Ukraine summit underlines European powers’ determination to escalate war with Russia   BY Jordan Shilton

 

Friday’s meeting in Brussels of the Ukraine Contact Group saw the European imperialist powers pledge over €20 billion in additional military aid to Ukraine and issue bellicose statements against Russia. Germany, Britain, and France made clear their determination to continue the war on Russia for years to come, while at the same time appealing for the Trump administration to offer security guarantees for a potential deployment of NATO ground forces to Ukraine.

The meeting was co-chaired by German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius and Britain’s Defence Minister, John Healey, both of whom made new commitments to provide weaponry to Ukraine. For the first time since the group began meeting in April 2022, a US representative did not attend in-person.

Pistorius pledged that Germany would provide a further €11 billion of military assistance by 2029 on top of the vast sums it has already committed. This will include the dispatch of 15 “Leopard” battle tanks, 25 “Marder” artillery guns, 300 surveillance drones, four IRIS T air defence systems, 100 ground surveillance radars, and 100,000 artillery shells in the course of this year. For his part, Healey announced that Britain would supply £4.5 billion in military assistance this year, the biggest annual total since the beginning of the war against Russia in Ukraine. This includes an additional £450 million for drones, anti-tank mines, and the repair of military vehicles, £100 million of which will be provided by Norway.

Pistorius and Healey left no doubt that the European imperialist powers want to intensify the conflict with Russia, raising the prospect of a direct war between nuclear-armed powers. “Given Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine, we must concede peace in Ukraine appears to be out of reach in the immediate future,” Pistorius told a press conference. “Russia must understand that Ukraine is able to go on fighting.”

Healey insisted on the need to “pile pressure” on Russian President Vladimir Putin, adding, “Now is the critical moment…for defence industries, militaries, and governments to step up.” He co-chaired a meeting of the so-called “coalition of the willing” the previous day in Brussels with French Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu, where he warned that the West must not “jeopardise the peace by forgetting about the war.” The coalition was established last month by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron with the aim of coordinating the deployment of ground troops to Ukraine, ostensibly to oversee a potential ceasefire.

Friday’s events underlined how the United States and its former European imperialist allies are increasingly working at cross purposes in the war against Russia in Ukraine and the drive to subjugate Eurasia to their predatory interests. While Pistorius and Healey were outlining a multi-billion-euro plan to escalate the war on Russia, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth participated in the gathering only virtually from Panama, where he was negotiating the terms for US troops to operate along the Panama Canal. No new pledges of military support were forthcoming from Washington, with Hegseth merely quoted as saying that the US appreciates what “you guys,” i.e., the European powers, are doing.

Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, landed in St. Petersburg for talks with Putin as the defence ministers’ meeting got underway. It was the third time that Witkoff has visited Russia since February. His trip came a day after Russian and US teams met for talks in Istanbul aimed at further normalising diplomatic relations. A statement from the US State Department noted the “constructive approach” characterising the talks Thursday, as well as a previous round held in late February.

Trump has repeatedly stressed his support for an agreement to end fighting in Ukraine on the basis of Kiev signing on to a deal granting the US unhindered access to Ukrainian raw materials and Washington concluding an agreement with Putin that forces Russia’s capitalist oligarchy to open up business opportunities for US companies throughout Russia. These talks have nothing to do with Trump’s supposed commitment to “peace,” but aim at creating the best conditions for Washington to subordinate the Russian and Ukrainian oligarchies to its imperialist goals of securing access to the region’s vast quantity of raw materials, cheap labour, and strategic territories. US officials have held separate talks with both sides in the conflict without any participation by representatives of the European imperialist states.

While the outcome of the US-Russia talks remains unclear, what is certain is that they mark an intensification of the conflicts between the imperialist powers as they vie for influence in the carve-up of the Eurasian landmass. Washington’s shift in its Ukraine policy is bound up with the push to focus its resources on preparing for war with China, the world’s second-largest economy and chief target of Trump’s trade war.

Meanwhile, the European imperialists fear most of all being sidelined in the distribution of the booty if Washington concludes separate agreements with Ukraine and Russia, despite having invested vast sums in the Ukraine war. They hope that by continuing to escalate the conflict by deploying ever greater quantities of military resources and ultimately their own troops they can strengthen their position to secure the lion’s share of the spoils in both Ukraine and Russia.

