Russiaphobia: George Monbiot goes down the rabbit hole

Let’s go through it in detail. <takes a deep breath>.

I don’t have any abiding fantasies about the UK’s special relationship with the U.S.

Since WW2 the UK has compensated for the loss of empire and its conventional military might by hiding inside the feathers of the bald eagle, free to leverage another empire of financial services and the globalised corporate exploitation of poorer nations.

The UK’s allegedly independent nuclear deterrent is as irrelevant as its insignificant military capacity: it is the trillion dollar budget of the U.S. military that matters.

The UK swapped its independence for U.S. protection long ago. Most of Europe has too. Instead of fighting each other in Europe we now have NATO – and hate and bomb whoever the U.S. tells us to hate and bomb. That is not a special relationship, it is called being a vassal state.

Economically, politically and strategically, Washington’s only interest in Europe is what it can get out of it. The stealthy conquest of the UK economy by U.S. corporations is well documented (they don’t call it ‘treasure island’ for nothing) and as a global policy the U.S. has no love for democracies unless they toe the line.

Well let us not get too misty eyed about the heroic intervention of the U.S. in Europe: they intervened only after Japan forced them into the war by the attack on Pearl Harbour – and most of the heavy lifting of defeating Nazi Germany was not done by the U.S. but by Russia’s Red Army. An inconvenient historical fact that people like George are all too keen to gloss over.

George chooses his examples carefully here, because he has been staunchly supportive himself of the illegal U.S wars in Serbia, Syria and Ukraine. Where Russia is the true target, all of Monbiot’s perspective melts away.

Monbiot’s real target here is Russia by way of Trump and this is where things start to go off the rails in a BIG way. Gaza has awakened many more millions to the true lawlessness, immorality and bottomless depths of cynicism that the Western empire (and it is an empire) has displayed since WW2 across the globe. There is precious little LEFT to rip up!

Quite what Monbiot means by “the age of multilateralism” baffles me. Since the first Bush presidency, U.S. foreign policy has been ‘our way – or the highway’. The post WW2 age of unipolar U.S. hegemony is ending (which is what this is all about), but Western multilateralism is just lipstick on a pig for the little people.

The idea that the UK and Europe are going to build a military defence against the U.S. “regime and its allies” is just plain barking mad. First of all, the U.S. is by far the world’s predominant global military superpower and the UK has ZERO hope of effecting a military defence against it.

Secondly, since Monbiot clearly identifies Russia (and thus by logical extension China) as “allies” of Trump, what is Monbiot really advocating here?? Should the UK join with (some of) Europe to reverse 80+ years of declining military might and stand astride the world stage as a viable global military superpower once more. Good luck with that!

Can’t wait to see how Brexiteers respond to the UK joining a federal army of Europe and indeed how Europe will respond to the idea of telling both military superpowers that we are back in business baby as an imperial force once again!

Well, this is ridiculous sophistry. The U.S. political and media establishment are very rattled by Trump because unlike, say, a Barack Obama, Rishi Sunak or a Keir Starmer, he plays the game exclusively for himself.

While Starmer is happy to reap the rewards of being an uber-spiv for the U.S. and the Israeli lobby, Trump is an utter narcissist who just wants to be king of the world.

Trump’s policies as a president will pivot around his ego, greed and love of power for its own sake. A Trump Whitehouse will spin around the manic ideologues within his base. Trumps MAGA army just don’t care about Russia all that much and can think of ‘better’ uses for the billions set on fire in Ukraine (huge walls and so forth).

aha! So we get to the point at last!

How does Monbiot imagine that Western Europe is going to ‘step up’ exactly and to what time schedule? Ukraine is losing the war right now. It doesn’t have 30 years to wait while Europe grows its own massive military industrial bases, raises a dozen individual armies and builds coordinating organisations of logistics, intelligence, strategy and training: that is what NATO is for.

The rest is just the same oft-recycled Western propaganda. Cue the mood music, Putin is the ultimate evil, the Russians are going to invade Western Europe blah blah.

This ‘red threat’ narrative ignores three very salient points:

(1) NATO retains a very large nuclear arsenal.

(2) As a consequence Russia has never set a single foot inside a NATO country (which is why they perceive the expansion of NATO into Ukraine and Georgia as an existential threat).

(3) Russia had agreed a peace settlement with Ukraine back in March 2022 but it was the West that scuppered it and Russia has never shown any interest in Western Ukraine, never mind Western Europe!

Let us descend from Button Moon to planet earth here.

The U.S. / NATO alliance is losing in Ukraine. Despite all the billions upon billions of dollars of direct and indirect support for their proxy war against Russia, they are still losing. Ukraine’s defeat is now just a matter of time. To make matters worse, a Trump victory will pull the plug anyway.

Monbiot’s suggested response to this is that Western Europe, hit badly by the economic impact of the war and the sanctions against Russia, now seeks to understudy for the military and economic might of the U.S. and carry the fight to Russia itself. Really? I mean really!?!

A military industrial base of the kind possessed by the great powers is a stupendous undertaking that would be decades in the making. Europe cannot suddenly manifest one by clicking its fingers!

What does Monbiot think will happen if (a) nation states across Europe develop their own viable military capabilities and (b) that capability is seen to stand as independent bulwark against U.S. policy? Who will staff all these expanded European armies? How do you fancy conscription? Who wants to die in a ditch in Ukraine for Ursula Von Der Leyen? Will Monbiot be sending his loved ones to the front?

An attack from whom? Russia? Mutually assured destruction would follow as Russia knows full well. Just because Trump doesn’t have quite the love in his heart for flipping Ukraine into NATO that Biden does would not make the U.S. an ally of Russia or imply to anyone that the U.S. would allow a ground invasion of Western Europe!

Well Monbiot’s values are conspicuously inconsistent, as his loyal support for western propaganda narratives and imperialism in Syria and Ukraine clearly shows. George never critiques the zionist bias of The Guardian, said nothing in defence of Assange and sank the knife deep into Corbyn when it suited him. Can’t quite see how advocating for a pan-european expansion of militarism does much for the environment either.

So we will claim our independence from the U.S. by fighting Biden’s proxy war ourselves? We will instantly magic out of thin air a viable military industrial base to save Ukraine from imminent defeat? We will defeat Russia in Ukraine when all of NATO has failed to do it? We will defend ourselves against the U.S. by developing our own nuclear deterrent? We will help the environment by ramping up militarism across Europe?

This is what happens when you take The Guardian’ shillings for too long. Just say no kids… just say no.