[The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board
has moved the hands of its Doomsday Clock forward, at “90 seconds to
midnight—the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been.” ]
[[link removed]]

SACRIFICING SECURITY FOR MILITARISM: EUROPEAN FIGHTER JET TRANSFERS
AND THE DISCOURSE OF WORLD WAR III  
[[link removed]]


 

Jonathan Michael Feldman
September 13, 2023
CounterPunch
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
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[[link removed]]
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*
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_ The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board has
moved the hands of its Doomsday Clock forward, at “90 seconds to
midnight—the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been.” _

,

 

“The immediate cause of World War III is the preparation of it. The
indispensable condition for this kind of preparation is the fact of
the sovereign state as a continental economic domain. International
events are increasingly the result of the decisions and lack of
decisions of men who act in the name of these nations and with the
means of action made available by their economic, military, and
political institutions. The international centralization of decision
and the internal development of superstates…mean that history-making
is less a matter of some overwhelming fate than the decisions and the
defaults of two power elites.”

– C. Wright Mills, _The Causes of World War Three,_ New York,
Ballantine Books, 1960: 59-60.

“When a country is in the grip of a collective passion, it becomes
unanimous in crime. If it becomes prey to two, or four, or five, or
ten collective passions, it is divided among several criminal gangs.
Divergent passions do not neutralise one another, as would be the case
with a cluster of individual passions. There are too few of them, and
each is too strong for any neutralisation to take place. Competition
exasperates them; they clash with infernal noise, and amid such din
the fragile voices of justice and truth are drowned.”

– Simone Weil, _On the Abolition of All Political Parties,_ New
York: New York Review Books, 2013: 8-9.

UKRAINE’S SECURITY NEEDS

The Danish, Dutch and Norwegian governments have all approved sending
F-16 jet fighters to Ukraine
[[link removed]]. 
This transfer has been defended as an appropriate response to
Russia’s systematic bombing campaign of Ukraine’s population and
infrastructure.  In a story
[[link removed]] published
in August, _The New York Times_ explained that Ukraine’s
government sought US F-16 fighters to supplement its fleet of
Soviet-era jets to increase its “advantage over Russia’s air force
and also to improve its own air defenses.”  According to
the _Times_, “F-16s would enhance the country’s ground-launched
air defenses, which are used to fight off Russian missile attacks and
could also act as a deterrent to Moscow in the longer term because
they could erase its aerial superiority.” By the end of
August, another report
[[link removed]] explained
that “Zelensky had secured promises from a half-dozen countries to
either donate the jets — potentially more than 60 — or provide
training for pilots and support crew.”   James Robbins, a military
analyst, in the publication _1945_ argues
[[link removed]]:
“adding advanced air capabilities would represent a significant
force multiplier.”  Such a move  “would transform the current
status quo – which Ukrainian pilots have likened to flying
‘suicide missions’ against Russian jets – and level the playing
field, making the skies over Ukraine safer for Ukrainian fighters
and other aircraft by suppressing Russian air defenses.”  A report
[[link removed]] in
February of this year explained that Ukraine had lost 53 combat
fighters since the start of the war.

David French summarized
[[link removed]] Ukraine’s
military disadvantage as follows: “Generation 4.5 fighters
include upgraded models of the American F-15, F-16 and F-18
[[link removed].],
as well as the Eurofighter Typhoon, Sweden’s Saab JAS-39 Gripen and
France’s Dassault Rafale. Crucially, the list also includes the
Russian Su-30, Su-34 and Su-35. Russia has hundreds
[[link removed]] of generation 4.5
fighters. Ukraine has none. Instead it has a few dozen
[[link removed]] Soviet-era
fourth-generation fighters.” French cited Ukraine’s defense
minister as arguing that Ukraine’s planes “have a more limited
capacity to provide air defense within the country and no ability to
create air superiority at or near the zero line, the very edge of the
battlefront.” Currently, “vast areas of the front and most of
Ukraine’s civilians and civilian infrastructure remain unacceptably
vulnerable to Russian air attack.”

