By Mark Buckley
“It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.” Henry Kissinger, 1968
The US is driving the NATO war in Ukraine, but a vital element of its strategic aims is the subordination of its European ‘allies’ in both the military and economic spheres.
There is nothing particularly new in US imperialism conducting aggressive wars in all regions of the world, on the pretext that is aiding an ally, or even that it has been invited to help. Equally, it is not unprecedented for the US to throttle the economies of allied countries simply for its own advantage. It did so with both West Germany in the 1960s and Japan in 1990.
But the new situation for Europe is that the US is leading them into war with the continent’s strongest military power, Russia, at the same time as it deliberately undermining European rivals’ economies. It amounts to a US policy of subordinating Europe through a combination of military and economic warfare.
This is a lethal combination for Europe, the most serious threat to the entire continent since at least the end of the Cold War and in a broader sense since the end of the Second World War.
One of the clearest explanations of these threats and how they are linked was provided by Condoleezza Rice, former US Secretary of State under George W Bush. In response to the sabotage which destroyed the Nordstream II gas pipelines’ delivery of Russian gas to German industry, she said it was a ‘win-win’ for the United States, by cutting off a large market for Russian overseas earnings while at the same time forcing Germany to buy much more expensive Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) from the US.
The destruction of these pipelines is the most dramatic and consequential event of this new US offensive. Strategically, in Europe there is a natural fit between energy-dependent Germany heavy industry and energy-rich Russian commodity production. In fact, two world wars were in part a capitalist response to the logic of that natural relationship. It was a ‘response’ that nearly drowned the world in blood; German imperialism’s attempt to seize those commodities and enslave the Russian population.
Of course, neither Germany nor Russia had any interest in blowing up the pipeline. Answering the classic correct question, Who benefits?, the only major power in the world, and therefore capable of carrying out this operation, which did have an interest in its destruction is the United States of America, as helpfully explained by ex-Sec. of State Rice.
If it had been any other power, the German authorities would have launched an immediate investigation and sharp diplomatic conflict, at least, would have followed. But there has been no formal investigation at all, as the results would have been too embarrassing. This refusal to investigate a major act of terror against a US ‘ally’ is also a marker of the abject subordination of Europe’s political classes to US imperialism.
This was under Biden. Trump will only demand further public humiliations in Europe, as well as much-increased transfers of billions of dollars to fight US wars.
The most recent development is the use of US long-range missiles deep inside Russia. Britain has followed will this up. But a US calculation is that Russia will not escalate the war with an attack on the US or its assets. European leaders are completely reckless if they assume the same for themselves.
Economic stagnation and political crises
Germany remains Western Europe’s largest economy and its industrial powerhouse. But the dislocations from the war in Ukraine, Nordstream sabotage, increased energy costs as well as the failure of German capital to invest in developing technologies have all depressed economic activity.
German GDP contracted in 2023, which means it remains below its pre-Covid level. The consensus forecast is for -0.1% GDP growth in 2024. The industrial crisis is gathering pace, with industrial production falling at an annual average rate of 4.75% from a year ago in the 12 months to September 2024.
Inevitably the German capitalists are attempting to make the working class and oppressed pay for their own abject failures. Volkswagen has just announced the closure of three factories in Germany, huge job losses and a 10 per cent cut in pay across the board. It remains to be seen how unions will respond, but the VW crisis is far from unique.
At the same time, this will have ripple effects across Europe, and modest growth forecasts elsewhere are already being revised downwards. All of this is before Trump imposes his threatened sanctions, on enemies and friends alike.
Amid these crises the German government has fallen and Federal elections are now scheduled for February 23. The ruling SPD/Green/FDP coalition has in part splintered over plans to increase borrowing to fund the NATO war in Ukraine. At the last Federal election in 2021 the Coalition won just over 51% of the combined vote, with the SPD winning about half of the coalition total. Now they are struggling to win 30% between them.
