Peter Howitt
Table of contents
Introduction
European for the people
Operation Deep Sleep
Operation Clusterfuck
Empathy is the only cure
China
Repent
A new European identity
Notes
Further reading
Do you remember where you were, when the union of Europe finally began?
It wasn’t in 1957 or even 1993.
It was the 27th of February 2025: the day that President Zelenskyy of Ukraine went to the White House and was ambushed live on TV by some mafia thugs. Terrorists in suits.
Zelenskyy fought bravely to make his points, but it was finally clear to many people (and leaders) watching that Europe was now on its own. The US can no longer be safely considered an ally and indeed must be considered an adversary in the new Axis powers of Russia-USA-Israel.
How Europe can survive the new Russian-American-Israeli Axis powers
“...Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again…“(W. H. Auden)
I remember visiting Brussels some years ago as a guest of a government. When dinner finished I asked the various civil servants a question that had long troubled me: what they thought it would take to make the man or woman on the street feel more European?
This question was met with a long silence.. eventually someone said that's a good question.
I thought then that the leaders and many people working on the European Project had not thought about the most crucial issue:
What does it mean to be European for the people?
Now we must ask and answer that question together. Not just as lawyers, bankers and politicians, but as people who need to protect each other. It must be more than a matter of geography.
You may think this premise is ridiculous, after all you likely feel European as I do. Good. You are likely well educated and well off, you may even be an intellectual. This criticism is aimed squarely at people like us, not those who do not identify strongly with a European identity. Our job is to bring those who do not feel European into the fold, they tend to be older or poorer and common identity is key to ensuring we have social cohesion (and do not lose people to nationalistic or fascistic movements that can provide identity). Great civilisations invest in a shared greater identity and recognise the fundamental role of unconstrained inequality and economic alienation in driving extremism.
Look at how much we enjoy beating the Americans at golf in the Ryder Cup. That’s about all we have in sports to bond together. We need much much more. No longer competing on the world stage just as nations. We need an identity above that to meet the world with and to defend ourselves with. We need a European team for the Olympics.
That also means telling leaders of countries that do not share our core values (and I don't mean just maximum debt to fucking GDP ratios - yes I am looking at you Germany) that they must be suspended or leave. Countries like Hungary, who have a leader that undermines Europe working in concert with the new Axis powers. If the people in Hungary want to stay they will find a way to change leadership, let's give them a good reason to resist. In any event, it weakens the whole of Europe for us to allow the enemy within. Politicians need to wake up to the new brutal reality before Europe is hollowed out, full of holes like Swiss cheese.
Likewise we (Europe including the UK) cannot claim any belief in democracy, freedom and international laws and treat American and Israeli genocide of the Palestinians like it is just distasteful (but they can still be friends). In a sense they are more honest. They show they are adversaries. Why don't we act accordingly?
Most of our leaders have been acting like fools. We can all see those in the world that wish to devalue diversity of cultures, nations and people. Leaders and groups that are serial abusers of women and children. Building nationalistic nativist fascist networks in Europe.
“And yet human beings continue to dream their great dream and none wakes up from it. From past to present they have always been busy harming and murdering one another. What ignorance! It is all very sad.”
(Zhang Daye, tr. Xiaofei Tian)
The European dream is built on historical adversity between us and a newer stronger belief in the diversity of race, religion and beliefs. If we don’t value diversity no one will. So our leaders need to start acting like it matters. It’s non-negotiable.
“Si hay hombres que contienen un alma sin fronteras,
una esparcida frente de mundiales cabellos,
cubierta de horizontes, barcos y cordilleras,
con arena y con nieve, tú eres uno de aquellos.…Con un sabor a todos los soles y los mares,
España te recoge porque en ella realices
tu majestad de árbol que abarca un continente.A través de tus huesos irán los olivares
desplegando en la tierra sus más férreas raíces,
abrazando a los hombres universal, fielmente.“(Miguel Hernández)
“The floating life is but as a dream; how much longer can we enjoy our happiness?”
(Li Bai, Chinese poet 701-762 AD)
Europe is just starting to awake from an 80 year long deep geopolitical sleep.
In writing these recent political articles I have had to do a lot of research, and so I must point out the extraordinary complacency in Europe. The complete lack of an integrated strategic plan to protect us from this day (as President von der Leyen partly acknowledges in her statement below).
The lack of European preparedness is breath-taking and appalling. The mindless levels of wishful thinking that must have informed so many decisions for decades. The lack of any game theory based strategy by our politicians. We had one plan: do what the Americans say and shut up and go back to sleep after we watch them kill and displace millions of other people.
I have to assume our intel and military agencies have been warning them about the increased risks from our friendship with the American psycho, since before Trump’s first presidency, but I expect that is a dangerous assumption.
