The GDP of Russia is $1.3 trillion, about the same as Spain’s. The GDP of the European Union is 15 times the size. Angela Merkel’s speech the other day quite rightly surmised that the EU can’t rely on USA and, to a lesser extent and to our great shame, the UK.
The logical conclusion is that the EU should pull out of Nato and defend itself. It is to the shame of Europe that they feel threatened by a backward declining ex-superpower on its doorstep.
The EU, led by Germany, needs to build up it’s military strength. In terms of military spending as a proportion of GDP, it would only need to spend a tenth of what Russia does to have a much more powerful military, and added to that Europe is one of the most technological advanced regions in the world it’s military would be far in advance of anything Russia can muster.
This military should be situated mainly in the Eastern EU countries. Russia always claims that they are being threatened by the US and its NATO proxies, but the EU is entitled to defend itself and making a clean break with the USA and NATO would signal this. I am sure Russia does not want to pick a fight with a technological superior army on its doorstep run by the heirs of Frederick the Great and Von Moltke.
Russia’s weapon of choice at the moment is the cyber-attack. From what I know about cyber security, this is almost impossible to defend yourself against. The only strategy that works in this situation is counter-offence.
The way to do this is invest heavily in cyber counter-offensive technology, if and when a patriotic Russian or North Korean citizen hacks an EU institution, they have to immediately launch a massive counter-offensive against anything Russian you can find – and then officially say that this was the work of EU patriot. Putin might get angry, but what’s he going to do? Russia might then have to rethink their strategy.
The other threat that the EU military is defending itself against is the USA. The US has, until recently, been the World’s hegemon. The catastrophe that is the Middle East is to a large extent the responsibility, directly or indirectly, of the USA’s policies over a long term.
They supported religious extremists in Afghanistan who eventually morphed into Al-Queda and ISIS. They overthrew the democratically elected President in Iran, then supported the murderous Shah, which resulted in the Iranian revolution. They backed murderous military dictators in most Middle East countries, until they were overthrown in the Arab Spring, resulting in chaos or even worse regimes. The war in Iraq – enough said. This was a pattern of behaviour in supporting nasty dictatorships throughout the world or even worse rebel groups (Pakistan, El Salvador, Chile, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Philippines, etc, etc).
And now the USA is run by a lunatic. If the EU builds a strong military, it will snooker the USA from the Middle East and potentially limit the damage it can do. The fact that the Germany and the EU feel threatened by an economy the size of Spain, and are relying on a crazy twitter-troll for security, is a great abnegation of responsibility by our leaders.
