France’s President Emmanuel Macron announced last week his intention to extend the French nuclear shield to its European partners, and there are now talks about French-British nuclear deterrence. Germany’s Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz has urged France and Britain to share their nuclear weapons to “supplement” (not “replace”) the American nuclear shield.
The premise here is that a “pro-Russian” Trump is going to “abandon” Europe and thus leave it vulnerable to Moscow’s “aggression” – and so it is necessary to build an alternative shield. While various analysts and journalists put on serious faces while talking about these issues, underneath the rhetoric, the whole narrative lacks any substantiality, to the point of being laughable.
Let us briefly touch the premisses:
While the situation with borders is indeed far from being a settled matter in the post-Soviet space (with a number of frozen conflicts), there is of course no Russian appetite for attacking, or much less, “conquering” portions of Europe. The whole crisis in Ukraine has in fact more to do with the ethnocratic contradictions of nation-building in the new independent state of Ukraine, and with NATO’s enlargement, a policy denounced by the likes of the late Henry Kissinger himself, George Kennan, and a number of scholars and authorities who predicted it could cause the Ukrainian war since the late nineties.
Albeit partially bent on a kind of “reverse Kissinger” strategy to stop Biden’s dangerous “dual-containment” approach” (of antagonizing both China and Russia simultaneously), Trump is hardly pro-Moscow in any sense beyond that of avoiding an escalation. Moreover, his rhetorical attacks on NATO have more to do with burden sharing than with “ending” the Alliance.
The truth is that Europe embarked on an America’s proxy attrition war, and now that an overburdened Washington is retreating from its very war, puzzled Europeans do not know what to do. Now, let us delve into the idea of European deterrence, as proposed by Macron.
Europe has stayed under Washington’s wings long enough, and Trump does have a point when he says most NATO countries fail to meet the agreed expenses’ goal of using at least 2 percent of their GDP in military spending (which overburdens the US). And now that the Atlantic superpower is really signing its intent on pivoting to the Pacific, partially withdrawing from Eastern Europe, and shifting NATO’s burden onto its European allies, there is weeping and gnashing of teeth amongst Europe and Britain’s political elites.
European powers today are simply not what they once were. Consider the United Kingdom, for instance: it might even lack the capacity to maintain its own nuclear arsenal without American help, as experts have been warning, in the context of Trump’s “burden shift” threats to “abandon” or to leave the American transatlantic allies on their own. In January last, a British “Trident” nuclear missile embarrassingly failed (for the second time) during a test launch, which led to speculations about the realities of Britain’s nuclear deterrence.
Long story short, Paris and London are the only nuclear powers in Europe – and it is unclear however to what extent they would be capable of replacing the so-called American “nuclear umbrella”.
According to Astrid Chevreuil (a visiting fellow with the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies – CSIS – in Washington, D.C.) and Doreen Horschig (a fellow with the Project on Nuclear Issues at CSIS), there are “significant strategic, doctrinal, and logistical obstacles” to that. More to the point, they add: “in the current situation, the French and British nuclear forces are a complement to US extended deterrence, but they would not constitute a viable solution in the event of an abrupt withdrawal of U.S. nuclear forces.” Elaborating on it, Chevreuil and Horschig argue that:
Both the British and French arsenals are designed, in their size, to respond to attacks “based on their vital interests”: Paris counts on less than 300 nuclear warheads, and London, in turn, possesses less than 250 (Washington in contrast has “a total of 1,700 deployed warheads”).
Moreover, American nuclear weapons stored in Europe today are “airborne capabilities” (and not ground-based or seaborne systems). Only France has such an airborne nuclear component, and “replacing” the US would require enormous efforts from European allies.
Finally, the two experts conclude, Britain and France lack a nuclear doctrine compatible with the very idea of “extending their nuclear deterrence through stationing their weapons in other countries.” Paris does not even participate in NATO’s nuclear planning groups, as the French doctrine “insists on the independence of its nuclear decision making.”
I’ve written before on the challenges Europe faces when it comes to “rearming” itself – they range from de-industrialization to lack of a common legal and bureaucratic framework, or a common EU defense market – according to Sophia Besch (a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace fellow), and Max Bergmann (a former member of the US Policy Planning Staff and Director of the Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies).
One should also keep in mind that Paris’ own relationship with NATO is historically complex, to say the least. Under De Gaulle, France withdrew from the organization’s integrated military structure in 1966, and even expelled all of its headquarters and units on French territory. It was French President Nicolas Sarkozy who finally ended Paris “estrangement” from NATO as recently as 2009 – so it took 43 years for Paris to change its course. To this day, France has not given up “nuclear independence” with regards to NATO, as mentioned. It is hard to change things overnight.
