UN Speeches as Posturing During a Genocide

The UN report, “Gaza Genocide” (A/80/492) states that “the prolonged unlawful occupation of the Palestinian territory” by the state of Israel “has now escalated into a full-fledged genocide” with “the direct participation, aid and assistance” of other countries. Hence, the “collective crime” is “internationally enabled.”[1] Just before I wrote this, two Iranian dissidents sitting next to me in a coffee shop declared to me that the destruction by Israel in Gaza is not a genocide. I looked up the UN report, and replied, “It’s not just a matter of opinion anymore.” The two Iranians, doubtlessly in the US because they opposed their own regime in Iran, quickly left the coffee shop. Rather than being open to something more than their opinion, they left. Doubtless they had not expected the scholar sitting next to them to cite a well-documented source. To be sure, even political officials of governments critical of Israel’s genocide in Gaza (and the wanton violence of “settlers” in the West Bank were too inclined to posture for attention than even to be consistent in symbolic political actions (while refusing to occupy Gaza militarily, standing up to the holocaustic Israeli regime).

The UN report states that third countries (i.e., excluding Israel and Palestine) “may, and in some case (sic) must, use force against [a country] in violation of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter.”[2] That the UN’s General Assembly allowed Israel’s prime minister (Netanyahu) to speak in September, 2026 in spite of Israel’s significant, even blatant violations of the Charter is discrediting enough to the international organization; that the governor of the EU state of France spoke explicitly against the genocide and yet his UN delegation did not join some 70 others in walking out just before Netanyahu’s speech. That EU states had used their respective vetoes to proscribe federal action against Israel meant that the state governments were left to act, or not act, symbolically and/or in terms of trade and even military action against Israel in Gaza.

In his speech, the E.U. state of France’s governor, President Macron, said, “Recognition [of the Palestinian state] is just a piece of paper, look at the reality” in Gaza. “Are we simply to stand by and watch this spectacle that should shame us all?”[3] He should have been pointing his finger at himself, for he allowed his state’s delegation to literally sit by and watch Netanyahu’s speech. Had he really believed that Israel had been committing a genocide in Gaza, he should have opposed Netanyahu’s presence, and speech, at the UN, for committing a genocide clearly violates the UN Charter. Macron himself asked rhetorically in his speech, “But what credibility do we have if we continue to remain inactive in the face of Gaza?”[4] Duplicity even in symbolic political actions may be worse than doing nothing.

The stakes of just posturing were high not only because of Israel’s multi-year genocide, committed with impunity due to the US playing the vital roll of an enabling not-so-silent partner, but also because Russia was still invading Ukraine, a sovereign country. Accordingly, “Macron warned against a global ‘return to the law of the jungle,’ saying countries faced a choice between a world governed by power and coercion and a ‘civilized international society.’”[5] In other words, the alleged international law proffered by the UN and the International Criminal Court (ICC) after two world wars was being openly defied—and the US military actions in Venezuela to kidnap its president and in Iran to unleash bombs unilaterally (without Iran having attacked the US) can be added to the list of defying international law, if indeed law had really existed internationally after World War II (without any real enforcement mechanism) even amid the advent of international organizations.

To be credible—to be believed to be real—international law would have been enforced by third-country militaries entering Ukraine as soon as Russian troops crossed the border and entering Gaza to protect the civilians there as soon as Israel started bombing the enclave. Relative to such action, speeches at the UN against Israel’s genocide without the respective delegations even walking out before Netanyahu’s speech can be relegated as mere posturing and even as hypocritical. 

Macron was hardly alone in his duplicity. Even though the governor of the E.U. state of Italy had announced about six months earlier, “In light of the current situation, the government has decided to suspend the automatic renewal of the defence agreement with Israel,” Italy’s UN delegation did not walk out on Netanyahu either.[6] Meloni could easily have instructed her delegation to make such a symbolic move, especially as Netanyahu used his speech to threaten other countries by reminding them of Israel’s past use of phone pagers to blow up people. Such a reminder adds insult to injury, and even rubs the international body itself in the dirt for being so impotent in the face of a genocide in which Israel decimated entire cities in Gaza with utter impunity. Even though Israel arguably had lost its very legitimacy as a country in the world, the UN not only had failed to kick Israel out and urge militaries of countries (not “member states”) to occupy Gaza, but instead played host to symbolic inconsistency. The sheer severity of Israel’s crimes against humanity in Gaza (and the West Bank, in enabling “settler” violence and theft) dwarfs posturing half-measures even just in symbolic in nature. 

It could be asked at the time whether our feckless, weak species of windpipes deserves international law. Even just the convenient ideologically-based denial in 2026 that the decimation of Gaza constitutes a genocide even though the UN and ICC had determined as much supports the contention that  homo sapiens as a political animal is inherently compromised, and thus that the “family” of nations is in desperate need of international law, which requires automatic rather than only politically expedient enforcement.