French, who relied on Ukrainian arguments to construct his analysis,
replicates a kind of dogmatic thinking. Perhaps in passing, he does
note the danger of transferring F-16s while touting the technological
advantages: “they also have a much greater capacity to strike
Russian forces directly at the front and miles beyond.”  Yet, a few
sentences later French argues that the plane “does not present a
substantial threat to Russia itself.” Rather, the plane
“presents a substantial threat only to the Russian invasion”
because “it is not a true deep-strike aircraft, like the B-1 Lancer
bomber or even the F-15E Strike Eagle.” The problem with French’s
arguments is that his view of what constitutes escalation differs from
some views in the Pentagon as I will explain below.

THE SWEDISH RESPONSE: DO FIGHTER JET TRANSFERS ENHANCE SECURITY?

Sweden represents a test case of whether fighter transfers advance
security or militarist opportunism. In some ways, Sweden is the most
important case because of the country’s disproportionate fears of
Russian threats compared to other nations as I will document below. 
In February of 2023, a _Defense Express_ story
[[link removed]] explained
barriers to Sweden transferring military planes to Ukraine.   Swedish
Defense Minister Pål Jonson argued that Sweden’s security would be
diminished by sending fighter planes to Ukraine: “When it comes to
Gripen, we are currently facing restrictions since this aircraft is
crucial for maintaining our territorial integrity and sovereignty. So
this will be a serious obstacle in terms of our national defense
resources.”  One way to overcome this obstacle would be for Saab to
manufacture more planes.  The problem, however, is that such
production is associated with a lag:  “As of 2022, Sweden had 96
active JAS 39C/D Gripen multirole fighters.” There was “an order
on manufacture of 60 more jets of the modernized JAS 39E version
placed back in January 2013,” but the first such jet was received
about _seven years later_ “in December 2019” with the total
order supposed to be “fulfilled by 2027.”

A report
[[link removed]] by Charles
Szumski
[[link removed]] for _Euractiv_ explained
how more than three months ago, Sweden’s military leader believed
that transfers of Gripen to Ukraine would weaken Sweden’s security.
In May of 2023, Jonson said Sweden did not have plans to send jet
fights to Ukraine for  “national security” reasons. He stated:
“The ones we have, we need them to protect Sweden. We do not have a
surplus of Gripen aircraft.”  He said Russia still had a resilient
air force capability: “This has to do with the fact that Russia is
now greatly weakened when it comes to ground forces, but when it comes
to naval and air forces, they are almost intact. So we have no planes
to spare.”

Yet, some Swedish politicians want to send the country’s fighter
jets to Ukraine despite such obstacles.  A combination of all left
parties and some right-wing and center parties approve transfers of
Swedish military fighters to Ukraine. Magdalena Andersson, the Social
Democratic Party leader, argued
[[link removed]] last
month that: “We can’t let Russia win. Jas Gripen would make a big
difference to Ukraine…For Ukraine’s offensive to succeed, its air
force must be strengthened.”  Another news report
[[link removed]] cited
Peter Hultqvist, the party’s defense spokesperson, as arguing that
“Sweden could either give the planes to Ukraine as military aid,
sell Ukraine planes, or do a combination of both.”  A third news
story
[[link removed]] explained
this month that the Liberal Party, Christian Democrats, Center Party,
and even the Green and Left parties announced approval for giving JAS
fighters to Ukraine.  Sweden has only authorized training
[[link removed]] of
Ukrainian pilots on such fighters, however.

An analysis
[[link removed]] by
Swedish Television outlined the various barriers to transferring
fighter planes to Sweden. These obstacles include three points. First,
Sweden diminishes its security by doing so, particularly before Sweden
actually is a member of NATO.  Second, training Ukrainian pilots
would diminish the capacity or speed in training Sweden’s own future
pilots of the Jas Gripen military plane. Third, the Swedish Jas
fighter depends on motors and radars supplied by the U.S. and United
Kingdom.  In essence, a Swedish transfer involves a US and British
transfer, but there are risks when the U.S. involves itself in fighter
jet transfers, as outlined below.

