Geronimo

For years, Europe was told it was weak. Frightened. A continent of museums, long lunches and people who needed an American to open a particularly intimidating jar. An interesting assessment of the continent that produced Roman legions, Vikings and enough military history to fill several libraries with reasons never to do it again. We know what strength looks like. We also know what happens when it becomes stupidity. Our history contains rather extensive documentation of both. Now the orange clown wants to leave? Fine. There’s the door. Try negotiating a tariff with it on the way out. Trump’s America sells invincibility with the confidence of a second-hand car dealer standing in front of a smoking engine. Meanwhile, Iranian strikes have damaged or destroyed hundreds of structures at US bases across the Middle East. A humiliating discrepancy between the sales brochure and the actual vehicle. Europe should stop waiting for the next reassurance from Washington and start placing orders. Build the factories. Make the ammunition, drones, missiles and air defences. Invest in engineers, energy, intelligence and logistics. Create skilled jobs in European towns instead of purchasing another decade of dependence. Our security should come with European production lines and European pay packets. The principle is simple: an attack on one is an attack on all. Take the collective-defence principle behind Article 5 and give Europe the military capacity to uphold it, whoever occupies the White House. We do not need an American-sized carrier fleet to defend our continent. Nor must we audition for the role of global sheriff in the Pacific. We need the means to make attacking Europe a catastrophically bad decision. Hundreds of millions of people can organise that. But it requires contracts, common procurement and working factories. Preferably before another committee commissions a report about commissioning a report. MAGA Washington can marinate in its own corruption and obsess over Venezuela. Europe has a future to build. Russia is a serious threat. Meeting it requires serious European power, with Ukraine central to the effort. Let the clown leave. Build something that lasts.

Europe Is Being Carved Up While Its Leaders Are Still Deciding Who Should Speak. I have a question for Europe’s leaders. Where were you this week? Where was the European leader standing before the cameras, declaring that Europe’s borders, security and future are not bargaining chips for Washington and Moscow? Who told Donald Trump, publicly and unequivocally, that his administration has chosen the wrong side of history? Who announced that Europe would consider sanctions against American companies profiting from Russian energy while Ukrainian civilians are being killed? And who delivered the simplest ultimatum of all: Europe must have a seat at the negotiating table, or European sanctions against Russia will remain in place. No American president gets to negotiate them away. Yes, some European leaders have spoken. Kaja Kallas, Giorgia Meloni and several foreign ministers have criticised Trump’s Russian diesel deal. Alexander Stubb and Jonas Gahr Støre even called Putin on October 27. But here is the extraordinary part: they explicitly stated that they were not speaking for Europe. And that brings me to something almost too absurd to believe. European leaders have been discussing who should represent Europe in negotiations with Russia since at least May. Five months later, with November practically upon us, they still haven’t agreed on a representative with a clear mandate. Five fucking months. We are talking about the future borders and security of our own continent, not choosing a new chairman for the Brussels gardening committee. Meanwhile, Trump is easing sanctions on Russian diesel. Washington and Moscow are exploring further commercial opportunities. And the Kremlin is discussing the possibility of additional American sanctions relief. Russia invades European territory. America negotiates commercial arrangements with the aggressor. And Europe continues discussing who should attend the discussions. You could hardly invent a more humiliating demonstration of geopolitical paralysis. And the stakes go far beyond Ukraine. We are watching the possible emergence of a new world order in which Washington, Moscow and Beijing treat Europe as a collection of territories, markets and spheres of influence to be divided between them. Russia wants territorial control. China wants economic and strategic leverage. Trump’s Washington increasingly appears willing to treat European security as another transactional opportunity. Their interests are not identical, but their willingness to pursue them at Europe’s expense should terrify every European government. I am not suggesting Europe should stop negotiating. Quite the opposite. Europe should be leading negotiations over European security, defining the conditions, controlling its sanctions policy and making unmistakably clear that Ukraine’s sovereignty is non-negotiable without Ukraine’s consent. And if Washington chooses to help finance Putin’s war economy, Europe should be prepared to examine economic consequences for those involved, regardless of whether they are Russian or American. Enough carefully worded expressions of concern. Enough summits about future summits. Enough waiting for Washington to rediscover its principles. Europe has the economic power, the institutions and the democratic legitimacy to defend its own interests. What it desperately lacks is a common political voice willing to use that power. History will not remember how many meetings European leaders attended. It will remember whether they stood up while the future of their continent was being negotiated. And right now, the silence from Europe’s collective leadership is becoming almost as alarming as the conversations taking place without it.

In 1867, San Francisco passed a law that effectively made visible disability a public offense. Other American cities followed, adopting what became known as the “ugly laws.” People with disfigurements, illnesses, or physical disabilities could be fined simply for appearing in public, particularly if they were poor and begging. I find the logic almost impossible to comprehend: society saw suffering and decided the problem was that others had to look at it. Some of these ordinances survived into the 1970s. A reminder that cruelty can arrive dressed as civic order.

It cannot be stated often enough or vociferously enough: The Trump administration is helping Russia to conquer Ukraine. The United States of America has taken the side of an aggressor against its innocent victim. We are helping our actual enemies as they prey upon us and our friends. This policy reversal from both the Biden administration and the first Trump administration is a shameful abandonment of principle and of self-interest.