In addition, French ambition’s aside, a quick look at Africa is enough to demonstrate how much of a declining power France really is today: one just needs to consider the French failures in Chad, Niger, Mali, and elsewhere – the French military was basically kicked out of their main bases in the African continent.
Lastly, there is also an element of a power struggle going on. If the overburdened American superpower is partially retreating from a number of theaters, the outcome of it could be a local power vacuum (in Europe) and some actors might have an appetite for filling such a void. Even Poland has eyes on that, as I wrote before. Much of the French rhetoric we are now seeing has a lot to do with that.
To sum it up, Macron is offering Europe something he does not have to counter a threat that does not really exist the way he describes it. He is doing so because of something Trump will not actually do. To put it another way, it is “words, words, words”.
Uriel Araujo, PhD, is an anthropology researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.
Britain’s intelligence establishment reportedly started “rationing” what info to pass on to the US after Trump’s election, and his thrashing of Zelensky at the White House last month has sparked talk of a ‘breakaway’ ‘Four Eyes’ intel-sharing pact. Sputnik reached out to a leading US military intel specialist for details on what this could entail.
Sources told The Mail on Sunday that while joint work intercepting electronic communications could be ‘hard to disentangle’, human intelligence by agents on the ground could be held back from being shared with the US, especially “raw intelligence, which can be very exposing of sources if it falls into the wrong hands.”
Diplomatic sources, meanwhile, told the newspaper that the US intelligence establishment is “in a state of panic” over Trump’s approach, and actively destroying files on assets in Russia.
Five Eyes Without US is Nothing
“The US share is huge,” retired US Army Lt. Col. Earl Rasmussen told Sputnik. “There’s very little the remaining Five Eyes would have without the US,” the observer noted, highlighting that America provides:
Immense signals intelligence (SIGINT) capabilities including information from satellites (about 5,000 of the world’s roughly 8,000 satellites are American), in Rasmussen’s estimation
a military feed from the US Defense Intelligence Agency
substantive human intel
real-time open-source info collection and analysis capabilities
security intelligence via cooperation between the FBI and the Five Eyes’ allies’ analogs.
If the Five Eyes were to break up, Rasmussen doesn’t exclude the creation of new, regional intel-sharing alliances, like:
Australia and New Zealand partnering up with Japan and South Korea
The UK ramping up intel cooperation with France and Germany
As for the Five Eyes’ “global reach, the fusion of information, the mass experience, the analytical tools that are commonly operated…almost all the major ones have either been operated completely by the United States, or via a shared operation with the United States and another [country],” the observer summed up.
The requests for the effort apparently arose after the US suspended information collaboration with Kiev and prevented the UK and other allies from sending American intelligence to Ukraine.
A new proposed subgroup would greenlight intelligence cooperation without a US veto, according to the British daily.
According to the Daily Mail, the new project is not about abandoning Five Eyes but rather about establishing a new Four Eyes suborganization within it.
Simultaneously, US allies are mulling lowering the intelligence they share with Washington, citing worries about the administration’s conciliatory attitude to Russia, according to NBC News.
These include “Israel” and Saudi Arabia, as well as Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand, with the latter four being members of the US-led Five Eyes intelligence cooperation.
Officials in New Zealand, Australia, and Saudi Arabia declined to comment, while authorities in the United Kingdom, Canada, and “Israel” refuted the accusations.
The United States has temporarily suspended intelligence sharing with Ukraine following a notable rift between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, CIA Director John Ratcliffe confirmed on Wednesday.
The decision follows a public row between the two leaders during a meeting in the Oval Office last week, which also led to the suspension of critical US military aid to Ukraine.
Speaking to Fox Business, Ratcliffe stated that the pause in intelligence cooperation is linked to Trump’s concerns about Zelensky’s dedication to the peace process with Russia.
“President Trump had a real question about whether President Zelensky was committed to the peace process,” Ratcliffe said. He noted that the suspension is temporary and expressed confidence that the US would soon resume its close partnership with Ukraine.
For Ukraine, which is engaged in a war with Russia, US intelligence support is as vital as military supplies. The sudden halt in assistance has shocked many Ukrainians, who rely heavily on American backing in their war with Russia.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated that she believes her proposed new 800 billion euro ($867 billion) military plan will transform the European Union into a “defense union”.
During Thursday’s EU leaders’ conference on defense, ReArm Europe received unanimous support, according to von der Leyen.
“You are familiar with the 800 billion [euro] package for defense, and that is historic, this can be the foundation of a European defense union,” she said.
“We will drive the ReArm Europe plan forward with full force,” she stated at a news conference in Brussels marking the first 100 days of her second term as President of the European Commission.