THE PENTAGON’S DELAYING TACTICS AND THE COHEN BROTHERS’ THEORY OF
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Parts of the U.S. military seem averse to sending fighter jets to
Ukraine, in contrast to most political parties in Sweden.  A story
[[link removed]] in
the European edition of _Politico _in August of this year quoted
United States Air Force General James Hecker as stating that to get
“F-16 squadrons ready for battle could take ‘four or five
years.’”  While Hecker was discussing “top expertise,” the
achievement of “basic capability — such as solo air-to-ground
attacks” would likely require six months.  In contrast, “an
American Air Force assessment of two Ukrainian pilots carried out
last February
[[link removed]], suggested
that four months would be a ‘realistic training timeline.’” 
Some Ukrainians believe that “the long timelines mentioned by some
Western officials are a made-up excuse — all part of erring on the
side of caution when it comes to giving Ukraine modern weapons
systems, stemming from fears of the war widening and Russia
retaliating beyond Ukraine.”

The delay is based either on strategic caution about escalation risks
or actual logistical and training barriers.  Of the latter,
the _Politico_ story cited one estimate that it can take “at least
to six to seven months to get a pilot up to basic combat standards —
and that’s when everything is proceeding smoothly, including no bad
weather or aircraft breakdowns disrupting flying hours or trainees
encountering hiccups.”  A late August report
[[link removed]] in _The
Times_ stated: “American officials have said, only eight Ukrainian
pilots are sufficiently fluent in English and experienced in flying
combat aircraft to have started training on the F-16s in Denmark.”

In sum, while some in the Pentagon appear to drag their feet in
sending military planes to Russia, left parties in Sweden and other
European states embrace these shipments despite diminishing their own
security either directly (by depleting their air forces) or indirectly
by triggering escalation.  Essentially we have what might be called
the Cohen Brothers’ theory of international relations in which one
must “accept the mystery
[[link removed]]” of two contradictory
ideas: military transfer and increased security.

THE DANGERS OF ESCALATION

Did fears of escalation account for assessments of delays by the U.S.
government?  First one would have to differentiate between President
Biden’s tendencies and those of others in the Pentagon. This becomes
evident by analyzing a story
[[link removed]] in _The
New York Times_ by Matthew Mpoke Bigg
[[link removed]] and Vivek Shankar
[[link removed]]. In May of 2023 Biden
approved NATO countries’ training of Ukrainian pilots on F-16s. 
And in August, “a U.S. official said that the United States would
allow allies to send the jets.”  This led to a commitment by the
Netherlands to send “42 jets once Ukrainian pilots and engineers had
been trained.”  The Dutch move appeared to be coordinated with a
Danish commitment to donate 19 F-16s to Ukraine.

While Biden, the Dutch and Danish governments are aligned with the
transfers, there is the possibility that such transfers _could
contribute to serious escalation and risks if military planes are used
to attack Russian territory_. Returning to the _Times_ account
[[link removed]] published
in August, Russia has accused Ukraine “of launching a series of
drone attacks, including one that slightly wounded five people and
another that forced airports in Moscow to close briefly.” This
attack took place “hours after Mr. Zelensky vowed a military
response to a Russian missile strike that killed seven people.”  In
addition, “Zelensky has suggested in recent weeks that the strikes
are part of his government’s strategy.”  If drones are used by
the Ukrainian government to strike Russian territory, what is to
prevent Ukraine from using jets to strike Russia? This fear must have
contributed to delays in approving the transfer of such weapons to
Ukraine.

One source of legitimating this specific fear, or sentiments aligned
with it, comes from none other than Republican Congressman Andy
Harris, co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus. 
A _Politico_ story
[[link removed]] explains
that Harris is part of the Republican movement to speed negotiations
and wind down U.S. arms transfers to Ukraine.  One of Harris’s
fears was “the possibility of starting ‘World War III’ by
bringing Ukraine into NATO” as well as the ongoing costs to the
United States of the war.

