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Ukraine grain ship runs aground in Suez Canal | World News | Sky News
In 1956, the custodians of the once mighty British Empire were forced to face not just the end of Empire, but the fact that the end of their empire was front page news. After conspiring with Israel to regain control of the Suez Canal from the despised Gamal Nasser, Britain (and France) were forced to return the Canal to Egypt. Up until that moment, Britain had been able to uphold the pretence that it was a world power – that Britain mattered. Even though they had earlier relinquished India and could not counteract Mosaddegh’s nationalisation of Iran’s oil fields, it was the humiliating retreat from the Suez Canal, on the orders of the US, that showed the world that Britain was no longer relevant.
Sixty-nine years later, Europe, or the EU, finds itself in a similar situation. Granted, whatever the EU was, is, or might hope to become, it was never and will never be an empire. But the EU believes it matters. They truly believe that the artificial constructs and institutions of an unelected technocracy in Brussels can manufacture importance. Without any irony, EU officials deride the historical infancy of the US while simultaneously destroying their own individual sovereignties.
Without any common purpose, the synthetic EU-leviathan believes that common agreement to support the United States in all its endeavors will infuse it with meaning. For the most part being unelected themselves, the leaders of the EU see no contradiction in jettisoning international law in favour of Washington’s preferred “Rules Based Order”.
And for a while this worked. The EU was like the proverbial mouse trampling through the jungle on the elephant’s tail, pleased with itself at all the noise it was making. To the surprise of only those unfamiliar with modern day geo-politics (a group which includes most EU leaders), the US has now abandoned Europe.
Why?
Because Europe has served its purpose and, more importantly, Europe has nowhere else to go. As Henry Kissinger once said, “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”
We can see the shock and horror of this abandonment on the faces of the stunned audiences to Vice President JD Vance’s speech at the recent Munich Security Conference. The sense of abandonment the European’s felt is perfectly revealed in Chairman Christoph Heusgen’s tearful breakdown as he concluded the event. While much of Vance’s speech was directed at domestic politics, everyone knows the real powerplay is the Ukraine.
When it comes to the war in the Ukraine, there was always a Plan B. Plan A was simple enough. This was to support Zelensky long enough until economic sanctions made life so unbearable in Russia that the Russian people would themselves get rid of Putin. Then, it would be easy enough to install a Western friendly government (or governments if the US were able to actually dismantle Russia) and return Russia to the grand days of the 1990s. Those days were grand for US elites if slightly less grand for Russians.
Over the last two-plus years, daily headlines told us that a weak Russia was on the verge of collapse, or, conversely, that Russia’s mighty army was on the verge of attacking a NATO country, Plan A did not succeed.
Plan B is what the US has settled for. This is where the US submits to a multi-polar world with continued hope for an infinite Cold War. In a multi-polar world, one is only as strong as the territory it controls. Thanks to the Ursula von der Leyen’s iron fisted control of all things EU, and the EU Commission’s feeble consent to allow her to double, triple, and even quadruple down on stupid, a near-future EU will have to grovel at the feet of Putin (or his equally strong successor) and beg forgiveness for trying to destroy Russia for the third time in three centuries.
Why would Russia want to save Europe? It is quite possible that Russia will simply ignore Europe, as it (and the US) is doing now at the peace talks which are being conducted in, of all places, Saudi Arabia.
This is Europe’s Suez moment. Europe is no longer beautiful, no longer meaningful, and no longer relevant in a world that has passed it by. Europe now faces a choice. It can continue with failed policies in the futile hope of gaining a seat at a table to which it has nothing to offer. Or, it can try to join forces with other nations, equally large and small, and attempt to return to international law. The very institutions Europe has spent the last few years trying to dismantle are the only ones which might offer it a semblance of a future. All Europe needs now are the leaders wise enough to see it.