---

1.“Gaza Genocide: A Collective Crime” (A/80/492), The United Nations, 20 October 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. John Irish, “In UN Farewell, Macron Denounces Trump’s Gaza Diplomacy as Spectacle of Shame,” Reuters, September 22, 2026.
4.Ibid.
5.Ibid.
6. Angelo Amante and Alvise Armelini, “Italy’s Meloni Suspends Defence Cooperation Deal with Israel,” Reuters, April 14, 2026.

Trade or Foreign Policy: The E.U. on Illegal Israeli Settlements

During the summer of 2026, the E.U. found itself at one point trying to make the unnecessarily arduous and utterly artificial distinction between trade and foreign policy as if they were mutually exclusive. This task was foisted on the Council of Ministers due to the domain-specific application of the state veto, which is to say, the requirement of unanimity. The sheer artificiality was outdone only by the absurdity of any of 27 states still being able to veto proposed federal law and policy in some but not all policy domains, and thus hamstring the E.U. even when the good of the whole, supported by the vast majority of states and E.U. citizens, supported action on the federal level. The global context at the time with respect to international relations belied a stark separation of trade from foreign policy.

In declaring a recommencement of a naval blockade on Iranian ports on July 13, 2026, for example, U.S. President Trump also said the U.S. would “be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security” to ships passing through the Hormuz Strait.[1] As a countering move of rhetoric, “Iran’s military command insisted it would not allow the US to ‘interfere’ in the key conduit for oil and gas, while also warning its Gulf neighbours—who have borne the brunt of Tehran’s attacks—against cooperating” with the U.S.[2] Clearly, trade itself, and especially protecting its conduit, can be seen as being closely intertwined with foreign policy in this case. The rising price of oil was clearly on Trump’s mind, especially with the “midterm” elections less than four months away, but also standing up to the Iranian military attacks on ships in the strait was also a probable motive, rather than merely to make “toll” money on shipping in the Middle East. In other words, political economy, rather than just business and economics, best describes the interlacing of trade and foreign policy. 

In fact, historically, the field known today as economics spun out of political economy. Even in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, a non-mercantilist, regulative role of government in protecting competitive markets and even the role of the state in covering the “social” costs of capitalism, such as in providing housing and food to the unemployed, for example, are salient. Left to its own devises, a competitive market could concentrate into an oligopoly or even a monopoly as the refining industry did in the last quarter of the nineteenth century in North America, where oil was first discovered.

Therefore, it can be regarded as a legal fiction of sorts that the E.U. would treat a legislative proposal to ban trade with Israeli settlements, such as covered most of the land in the West Bank by 2026, illegally according both to international and E.U. law, as a matter of trade rather than foreign policy so only qualified majority voting rather than the unanimous consent that is necessary on foreign-policy proposals would be needed to pass the Council of Ministers. Referring to that council, the E.U.’s federal foreign minister Kallas reported, “The option that got the most support was banning the trade with the illegal settlements.”[3] She was referring to the E.U.’s states, which are represented both in the European Council and the Council of Ministers, similar to U.S. states being represented in the U.S. Senate. In American parlance, the consensus among “senators” was to ban all trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, which by 2026 was down to the West Bank as Israel had razed Gaza to the ground in a holocaustic genocide. That the consensus was not instead to ban all trade with Israel as well as its illegal settlements, given the state-sponsored destruction of Gaza, is another question, which presumably would also qualify to be decided in the Council by qualified majority vote rather than unanimity, for trade even as foreign policy is still trade.

That the E.U. still made such a distinction as to the voting threshold in 2026 even as the Union was considering adding more states to the east even though foreign policy and trade had become so integrally related in international relations generally can be said to be artificial, and thus irrationally political rather than having merit in the functioning of the E.U.’s federal system. In fact, even at 27 states, the requirement of reaching unanimity on legislation and policy in the European Council and the Council of Ministers (aka Council of the E.U.) had already made it very difficult to pass even widely favored proposals due to Viktor Orbán’s “Euroskeptic” (i.e., anti-federalist) ideology. In other words, he was able to undercut the E.U. from within, and yet even months after his fall from power in the E.U. state of Hungary, the matter of subjecting the matter of deciding how to vote on whether to ban trade with illegal settlements was still arduous! Even though Kallas was the foreign minister of the E.U. (under the stealth misnomer of “High Representative” to satisfy anti-federalists), banning trade falls under trade primarily, and thus qualified-majority voting rather than unanimity. Perhaps a more robust, courageous, foreign-policy proposal worthy of human-rights and even just international-law proponents would have been to ban trade with Israel en toto, but even such a proposal would fall under trade and thus rightly be subject to qualified-majority voting. Moreover, with 27 states, and thus 27 political opinions of sitting governors, that the Councils still subjected any decision to unanimity especially after Viktor Orbán suggests that the need to distinguish trade from foreign policy anyway could and should have been obviated by common sense. 

