Europe alone at home

#54

Dear Friends of Democracy, 

Today a worst-case scenario (sorry for the heaviness).

What if Donald Trump becomes president again, and as a result, Putin's Russia feels emboldened to attack a European NATO state and threatens any other state with a nuclear strike (he has 5,889 nuclear warheads for this purpose) that wants to come to the military aid of the attacked country (for example a Baltic state)? So what if Trump made good on his campaign statement, broke the NATO promise ("all for one, one for all") and closed the US nuclear umbrella over Europe?

You don't want to imagine this scenario. But you should. And many other people should too. Because we need a majority for a policy change. Cause this is how democracies work, right? If politics is to change something, people have to support this change.

And here is the policy change that can prevent the scenario described above.

Europe needs its own military defence, it needs to quickly grow the tender seed of an army built up by European states - including a nuclear deterrence strategy. That is possible. There are two nuclear weapons states in Europe: France and Great Britain. Such an expansion in size and strategy can take place within NATO, but it must be organized in a way that the ability of Europe to defend itself is guaranteed even without the consent of all participating states of the transatlantic military alliance.

What Europe needs for that change as well: a lot of money. But if the political majority is in favour of this project, it won't fail because of money. The European Union has more than six times the economic output of Russia. This difference in economic power speaks for the democratic European community. There is enough financial potential to both support Ukraine in the long term AND to expand the military capabilities of each member state. We just have to start. Today. Not tomorrow.

See you, 

Johannes Eber