Von der Leyen went on to say that the EU should “team up with other like-minded countries,” such as the United Kingdom, Norway, and Canada, to “unleash the full potential in the face of concrete threats.”
Von der Leyen recently put forward an initiative to attract loans of up to 150 billion euros to the defense industry over the next four years and to allow EU countries to free up another 650 billion euros to increase defense purchases and develop the defense industry.
The European Union is ramping up efforts to develop its military-industrial sector, drawing insights from the Ukraine war. A statement issued following a European Council meeting on Thursday outlined key areas for defense investment, particularly in air defense, advanced drone technology, and precision-guided weaponry.
According to the European Council’s conclusions, the bloc is focusing on strengthening its military capabilities in coordination with NATO and the European Defence Agency. The document specified that priorities include air and missile defense, long-range artillery, missile stockpiles, and anti-drone technologies.
“[The European Council] identifies the following first list of priority areas for action at EU level in the field of capabilities taking into account the lessons learned from the war in Ukraine, in accordance with the work already done in the framework of the European Defence Agency and in full coherence with NATO: air and missile defence; artillery systems, including deep precision strike capabilities; missiles and ammunition; drones and anti-drone systems…,” the statement read.
This move comes as part of a broader strategy known as ReArm Europe, an initiative aimed at significantly boosting the EU’s defense capabilities while reducing reliance on external allies. Under this plan, EU leaders have proposed unlocking up to €800 billion to finance military advancements, primarily through defense loans, budget repurposing, and private capital mobilization. The European Investment Bank (EIB) may also lift restrictions on lending to defense firms to support this push.
Von der Leyen has described this as a necessary response to “a clear and present danger” facing the region, marking a shift in the EU’s traditional defense posture. The initiative also aligns with recent calls from the US for Europe to take greater responsibility for its own security, especially amid concerns about potential shifts in American foreign policy under a future administration.
The leader of Yemen’s Ansarallah resistance movement, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, announced on 7 March a four-day grace period for Israel to resume ceasefire talks and lift its blockade on humanitarian aid for Gaza, threatening to resume Sanaa’s naval operations against Israeli-linked ships.
“We meet the siege with a siege,” Houthi emphasized, adding that Yemen “cannot stand by and watch the Israeli enemy’s aggressive approach in starving the Palestinian people in Gaza.”
“We do not just issue statements, but we can support the Palestinians in several areas,” the Ansarallah leader said, pointing out that “in the course of implementing the ceasefire in Gaza, it was clear that the Israeli enemy was procrastinating in fulfilling its obligations, especially those related to the humanitarian file.
The Ansarallah-led Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) ceased military operations in support of Palestine following the start of a US-sponsored ceasefire in Gaza earlier this year. Since November 2023, the YAF repeatedly targeted US, UK, and Israeli-linked commercial ships and western warships in the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean Sea.
Sanaa’s efforts to stop the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza prompted an illegal war initiated by Washington and London, resulting in hundreds of airstrikes in the Arab world’s poorest nation.
Despite the western onslaught, the YAF were undeterred in their military campaign and forced several US aircraft carriers and European warships out of the Red Sea. The country has also downed 15 US MQ-9 Reaper drones and recently fired its air defenses on a US F-16 jet.
A year ago, the former US Special Envoy for Yemen, Timothy Lenderking, admitted that “there is no military solution” for Yemen.
“I don’t think people really understand just kind of how deadly serious it is what we’re doing and how under threat the ships continue to be,” Commander Eric Blomberg with the USS Laboon told US media last year.
Houthi’s warning comes almost a week after Israel reimposed a total blockade on humanitarian aid shipments for Gaza after obstructing the ceasefire agreement from moving forward by demanding an extension of the first phase.
Hamas has rejected any extension of phase one and is demanding strict adherence to the agreement and international pressure on Israel.
“The resumption of war on Gaza will be met with the entire [Israeli] enemy entity coming under fire … If the war returns to Gaza, we will intervene with support through various military means,” Houthi warned on Sunday.
In an interview on Fox News this week, America’s top diplomat Marco Rubio made a damning admission. He called the conflict in Ukraine a proxy war between the United States, its NATO allies and Russia.
Stop the press. In one fell swoop, the narrative justifying the NATO-backed war for the past three years was exposed as a naked lie. It is not about “defending Ukraine” from alleged Russian unprovoked aggression. It is a proxy war. That means it has deeper causes and responsibilities.
This is what Moscow and many other international observers have been saying all along. To recognize the conflict as a proxy war is to begin admitting wider culpability for it and to start addressing the root causes for a genuine peaceful settlement.