Did we outsource our intelligence to the USA and Israel as well as our defences?
Thank God for French stubbornness, for not buying into the Anglo-American dream. Well done President Macron! for continuing to maintain an independent nuclear deterrent and for trying to rally the European troops.
"We are living in the most momentous and dangerous of times. I do not need to describe the grave nature of the threats that we face. Or the devastating consequences that we will have to endure if those threats would come to pass. Because the question is no longer whether Europe's security is threatened in a very real way. Or whether Europe should shoulder more of the responsibility for its own security. In truth, we have long known the answers to those questions."
President von der Leyen
Negligent is too kind a word for what we have seen for the last 25 years, particularly when it was clear that America had increased in its militarism, lies in the pursuit of illegal murderous wars and extremist political establishment aka the Republican Party.
And don’t dare say ‘how could we have known‘? This is decades in the making, Trump just accelerates it.
Europe is full of American shaped holes: what's the plan if the biggest risk to European security is America?
Whilst Trump, the GOP and a myriad of international players and a network of dark money others built the new fascist dream, Europe has been increasing its American military dependency. Even handing over 50+ bases to America in the Nordic region giving a direct line of staging posts all the way from Russia to Norway. Great work Europe!
This mess has left us needing to do a rapid 180 degree turn to protect our territorial integrity, to give modern Europe a chance to grow into adulthood. It has allowed the two sociopathic countries that benefit the most from war in Ukraine to dictate the terms.
The American-Israeli war machine and the profits from mass murder and a destabilised world
It has also coarsened our souls and made us great hypocrites whilst we witness, or even support, the suffering of people in other places (Iraq, Syria, Palestine) if the US-Israel demand it as tribute and sacrifice. All so that we can feel safe, and to hell with human rights and international laws.
Now the chickens have come home to roost.
“No man is an island, Entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less,
As well as if a promontory were: As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were.
Any man’s death diminishes me, Because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.”
(John Donne)
Here’s the thing: the reason so many bleeding-heart woke tree-hugging hippies care so much about what happens (by us or in our name) to the biosphere, other species and to other people around the world is because we know that everything is connected .
Yes we read history books. We read philosophy, science journals (and poetry!) but, more importantly, it is not a cold intellectual practice. We see culture and knowledge as a way to connect to different people and different times and places. We try to see the world from the inside out (from the perspective of others) and not top down or based purely on consideration of profit. We try to develop our souls as well as our minds, and there intelligence is not that relevant but openness to fellow feeling and suffering is. We use our imaginations to try to share in “the eternal reciprocity of tears”.*
We know that being a great leader is similar to being a great parent. We know that most people are not bad, but we all need the right influences and sometimes positive interventions. We know dehumanizing people is a disease, it’s a virus that spreads until one day it infects your neighbours, your family, you.
“The capacity for evil can spread like an epidemic“
(Elisabeth Young-Bruehl on Hannah Arendt)
Do you finally get it? We are selfish.
It’s just a very old form of selfishness. It is also known as compassion and empathy. Buddha and many other great leaders taught it.
It has an amazing Return On Investment on every metric that actually counts. We shout out for, and support, people being oppressed because we know it could be us or our partners, siblings or children in any other time or country. Our leaders prove that to us very well, by supporting illegal wars in our names against civilians including women and children (as long as we are not on the end of the bullet or the bomb).
"the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy"
(Elon Musk)
Sure, compassion and empathy might not make you richer but who gives a flying fuck in the long run. If your main measure of the worth and value of life is like that then you must ignore the suffering of millions of other people and the destruction of Earth’s capacity to support all life. What sort of parent would measure the value of their children and the quality of their parenting just in monetary terms?
That parental spirit of love, compassion and support is how we need to treat the wider world: as if it is an extension of our children and they an extension of it. Why? Because it is a scientific fact and spiritual truth. We all are just an inter-connected part of the living skin of this tiny rock hurtling through space. None of us are going to Mars. “Nobody gets out of this world alive”, so make your time and your impact on others count.
We have planetary wide problems that need global human coordinated solutions. Instead of being ready for it, we are now entering into a Game of Thrones/1984/Goodfellas mashup and Europe is woefully unprepared.
So if you are a leader, now is exactly the right time for you to step up, get serious or vacate your office. Get focused. Get your head in the game. Your children and ours are counting on it.
We are going to need all the big talking European leaders to back up their words. If we care for democracy, rule of (fair) laws, human rights and territorial integrity we must fund it and defend it (and ensure we buy European weaponry and technology developed and maintained here). If you are not up for that battle, then resign now and make space for someone with some fight in them. We are going to need that fighting spirit to get through this next 10 years of the developing 4th Reich (though this one is corporatist and international).
