When Emmanuel Macron cited Marc Bloch’s almost forgotten study of France’s defeat in 1940 in an interview in May of this year, he intended to challenge the West’s complacency in the face of mounting danger. With Vladimir Putin in the ascendant in Ukraine and Donald Trump edging towards the White House, the need for Europe to be able to defend itself – one of Macron’s long-standing themes – is urgently topical.
Macron is right to compare Europe’s situation with that in the late Thirties; it once again faces an existential threat. European civilisation was saved through Britain rearming in the years before the Second World War and declining to surrender or negotiate a shameful peace; America’s industrial might and its infantry’s heroism at Omaha Beach; and Russia’s sacrifice of over 25 million of its population in resisting the Nazi invasion. Eighty years on, Britain is shrinking its already depleted armed services and America has offshored much of its manufacturing base, while Putin’s willingness to send so many of his forces to their deaths is central to the Russian strategy in Ukraine. Except in countries directly bordering Russia, it is doubtful whether the will to defend itself survives in Europe. And if it does, it may be too late.
Content from our partners
