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| My Orchids. Oncidium "Dance of the Dervishes". Photo ET |
ISIS,
Luxembourg, the US, the EU and the UN
Bringing those entities
together in one headline brushes a surprising picture of Luxembourg in world
affairs, a result of some personal political ambitions. Indeed, Luxembourg
provides the President of the future European Commission (the unelected European
government), it sits on the UN Security Council, and while punching beyond its
weight, it sees itself drawn into a vortex of unsolvable conflicting interests.
Looming in the background is ISIS.
Luxembourg
has provided 3 of the 12 Presidents of the European Commission so far
The former Luxembourg
Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker has successfully recycled his career into
the European Union’s unelected government, the 28 member strong European
Commission, actually heading it as its
President. The last time he failed, he was heading the 14 member strong
Luxembourg government, loosely supervised by him, and which crashed before the
end of its term in 2013. Hence the need for his recycling.
His new “Eutopean” Commission
which takes office in November stands for “Change”. Also a recycled slogan it
appears. Juncker insisted that he was opposing the concept of a United States
of Europe as the ultimate goal of the European Union, perpetuating the more
than 60 years old misunderstanding of the aimless and uncertain European
integration process. Which actually confirms that there is no political will in
Europe to make a credible common front in world affairs. There isn’t even a
credible European military force to project power in an uncertain world, where
the new US isolationism has produced the state of world affairs today, including
ISIS.
The Commission will
thus manage the usual chaos, and explain that Europe with a combined 50% more
people under arms than the US, cannot accomplish any credible military intervention
or exercise any deterrent for its own interests, if the US does not lead. A
couple of thousand ISIS fighters have European passports. If Europe does not
confront them on their battle ground, they will bring their battle to Europe. Add
to this picture Putin’s challenges in the East: what is the European Commission
to do about it? It has no teeth.
Meanwhile,
back at the UN ….
Jean Asselborn, Juncker’s
former Vice-Prime Minister in the last Juncker government moved Heaven and
Earth in a (costly) bid to get Luxembourg a seat on the UN Security Council. I
never had a kind word for that project, knowing that the UN is also a chaotic
and failed organization for having seen it from the inside. I would argue that Luxembourg
is 0.00007% of the world’s population, almost half of them foreigners (!), and has
a vested interest in being a good friend with the whole world, as it is living
basically off the world by providing it with sovereign niche services.
It was disturbing also
to see Asselborn leaning out of the window on the Palestinian-Israeli war in an
un-nuanced way, contrary to what many in his electorate may think. Real Politik
would suggest that you forget personal ambitions and stay out of such a beehive
where you don’t have a chance to make a difference, except turning old friends
into enemies. Luxembourg in its second year on the Council has not saved the
world, and its goodwill, focus and failure on Syria let it face reality. It
didn’t make a difference elsewhere either, except for an occasional emergency check
here and there to pay for a crisis not of our making. Asselborn conceded
recently that the UN is “powerless”, the one term fits all excuse for UN
failures (which are its members’ failures). I told you so, and 60 countries have avoided
so far making an attempt to sit on that same Security Council, just for
satisfying the doubtful ambition to be a second category décor amidst the 5 veto
powers pursuing blatantly their own agendas. The other utopian dream of Luxembourg
changing and saving the world is ending in a nightmare called ISIS.
When
times get rough, there used to be the US
Luxembourg is of course
too small to assume its own external security. Its people are peaceful, which
explains that we believe the charlatans who sell us an international guarantee for
everlasting peace and security. We therefore fell for the UN, which we learnt
from Asselborn is powerless, as if we didn’t yet know. But way before we
enjoyed the illusion of a “perpetual unarmed neutrality”, guaranteed by the
Treaty of London in 1839 by the “Great Powers”, namely Austria, Prussia, the Russian
Empire, the UK and later France. That perpetual peace was violated twice by two
German invasions in 1914 and 1940, lasting for 4 years each. Twice the Luxembourg
unarmed, peaceful, and neutral victims of international aggression had to be
liberated by US Forces, which taught me to put more trust into a Great Power’s
protection if it was the US overseas, than the bullies, in historical terms,
next doors. Of course we expect the US to take care of ISIS. We also are vaguely
fearful, because some passports held by ISIS combatants ae Luxembourg
passports, and because though peaceful, we have learnt what Schiller knew, that
“the most peaceful person cannot live in peace if a wicked neighbor does not wish it.” There
lies a reality however, that the US has still to acknowledge. President Obama
was elected on the promise to end wars, and won the Peace Nobel Prize for this
promise. It is an ideological constraint on the US not to take military action.
But you cannot escape Schiller’s terrible argument. Without exercising power,
you’ll not be left alone by bad neighbors. But after acknowledging the need for
military intervention, even blessed by the Pope, how to exercise power in an
efficient way, is yet a second challenge it seems for the US. There is an
obvious and pervasive lack of resolve stemming from the idealistic approach
that some rhetoric and nice words ends wars. It fuels them.