The fear of World War III was expressed by President Biden himself.
 An article
[[link removed]] by
Steve Nelson, “‘That’s called World War III’: Biden defends
decision not to send jets to Ukraine,” in _The New York Post_ tied
the fear of such a war to the transfer of fighter jets to Ukraine, but
apparently the fear was attached to _direct _U.S. military
involvement.  In the _Post_ story President  Biden vetoed
US-facilitated transfer of fighter jets to Ukraine to repel
Russia’s invasion, by saying, “that’s called World War III.” 
What Biden actually said was, “The idea that we’re going to send
in offensive equipment and have planes and tanks and trains going in
with American pilots and American crews — just understand, don’t
kid yourself, no matter what y’all say, that’s called World War
III.” Other accounts
[[link removed]] link
the trigger for such a war to NATO shooting down Russian planes. 
The key trigger
[[link removed]] for
the Biden Administration is linked to NATO engagement. We will see
that these distinctions might not amount to much, however.

Trump argued that Biden said that sending tanks to Ukraine would
trigger World War III, but omitted Biden linking the trigger of such
a war to US troop involvement
[[link removed]].
 Trump did accuse Biden of triggering such a war based on the
transfer of cluster bombs in a statement quoted by _NBC News_
[[link removed]] in
July of this year: “Joe Biden should not be dragging us further
toward World War III by sending cluster munitions to Ukraine — he
should be trying to END the war and stop the horrific death and
destruction being caused by an incompetent administration.”

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Alexander Grushko, argued
[[link removed]] in
May that Western countries will create “colossal risks” should
they supply F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. This view was not limited to
Russia and its own self-serving agenda, but shared with the leadership
of the United Kingdom as a story
[[link removed]] in _The
Independent_ explains: “Rishi Sunak
[[link removed]]’s government has
admitted there is a potential risk of escalation as it considers
sending fighter jets
[[link removed]] to Ukraine
[[link removed]].” The United Kingdom
was not alone, however. A BBC report
[[link removed]] in May stated
that some NATO countries “expressed worries that handing jets to
Ukraine would be viewed as escalating the war, risking a direct
confrontation with Russia.”

Some military analysts have been clever by inventing a concept that
links militarism and solidarity; they have demonized doubt about
escallation as a support system for Russian aggression.  Amy J.
Nelson and Alexander H. Montgomery at the Brookings Institution write
[[link removed]] that
“the West could…recover the initiative and substantially reduce
the exploitable perception that it is driven by escalation aversion”
by preventing “factionalization.” These writers believe in a
homogenization of viewpoints among NATO members: “NATO needs to
double down on allied consultations and preserve the outward
appearance of NATO as a unitary actor to avoid more amateur hour
performances that seek to pass the buck to the U.S.”  The authors
do not explain the conditions under which NATO nations might have good
reasons for disagreement.  They argue that public “escalation
aversion” can signal “the kind of restraint Putin can exploit by
continuing to attack civilians and work his way up the escalatory
ladder.”

HOW FIGHTER JET TRANSFERS ARE LINKED TO WAR ESCALATION AND WORLD WAR
III DISCOURSE

There are various ways in which Ukrainian assessments of what triggers
World War III (or at least serious escalation) are linked to receipt
of advanced weapons systems. This requires synthesizing two
statements. First, James Robbins explained
[[link removed]] how
China’s not arming Russia was contingent upon Ukraine not getting
fighter jets: “Russia will claim, rightly, that providing advanced
aircraft to Ukraine amounts to escalating the conflict. Avoiding
escalation was the rationale for the Biden administration blocking
Poland from transferring jets at the outbreak of the conflict,
reportedly as part of a deal with Beijing to defuse Russia’s
nuclear threats.”

Second, a report
[[link removed]] in Pravda,
quotes Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and
Defence Council, as stating the following:  “If China decides to
support Russia with military aid, then World War III is
inevitable.”  The same quote
[[link removed]] appears
in Levyy Bereg weekly, _LB.ua_, a Ukrainian publication based in
Kyiv.

Despite the disingenuous parsing of Biden’s comments by _The New
York Post_, please note that the Pentagon appears to agree that jet
transfers represent dangerous acceleration.  The New Voice of
Ukraine, in an article
[[link removed]] published
by _Yahoo_, stated the Pentagon’s earlier objections to fighter
transfers as follows: “the transfer of MiG 29 jets to Ukraine may be
mistaken as escalatory and could result in significant Russian
reaction that might increase the prospects of a military escalation
with NATO.” Thus, (a) jet transfers, lead to (b) an increased
possibility of NATO involvement, which (c) according to Biden himself
could trigger World War III.  Given that F-16 jet fighters are
comparable to Mig 29
[[link removed].],
each with various advantages and disadvantages, it seems safe to say
that the earlier assessment of the threat attached to transferring Mig
29s applies to F-16s.