The sharpening of divisions between the imperialist powers arises from the deepening global crisis of capitalism, which is propelling all of them to join in a new redivision of the world. As World Socialist Web Site editorial board chairman David North explained at an international rally against the US/NATO war in Ukraine in late 2022:

the political aim of the war—like the two world wars of the 20th century—is a new redivision of the world among the imperialist powers. The logic of this process extends beyond even the conflict with Russia and China. The NATO alliance and the ancillary military pacts that include countries in Asia and the Asia-Pacific comprise not a “Band of Brothers” but a den of imperialist thieves and cut-throats. The logic of inter-imperialist rivalries will lead in the not too distant future to bitter conflicts among the temporary allies of today. The enmities of the past, as for example between the United States and Germany, will inevitably reemerge.

These rivalries have now reemerged, with the political establishments throughout Europe recognising that the Transatlantic alliance that dominated the post-war period has broken down. However, the problem confronting the European powers is that they lack the military capabilities at present to back up their imperialist warmongering. Notwithstanding the vast sums pledged to Ukraine at Friday’s meeting, the efforts of Starmer and Macron to cobble together a military force to perform “peacekeeping” or provide “security guarantees” have fallen flat. Only France and Britain have publicly pledged to commit troops to such an enterprise, and even these countries have refused to provide details on how many they could deploy. All of the defence ministers who spoke at Thursday’s “coalition of the willing” meeting stressed that nothing would come of it without American security guarantees.

The European powers’ continued dependence on the US is compelling them to pursue their rearmament drive all the more aggressively, which must involve the imposition of an onslaught on the social position of the working class that is unprecedented since World War II. To raise the funds for the trillions of euros the European imperialists have collectively pledged in recent months for war spending, the ruling elites would have to establish Trump-style regimes on this side of the Atlantic to carry through the necessary attacks on workers’ social and democratic rights.

The working class is the only social force capable of stopping the further escalation of the war on Russia and the developing world war between the imperialist powers. It must be mobilised on the basis of a socialist and internationalist programme that unifies the fight against war with the struggle to defend all jobs and workers’ living standards.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/04/12/jqft-a12.html

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

As the World Seeks Peace, the EU Looms for War

 

Mises Wire•Ulrich Fromy

 

We can feel the winds of warmongering blowing through Europe as the continent raises the specter of war with Russia. Recently, the European Commission unveiled a series of measures to strengthen the defense of EU member states, most notably through the ReArm Europe plan. The plan—which was endorsed by the Extraordinary European Council on March 6, 2025—aims to mobilize €800 billion for the EU’s defense capabilities. It includes a redirection of public funds, but not only: it also includes the use of public savings. As announced on March 17, 2025, this strategy aims to get hold of around €10,000 billion in European bank deposits and redirect them towards the arms industry and public defense policies.

Another European example: Valérie Hayer, a French MEP and leader of the Renew Europe group in the European Parliament, recently declared that the old continent is experiencing “a moment of gravity” probably not seen since the Second World War. The culprit? The war in Ukraine and the existential threat posed by Russia to democracy and the European order. To deal with this threat, she and other European politicians want to mobilize the savings of Europeans to finance this collective effort in the arms industry.

In France and Germany

In mid-March, a number of French political figures spoke out in favor of mobilizing private savings to rearm the country in the face of the Russian threat. On March 13, the French Minister of the Economy, Éric Lombard, spoke in favor of this measure before French senators. At the time, there was no question of creating a dedicated savings account, but rather of targeting all the capital saved by the population.

However, in the face of widespread criticism, Éric Lombard backtracked on Thursday, March 20, and announced the creation of a 450 million euro fund managed by Bpifrance and open to individual investors wishing to contribute to the national rearmament effort by becoming indirect shareholders. The minimum amount to be invested in this fund will be 500 euros, with a maximum initial investment that could be of “several thousand euros.” Once invested, these “safe” funds will be frozen for at least five years.

There is the same warmongering rhetoric in Germany. Before leaving office, Olaf Scholz spoke to the Bundestag about the “Zeitenwende,” the historical turning point that Germany is currently facing. He promised to face it by investing massively in the rearmament of the German army, the Bundeswehr. The most likely future German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, got a vote in the German parliament to spend 1,000 billion euros on rearming the country. An unprecedented expenditure in a country that has long delegated its own national defense to NATO and the United States.

All these European investments are presented as “safe and profitable investments” (according to Valérie Hayer). However, as history shows us, these investments are just the opposite.

What History Teaches Us

Society has arisen out of the works of peace; the essence of society is peacemaking. Peace and not war is the father of all things. Only economic action has created the wealth around us; labor, not the profession of arms, brings happiness. Peace builds, war destroys. (Mises, Socialism, p. 59)

Historically, investing in war bonds and funds has always meant taking the risk of betting on the wrong horse. This bet could very well lead to the ruin of the creditors of the defeated state. This was the case in Germany with the impossible repayment of war bonds after 1918. These bonds had become worthless because the reparations demanded by the Treaty of Versailles and the hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic made their repayment impossible.