On current trends, the traditional right of the CDU/CSU look set to be the largest party, achieving around the same 30%. But the real gainers look set to be the far right AfD, who seem on course to double their vote from 10% in 2021.
This conforms to the general pattern across Europe. Established parties of the left, or linked to the working class, have capitulated to the drumbeats of war from the US, primarily on Ukraine but also on Israel. They are doubling down on austerity policies because of economic stagnation and partly in order to subsidise the US war drive. As they can offer the population nothing in terms of progress, racism is increased as a distraction, with attacks on migrants and on existing ethnic minority populations rising.
As the US has little prospect of recovering its position of global economic domination these trends will only intensify – Europe will be increasingly suborned into the role of funding US military aggression.
The position of the US
Despite widespread claims of a boom the US economy in reality has been crawling along since the Covid lockdown. Real GDP growth has been an average of 2% over the last 4 years, and is only marginally higher at 2.4% in the first three quarters of 2024. Crucially, the rise in US Federal government debt has been significantly greater than the rise in nominal GDP. The weak US economy has been propped up by very large government borrowing.
The US has also decisively been losing in its economic rivalry with China. Even the Wahington-based institutions such as the IMF and World Bank now accept that China has long surpassed the US in real economic size, measured in PPP terms (Purchasing Power Parities), according to World Bank data, this milestone was reached in 2015).
The US hopes to resolve this predicament by increasing its military superiority and aggression, while forcing allied countries to provide the resources. The US is pressing European countries to fund the war effort in the Ukraine and also pressing them to increase their military spending, often at the expense of the domestic programmes, are both part of this approach.
As this has not produced their desired result in Ukraine, whoever won the US Presidential election would have undoubtedly ratcheted up these demands. But the election of Trump as President opens the possibility of a different strategic approach.
The Biden/Harris strategy was based on the analysis that a strategic encirclement of China was not possible while it remained in alliance with Russia. Therefore, menacing and then attacking Russia was a necessary sidestep before their principal target could be confronted. This has been intensified in the dying days of the Biden Presidency.
It is possible, but not certain, that Trump will take a different approach. Rather than the route to Beijing being through Moscow, Trump may take the view that it is best to proceed directly to Beijing, or at least Taipei initially.
What is certain is that reasserting US dominance now largely depends on its military superiority, as well as the international role of the US Dollar. War and trade war will inevitably be the response of US imperialism. Australia and South Korea are rapidly turning into US strategic military posts, where the host has to pay for the privilege. This is the outline plan for Europe too.
Conclusion
In an attempt to re-establish its globally dominant position the US is attempting the reorder the world in its interests. Much of the Global South rejects this approach, with important exceptions.
By contrast the governments of the Global North are overwhelmingly willing to be subordinated to the US, even at the risk of a major war and sharply reduced living standards. The recent changes to the EU Budget, allowing cohesion funds to be used for military expenditure is just one example of their desire to please the new US Administration.
The European government budget rounds for 2025 are well under way. Both the French and British government budgets are further austerity measures which will hit workers and the poor, while military spending is boosted. No doubt this will be the eventual outcome in Germany too.
But this also serves to highlight a key issue. The working class and the oppressed of the Global North countries have no interests in tying themselves to the US war machine. They are increasingly at risk from the recklessness of NATO’s aggression and are being forced to pay for it, in terms of jobs, pay and public services.
The parties of the right and the far right now vying for office in Europe offer completely fake answers. As Italy’s government shows, nationalist rhetoric of opposing wars to prioritise domestic prosperity is just so much hot air.
Objectively, the interests of the working class in the Global North are the same as those in the Global South; for peace, against US imperialism, for economic development and not funding US aggression. The main task for socialists is to increase the weight of the movement which understands that alignment of interests.
Image: Map of countries in Europe and the surrounding region; Author San Jose (map), Hayden120 (retouch); licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license; cropped with NATO logo.