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Foreign Affairs If Europe Confronts Russia, It Should Pay the Costs The old continent is at risk of an escalation spiral. Europeans are readying for possible conflict with Russia. Italian Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, who chairs NATO’s Military Committee, cites Moscow’s alleged clandestine operations across the continent. Alliance officials, he reported, “are studying everything.” Preemptive action is possible, although, admitted Dragone, “It is further away from our normal way of thinking and behavior.” Blaise Metrewell, head of MI6, Great Britain’s foreign intelligence agency, charged that the “export of chaos is a feature, not a bug, in the Russian approach to international engagement.” Her country’s top military officer, Air Chief Marshal Richard Knighton, similarly warned: “The war in Ukraine shows [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s willingness to target neighboring states, including their civilian populations.” Times columnist Edward Lucas called on Brits to “muster Churchillian resolve for the struggle ahead.” However, some European leaders are hesitant. Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen explained that being more assertive was an option, but “so far, I don’t think there has been a need for that. We also should take a step back and really analyze what the aggressor is after. Then, probably, we shouldn’t be hysterical.”  Wise words. After all, Europeans can no longer assume Washington’s automatic support. The recently released National Security Strategy and President Donald Trump’s interview with POLITICO highlight the current administration’s antipathy toward the continent, or at least its liberal leaders. Sky News analyst Michael Clarke spoke for many when he doubted that the Trump administration would support a tough response: “I think it’s pretty clear to most of the Europeans that the Americans will not be backing them up in confrontation with Russia.”  It would be surprising if Moscow did not attempt to surreptitiously disrupt allied support for Kiev. Denmark recently blamed the Putin government for two “destructive and disruptive” cyber-attacks. Associated Press lists 145 disruptive incidents attributed by European officials to Russia. The Atlantic Council’s Piotr Arak charged that “Russia has expanded the battlefield into the daily life of European societies. Moscow’s objective is clear: weaken Western unity by creating a constant sense of vulnerability, without crossing the threshold that would trigger a formal NATO response.” A recent report from the Center for European Policy Analysis similarly concluded: “Europe as a whole is under a sustained assault.”  However, the full extent of Russia’s activities is uncertain. European governments tend to blame Putin for any mysterious event, such as drone flights, without offering any evidence of his responsibility. Indeed, Kiev has been caught blaming Moscow for its own actions. In November 2022 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky charged Russia for his military’s presumably errant missile strike on Poland, which killed two residents. Before that, a gaggle of American and European officials joined the Ukrainians in accusing Moscow of disabling its Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline to Germany, a self-evidently ridiculous claim since debunked by Berlin.  Nevertheless, assume that Russia is responsible for most of the acts blamed on it. Even then, as Valtonen insisted, Europeans “should take a step back and really analyze what the aggressor is after.” It is Europe that acted first, launching an ever more serious proxy war against Russia. From Moscow’s perspective, its malign activity is retaliation, and not very substantial at that, even as the allies’ proxy war continues unabated. Of course, this doesn’t mean Putin’s brutal aggression against Ukraine was justified. However, allied officials share blame for the conflict, having recklessly violated promises to Moscow and ignored oft-expressed Russian security concerns. What of Russia’s actions? Imagine how Europeans would respond if Moscow underwrote combat against European governments, providing money and weapons, including missiles, and causing substantial damage and casualties.  Presumably Putin has responded cautiously—for which he has been sharply criticized at home—because he believes Russia is winning and does not want to risk conflict with NATO, or at least with the U.S. No doubt, he still hopes to hinder European military assistance to Ukraine. According to a report from the Center for International Studies, “many of these targets had links to Western aid to Ukraine.” Similarly, the International Institute for Strategic Studies acknowledged that Russia’s “unconventional war” escalated “in 2022 in parallel to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.” Europe has obvious reason to be concerned about Russia’s operations. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys cited the recent explosion damaging a Polish train line to Ukraine as a dangerous “escalation” by Russia: “we should address it really seriously because we are minutes from big casualties here.” Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski declared, “This time, it was not just sabotage, as before, but an act of state terrorism, as the clear intention was to cause human casualties.”  