Comment du Jour

America's Back in Europe--Did We Ever Leave? 

“I’m sending a clear message to the world: America is back. The transatlantic alliance is back,” President Joe Biden affirmed to a high level assembly of European leaders.  I didn’t realize we had left.  

“The transatlantic alliance is a strong foundation, the strong foundation, on which our collective security and our shared prosperity are built,” the President intoned on video link to the Munich Security Conference (MSC).  I could not agree more.  This clearly represents the collective security policy which defended Western Europe in the post-war era from Soviet aggression and allowed the continent to regain its prosperity in freedom and liberty.  

Despite all the rhetoric and occasional rancor across the Atlantic during the earlier years of the Trump Administration, the United States did not reduce its troop commitments in NATO nor did it renege on the critical Article 5, the mutual security guarantee that an attack on one is an attack on all.  

But in the sphere of transatlantic policy, it’s the old style over substance argument.  The Europeans clearly didn’t like the Donald’s style; the U.S. President, ever the bottom line businessman,  pushed for fulfilling financial commitments and demanding results. 

Joe Biden on the other hand, told the gathered Euroland leaders what they wished to hear, but without making clear commitments.  

Regarding substance,  the Trump Administration despite its initial bluster, did not reduce the American military footprint in Europe.  Between 2006 and 2018, (largely before Trump) the number of American  forces stationed in Germany more than halved, from 72,400 to 33,250,  reflecting a changing global security situation.
   

President Biden stated, “I know the past few years have strained and tested our transatlantic relationship, but the United States is determined — determined to reengage with Europe, to consult with you, to earn back our position of trusted leadership.”

The prestigious Munich Security Conference held in the Bavarian capital,  emerges as the epicenter of global diplomacy, setting the gold standard for transatlantic relations. 

Just last year, at this very same Conference, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo scoffed at the idea that the USA was disinterested or disengaged from Europe; he stated, “I am happy to report that the death of the transatlantic alliance is grossly over-exaggerated.”  He exclaimed, “The West is winning. We are collectively winning. We are doing it together.” 
 
On China, President Biden warned, “we must prepare together for a long-term strategic competition with China…  Competition with China is going to be stiff. ”  To President Biden’s chagrin, the European Union entered into a major trade deal with China.

Viewing  the threat from Russia, Joe Biden stated, “The Kremlin attacks our democracies and weaponizes corruption to try to undermine our system of governance.”  He added, “Putin seeks to weaken the European project and our NATO Alliance.  He wants to undermine the transatlantic unity and our resolve.”   That’s certainly true but not the first time. 

Former Secretary Pompeo underscored similar Russian security challenges; “Let’s talk about territorial integrity, or rather, those nations that have contempt for it.  Russia has seized Crimea and parts of Eastern Ukraine and Georgia.”

The point is that on substance, the Transatlantic weathervane has not shifted dramatically with the Biden Administration as the adoring mainstream media suggests, but rather still reflects the post-war bi-partisan consensus which helped win the Cold War. 

Yet a very disconcerting poll taken among 15,000 Europeans in ten EU member states reflects their view of the American commitment.  The European Council on Foreign Relations poll states, “Very few Europeans believe the United States will intervene on their behalf in the event of a military crisis.  Just 10% of those polled held the view that the US was a ‘reliable’ security partner that will always protect Europe, while at least 60% of respondents in every country polled, felt their country could not depend on US support in the event of a major crisis.”  

There is deep unease towards the United States in the event of conflict with China or Russia,  with many Europeans keen to be neutral in such a scenario…  “in no country did a majority want to take Washington’s side against Russia.”  This is seriously troubling.  

Is this the cherished Transatlantic solidarity ?  

Comment du Jour

 COVID Crisis Devastates Global Health, Stability

The global pandemic has devastated health standards, the economy, and through stress and the undertow of uncertainty and hardships has affected the sanity of citizens worldwide.  Lockdowns, arbitrary regulations, school closings are taking their toll on the social fabric.   