Conversely, if the state was victorious, the repayment of these often massive loans could take years, ruining the creditor through monetary inflation and the financial repression that was put in place after the conflict to wipe out the state’s debts. This is what happened in the United States after 1945 when the Victory Bonds were repaid. The post-war policy of financial repression kept interest rates low and inflation of the dollar high, causing a gradual decline in the value of the currency. As loans were repaid, the purchasing power of creditors declined in the years following the end of the war.

More serious than the ruin of creditors is the ruin of society. These investments divert capital from genuinely productive alternatives that actually improve people’s living conditions; they retard progress by diverting capital (resources, labor, and money) to these defense industries. They don’t understand that the short-term prosperity offered by the “industry of destruction” is only an illusion and comes at the cost of long-term prosperity for society as a whole.

Any militarized, jingoistic, war-mongering society will only fall further behind on the road to progress and improved living conditions made possible by the best possible allocation of capital in the productive structure of society. As the economist Frédéric Bastiat wrote, war is an illusion of wealth: it creates visible economic activity (the arms industry), but always at the expense of the “invisible” (i.e., lost opportunities and deferred costs). War is never an exit out of a crisis, but the ultimate crisis a society can face.

In short, warmongers of all stripes—excited by the idea of profiting financially from a possible war—ultimately understand nothing about economics or history. Worse, they understand nothing about war.

https://mises.org/mises-wire/world-seeks-peace-eu-looms-war

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8hxcDgQyDg

NATO Can't Win a War w/ Russia: Lt Col Daniel Davis & Steve Jermy

Right now NATO could not win a war with Russia
Are the allied forces helping or hurting the prospects of a sustainable peace? This retired Royal Navy commodore has some thoughts.

==================

 

Right now NATO could not win a war with Russia
Are the allied forces helping or hurting the prospects of a sustainable peace? This retired Royal Navy commodore has some thoughts.

 

BY STEVE JERMY

In 2024, reflecting a popular Western belief, former Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said: “NATO is the most powerful and successful alliance in history.” Yet just two years earlier in 2022, after a 15-year campaign, NATO was defeated by the Taliban, a rag-tag group of poorly armed insurgents. 

How can NATO’s humiliating defeat and Austin’s view be reconciled? 

Of course NATO was never the most powerful military alliance in history — that accolade surely goes to the World War II Allies: the U.S., Russia, Britain, and the Commonwealth nations. Nevertheless, after 1945, NATO did its job, did it well, and those of us who served in it were proud to do so. 

Since the Berlin Wall’s fall, though, its record has become tarnished. Satisfactory in Kosovo. Humiliated in Afghanistan. Strategic failure looming in Ukraine. Are we really sure NATO is up to the job of defending democratic Europefrom a supposedly expansionist Russia in the doomsday scenario of a conventional NATO-Russia war? 

The doomsday NATO-Russia war scenario is the defining way to explore this question. “Amateurs talk tactics, professionals study logistics,” and our strategic analysis needs to start all the way back in NATO’s logistics rear areas, then work forward to a future line of battle on the continent of Europe. 

First, unlike Russia, no major NATO nation is industrially mobilized for war, as evidenced by the fact that Russia is still outproducing NATO on 155mm shells for Ukraine. Which, incidentally, gives the lie to the view that Russia is poised to take more of Europe — if we in NATO truly believed this, we wouldall be mobilizing at speed.

More importantly, it is not clear that NATO could mobilize at the speed or scale needed to produce the levels of equipment, ammunition, and people to match Russia. And certainly not without a long build up that would signal our intent. This is not just about lost industrial capacity, but also lost financial capacity. Of the largest NATO nations, only Germany has a debt to GDP ratio below 100%. 

Second, to have the remotest chance of success in this doomsday scenario of a NATO-Russia war, U.S. forces would need to deploy at scale into continental Europe. Even if the U.S. Army was established at the necessary scale — with a 2023 establishment of 473,000, under one third of the current Russian Army, it is not — the overwhelming majority of American equipment and logistics would have to travel by sea. 

There, they would be vulnerable to Russian submarine-launched torpedoes and mines. As a former underwater warfare specialist, I do not believe that NATO now has the scale of anti-submarine or mine-warfare forces needed to protect Europe’s sea lines of communication. 