However, this is precisely what the allies intend with their aid to Kiev. To kill Russians, lots of them. Europe and the U.S. are providing offensive weapons, sharing battlefield intelligence, drafting battle plans, freezing (and perhaps seizing) financial reserves, imposing economic sanctions, punishing trade partners, and much more. Yet so far Russia has done surprisingly little in response. European “retaliation” that looks like “escalation” to Moscow might trigger more than what continental governments expect.  European leaders like to play tough—indeed, governments with the smallest militaries, like the Baltic states, have been among the most persistently belligerent. However, European publics seem less inclined toward war. A Pew Research Center poll found that majorities in most countries surveyed didn’t want to defend their neighbors, even as they expected the American cavalry to race to their rescue. General Fabien Mandon, head of the French armed forces, triggered a cascade of criticism when he warned that if his country “is not prepared to accept losing its children, to suffer economically because priorities will be given to defense production, then we are at risk.”  Although American sympathies should be with the Ukrainian people, the United States has little at stake in the ongoing war. For most of U.S. history, Kiev was ruled by the Russian Empire (for a time known as the “Soviet Union”). Ukraine’s geographic borders, governing practices, and military capabilities today matter little to America’s security. Washington and Moscow have no territorial disputes and little economic competition. Russia is a declining power, with minimal ability to threaten the U.S. other than with nuclear-tipped missiles, but Washington’s deterrent remains strong. Moreover, right after the Cold War ended, Moscow leaned West, not East. Unfortunately, the Biden administration’s decision to orchestrate Ukraine’s war against Russia is dangerous as well as expensive. Acting as a belligerent in everything but name—with anonymous U.S. officials claiming credit for the deaths of Russian generals and sinking of Moscow’s Black Sea fleet flagship—creates a continuing incentive for Moscow to retaliate. Which in turn incites allied belligerence. For instance, former U.S. diplomat Daniel Fried denounced “Russian sabotage and aggression [emphasis added] against Europe.” Tom Tugendhat, a former British cabinet minister, called Russian behavior equivalent to “attacking NATO.”  European hawks thinking of turning the continent’s cold war with Moscow hot should remember Gen. Mandon’s challenge. Few seem prepared to sacrifice their children for Ukraine. For instance, Italian Gen. Guido Crosetto grandly announced: “We are under attack and the hybrid bombs continue to fall: The time to act is now.” However, his nation continues to lag far behind NATO standards on military spending. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni urged the U.S. to provide a security guarantee for European peacekeeping forces for Ukraine but declined to commit any troops for that purpose. As always, the overwhelming European position remains “Let America do it!”  European states should recognize the risks before escalating their proxy war on Russia. Moscow’s surreptitious activities on the continent, far from being inexplicable “aggression,” are largely a response to the allies’ ongoing hostility against Russia. The more vigorous their intervention in the Ukraine war, the more destructive Moscow’s likely riposte. Are Dragone and other European political and military leaders prepared for the consequences? The post If Europe Confronts Russia, It Should Pay the Costs appeared first on The American Conservative.

UK/Europe The BBC is Trapped by Its Own Self-Mythologizing President Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the British broadcaster is stronger than progressives pretend. UK Special Coverage From Broadcasting House, headquarters of the BBC, comes fighting talk: “We will fight like hell,” they say in response to Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit. Actually, the BBC didn’t say that—but given the Corporation’s own somewhat fast-and-loose approach to editing the speech of others, I decided to take the liberty of paraphrasing. Anyway, the sense of it is right: The BBC has decided that it will defend, at whatever cost, its reputation in the Florida courts. That cost might prove very high. Despite this defiant stand, there are signs of misgivings, even within the Corporation itself, about the wisdom of this approach—but then, the BBC’s response to events of the past month has been contradictory and incoherent. To recap: A senior journalist, Michael Prescott, was hired as an adviser by the BBC’s standards committee, which has the job of monitoring how well the organization lives up to its internal guidelines about integrity, truth-telling, and fair-dealing. Prescott, once the political editor of The Sunday Times, was set the task of reviewing certain areas of output including coverage of the conflict in Gaza, the way the BBC reports “trans” issues, and other matters. In the course of his investigations he came across a Panorama edition which looked at Donald Trump’s campaign in the 2024 