Secretary of State Rubio went on to emphatically call for an end to the war to spare lives. He claimed the conflict was in a stalemate, not quite bringing himself to utter the word, “defeat”. But defeat is what this debacle is.
Rubio decried how the previous Biden administration and Congress (including himself as a Senator) had fueled the conflict along with other NATO members in a futile campaign. It is now time to bring the conflict to an end, he said.
Appropriately, the U.S. foreign minister appeared on television with a prominent Lenten cross of ash marked on his forehead. Christians around the world begin preparations for Easter by donning ashes as a sign of repentance. Rubio’s “confession” of a failed U.S. policy of proxy war against Russia in Ukraine may be seen as a belated recognition in Washington that it needs to cease, desist and make amends for peace.
Not so the European leaders, however, who this week persisted in their lies about a noble purpose in Ukraine.
Following the humiliating rebuke of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky by U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office last week, the European politicians have been rallying their support for the Kiev regime.
Trump aides ejected Zelensky from the White House last Friday because he testily refused to comply with a U.S. initiative for peace in Ukraine. This week, the chastened Zelensky wrote a letter to Trump appealing for forgiveness – and more U.S. military aid. It’s not clear if the Ukrainian redundant president has convinced the Trump administration that he is ready to sign a peace deal.
In the meantime, the White House has now cut off military aid and intelligence sharing with the Kiev regime. Again, proving the reality of a proxy war.
That move has thrown the European allies into a quandary and existential crisis. It is a crisis of their own making.
An emergency EU leaders’ summit was convened to drum up more military support for Ukraine. The EU 27 could not agree on a package because Hungary vetoed it. Another summit is to be called on March 20, when it is intended to bypass Hungarian objection to funding the war in Ukraine.
European leaders are desperate. The about-turn in U.S. policy to walk away from the failed proxy war in Ukraine has left them holding a dead-end hand of cards. Rather than folding, they are doubling down on their worthless chips.
Trump upbraided Zelensky in the Oval Office by telling him, “You don’t have the cards” to keep this war going.
The same advice can be leveled at the European governments, including the British, who strangely have wormed their way back into calling shots in Europe despite exiting the bloc five years ago.
This war has been lost with appalling losses. Three years of the biggest war in Europe since World War Two has resulted in over one million deaths – mainly on the Ukrainian military side – and hundreds of billions of dollars and euros wasted, which the American and European public will pay over generations through debts.
This war is an abominable crime perpetrated by Washington and its European allies. All the more so because it could have been avoided if Russian diplomatic efforts in late 2021 had been reciprocated to deal with Moscow’s legitimate security concerns over NATO’s expansion. But no, the Western imperialists wanted to strategically defeat Russia and they used a NeoNazi regime in Ukraine as their pawn following the CIA-backed coup in Kiev in 2014 against an elected president.
Western leaders must be held to account for their nefarious machinations and the colossal damage in Ukraine and Russia. Russian civilians have been killed by NATO weapons and over $300 billion in Russian assets have been confiscated. Russia has the right to seek massive war reparations.
At least, to their credit, the Trump administration has realized that the evil of this fraudulent war must stop.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Keith Kellogg, Trump’s envoy on Ukraine, also this week referred to the war as a proxy war that needs to end.
The Americans are calling on the Europeans to stop funding the war with military aid. This is an amazing turn around. Since WWII, the Americans have been the diehard warmonger with the European lackeys following suit. Now it’s the other way around. The European elites want the war in Ukraine to continue – albeit with the lie that they are seeking “lasting peace.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has consistently said that if the Western powers stopped funneling weapons into Ukraine, the conflict would quickly stop. And then diplomacy could begin for dealing with the root causes and establishing mutual, sustainable peace.
Vice President Vance rightly pointed out that the Europeans by puffing up Zelensky as a hero “freedom fighter” are prolonging the slaughter and destruction of Ukraine as well as provoking the risk of a wider war.
The problem is that whereas the Americans have adopted realism and common sense (at last), the Europeans are continuing to persist in the lies and delusions about the proxy war against Russia.
This week, French President Emmanuel Macron echoed other European political figures by calling Russia a threat to Europe. The French, British and others are insisting on fueling the dead-end war by racking up astronomical debts and proposing to send “peacekeeper” troops to Ukraine. Moscow has warned that such a move would mean direct war.
So desperate is Macron that he is engaging in nuclear saber-rattling, offering to deploy French nuclear weapons to “defend” Europe. Why don’t Macron and other European elites simply engage in diplomacy like the Americans?