Nor, for that matter, would these forces be able to successfully protect Europe’s hydrocarbon imports, in particular oil and LNG so critical to Europe’s economic survival. Losses because of our sea supply vulnerability would not only degrade military production, but also bring accelerating economic hardship to NATO citizens, as soaring prices and energy shortages accompanying an outbreak of war rapidly escalated the political pressure to settle. 

Third, our airports, sea ports, training, and logistics bases would be exposed to conventional ballistic missile attack, against which we have extremely limited defenses. Indeed, in the case of the Oreshnik missile, no defense. 

An Oreshnik missile arriving at Mach 10+ would devastate a NATO arms factory, or naval, army and air force base. As in Ukraine, Russia’s ballistic campaign would also target our transport, logistics, and energy infrastructure. In 2003, while I was working for the British MOD’s Policy Planning staffs, our post 9/11 threat analysis suggested a successful attack against an LNG terminal, such as Milford Haven, Rotterdam, or Barcelona, would have sub-nuclear consequences. The follow-on economic shock-waves would rapidly ripple across a European continent, now increasingly dependent on LNG.

Fourth, unlike Russia, NATO nations’ forces are a heterogenous bunch. My own experience, while leading the offshore training of all European warships at Flag Officer Sea Training in Plymouth, and later working with NATO forces in Afghanistan, was that all NATO forces were exceptionally enthusiastic but had very different levels of technological advancement and trained effectiveness. 

Perhaps more contemporarily important, other than a handful of NATO trainers forward deployed in Ukraine, our forces are trained according to a pre-drone “maneuver doctrine" and have no real-world experience of modern peer-to-peer attritional warfighting. Whereas the Russian Army has close to three years experience now, and is unarguably the world's most battle-hardened. 

Fifth, NATO’s decision-making system is cumbersome, hampered by the need to constantly communicate from Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe to national capitals — a complexity made worse each time another nation is admitted. 

Worse still, NATO cannot do strategy. Shortly after arriving in Afghanistan in 2007, I was shocked to find that NATO had no campaign strategy. In 2022, notwithstanding numerous Russian warnings about NATO expansion constituting a red-line, NATO was wholly unprepared, strategically, for the obvious possibility of war breaking out — as evidenced again by our inability to match Russia’s 155mm shell production. 

Even now, in 2025, NATO’s Ukraine strategy is opaque, perhaps best summarized as "double-down and hope.” 

In summary, NATO is positioning itself as Europe’s defender, yet lacks the industrial capacity to sustain peer-to-peer warfighting, is wholly dependent on U.S. forces for the remotest chance of success, is unable satisfactorily to defend its sea lines of communication against Russian submarine, or its training and industrial infrastructure against strategic ballistic bombardment, is comprised of a diverse mix of un-bloodied conventional forces, and lacks the capacity to think and act strategically. 

An easy NATO victory cannot be assumed, and I am afraid that the opposite looks far more likely to me. 

So what? Conventionally, we could now work out how to redress the manifest weaknesses revealed. Strategic audits to confirm the capability gaps. Capability analyses to work out how to fill the gaps. Conferences to decide who does what and where costs should fall. Whilst all the time muddling on, hoping that NATO might eventually prevail in Ukraine, notwithstanding all the evidence to the contrary. 

But without unanimous agreement of the NATO nations to increase military investment at scale, we would be lucky to solve these capability shortfalls within ten years, let alone five. 

Or we could return to consider — at last — the judgement of many Western realists that NATO expansion was the touchpaper for the Russo-Ukraine War. The Russians warned us, time and again, that such expansion constituted a red line. So too did some of our very greatest strategic thinkers, starting with George Kennan in 1996, Henry Kissinger, Jack Matlock, even Bill Burns in his famous ‘Nyet means Nyet’ diplomatic telegram, and most recently John Mearsheimer with his 2014 forecasts. All ignored. 

The truth is that NATO now exists to confront the threats created by its continuing existence. Yet as our scenario shows, NATO does not have the capacity to defeat the primary threat that its continuing existence has created. 

So perhaps this is the time to have an honest conversation about the future of NATO, and to ask two questions. How do we return to the sustainable peace in Europe that all sides to the conflict seek? Is NATO the primary obstacle to this sustainable peace?

Steve Jermy

(Ret.) Royal Navy Commodore Steve Jermy commanded warships in the 5th Destroyer Squadron and Britain’s Fleet Air Arm. He served in the Falklands War and in the Adriatic for the Bosnian and Kosovo campaigns, and retired after an operational tour, in 2007, as Strategy Director in the British Embassy in Afghanistan. He is the author of Strategy for Action: Using Force Wisely in the 21st Century and now works in offshore energy. https://responsiblestatecraft.org/nato-war-with-russia/ 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.