election. Called Trump: a Second Chance? it included the now notorious edit which made it seem as though the president had explicitly urged his supporters to storm the Capitol building on that infamous day back in January 2021. In fact, this call to arms was confected by editing together two phrases spoken 50 minutes apart. That is clearly dishonest journalism: a textbook example of “fake news,” if you like. Prescott’s report, which also discovered quite egregious anti-Israel bias in the BBC’s coverage of Gaza, as well as the fact that a group of trans-activist journalists within the BBC had suppressed all gender-critical commentary in news output, was duly delivered to the board. But to Prescott’s perplexity and dismay, no action was forthcoming, and his report sat, like an unexploded bomb, in some BBC file until last month, when it was leaked to The Daily Telegraph. At which point all hell broke loose. The Telegraph—a long-standing critic of the BBC, which it views as incorrigibly biased in favour of the liberal-left (full disclosure – I often write that commentary myself)—exploited its scoop to the full. Although the disclosure about the Trump edit was not the worst thing Prescott uncovered—in my view the anti-Israel bias was more shocking—it was the most eye-catching, and was taken up across all the British media. Pressure mounted until suddenly and unexpectedly the BBC’s Director-General, Tim Davie, and its Head of News, Deborah Turness, both resigned. This is where the incoherence of the BBC’s response becomes clear: Despite the resignations, the BBC went on to maintain that the Trump edit had been merely an “error of judgement” and that the Prescott dossier had revealed nothing in the way of “systemic bias” at the BBC (this is seriously misleading: the BBC’s coverage of Trump from 2015 onwards has been unremittingly hostile). But if it had been, as claimed, a “one-off” mistake, why did these two senior executives have to resign? An isolated bad edit by a rogue programme-maker would hardly merit that kind of response. So, the BBC now enters into the legal fray in Florida having, by virtue of the resignations, already tacitly admitted the seriousness of the lapses in its journalism. Despite this apparent contradiction, the BBC’s internal logic provides an explanation: The BBC’s whole raison d’être rests on the contention that it is better, more honest, more truthful than every other broadcaster in the world. Indeed, on its website under “values,” it proclaims itself to be “independent, impartial and truthful.” Because, by its own reckoning, the BBC is a virtuous organization worthy of praise, it follows that its reputation must be defended at all costs, otherwise that reputation would collapse. To admit that Prescott had it right, and that all BBC journalism is colored by adherence to a set of fashionable liberal-left opinions, which profoundly affect its world-view, would precipitate an existential crisis at the organization. That is why the BBC feels it has to fight Trump and deny the truth of Prescott’s damning report. The Corporation is hoisted on its own virtuous petard. There was another course open to the BBC from the start. Had it made obeisance to the president at the outset, and perhaps offered him some cash compensation, his amour propre might have been propitiated. That would have involved reputational damage but would have cauterized the wound and closed down the story. It is too late for that now, and the BBC is likely to be involved in a messy and costly lawsuit the outcome of which is highly uncertain. As is usual in Britain whenever the BBC is under threat of some kind, progressives have rallied to its cause. Trump is damned and the BBC applauded for standing up for itself. That is because the BBC is the true citadel of progressivism in the UK. Over many decades, the Corporation has enthusiastically put its heft behind every cause endorsed by progressives; feminism, especially its demand for unfettered access to abortion, is now a core BBC value. Similarly, the whole DEI agenda goes unchallenged as do many other shibboleths of the left: climate change, LGBTQ etc, Black Lives Matter, and the campaign to convince us all that gender is independent of biology—all these contentious issues are treated by the Corporation as settled with no need for further discussion. With Labour in government and the liberal-left establishment firmly on its side, the BBC seems determined to ride out the current storm and carry on with business as usual. If the BBC sees off the president’s claim for damages, as it might, it will be claimed as a huge victory for the Corporation and a vindication of its journalism. But the facts contained in the Prescott dossier remain on the record. This latest scandal, which so clearly demolishes the BBC’s myth of “impartiality,” will do long-term damage whatever the outcome of the lawsuit. Radical political change is in the air in Britain for the first time in my 70-odd years; in all that time, the BBC has been protected by the liberal establishment because it is a powerful and reliable ally. Under a populist right-wing government, that protection would be withheld and then Michael Prescott’s pigeons might come home to roost. The post The BBC is Trapped by Its Own Self-Mythologizing appeared first on The American Conservative.