The insane recklessness of the Europeans stems from multiple sources: their incorrigible Russophobia, ties to the military industrial complex, chagrin over their American patron dumping the Ukraine war mess on them, and in their existential need to keep lying about the war as some noble cause instead of it being a sordid proxy war against Russia.
The Europeans are so full of lies, duplicity, guilt, and ultimately impotence that they will likely persist in their delusions of grandeur. To repent would be politically fatal. Thus persisting in their lies, the European Union and its military arm NATO are being destroyed.
Napoleon, Hitler, and now the elitist European leaders have all fallen into oblivion from miscalculations over Russia.
President Donald Trump has floated trilateral US-Russia-China talks on cuts to strategic nuclear weapons stockpiles. Sputnik reached out to one of Russia’s foremost experts on strategic security issues to discuss what’s behind the proposal, and its chances for success.
“Nuclear weapons are precisely one of the areas where competitors outpacing the United States is very visible,” says Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of research at the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy.
“Chinese and Russian nuclear arsenals combined provide two times preponderance over the United States, or will make two times preponderance in the observable future,” Suslov stressed.
Nuclear talks are the “alternative” for the US to bankruptcy stemming from high defense spending and unsustainable debt, particularly as the US nuclear arsenal is stuck in the 80s and lags far behind competitors, especially Russia, and would take immense resources to modernize, the observer said.
Instead, Trump “wants to channel competition into some other areas, into the areas where the United States largely have advantages,” according to Suslov, from high-precision conventional arms to his “Golden Dome” proposal for a space-based SDI 2.0.
“This is an attempt to reduce competition in the area where the United States is not competitive and to channel the competition into the areas where the United States is competitive, has comparative advantages, technological advantages, in the opinion of the Trump administration,” the expert noted.
Will Trump’s Nuclear Negotiations Push Succeed?
“Complete denuclearization is impossible,” Suslov stressed, since nuclear weapons serve as the “ultimate guarantee which prevents war among great powers.”
“The only [reason] why NATO and the United States have not started a direct war against Russia yet in the context of the Ukraine war is nuclear weapons,” he said.
Russia and China will be unlikely to agree to trilateral talks, the expert believes, since their relations are built on partnership, not deterrence.
As for bilateral Russia-US talks, these are possible, “but also [face] huge impediments,” including the need to include the French and British nuclear arsenals into account.
“Basically, Macron made it absolutely clear that the purpose of French nuclear weapons is to deter Russia. This is against Russia. The purpose of British nuclear weapons is also against Russia. And they plan explicitly nuclear operations, potential nuclear operations against Russia,” Suslov noted.
Accordingly, Russia’s strategy will continue revolving around insisting “on a comprehensive approach and taking all the factors which impact strategic stability into account,” Suslov predicts.
President Donald Trump restated his desire to abolish nuclear weapons during a White House presser on Thursday.
“It would be great if everybody would get rid of their nuclear weapons. [I know] Russia and us have by far the most,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office. “China will have an equal amount within four to five years. It would be great if we could all de-nuclearize because the power of nuclear weapons is crazy.”
Currently, nine countries – the US, UK, France, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel – possess nuclear weapons. With global tensions on the rise, several nations, including the US, are adding to their strategic capability.
According to the Defense Intelligence Agency, Beijing is working to ramp up its production of nuclear weapons. Last year, the agency predicted that China could have over 1,000 nuclear weapons. However, that would still give Beijing a far smaller arsenal than Washington and Moscow, which each have around 1,500 deployed nuclear weapons and thousands more in storage.
Shortly after returning to the White House in January, Trump said he spoke with President Vladimir Putin about denuclearization during his first term, and that the Russian leader was receptive to the idea. “We were talking about denuclearization of our two countries, and China would have come along. China right now has a much smaller nuclear armament than us, or field, than us, but they’re going to be catching [up] at some point,” Trump said.
“I will tell you that President Putin really liked the idea of cutting back on nuclear, and I think the rest of the world, we would have gotten them to follow, and China would have come along too. China also liked it,” he added. “Tremendous amounts of money are being spent on nuclear, and the destructive capability is something that we don’t even want to talk about. It’s too depressing.”
Trump has also discussed negotiating a deal with Moscow and Beijing that would see all three countries drastically cut military spending.
However, while Trump has at times voiced support for demilitarization and denuclearization, during his first term in office he scrapped two major arms control agreements, the Open Skies and the Intermediate Range Nuclear Force treaties.
Additionally, Trump refused to engage in bilateral discussions with Russia on extending the last nuclear arms control agreement between the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals, the New Start Treaty. He insisted that Moscow must pressure Beijing to make it a trilateral deal, a demand that almost led to the downfall of the landmark deal.