F-16s are not purely defensive weapons and can attack proximate
military targets (within 500 miles
[[link removed].]). 
Given Russian controlled territory in Crimea and the Russian border
itself are a short-distance from Ukraine, French’s arguments about
the F-16’s not being “long distance” or somehow less
“offensive” seem to beg the question of the often blurry lines
between offensive and defensive
[[link removed]] weapons.
For some the F-16 can be classified as offensive. One analyst, Prakash
Nanda, says
[[link removed]] that
the F-16’s 500 mile range means that if it took off from Ukrainian
air bases it could strike targets well inside Russia. Other weapons
given to Ukraine lacked this capacity. Biden would like to make
Zelensky “promise that his pilots would not fly the planes across
the Russian border,” but Putin might not believe this pledge,
potentially creating severe risks.

An article
[[link removed]] in _Euronews_ stated:
“Many experts agree that providing fighter jets could be viewed by
Russia as an escalation in the war, with concerns that Ukraine could
use the aircraft and missiles to strike within Russia’s
territory.”  The incremental strategy followed by the Biden can
actually lead to less caution about escalation, so incrementalism
itself can be very dangerous. Kelly A. Grieco at the Washington,
D.C.-based Stimson center argued that  “escalation risks are both
‘serious and very real’ and have been managed so far by a strategy
of ‘incrementalism’ with Western countries gradually providing
more advanced weapons.”

The _Euronews_ article shows why there are problems with using jet
fighters in advanced offensive operations. Phil Haun at the U.S. Naval
War College argues that “neither Russian nor Ukrainian air forces
have been able to effectively operate their fighter aircraft against
opposing ground forces.” The limitation is based on Soviet
surface-to-air missiles used by Ukraine and Russia that create serious
difficulties “for fighter aircraft to perform offensive
operations.”

Despite this reservation attached to constraints on fighter jets’
offensive capabilities, escalation can still occur by accident.
An analysis
[[link removed]] by
Wyn Bowen, Co-Director of the Freeman Air and Space Institute, argues
that “Russia may also consider using low yield nuclear weapons to
force an end to the war on its own terms, particularly if its gains
from 2014, notably Crimea, are jeopardized.” Bowen points to the
danger of “inadvertent escalation” which “occurs when
intentional actions in a conflict situation have unintended escalatory
effects as they cross a threshold that is important to the other
side” and “this threshold may not be obvious or visible.” Bowen
raises key questions that Nelson and Montgomery at the Brookings
Institution ignore.

Bowen says that one of the greatest dangers of escalation occurs
precisely in “the air domain,” which necessarily involves fights
among fighter jets or other aircraft.  After February 2022, Russian
aircraft have been involved in “several incidents” whey they have
interacted with and harassed manned and unmanned NATO aircraft which
have flown “in proximity to Ukraine on intelligence gathering
missions.”  In September 2022, _The New York Times_ reported
[[link removed].]that
a Russian fighter nearly fired a missile on a British spy plane, but
failed because of a technical problem. This incident raised the
problem of accidental escalation: “According to two U.S. defense
officials, the Russian pilot had misinterpreted what a radar operator
on the ground was saying to him and thought he had permission to fire.
The pilot, who had locked on the British aircraft, fired, but the
missile did not launch properly.”  In March 2023, “a Russian
warplane knocked into a U.S. surveillance drone over the Black Sea,
hitting the drone’s propeller and causing it to crash in
international waters.” This “collision was the first known
physical contact between the Russian and American militaries since the
war in Ukraine started.”

F-16s under Ukrainian control (outside the NATO orbit) would not
trigger this kind of escalation threat, but a dog fight between
Ukraine and Russia could spill into territory that belongs to NATO.
 For example, in November 2015 Turkey shot down a Russian jet that
it argued entered its air space
[[link removed]].
Seven years later, in November 2022, Ukrainian forces fired a missile
that entered NATO territory
[[link removed].] in
Poland, with some reports initially suggesting Russian involvement.
 Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said at one point that the
missile was “Russian produced.”