Now as a second wave of the Wuhan Covid virus is sweeping Western Europe, and spiking in places as varied is South Africa, India and Brazil, Dr. Hans Kluge, WHO’s Regional Director for Europe warns, “This moment represents a tipping-point in the course of the pandemic, where science, politics, technology and values must form a united front, in or to push back this  persistent and elusive virus.”   He added, that “more than 230 million people are living in      countries under full national lockdown, and more governments are expected to announce lockdowns.”  

Last year more than 26 million COVID-19 cases were confirmed throughout Europe.  Dr. Kluge added “This is an alarming situation, which means that for a short period of time we need to do more than we have done and to intensify the public health.”  Two million people have died worldwide. 

Earlier in the crisis  people assumed and were told, “Europe got it right in treating and isolating” the virus.  Maybe for a while;  but since the Autumn countries ranging from France to Spain, Germany and Italy are in the deadly crosshairs of Corona.  The United Kingdom faces a  particularity lethal “second strain” of the virus which has prompted Prime Minister Boris     Johnson to practically shut the country down as the outbreaks surge from London.  

Given the lockdown people in England, Scotland and Wales must stay home and only can go out for limited reasons.  

Britain’s National Health Service is strained to the breaking point with new hospital admissions.

In France lockdowns have closed cafes and restaurants, and restricted travel.  The Macron     government has mandated a curfew in major cities to control the outbreaks; the 6 PM to 5 AM curfew has strained nerves and shattered small businesses.    

France has seen numbers surge with expanding daily infection rates despite the lockdown. 

Portugal, which fared quite well during last year's pandemic surge, now faces a particularly deadly

encounter with Covid.  Hospitals in the Lisbon region are filled with Covid patients. 

Europe’s grim numbers are worth noting; the United Kingdom has seen 95,000 deaths,  Italy 84,000, France 72,000 and Germany 50,000.  

Significantly the USA faces a steep fatality rate from Covid; over 400,000 Americans have died in less than a year. Correspondingly the U.S. is facing a relatively mild flu season; largely in part to the COVID-19 safety precautions as well as more than 188 million flu vaccinations.  Both flu and Covid deaths, especially among the elderly population, tend to affect people with multiple underlying health conditions. 

A Vaccine to the rescue?  We have finally have the tool if not silver bullet to stop the Covid spread. America’s much maligned Operation Warp Speed delivered and has fast tracked and helped develop a safe vaccine for the USA.  But many state governments and politicians are    acting like the proverbial Keystone Cops in directing and misdirecting  vaccine distribution.  New York state has stumbled with changing regulations and priorities.

But look at the data.  Vaccine distribution in Israel, the United Kingdom and the USA,  lead the world in the number of vaccine doses administered; as a percent of the population vaccinated, the American rate stands at about three times higher than most other European countries such as Italy and Germany. 

The Biden Administration is pushing for a Herculean effort, backed by signing fifteen Executive Orders,  to deliver one million shots daily in one hundred days.  Will the President’s Pen magically make U.S. Pharma firms produce more vaccine doses to shortly appear in clinics across America ? 

Further afield, Iran’s Ayatollahs say no to the Anglo/American vaccines so they are probably   looking to China for the jab.  Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made unsubstantiated claims that the American and British vaccines were “untrustworthy.”   He decreed,         “importing vaccines made in the US or the UK is prohibited.”  So far 56,000 Iranians have died during the pandemic.  Let’s face it, Iran’s clerical elite will probably get a U.S. vaccine!

Islamic Iran has banned imports of the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca/Oxford   vaccines.   

In a strange twist,  Argentina who should know better, has decided to use the Russian Sputnik vaccine!  Argentina became the first country in Latin America to use the Russian shots.  But in a bid to get an additional 15 million vaccines, Argentina’s socialist Fernandez government is     currently in talks with China to procure the Sinovac vaccine.  China’s President Xi Jinping said that his country is “ready to work” with Argentina to boost cooperation. 

