The French Chief of General Staff said a few days ago that France must prepare for “the loss of its sons,” and Macron responded by announcing voluntary military service at an amount of 800 euros per month. Meanwhile, Trump is negotiating the fate of Ukraine without consulting Europe, and Brussels is liberalizing data protection under pressure from Silicon Valley. What exactly are European elites seeking? A few days ago, historian Rutger Bregman, who had just given a lecture on “paralyzing cowardice” to the elite, said Reith Lectures From the BBC, they announced that they had redacted a sentence from his speech, specifically the one in which he called Trump “the most publicly corrupt president in the history of the United States.” The paradox does not need explanation. Bregman, a convinced European, also defends that the defining characteristic of European elites is not only decadence but also their irrelevance. When Trump enjoys dismantling the international order, what does Europe do? We take back the army, and submit to the wishes of technology companies.
For decades, European elites have dismantled the continent, convinced that history was over. They have made us dependent on Russian gas, delegated security to Washington, and neglected to develop an independent technology or defense industry. We have become a continent of bags instead of Devices. Our most valuable companies are Dior, Louis Vuitton and L’Oréal, while every American giant – Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon – is worth more than the entire German or French stock market. What is our response to the crisis today? Asking young people to enlist in exchange for an unstable salary. And guess who will be recruiting? They will not be children of elites. Something similar is happening in Germany. The state that dressed its police officers in guards’ uniforms so that they would not look like soldiers, the state that swore the phrase “Never Auschwitz again” as an argument against war, today uses it as a reason for rearmament. Chancellor Friedrich Merz says the German army should be the strongest in Europe. It is narrated by writer Mithu Sanyal Guardian: “It’s terrifying how quickly everything changes,” he laments. While NATO receives the Westphalia Peace Prize, the German government proposes holding a lottery to determine which young people will go to fight if there are not enough volunteers. Lottery for fifths of the twenty-first century. “This goes beyond simply bolstering support for remilitarization,” the author says. “It says to the German people: ‘We think you are stupid and we will treat you as such.’”
German and French paternalism constitutes part of our strategic vacuum. What we called for a year the “strategy of appeasement” was another symptom of that cowardice described by Bregman. The Neville Chamberlains of the twenty-first century are giving in to Trump on everything – tariffs, deregulation, taxes – without achieving anything at all. They don’t even consult us about our safety. Cowardice buys nothing, it only confirms our insignificance. However, the same elites who bow to autocrats demand sacrifice from us, speak for our countrymen and demand from us the strength of spirit to dissuade Moscow. In short, they are asking us to prepare for war when they are not even able to defend our interests in trade negotiations.