The Democratic Party-linked Brookings Institution has tried to
critique the dangers of escalation aversion.  Nelson and
Montgomery argue
[[link removed]] that
this is “a bias in which careful weighing of multiple risks has been
abandoned in favor of avoidance of a single worst-case outcome:
nuclear war.” While acknowledging nuclear war avoidance as a
“crucial goal,” they claimed  “this exclusive focus gives the
impression of paralysis and cedes the initiative to Russian President
Vladimir Putin.” In sum, the teleological goal of defeating Russia
can be used to reduce the importance of the nuclear threat (and
preparations against choices that increase its probability).

Some parts of the elite media have been more cautious, at least last
year. Writing for _The Washington Post_ in March 2022, David
Ignatius argued
[[link removed]] “the
United States is rightly wary of a proposal to send the Ukrainians
MiG-29 fighter jets — a move that would bring small benefits on the
battlefield and entail large risks of a wider war.”  The larger
problem was that “the Ukraine crisis carried “a genuine risk of
direct military conflict between the United States and Russia.” Such
a conflict “could escalate into a catastrophic nuclear
confrontation.” Therefore, he wrote that “the West needs cool
heads, not hot ones, to successfully navigate what could become the
most dangerous nuclear standoff in history — riskier even than the
1962 Cuban missile crisis, because it is taking place against the
backdrop of a hot shooting war.”  Ignatius was then echoing the
Biden Administration stance which even included a communication from
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to the Polish government
[[link removed]] that
the U.S. did “not support the transfer of additional fighter
aircraft to the Ukrainian air force at this time.” U.S. policy
changed, but not with equal enthusiasm in certain Pentagon quarters.

 WHEN SELF-DEFENSE LEADS TO THREAT ACCELERATION AND “SOLIDARITY
MEANS PERPETUATING WAR”

While Trump and some key Republicans say advanced weapons transfers
are linked to World War III, regardless of what they actually think,
leading Ukrainians believe that this threat is irrelevant, at least
claiming that it is so. Danilov argued in September of this year, that
“the Third World War has already begun with Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine,” according to a report
[[link removed]] published
in _The Brussels Signal_. The occasion was a special Kyiv Security
Forum event on September 5th. This story cites Danilov as arguing
“that many international commentators had made the ‘mistake’ of
thinking the Ukraine war was an isolated incident.” The report
quotes Danilov as saying, “people who think that the Third World War
has not started—they make a big mistake.” Danilov has also argued
[[link removed]] that “the world
needs to prepare for the disintegration of Russia.”

The alternative to war and escalation involves negotiations and
territorial concessions.  Yet, this option is opposed by militarist
leaders in NATO and Ukrainian elites according to news reports
[[link removed]] this
month. After Stian Jenssen, the chief of staff to NATO’s general
secretary, argued that a solution to ending the war “could be for
Ukraine to give up territory and get NATO membership in return,”
these “remarks provoked an angry condemnation from the Ukrainians; a
clarification from his boss, Jens Stoltenberg…and ultimately an
apology.”

In a statement
[[link removed]] published in
January of this year, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ Science and
Security Board moved the hands of its Doomsday Clock forward, at “90
seconds to midnight—the closest to global catastrophe it has ever
been.” The clock is an indicator for the risks of nuclear war. The
reason was “largely (though not exclusively) because of the mounting
dangers of the war in Ukraine.”  This statement linked the danger
to “profound questions about how states interact, eroding norms of
international conduct that underpin successful responses to a variety
of global risks.”  The statement laid most of the blame on Russia,
offered no narrative about NATO’s eastward expansion and the dangers
related to that, but did call out for “the US government, its NATO
allies, and Ukraine” to utilize “multitude of channels for
dialogue.” Escalation, they argued, could be reduced by “finding
a path to serious peace negotiations.”  Peace without concessions
seems unlikely, but concessions have been demonized.