But the depth of the global crisis goes beyond borders.  UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres

warned,  “We are at a 1945 moment, but this is not 1945.  Today’s war is against a microscopic virus.  Tomorrow’s could be against terrorists in cyberspace. “    

Comment du Jour

                                                KING for a Day!

Galette des Rois 

Kings Cake

A traditional pastry celebrating the Epiphany (6 January) the Galettes de Rois are popular in France and Quebec during most of January.  The puff pastry with a layer of delicious frangipane also has versions which are popular in New Orleans.

While the cake is known as as offering to the Three Kings, each pastry holds a small porcelain figurine usually of a religious nature.  The person who finds the prize La Feve becomes King for a day but often gains the obligation to purchase the next cake for the family. 

                 The paper crown can also be worn by the lucky person who discovers the Feve!

                                       The lucky Bean or the Feve!

Comment du Jour

 

                   Merry Christmas!!

HEALTH and Happiness in the New Year!!!

Comment du Jour

 

Happy Thanksgiving--Time for Beaujolais Nouveau

It's that time of the year when the American Feast of Thanksgiving is celebrated with  French Beaujolais Nouveau wine!

The French "new wine"has been a traditional compliment to Thanksgiving Tables and despite the Covid pandemic, this year is really no different.

The 2020 Beaujolais Nouveau comes from the formidable Gamay grape and is a "young" and  indeed uncomplicated edition to the harvest meal, usually of Turkey and cranberries. 

Despite this being 2020, a year which has been filled with disappointment,  chagrin and crisis, the Beaujolais Nouveau is exceptionally good and a fine addition to celebrations hoping for better times. 

A Votre Sante!

Comment du Jour

U.S. Not Alone in Widening Global Pandemic

While recent flareups of the Corona virus have been spreading across large parts of the USA, 

Americans are hardly alone in facing the deadly pandemic.  Though virus outbreaks are often presented by mainstream media outlets as a political validation of the contentious mask debate, leading European countries such as France, Belgium, Spain and the United Kingdom are facing a far more dangerous COVID spike as we enter the cooler Autumn months.  

A one day surge of 30,000 cases in France tipped the scales in an growing pandemic; French President Emmanuel Macron ordered tough curfews on eight cities including Paris where people

must be off the streets between 9 PM and 6 AM. The shutdowns are slated to remain in force 

for at least a month, with about 20 million people directly affected out of the population of 67 million.

This is very serious for the French who already withstood a lockdown between March and May 

where ordinary citizens literally had to have their papers in order and updated daily just to go

out for the necessary baguette and or an afternoon dog walk.  Closing bars and cafe’s is near heresy, but shutting restaurants and placing a curfew on Paris the City of Light at 9 PM borders on ludicrous social engineering.

But there’s more.  Germany’s capital Berlin has suspended an evening curfew from 11PM to 6AM because a court ruling “considers it disproportionate in view of other measures taken to fight the pandemic.”    

German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged residents to stay at home amid a dramatic increase in the number of coronavirus infections in Germany. “We have to do everything we can now to ensure that the virus does not spread uncontrollably — every day counts,” Merkel said in a podcast.  Until now, Germany has had one of the world’s best records in containing COVID. 

   

Crossing the Channel it doesn’t get better. London’s nearly nine million people will be banned from socializing indoors with people outside their households and “support bubbles,” while commuters are urged to avoid public transport. There’s a 10 p.m. curfew for pubs and restaurants in England.  Scotland faces widespread  restrictions.  British Prime Minister Boris Johnson advises coronavirus constraints on gatherings and contacts will have finished by September next year!  COVID cases have more than tripled since September.

This COVID-19 virus is global and lethal.  Few places except for South Korea and Taiwan have handled it very well.  If you view the West European mortality rates, except Sweden, which remained open through the worst of the crisis in the Spring,  many countries actually have a much higher death rate than the USA  proportionate to their populations. 

The mainstream media and big tech platforms downplay or hide this grim reality.  