"we will shortly propose to activate the national escape clause of the Stability and Growth Pact. It will allow Member States to increase significantly their defence expenditures without triggering the Excessive Deficit Procedure. For example: If Member States would increase their defence spending by 1,5% of GDP on average this could create fiscal space of close to EUR 650 billion over a period of four years."
(President von der Leyen)
We are living in the most momentous and dangerous of times. I do not need to describe the grave nature of the threats that we face. Or the devastating consequences that we will have to endure if those
Whilst we are airing our dirty laundry, we must also talk about our disastrous foreign policy approach to China.
I would like to assume it is obvious to all European leaders (at the moment I have very little evidence to have much faith on this point) – that there is a short window to realign our interests with China. It needs to happen quickly. There is an opportunity, especially if they can see Europe is getting its act together collectively and no longer acting as a client state of America.
Unfortunately, right now we have a Mark Rutte type trans-atlanticist foreign policy leader in Kaja Kallas. who sees China as one of the biggest threats to Europe, somehow still managing to ignore the fascist takeover of America and the Russia-US-Israel axis powers that actively seek to destroy the EU from without and within.
How to prepare for the fire and the storm
Project 2025 and the 180 Day Playbook Tracker
I can only agree with a Chinese commentator who said:
“To flatter Trump, they are willing to sacrifice China, which could have been a strategic partner for Europe. … With such individuals steering Europe’s strategy, it’s hard not to feel pessimistic about Europe’s future. What awaits Europe is an even harsher blow. Facing such a Europe, we need not get angry. Having already abandoned illusions about the US, China should now also let go of expectations for Europe.“
(Guanxin)
China is well aware it is in a marriage of convenience with Russia. One that may not be in its interests once the Russia-US-Israel Axis powers get in full flow. Before anyone gets shirty about China (usually comparing it negatively to freedom loving America), I include my favorite Chinese put down of an American politician.
Hard to disagree.
There is no way of sugar coating it. European (including British) international diplomacy and geopolitical strategy has been a shit show for a long time. Instead of deleveraging from an abusive American partner we have continued to double down (even with Trump in the wings). Buying billions more in weaponry from them recently, even when European alternatives were available. Pushing China even further away when Trump was running for office again. Utter madness.
No wonder Xi Jinping doesn't take many in the West seriously. Would you if you were him?
Yes, I am aware that China is supporting Russia, particularly on trade, but here are some questions:
Have they abandoned us?
Did we spend the last 80 years bending over backwards to please them and now they put the knife in our back?
Or, have we been barking at them whenever the Americans blew the dog-whistle?
We have acted as a client state to the USA for a very long time.
Of course, I am not saying we need to become like China. It’s a practical political point about ensuring we are realigned to protect Europe the best we can. Right now we have failed to do that, and we increased our dependence on an international criminal mafia style enterprise.
I am also not whitewashing China. I am not suggesting it has the best record on human rights and individual freedoms. Nor am I saying that they have our best interests at heart. What I am saying is: Europe has failed to give China good enough reasons to care about our interests.
That’s a huge political failure.
Also, I must ask, is there evidence of them funding right wing extremists in Europe and undermining our elections like Russia and our erstwhile allies USA-Israel?
In short, I am saying I think it’s a bloody big shame that we have had one geopolitical strategy for decades. Appeasing America at all costs. That was stupid. That stupidity is currently plain to see. It was on display for all to see when the only independent nuclear power supporting Ukraine and Europe at the UN was France. I expect us to do better or quite simply we shall fail.
That said, it must be galling to be a European leader that supported mass child sacrifice in Gaza (over 17,000 children killed) and yet still the US & Israel voted against us in the UN. Such chutzpah!
And we / Who did not / Light the fires or / Wield the knife / Can never be cleansed
We cannot fix this unless we start by admitting the absolute clusterfuck that has been our multi-decade strategic ‘plan’. If you can’t do so, then you are not going to be the right person to fix it. We need to be street-smart and extremely skeptical when dealing with adversaries.
In addition, China knows more than anyone else what happens when you lack geopolitical strategic thinking. China was carved up in the 19th and 20th centuries by Western powers and Japan after the Opium wars. It resulted from many failures. These included, as Wei Yuan noted, a failure to appreciate the nature of the threats it faced, to challenge British maritime strength, to take action against internal traitors and agents of foreign powers. In short, it was asleep at the wheel whilst the world had changed rapidly around it. Europe too has been in a deep geopolitical sleep and needs leaders with intelligence and grit to sound the alarm and wake up.
“It is only the true genius who can take opportunity by the forelock! But the next best thing is to repent… Repentance followed by the capacity to change for the better, will..enable us to repair our errors at some future time.”
(Wei Yuan, c.1842)
That's it. I have said it, so that we can move on to the end of this article. The nicer part of this sweary word sandwich.