The spectacle in America this week was grimly familiar. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Florida, bearing not gifts but a request for war. Even before the meeting began, Netanyahu received what he sought from the trip—an American green light. When asked whether he would “allow” Israel to attack Iran if Tehran rebuilds its nuclear program or ballistic missiles, President Donald Trump answered, “with the missiles, yes. The nuclear, fast.” Trump’s pronouncement has set off a scramble in Washington to decipher what, exactly, the president just committed the United States to. Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute wondered, will the U.S. be a direct participant in offensive strikes against Iran, or “only” serve as Israel’s defensive shield, consuming American interceptors to shoot down Iran’s retaliatory strikes? Curt Mills of The American Conservative cuts to the core of the peril, noting that if “Iranian ballistic missiles are Trump’s red line,” then logically, “we are going to war tonight.” The question is whether the president understands the implications of the assent he gave. Going after Iran’s ballistic missiles, rather than its nuclear energy program, is not a minor tactical shift. It is a strategic catastrophe in the making, a dramatic and dangerous shifting of the goalposts that betrays the “America First” mandate and risks entangling the United States in an endless, unwinnable conflict. Let us be clear about the stakes. For Tehran, its ballistic missile arsenal is not merely a weapon system; it is the non-negotiable foundation of its national defense. This doctrine of missile-based deterrence was forged in the crucible of the devastating 1980s war with Iraq, an experience that taught Iran it could not rely on any external security guarantor. Self-help became its core strategic principle.  Today, this reliance has become existential. Israel’s relentless campaign since the October 7th Hamas attack has systematically degraded Iran’s “forward defense”—its network of allies and proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Assad regime in Syria—that once provided deterrence. When Israel struck Iran directly in the June war, it was Iran’s own missiles that provided the decisive response. In the eyes of the Iranian leadership, these weapons are what prevented their nation from becoming a second Syria—a state so hollowed out it could be bombed and occupied at will. It is, therefore, unthinkable for Iran to compromise on its missile arsenal. Which is, of course, the reason why Israel wants Trump to demand its elimination and promise war if Tehran doesn’t acquiesce. But though they are worrisome for Jerusalem, Iranian missiles have never been a red line for Washington. During the first half of 2025, the U.S. and Iran were engaged in talks over Tehran’s nuclear program. The talks reached a dead-end when Washington changed its own red line—no weaponization of Iran’s program—to Israel’s —no uranium enrichment on Iranian soil.  The U.S. then joined Israeli strikes on Iran by targeting Tehran’s key nuclear facilities including the main one at Fordow, after which Trump declared Iran’s nuclear program fully obliterated. Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi has said that enrichment activity is no longer taking place in Iran. An agreement with Tehran that recognized its enrichment rights, under a tight international verification regime, would have been far preferable to strikes, but if Washington’s goal was no enrichment, then the degradation of Iran’s nuclear energy program should have been recognized as a tangible win.  A prudent leader would pocket this victory, declare the core threat eliminated, and walk away. Even Trump’s envoy to the United Nations, Morgan Ortagus, addressing the Iranian ambassador a few days ago, extended the U.S. hand, citing only non-enrichment as Washington’s core principle and opening an opportunity for dialogue. She did not say anything about the missiles. But now, Trump appears ready to let Netanyahu draw himself and the U.S. into a new, far more perilous fight over an issue of no security concern to the U.S. Crucially, this public “green light” may already have triggered a chain reaction. In Tehran, the leadership faces severe domestic criticism for its perceived weakness and failure to respond decisively to Israel’s previous attacks against its regional allies and on its own territory, such as the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Many believe this restraint eroded the nation’s deterrence and paved the way for Israel’s direct attack on Iran. This context makes the recent statement by Ali Shamkhani, a senior adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, not a generic boast but a potential threat: Under Iran’s defense doctrine, responses are set before threats materialize. Iran’s missile capability and defense are not containable or permission-based. Any aggression will face an immediate harsh response beyond its planners’ imagination. The threat is framed in defensive terms, but an Iranian preemptive strike can not be entirely ruled out. For a security establishment humbled now facing down yet another authorized U.S.–Israeli campaign to dismantle its last line of national defense, striking first might look appealing. It has an element of surprise and forces its own terms on the adversary rather than merely reacting. Iranians will not wait to see their missile arsenal—the final pillar of their deterrence—systematically destroyed.  It does not mean that a preventive or preemptive Iranian strike is inevitable or even likely. But Iranian leaders are under immense pressure to never be caught flat-footed again. And by shifting the goalposts and openly planning for this next war, Washington and Jerusalem have contributed to making a preventive missile barrage against Israel look like a rational, devastating, option from Tehran’s perspective. The United States, by authorizing Israeli strikes, will likely find itself in the crosshairs. Whether Israel or Iran strikes first, this will be America’s war—a direct, open-ended conflict with a nation that has tried to avoid one. The nuclear program was a contained problem: a small number of known, fixed facilities. The missile program is diffuse—a vast network of production sites, storage tunnels, and mobile launchers scattered across a country four times the size of Iraq. There is no “surgical strike” option here, only a campaign of attrition, guaranteeing a massive Iranian response and locking the U.S. into another long war in the Middle East.This would be the ultimate betrayal of the president’s core promise to his base to end forever wars, rather than starting new ones. Yet Trump is already on that ruinous trajectory by striking Iran in June and this month striking a Venezuelan dock in the first known land strike on that country. Launching another major war in the Middle East, at the direct behest of a foreign government, would not just violate that pledge; it would risk a catastrophic collapse of his presidency and movement. The post Trump’s Iran Threats Endanger His Presidency and Movement appeared first on The American Conservative.

by George McClellan, America Outloud: We often hear the refrain: “If we don’t learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it,” and sure enough, we do it all the time. We rely on politicians who tell us everything is okay when it isn’t. The growing chaos that’s happening in America right now is similar […]

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