I AM stretching the word “politician” too far in describing Mr. Steve Witkoff. He is not a politician, but because he is the Middle East envoy of the American Government I have described him as such. Mr. Witkoff in an interview last week with the famous media personality, Tucker Carlson, said it was not possible for Russia to have wanted to invade Europe because Europe had NATO.
This was a commonsense attitude to the USSR, now Russia, that should have been said since 1945. No American or European leader had the commonsense to say it and Mr. Witkoff’s remark has become a talking point in the International Relations classroom. The gentleman knew perfectly well what he said and what he said makes perfect sense.

After the Second World War, two European countries acquired nuclear weapons – the UK and France. Both countries were part of NATO, whose guiding principle is if a NATO country is attacked, then NATO countries will have to go to war. It was not only dangerous thinking but a stale joke to think that with the matching military skills of the UK, Russia would have attacked any NATO country.

From 1945 to this moment in time, Russia has never had even the most innocuous skirmish with a NATO country. With the nuclear power of France and the UK and the capability of the USA to defeat Russia, a war from 1945 onwards between NATO countries and Russia was literally impossible.

It never happened, and it will not happen. Russia has never shown even an infinitesimal urge to fight a NATO nation. The story of Ukraine is complex and has a perfect logic for understanding big power rivalry. We have come to the stage where it has been left to the new American Government under Donald Trump to explain to the world the intricacies involved in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

That pathway should have been walked by the European countries, not the US, which is separated from Europe by oceans. The Europeans should have taken the lead in understanding Russian paranoia over Ukraine and seek to do what the Americans are now doing.

I am not going to repeat what is contained in several columns of mine on these themes here only to say that Europe wanted the war to go because it served their anti-Russian hatred stretching back to the 18th century. What I did not write in those columns is that prior to the war, the average French, Greek, Italian, German, Spanish etc. did not know where the Ukraine was or that it was in Europe.

When you look at how the major European nations are behaving in Ukraine, a school child would think that Ukraine is a huge, important European country. In fact, if European school children see video clips of the Ukrainian president when he was a professional comedian, they would ask their parents how that man came to be a president of a country.

So going back to Mr. Witkoff, he said what only an American could have spoken and not a European. Mr. Witkoff, like his boss, President Trump and before Trump, leaders in the Republican Party cannot understand why hundreds of billions of American money is going to a place that before the war not even point 99 percent of the American population knew about.

Mr. Witkoff’s remark has not gone down well in Europe and the reason for this is because Europe knows that Mr. Witkoff has echoed a general feeling inside the American administration and particularly Mr. Trump himself and Vice President, Vance. We are going to hear more of the Witkoff sentiments in the months to come because Europe has gone down a crazy path.

Europe has now put on the table for acceptance by EU members a sum of 867 billion dollars on defence within the EU. The commonsensical question is why. Who is going to invade Europe? The UK has increased defence spending and so are Germany and Sweden. This is in addition to the 867 billion. One can just imagine Mr. Witkoff asking European leaders why they are spending that money in anticipation of what.

The mad rush to increase defence spending because the Russians are coming is a sad, very tragic reminder that humans are incapable of learning from the past. Each dollar that goes to make a gun in Europe will be at the expense of the production of bread and butter. Do you know the consequence of that? With such a dent in the economy, and the inability to deliver to their populations, strongmen, vicious right-wing populists are going to come to power as it is right now in Italy.