Though President Joe Biden was able to reach an agreement with Putin to extend the treaty for five more years in 2021, it is set to expire next year without another extension.
As the United States and Russia are engaging in talks to avoid the possibility of an uncontrollable escalation, the European Union and NATO keep doing the exact opposite. Brussels wants the war to continue, including by pushing for the deployment of its troops in Ukraine. Worse yet, as the diverging interests of the new Trump administration and the EU/NATO become more evident, the latter is now trying to appease Washington DC by portraying this as a “peace initiative”.
On the other hand, Trump and his team understand that the world is drastically different to what it was in the aftermath of the (First) Cold War. This is precisely why they’re far less belligerent toward Moscow (at least in terms of rhetoric) than was the case with the previous administration.
The EU/NATO is terrified of the prospect of being left to face Russian military power in Ukraine (and possibly beyond) on its own. To prevent that, Western European powers are now looking to escalate tensions in hopes of drawing the US back into a crawling confrontation with the Kremlin. However, as the Trump administration is still showing no interest to get involved, the EU/NATO is now pushing for a strategic escalation.
This is particularly true for French President Emmanuel Macron who is now talking about placing the “old continent” under the French nuclear umbrella. On March 5, he tried to justify this by claiming that “[President Vladimir] Putin is now threatening all of Europe” and declared that “Russian aggression knows no borders”.
“We are entering a new era. If a country can invade its neighbour in Europe and go unpunished, nobody can be sure of anything. Beyond Ukraine, the Russian threat is real – it affects the European countries,” Macron stated in a televized address, adding: “President Putin is violating our borders to assassinate opponents, manipulate elections.”
For decades, “evil dictator and bloodthirsty tyrant Putin” has been the political West’s go-to bogeyman for both foreign and domestic policy issues. Whether it’s elections, political instability, price hikes or even personal problems, look no further than Vladimir Putin. The “evil, bear-riding Russians” are coming for you and “the only way” to prevent it is to go to war with them, preferably thermonuclear.
According to the mainstream propaganda machine, if you think this sounds like total madness, you must be a “Putin troll”. Unfortunately, this is how the EU/NATO is trying to portray the ongoing crisis, which is why it’s effectively impossible for Russia to find anyone remotely reasonable to talk to in Europe. And they keep proving this each passing day.
Macron insists that the EU/NATO “need to prepare”. It would seem he’s trying to fill the power vacuum as the US is looking to shift its strategic focus to the Asia-Pacific. The endemically and pathologically Russophobic United Kingdom seems to be supporting this initiative, as it falls perfectly in line with its strategy of pushing continental powers against each other.
This is why there have been numerous meetings and conferences in support of not only continuing but also escalating the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict. However, conventional capabilities of Western European powers are nowhere near enough to match that of Russia (not even in Ukraine, let alone when the entire Russian military is taken into account).
“I want to believe that the US will stand by our side, but we have to be ready for that not to be the case,” Macron complained, adding: “France has to recognize its special status – we have the most efficient, effective army in Europe.”
He then stressed that his country “has nuclear weapons to provide to the broader Western alliance if called upon”. Macron went on to explain that he’s considering the possibility of expanding the French nuclear umbrella to all of Europe. He also cited the words of Germany’s (most likely) upcoming chancellor, Friedrich Merz, who recently stated that he wanted to discuss the possibility of extending French and British nuclear umbrellas to also include Germany.
It should be noted that Berlin already has American nuclear weapons stationed on its territory as part of NATO’s nuclear sharing policy. However, with the recent shift initiated by the new US administration, European member states still loyal to the anti-Trump Deep State seem to be looking for viable alternatives.
“We need reforms, we need to make choices, and we need to be brave,” Macron stated, adding: “[Merz] has called for a strategic debate on providing that same protection to our European allies… whatever happens the decision will be in the hands of the president of the Republic and the heads of the army.”
He also said there will be a meeting of the EU/NATO army chiefs in Paris next week, hinting this could be one of the matters they will be discussing. Besides the US, the UK and France are the only member states who have their own nuclear weapons. It should be noted that this initiative also means that the EU/NATO is fully aware that nuclear weapons are the only way to “even the playing field” with Russia’s conventional military power.
However, what this also means is that Moscow would be forced to respond with its own nuclear arsenal – by far the largest and most powerful in the world. In fact, the difference between the number of thermonuclear warheads in Russia and the US is larger than the combined arsenal of the UK and France (around 500).
London and Paris both have SLBMs (submarine-launched ballistic missiles), with the latter also operating nuclear-capable aircraft. This is a lower level of deterrence than in countries like Russia, China, India and the US who have nuclear triads (aircraft, submarines and land-based missiles), without even considering the size of Moscow’s strategic arsenal which is upwards of a dozen times larger than the combined Franco-British stockpile.
