Emmanuel Macron has been spending the run-up to Armistice Day on the back-foot; all to placate a ruffed and tweeted-out Donald Trump. The French President found himself in hot water following an interview in which he talked of the urgent need for a European army. Not only to defend the EU from resurgent authoritarian powers. But also from the US; following the latter’s withdrawal from a bilateral disarmament pact with Russia: the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
As expected, the US President took to Twitter to express his displeasure; while making a legitimate point about the bloc needing to pay its fair share towards the NATO budget. But with both leaders in Paris, a joint press conference was held in which Macron and Trump went out of their way to show everyone that they were on the same page. Indeed, the former was keen to stress that his country was committed to realising the Alliance budgetary target of 2 percent of GDP.
All of which represents a bitter irony. For an entire century has passed since the end of the First World War. And the world is no more at peace than it was one hundred years ago. Complete regions are in flames, such as the Middle East; where high-tech weaponry continues to devastate one of the poorest nations on the planet. Moreover, the risk of non-state actors getting their hands on chemical weapons, or even nukes, is more pronounced than ever. Nowhere is this more evident than in Syria. And here, in this region, major powers are fuelling an Indo-Pak arms race; thereby underscoring how crossing the nuclear Rubicon is never deterrent enough.