THE LIMITS TO POLITICAL PARTIES AND WAR: MANAGERIAL EXPANSION VERSUS
FRAGMENTATION

Generally speaking, military managerialist expansion
[[link removed]] has
driven this war. This occurs because of economic and political
institutions as C. Wright Mills argued.  Economically, the defense
stocks of Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, and Saab have increased
by 25.99%
[[link removed]], 63.74%
[[link removed]], 54.64%
[[link removed]] respectively
over the last five years. Politically, even left political parties
[[link removed]] have
increasingly proven weaker in combatting militarism and even embrace
it. Economic and political capital accumulation are both tied to war
promotion, although in the U.S. case Republicans and some on the left
support negotiations to quickly end the war (most likely through
concessions on land). We have seen that Europeans follow the lead of
the U.S. in their policies on advanced fighter sales.

In the forthcoming US national election (November 2024), growing
opposition to arms transfers to Ukraine are one potential barrier to
the West’s perpetuating the conflict. In a CNN poll
[[link removed]] published
in August, 55% said “the US Congress should not authorize additional
funding to support Ukraine” opposed by 45% who said “Congress
should authorize such funding.” While  51% said “that the US has
already done enough to help Ukraine,” 48% said “it should do
more.” The Atlantic Council, a key cheerleader of the war effort,
told a different story
[[link removed]]. 
They report on a Reagan Foundation poll this summer in which 59% of
respondents supported military aid to Ukraine (75 percent of
Democrats; 50 percent of Republicans) with half saying that “US aid
so far had been worth the cost (65 percent of Democrats; 41 percent of
Republicans).” A Gallup poll
[[link removed]] in
June found that 62% of Americans supported “the effort in helping
Ukraine regain all of its lost territory, even if that means a more
prolonged conflict.”  The poll showed that both Republicans and
Independents were more likely to oppose military aid or a slow end to
the war. A Pew Research poll
[[link removed]] in
June showed growing numbers of Republicans (or Republican-leading) and
Democrats (or Democrat-leaning) voters believing that too much aid was
given to help Ukraine.

The divisions in the United States are echoed in Europe
[[link removed]]:
“According to the latest Eurobarometer survey, 64% of Europeans
agree with purchasing and supplying military equipment to Ukraine with
Sweden (93%), Portugal (90%) and Denmark (89%) having the highest
approval rates. On the other hand, Bulgaria (30%), Cyprus (36%) and
Slovakia (37%) have the lowest approval rates.”  The turn of
Sweden’s left parties to embrace the war can easily be understood by
two reference points.

First, Sweden is by some indicators the European Union nation most
supportive of logic supporting the war.  According to a May-June
2023 poll by Eurobarometer
[[link removed]],
79% of Swedes polled agreed with the statement that Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine was a threat to the security of the EU.  In
contrast, only 23% of Bulgarians, 26% of Greeks, 27% of Slovakians and
Austrians, and 32% of Hungarians had this view.  For Finland the
proportion was 61% and in Denmark 67%.  Even Lithuania’s 58% was
far lower than Sweden’s share. The EU average was 41%.  When it
came to the question of whether Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a
threat to one’s country, Lithuania was highest with 62% agreeing,
with Sweden not far behind (second place) at 58%. The EU 27 average
was only 37%, however.

Second, most political parties are designed to be indifferent to
truth. In her essay, “On the Abolition of All Political Parties
[[link removed]],”
Simone Weil argued that political parties could not support “truth,
justice and the public interest” because of three essential
characteristics. First, “a political party is a machine to generate
collective passions.” Second, “a political party is an
organisation designed to exert collective pressure upon the minds of
all its individual members.” Third, “the first objective and also
the ultimate goal of any political party is its own growth, without
limit.”  Given the limits to political power
[[link removed]] identified by Seymour Melman
and product differentiation of political parties
[[link removed]],
a consensus will likely emerge to oppose the continuation of the
war.  One can only hope that this occurs sooner rather than later.

_Jonathan Michael Feldman specializes in research related to political
economy, disarmament, green economics and studies related to
democracy. He writes periodically for Counterpunch and xxxxxx. He is
an associate professor at The Department of Economic History and
International Relations at Stockholm University._

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[[link removed]]._

* Militarism
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* Ukraine
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* Russia
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