It’s still unclear what exactly Macron has in mind when talking about extending this arsenal to the rest of the EU/NATO. If he’s talking about replicating (or even replacing) the US nuclear sharing policy, the Kremlin might not react immediately, as this would change little in terms of the strategic balance of power.
However, if Macron wants to deploy these weapons close to Russian borders, this changes the calculus entirely, as it would force Moscow to either reactivate some of the non-deployed warheads or make new ones (if not both, depending on how far the EU/NATO would go). What’s more, the Russian military also operates non-nuclear strategic weapons, specifically hypersonic missiles such as the new “Oreshnik”.
The entire political West lacks remotely similar systems, including the US (which, as previously mentioned, is slowly shifting its strategic focus away from Europe). In other words, the EU/NATO cannot match Russia even on a tactical or operational level, let alone strategic. However, it keeps poking the Bear and pushing for escalation on all three fronts.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
Iran has refuted British officials’ accusations that Tehran poses a national security threat to the UK, saying they blame the Islamic Republic for something they “excel in and master”.
Britain said on Tuesday that it would require the Iranian state to register everything it does to exert political influence in the UK, subjecting Tehran to an elevated tier of scrutiny in light of what it said was increasingly aggressive activity.
“It is absurd to blame Iran for something you excel in and master: illegal interference in other nations’ internal affairs!” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei responded in a post on X Thursday.
Baghaei touched on UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s remarks in November that he did not believe Israel was committing genocide in Gaza and Britain’s role in the 1953 coup against Iran’s democratically-elected government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh.
“UK government seems to be doubling down on its irrational hostile mentality regarding Iranians only to deflect from their own culpability, both as ‘genocide denier’ and as supporter of anti-Iran terrorism (tracing back to 1953 coup against Iran’s democratically-elected govnt for which UK’s guilt never disappears).
“However, this is no longer the 19th century; any government that makes unfounded accusations and takes hostile actions against the Iranian nation shall be held accountable,” he said.
Addressing parliament on Wednesday, UK security minister Dan Jarvis announced that he would put Iran’s state, its security services and the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps into the enhanced tier of an upcoming registration scheme designed to protect against covert foreign influence.
Like in many countries, the political ruthlessness of Victorian expansionism has left Britain with an unhappy legacy of distrust in Iran.
Iranians generally blame Britain for the “Great Famine and Genocide” of 1917–1919 in Iran where approximately 2 million people and by some accounts 8-10 million out of a population of 18–20 million died of starvation and disease.
The famine took place after Iran, despite declaring neutrality during World War I, was occupied by British and Russian forces.
You don’t have to be a genius to work out that if you exclude Russia and just look at the three groups who are vying for war, or whining for peace, that no one is being very honest about their intentions. Previously, I tackled head on how Trump is not being very honest when he talks of peace as he has the means to enforce it at the drop of a hat, but chooses to drag his feet and hold out for deals. This is not simply Trump Basic who we all know well – where’s the deal? – but also Trump playing out a longer game with Russia, looking at where the sweet spot could be. Trump’s tour de force is always to create a crisis and then position himself to be the only person on the planet who is capable or willing to resolve it. His personality is always paramount to everything.
And so the stunt in the White House needs to be seen in the correct context. Zelensky was not honest in coming to the White House in the first place as it was believed that he was to meet Trump and JD Vance to sign a mineral deal which he agreed to and retracted from signing a number of times leading up to the visit. This became apparent when he met with Trump behind close doors and so the Plan B was to lower Zelensky into a trap and make him look ungrateful, arrogant and entirely impossible to work with. But what’s the real story behind Zelensky’s decision? Again, we see the puppet Zelensky having his strings pulled by others. Is it a coincidence that just days earlier British PM Keir Starmer arrives in the White House where, just a matter of hours earlier he announces in the British parliament that defence spending will be increased, in line with Trump’s demands for European members of NATO? Was it merely that Starmer needed to show some goodwill to Trump even to get the meeting, or was Starmer preparing for choppier waters to come, when Trump would finally hear the rumours? According to some reports, Zelensky has sold all the mineral rights already to the UK, so he was playing a game with Trump all along.
But there are more lies and games to come.
If we look at Zelensky’s European partners can we honestly say they are being honest with the public which elected them? While Macron announces a no-fly zone rule, Starmer tells his own people that Britain will send its own troops to Ukraine. Has the world gone mad, or are these leaders actually serious about their intentions? How many of UK soldiers, airmen and sailors could Starmer actually send out of a total of barely 150,000 in uniform? In reality, probably only a third at best. And presumably this move would be without the support of the U.S., who would keep out of it? If that isn’t the craziest batshit idea, there is more madness to follow. Zelensky, since arriving in the UK for the emergency meeting of mostly EU leaders who support him – including Erdogan of Turkey – has started saying some very odd things to the press, while he picks up these huge checks for military support. He keeps talking about getting a peace deal with Russia.
