a security umbrella for Europe. America clearly wants to pursue a path different if not far away from Western traditional human ideals. Even if the diversion would probably be short termed for as long as MAGA is in power, Europe must now make a choice between an independent center of world power or remaining vassal to the U.S.
The world has already formed clusters of power centers. That is a good thing as peace and Democracy prevail when there are opposing forces tugging at one another and balancing out their excesses. But the forces must be strong enough to execute such balancing.
Europe has been a beacon of high road politics, a political shining light on the hill for centuries. It can be relevant and matters again in world politics if it could find the will to turn itself into a significant power center to be reckoned with on its own. It could wean itself off the U.S. instead of leaning on it. The day of relying on others for its stability and for making decisions for itself should be left behind. Ukraine would not have suffered this disastrous war if Europe were strong. A strong and militarily consequential Europe would contribute tremendously to world peace. One could imagine that the Iranian nuclear weapon issue and the disastrous confrontation in the Strait of Hormuz could have been avoided.
When MAGA displays its heavy-handed attitude toward its allies, revealing its new direction in sending its vice president – representing not just one political party’s policy but the political tendency of the majority of the country – to campaign for Viktor Orban the dictator wannabe of Hungary universally disliked and distrusted by the European Union, Canada shows a stiffer backbone than Europe in dealing with them. It was a strange spectacle witnessing MAGA lecturing Europe on racism and Europe listening not just politely but at times submissively and even fawningly. France, despite its innate sense of Gaullist hauteur, has bent. The English suddenly love to dine at the White House. The old but wise saying “with friends like that, who needs enemies” must and should have come to the European mind when the U.S. wants to take over Greenland.
Europe cannot live on the belief that without the USA, it may not sustain its security against foreign forces and even internal conflicts, minding its swashbuckling spirit of some of its people that might lead to disaster such as WWI and II (75 years should be long enough to find a mechanism to prevent it from happening again). The new U.S. foreign affair policy should serve as a wake-up call. Ukraine is the case in point. The whole idea of creating, building, and maintaining NATO was to deter foreign aggressors. Russia’s attack and invasion of Ukraine, an affront not just to the core Democratic principles but also to world peace, should have been a call to action by Europe even if Ukraine was not its member.
In fact, an independent Europe would be good for a Democratic U.S.A.
JOHN P. LE PHONG
(This article appears on X, Facebook, and thelephongjournal.com)
