Europe is in shock and distress. That is the crux of the discussion unfolding across European media following US Vice President JD Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference on 14th February this year, and President Trump’s remarks blaming Ukraine for starting the war with Russia. Whatever has happened – and we will delve into some details shortly – was expected. Anyone with their eyes open could see it coming. Those now plunged into shock and distress have either been oblivious all this time or have failed to properly read the statements of American leaders over the past four decades.
Was it not made abundantly clear to us, through incessant repetition, that countries don’t have friends, only interests? At best, relationships between nations can be compared to a marriage of convenience – once the interests of either party are no longer served, it’s over. And so now, it’s all over. The US simply is not interested. This has left Europe feeling jilted.
The romance between the US and Europe made perfect sense 80 years ago – after the Second World War – when NATO was founded on 4th April 1949 in Washington, D.C., United States. The US needed it to defeat the USSR. In other parts of the world too, Americans required allies, military bases, and supporters of Western ideals – democracy, human rights, freedom of the press, and so on. These ideals were reflected as a counterpoint to the Communist East – Eastern Europe, the USSR, and China. That project came to an end in 1991 with the downfall of the USSR, and the US’s allies – including Pakistan – were conveniently told that they were no longer important, no longer wanted. This, too, plunged countries like Pakistan into shock and distress. It took almost a generation for them to recover from that jilt.
However, in Europe, the year 1991 was a time of rejoicing and celebration. The eternal threat to their life, security, prosperity, and freedom was finally gone – forever! The USSR was dead. Europe was now united, with the freedom to move across 28 countries, one currency, and a unified identity as Europeans. Consequently, the European Union was born on 1st November 1993 in Maastricht, Netherlands, following the Maastricht Treaty, signed on 7th February 1992. With this, Francis Fukuyama concluded that history had come to an end!
When Pakistan misbehaved, conducting nuclear tests, for example, the West suddenly realised that the football and hand-woven rug industries in Pakistan employed children
Now, while the US, the sole superpower, busied itself with lecturing the world on democracy, free speech, human rights, and so on, it left the menial tasks of factory work and other modes of production to poorer nations like China. These ideals served as batons, ready to be used to teach lessons to the peoples of the world if they strayed from the line drawn by the US. Just like when Pakistan misbehaved, conducting nuclear tests, for example, the West suddenly realised that the football and hand-woven rug industries in Pakistan employed children. The West promptly stopped buying them.
Then came 9/11, and with it, the War on Terror. Once again, Pakistan looked good. Once again, Pakistan received money from the US. Once again, its mistakes, like having a military regime, were ignored – in the name of larger US interests. Remember, the Kargil War was marginally behind this event, yet India was asked to behave – not to trouble Pakistan. Instead, India was told to welcome President Musharraf and arrange his photoshoot in front of the Taj Mahal, and to try to resolve the Kashmir issue with him – the same General Musharraf who had inflicted war on India in Kargil. Once again, Pakistan fell out of favour with the US. Once again, it looked bad. Books were published on the duplicity of Pakistan’s role in the War on Terror – it was on the verge of being declared a terrorist state.
Europe watched all of this as a NATO ally of the US, occasionally tutoring Pakistan on Western values and ideals, and often sending money to NGOs and individuals to promote these values in Pakistan. Certainly, they could not foresee it happening to them until recently – just ten days ago!
Suddenly, the world looks very different, doesn’t it?
A week before the Riyadh meeting, the US Vice President told Europeans during his speech at the Munich Security Conference that they are responsible for their woes. They have failed to adhere to the basic principles of democracy – with press freedom being a key issue – and they have messed up their societies by recklessly allowing mass immigration. However, the best part came just a week later. On 19th February, the world watched the United States, as the flagbearer of democracy, sit in the capital of a monarchy, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, cosying up to a communist regime, while simultaneously having fairly decent trade talks with socialist China. The US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, along with Trump’s National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, sat with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov to discuss the end of the Ukraine war. No one from Europe was invited, let alone Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whom President Trump likely abhors.
The real goal of capitalism is to make a profit, not to export moral ideals like democracy, freedom, human rights, etc
It’s a simple "wow!" But it doesn’t stop there
In his tweet on 20th February, President Trump called the Ukrainian President Zelenskyy a “cheap comedian” and a “dictator”, who was responsible for starting the war with Russia. Trump made these remarks while discussing investment with a Saudi group in Florida, where he added that Zelenskyy "was good at playing Joe Biden like a fiddle."
Enough to leave the Europeans shocked, distressed, jilted? Probably yes
We now delve into the world of stark reality. And that is: the democratic ideals of the US, which it endeavoured to shove down everybody’s throat – to put it mildly – were part of the capitalistic project to defeat its competing economic systems of communism and socialism. Once the proponents of these ideologies became unbeatable both on the economic and military fronts, it was time to embrace reality, forget about the lack or total absence of democracy in the Middle East, or other lacking and atrocities therein – for which the two Gulf Wars were waged – and find ways of getting along with them to make good money. After all, the real goal of capitalism is to make a profit, not to export moral ideals like democracy, freedom, human rights, etc. All that was meant for something else!
With this settled, all romances and confusions ended, it is time to address other realities.
In my live talk show Political Zone on YouTube, Chinese and international relations expert Dr. Hasnain Javed woke us up to one of those realities: the European Union stands in shambles, and the future of NATO is bleak. Once NATO is officially gone, who will fill this gap? He goes on to posit that once China’s BRI project expands from Eastern Europe to the West, the trade routes will require security, which China will happily provide – something the Americans find too costly, demanding the Europeans raise their defence budget from 2% to 5%, which China can provide for free.
When this happens, we can be sure the United States of America will not quietly sit and watch. They will probably return the favour by playing a disruptive power, as the Russia-China duo have done in the last three years in bringing the post-1991 new world order down. However, the question remains: in a world where it is now abundantly clear that the real matter is trade and profit, will these world powers want to ignite fire and destroy the buying capacity of their potential markets?