BORIS “no friends” Johnson was bodily present at the G7 and Nato summits last week but hardly there in spirit.
President Joe Biden was welcomed to the EU conclave, but Johnson was pointedly not invited.
Given that Britain is the second-most powerful military component in the Nato order of battle — and one of the very few states with a global military reach — this is a sign that the EU consensus is unenthusiastic about escalation if it involves a direct clash with the Russians and prefers to bleed Russia to the last drop of Ukrainian blood.
Despite the belligerent tone of his public pronouncements, Johnson’s response to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s plea for more planes, tanks and guns — “Please give them to us or sell them to us” — was to cite logistical problems in the supply.
Nato did decide to send Ukraine many thousands of missiles, plus £25 million as a cash handout to Zelensky’s military.
This is not a lot of money when buying modern weapons, but the overall decision is significant in that Ukraine is reportedly running down its battlefield armoury and if the end of the conflict is to be delayed as long as possible then more of this stuff, to the great profit of the arms corporations, must be sent to the war zone.
Nato member Bulgaria has given a flat No to the Zelensky plea and President Emmanuel Macron — facing an election with an electorate that is even less enamoured of Nato than almost any other nation — is not keen.
Biden’s proclamation that Nato has never been more united is performative nonsense.
It evokes a long line of US presidential enthusiasm for Europeans to fight for US capital’s interest in the region.
Or as the Reuters news agency helpfully pointed out: US liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporters are emerging as big winners of Europe’s supply crisis as they export record volumes to the European Union for the third consecutive month at prices that have rallied since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Russia’s response to Western sanctions is to insist on its gas and oil sales — about 40 per cent of Europe’s supply — be paid for in roubles, in one move negating much of the economic effect of the sanctions and usefully undermining US dollar hegemony.
To Macron’s hesitancy we must add the warning from Chancellor Olaf Scholz that Germany cannot agree to a total ban on Russian energy supplies which he says would plunge Germany “and all of Europe into a recession.”
Biden’s foray into European politics represents an elaboration of the US strategic doctrine — best expressed by Hillary Clinton — that China is the “greatest long-term challenge.”
The Washington consensus, which unites the State Department, the Pentagon, Congress and the executive, is that Barack Obama’s strategic vision for US capitalism depends on successfully checkmating China.
Sanctions against Russia are almost exclusively the instrument of the US and its direct allies. Most of the world is not involved.
Vladimir Putin’s maladroit achievement in temporarily uniting Nato over Ukraine must be set against a reordering of global trade if Western sanctions against Russia are institutionalised.
This confronts European leaders, especially Scholz but also the former socialist countries and constituent republics of the Soviet Union, with a new dynamic: submission to a renewed Atlanticism on terms largely dictated by the US or a less antagonistic relationship with a Russia now partnered with China, the economic power that is rapidly superseding the US and has already replaced it as the world’s principal trading partner.
Trade or war is the stark choice and on present form Keir Starmer is among the most loyal tribunes that the US possesses in Britain.