Though the United States has tragically suffered in excess of 200,000 deaths, many projections and scenarios by Imperial College in London predicted nearly two million fatalities if no action was taken.  This combined with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) too late health hush up from the spread of the Wuhan virus in China assured an accident waiting to happen.  

France’s 67 million people have seen 33,000 deaths which proportionate to the U.S. population of 331 million remains only a slightly lower rate. The U.K. however with 44,000 fatalities from a population of 68 million has a higher mortality rate than the U.S. as does Spain with 34,000 deaths from 47 million people.  A global Vaccine won’t turn the tide at once.

And what about China where it all started?  Only the usual highly sanitized narrative.  

Ironically the WHO has now warned against renewed lockdowns given the extreme economic 

damage they cause.  Governments must choose between safeguarding lives or protecting the economy. 

Comment du Jour

 

German Reunification’s Peaceful Lesson

Germany’s reunification is now history.  It seemed not so long ago that the Berlin Wall had fallen in 1989, Central European countries had regained their sovereignty through the freedom tsunami sweeping Europe, and unimaginably on 3 October 1990, West and East Germany, the front line frontier of a very Cold War had reunified in peace and freedom.  

Almost as in a fairytale the two separate states, the Federal Republic of Germany

(West) and the communist German Democratic Republic (East), had almost magically merged into one nation without violence, with the legal blessing of the WWII Allied powers, and through the political foresight of German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.   

Perhaps the most enduring image of divided Germany stood as the Berlin Wall, built in 1961.

The Wall separated free West Berlin controlled by the Americans, British and French from Soviet controlled East Berlin.  The Wall provided a vivid juxtaposition of a divided land; it was designed to keep people inside the worker’s paradise and stop others from trying to flee. 

Indeed between 1949 and 1961 over 2.7 million people fled East Germany for the West.  In Berlin itself over 171 were killed at the Wall while escaping. 

I first visited the divided German capital in the late 1970’s; the once grand cosmopolitan city  remained a stunning tableaux in black and white. While the Wall brutally separated families and neighbors, it equally illuminated the vivid contrast between prosperous West Berlin and the grey, dreary and shoddy East Berlin.  

Though the same people, West and East Germany had fundamentally different state personalities; the Federal Republic was aligned with the West, politically free and with a prosperous turbo-charged market economy.  East Germany was the poor cousin steeped in socialism, and part of the Soviet sphere.  

Complicated economic and social comparisons aside, there’s a novel way to understand the contrast between West and East Germany; their celebrated automobiles.  West Germany was known for its iconic Mercedes-Benz cars and trucks.  East Germany sported the Trabant, a small fiberglass 25 horsepower auto which chugged along belching a blue-grey smoke. Citizens in  West Germany’s consumer society had access to the Mercedes line and it was not uncommon to own one.  In the East there was a multi-year waiting list to buy a treasured Trabi—which came in the dazzling colors of white, penicillin green and black.  Enough said!

 

In June 1987, President Ronald Reagan, while visiting Berlin and speaking at the Brandenburg Gate demanded, “Mr. Gorbachev Tear down this Wall.”  Reagan’s comments touched off a     cascade of shock, criticism, and condescension and from a political class who viewed the      president’s call as an incendiary challenge to an accepted status quo; the Wall. Elites cringed.

But then came the unexpected Freedom Tsunami of Autumn 1989 when Central Europe changed. 

By 1990, the geopolitical stars were aligned perfectly as the four Allied powers, the victors over Naziism in WWII,  acted as cautious midwives to the creation of a reunited Germany.  

Though economically costly, Kohl’s political choice for unity was the right one.  But despite the progress, there’s still political angst among the 17 million Easterners; some speak of a psychological divide between East and West Germany.

Emily Haber, Germany’s  Ambassador to the United States stresses, “The trust and friendship of our neighbors and allies, first and foremost the U.S., helped bring about this unique success    story.  We will never forget America’s support. Thirty years later, we celebrate that historic day and say, ‘Danke!’ to the American people.”

Reunification’s success was anchored in close and enduring Transatlantic ties; let’s refocus on renewing those vital links of friendship.