As Starmer prepares to send British troops to Ukraine, he continues to jail people for posting nasty messages in Facebook, in particular when they slur his own party members – an irony that only Joe Stalin would appreciate, as it’s straight from the dictators’ handbook. Starmer preaches about supporting a free and democratic Ukraine while persecuting anyone who doesn’t agree with his views or uses social media to complain about the state of Britain. In reality it’s one despot supporting another and it’s hard to see how many days this could last with body bags coming back to the UK while pensioners get plain clothed policeman come to their houses and threaten them with imprisonment – or even more cuts to the poor. Of course the body bags will be hidden by a tawdry deal struck between the government and the British press, just as so many ‘no-go zones’ were agreed beforehand. But citizen journalism will call them out as the families won’t stay quiet. Starmer and Macron seem to think that just as Churchill pulled a few stunts to draw the U.S. into the Second World War, that European soldiers on Ukrainian soil will override any agreement that the U.S. and Russia could pull off. The move by Starmer is so idiotic that it leaves many wondering whether he is being controlled by Mossad or the Obamas, comes from the same camp which so fabulously made so many poor predictions from the beginning – namely Russian sanctions.
There is only one conclusion to it, although it leaves Trump and Putin with two options, neither particularly edifying. One, to let the Europeans go ahead with their stunt and watch the collapse of NATO as a credible organization worthy of its funding; or two, to pull the rug out from under the feet of Zelensky and force presidential elections, where of course Trump will install his own puppet to replace the incumbent one. The huge mistake Starmer is making is that he is assuming British troops need not be sent to the front line, but can encircle Kiev to show political support for Zelensky. Yet, each day Russian troops will gain ground and move closer to the Ukrainian capital. For Trump to attempt regime change will be harder of course with a strong contingent of European soldiers on the ground as the State Department and all its dirty tricks doesn’t normally encounter such resistance. Is Zelensky’s ‘we want peace’ mantra a trick so that time can be bought to re-arm? Likely. Monty Python would have had a lot of fun with these clowns. Blessed are the peace brokers.
I had the great pleasure of speaking with Karin Kneissl and Alexander Mercouris about Europe’s decline and tendency to double down on failed policies. Kneissl is the former Foreign Minister of Austria. We discussed why NATO’s defeat in the Ukraine proxy war will fragment the alliance, why the Europeans are no longer capable of engaging in diplomacy with Russia, how strategic thinking was replaced with ideological slogans, why unity and democracy within the EU is weakening, and why the economic decline will be difficult to reverse. Removing the dividing lines in Europe and restoring peace with Russia, as the largest state in Europe, would be an important part of reversing Europe’s growing irrelevance. However, the Europeans appear to be preparing for a showdown against Russia instead.
I had the great pleasure to discuss with Judge Napolitano the efforts by Trump to pressure Zelensky into starting negotiations to end the war. Trump is challenging the legitimacy of Zelensky and even cutting military support to push him to the negotiation table. It is very possible that Trump will also start to mount pressure on the Europeans as they are seen to also oppose his peace plan. By cutting military spending, Trump hopes to also deprive Zelensky and the Europeans of the alternative to keep the war going. The war summit in Paris organised by the Europeans demonstrates that they are not able to mobilise the political will and unity required to replace the US. The Europeans also do not have the money or military power to continue the war, yet they do not have the political imagination beyond doubling down on a failed war. If the Europeans continue to resist Trump’s peace efforts, then NATO itself could end up being dissolved.
1. “There is a huge gap between us (Jews) and our enemies, not just in ability but in morality, culture, sanctity of life, and conscience. They are our neighbors here, but it seems as if at a distance of a few hundred meters away, there are people who do not belong to our continent, to our world, but actually belong to a different galaxy.” Israeli president Moshe Katsav. The Jerusalem Post, May 10, 2001
2. “The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more”…. Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time – August 28, 2000. Reported in the Jerusalem Post, August 30, 2000
3. ” [The Palestinians are] beasts walking on two legs.” Menahim Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, “Begin and the Beasts”. New Statesman, 25 June 1982.
4. “The Palestinians” would be crushed like grasshoppers … heads smashed against the boulders and walls.” Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988
5. “When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.” Raphael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, New York Times, 14 April 1983.
6. “How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to.” Golda Maier, March 8, 1969.
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