All is not lost. We must turn this disgust at the abusive treatment of President Zelenskyy – and the abandonment of the long European alliance with America and Israel – into transformative action.
We must value our shared histories and build a new European cultural identity connecting each of us across and beyond our nations. It took this to make us wake up to the need for an identity that is greater than just EU laws and economics.
It took this threat for many people to realise there is a European identity beyond the formalistic and financially focused EU project. European (including UK) leaders can capitalise on this public support to push through long needed political reforms, investments and coordinated action.
We and our leaders must act now to save Europe as a nascent community. Being European can finally be a real identity, if we coordinate together and show the value of our cultural and human diversity. Let us make it a reality.
Let us not allow the new common European identity to die in its infancy.
It is bitterly ironic that the mafia-like gang, currently seeking to destroy the united part of the USA, may be the missing impetus to finally make Europe united.
Slava Ukraini!
Salva Europa!
Save Europe!
Finally, like many of you, I am a peace loving person. In this process, we will need to build structures and processes that are useful for defence but dangerous as weapons if misused against weaker nations and peoples.
We must not lose our humanity and love of kindness, in this fight against new international fascists.
“…Dabei wissen wir ja:
Auch der Haß gegen die Niedrigkeit
Verzerrt die Züge.
Auch der Zorn über das Unrecht
Macht die Stimme heiser. Ach, wir
Die wir den Boden bereiten wollten für Freundlichkeit
Konnten selber nicht freundlich sein…”(Bertolt Brecht)
Whilst we rearm for our survival, we must also restructure our societies and our economies to avoid future conflict and for the long term survival of our and many other species on Earth.
Our current form of capitalism is fundamentally opposed to democracy and to life on Earth, we must address this.
““La révolution du XXe siècle a séparé arbitrairement, pour des fins démésurées de conquête, deux notions inséparables. La liberté absolue rallie la justice, la justice absolue nie la liberté. Pour être fécondes, les deux notions doivent trouver, l’une dans l’autre, leur limites”“
(Albert Camus)
How to prepare for the fire and the storm
Notes:
W. H. Auden was a great ‘didactic’ poet who wrote primarily about love, politics and religion. His poetry can often be read as a warning about the dangers of excessive intellectualism. He was born in England and moved to America during the war. To my mind, he is the best poet who wrote about the rise of Nazi Germany and WWII, despite not being engaged in battle. Extract from the poem ‘September 1, 1939’.
Miguel Hernández fought against the fascist forces led by General Franco during the Spanish civil war. He was arrested multiple times after the war for his anti-fascist sympathies, and was eventually sentenced to death. His death sentence was commuted for a prison term of 30 years (so that he would not become a martyr like Federico García Lorca who was murdered by Franco regime officials in 1936 soon after the war broke out). He was kept in various prisons, under extraordinarily harsh conditions, until he died of tuberculosis in 1942. Extract from the poem ‘Al soldado internacional caído en España’.
John Donne was a metaphysical poet, cleric and member of Parliament. He was born into a catholic family in England in 1572, at which time practicing Catholicism was prohibited. Poem is ‘No Man Is An Island’.
*"the eternal reciprocity of tears” is the last line from ‘Insensibility‘ by Wilfred Owen. Owen is a hero of mine who fought and died in WW1. He died in a war that he did not believe in so that he could warn people in Britain about its futility. This line is from the last stanza:
"…But cursed are dullards whom no cannon stuns,
That they should be as stones.
Wretched are they, and mean
With paucity that never was simplicity.
By choice they made themselves immune
To pity and whatever moans in man
Before the last sea and the hapless stars;
Whatever mourns when many leave these shores;
Whatever shares
The eternal reciprocity of tears.“
Bertolt Brecht is a renowned poet and playwright. He fled Nazi Germany in February 1933, just after Hitler took power. He is a controversial character due to his strong support for communism, even after it was being used, as purely intellectual scaffolding, by Joseph Stalin for the most brutal murderous authoritarian regime in the world. Extract from the poem ‘An die Nachgeborenen’.
Albert Camus was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, journalist and political activist. He was the recipient of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44. He took an active role in the underground resistance movement in France. In this quote, Camus reminds us that freedom requires some inequality (useful inequalities), whereas justice requires that inequality to be constrained, otherwise freedom is empty for those without power or sufficient resources. That is the essence of what I mean when I say our form of capitalism must change: to provide more freedom to the majority and more sustainable measures of economic success. Extract from the long essay ‘The Rebel’.
Further reading
And we Who never Lit the fires or Wielded the knife Can never be cleansed
Losing U.S. backing will be a blow, but Ukraine has the means to keep fighting with help from its European allies.
The EU and wider Europe+ must get their priorities right
Russia and America have more in common than their betrayal of Kyiv.
How Europe can survive the new Russian-American-Israeli Axis powers