Luxembourg was
liberated from German annexation in September 1944 by US troops, just 70 years
ago. If it had to happen again, what would be the situation in occupied
Luxembourg, given present US doctrine to wage war? There is first of all a
reluctance to say the nasty word “War”. It is in conflict with official posturing
for a President who ends wars, and doesn’t start them. The viciousness of ISIS
however forces that hand. So a public opinion call for action triggered a timid
response, with a whole glossary of terms vetted by a Public Affairs Committee. The
President “has no strategy”. The war, let’s call it rather “targeted counter
terrorism”, where we “rely on air power, but wisely.” Those are belittling
terms to prop and suggest that military force is only used modestly, and
because there is no other way. In the case of Syria crossing the Red Line a
year ago, the military response was said by Secretary Kerry to be limited in
time and unbelievably small. There wasn’t any at all. And there will be no US
boots on the ground to fight ISIS. (There are 1,400 on the ground though, but
only casually visiting to train some “allies”). This choice of words, each one passing
the Committee first before being pronounced, reveal the present political reluctance,
and lack of resolve to go for an all-out war on terror again. It is more
acupuncture, but does it treat the ISIS cancer? That is the state of the political
discourse in the US, and it has been exactly the will of the US electorate,
reluctance to war. Though public opinion, scrutinized narrowly by the political
echelons, has swung around after the vicious and Machiavellian beheadings of
westerners that ISIS performed and used as propaganda.
So the US
Administration is dragged into action by public opinion more than by willful
leadership. The belittling vocabulary used to describe future military action
however must for now comfort ISIS, should make old allies fearful, and have military
leaders pull the ejection seat under protest. The term “leading from behind” is
probably the most baffling thing military leaders ever heard. Yet it defines
the fundamental US posturing, and if it had happened during WW II, applied to my
Luxembourg hypothesis, this would be a flashback: US airpower is being wisely
used and its missions are carefully targeted to decimate, degrade, and destroy
German forces in Luxembourg. On the ground, the Luxembourg Resistance, mostly
dentists and pharmacists, and Luxembourg deserters from German draft are getting
US support, such as combat rations, and some training from non-combating US military
personnel. Our valiant dentists are serving as forward air controllers for
close air support to the attacking pharmacists, who have realized that aircraft
don’t make prisoners and don’t win a war. They put their own boots on the
ground. Alas, this is a demonstration by reduction to the absurd.
It is time to elaborate
a bit on what war requires, that if you start one or have been dragged into
one, you need to win it. Or you lose! Therefore great minds over thousands of
years have pondered about principles of the Art of War. If you don’t know those
and cannot respect those, I gladly turn around Clémenceau’s statement that “war
is too serious to leave it to the military”, into: you started a war, now leave
it to the military, as they know its principles. Here is a recollection for
dummies:
The first principle is:
Proportionality between mission and assets, which means don’t even go there if
you know, you really have no goal and if you can’t afford it. Or: are you sure
you can beat them up?
The second principle
is: Freedom of Action, which means never, never lose the initiative, and
dissimulate your intentions. Don’t tell anybody what you won’t do. Or better,
you wait for the right moment at the right place. Then let all hell get lose.
The third principle is:
Economy of Forces, which means use them efficiently. Or better strike suddenly,
fast and with all your might. Not wisely targeting.
I would like to add a
fourth one, so obvious, that it shouldn’t even exist:
The fourth principle
is: The winner takes all and makes the rules. ISIS does. No mercy, no dollar
left behind.
The US it appears has
become the most desirable foe to defeat you. We in Luxembourg know for a fact,
and have inspired the famous movie with Peter Sellers “The Mouse that Roared”.
The plot? Luxembourg was bankrupt and devised a plan to declare war and attack
the US, get beaten up, but then take advantage of the incredible largesse of
the winner always pouring dollars over the loser, who so becomes a winner. With
Iraq and Afghanistan that got vastly improved. They tell the winner what to do
and when to leave. And ISIS grows out of the chaos left behind.
Coming
up
In the meantime
Luxembourg has given up on its ambition to save the world at the “powerless”
UN, it has renounced the vision of the United States of Europe as a real world
power and cannot be an ally to destroy ISIS, and it will cater to its wounded veterans returning home from fighting
the jihad for the Caliphate. But we are a candidate again for a seat on the
United Nations Human Rights Council in 2022, where we’ll meet with
representatives of such defenders of human dignity as Libya, Egypt, Zambia, and
Qatar. Not that we are beyond any suspicion. No, I’ll actually file a complaint
against the Luxembourg government and bring a personal case of my rights
being violated before the European Court of Human Rights.