That on 13 July, 2026, “a majority of member states . . . backed framing the measures as a trade rather than a foreign policy tool, which would avoid the need of all E.U. [state] governments to unanimously back the move” should have been enough because, simply put, banning trade is about trade, which is subject to qualified-majority voting.[4] The “move” should not have been needed in the first place, were enough Europeans convinced that the very existence of the state-veto in the Councils is an antiquated notion based on the former days before the E.U. when the states were fully sovereign, rather than semi-sovereign in a political union, which also has some governmental sovereignty. In fact, qualified-majority voting itself is an instance of such sovereignty because states on the losing end of such a vote must obey the decision nonetheless. 

Therefore, the very continuance of the state veto is predicated on denial. Put another way, the world was moving forward; why, then, were the E.U. state governments so utterly intractable, so beheld to their own power, even as the E.U. was poised to add even more states without first jettisoning the requirement of unanimity in the two councils that represent states? Perhaps the Parliament and the Commission should have been delegated more authority at the federal level until the states could get their act together in the two federal councils.

---

1. Aleksandar Brezar and Peter Barabas, “Trump Reimposes U.S. Blockade and Demands 20% Hormuz Shipping Fee,” Euronews.com, 13 July 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Mared G. Jones, “Full Ban on Israeli Settlement Trade Gets ‘Most Support’ from EU Countries, Kallas Says,” Euronews.com, 13 July, 2026.
4. Ibid.

The E.U. as a Mediator between Russia and Ukraine: A Conflict of Interest

To be a neutral arbitrator of a conflict between two other countries, a government cannot favor one of the two; otherwise, the veneer of neutrality is undercut by the interest of preferring one position over the other. The duty to act neutrally, which the role of arbitrator includes or implies, can be exploited by the subterranean—or even explicit!—non-normative, private-benefits interest to support one of the two sides. To put one’s own private interest above a broader-benefitting interest, such as in entailed in a duty to act neutrally, is to exploit a conflict of interest. Governments can exploit conflicts of interest. With regard to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the E.U.’s foreign minister (or de facto commissioner) disabused the public of any thoughts that the E.U. could, and thus would, be a neutral arbitrator between Russia and Ukraine. Such transparency lies in stark contrast to the illusory impression by the U.S. that it was in any position to arbitrate between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, for the U.S. was firmly on the side of Israel.

As Russia was bombing civilian housing in Kiev, Kaja Kallas, the E.U.’s federal foreign minister, explicitly ruled out a role for the E.U. in arbitrating negotiations between Kiev and Moscow. “One thing is very clear: Europe will never be a neutral mediator between Russia and Ukraine, because we are on Ukraine’s side and we are defending our own security interests,” Kallas said toward the end of May, 2026.[1] To mediate between two parties requires being neutral as to both sides and their respective positions; otherwise, credibility is zerstoert from day one of any negotiation session. To pretend to be neutral even just by assuming the air as a mediator, such as the U.S. had done not only with regard to Russia and Ukraine, but also, albeit to a lesser extent, to Israel and Gaza, is to exploit a conflict of interest, which is unethical. That proposals by the U.S. in either conflict would be regarded as credible requires a naivety that is itself enabling as to the exploitation. In its direct conflict with Iran, at least the U.S. was not pretending to be a mediator, for surely a direct combatant in a conflict cannot possibly be neutral.

Therefore, Kallas did the world a service in explicitly stating in regard to the Russian-Ukrainian War, “We can’t be neutral, treating them equally, because we have been clearly on Ukraine’s side.”[2] Such transparent frankness may seem unnecessary; however, given the attempts by the U.S. to claim neutrality in conflicts in which the Americans have hardly been neutral, Kallas’ statement is of value. The E.U. need not have assumed neutrality to be of assistance to Ukraine. That country’s foreign minister, Andrii Shyiiba, said that “the E.U. should focus on ‘precise, doable steps,’ such as the demilitarisation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and the establishment of humanitarian corridors.”[3] Therefore, Ukraine was not calling on the E.U. to be mediator. That the E.U. could not be; unfortunately, even helping Ukraine was a tall order—a needlessly difficult chore for the E.U.

To the extent that the U.S. was in favor of Russia gaining Ukrainian territory even though by illegal invasion, Shyyiiba’s instance that the E.U. “must represent one united European voice,” given the direct federal role of the governors of the 27 E.U. states in foreign policy, was important. Put another way, to the extent that the U.S. leaned toward Russian President Putin’s position that a land-grab is de facto valid internationally (possession being nine-tenths of ownership), Ukraine desperately needed the E.U. to take difficult decisions resulting in specific federal policies helpful to Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. The reason for the difficulty can be tied to the requirement in the European Council (and the Council of Ministers), which represents the states (as the U.S. Senate represents states), that decisions on policy and law be unanimous. Just imagine if every U.S. senator could wield a veto on behalf of the residual sovereignty of one’s state!

Unanimity is inconsistent with the dual (or split) governmental sovereignty that is characteristic of early-modern federalism, as distinct from confederalism in which the states retain full sovereignty (nonplena foedus, as per Althusius’s 1603 theory of federalism). Whereas Althusius saw only the alternatives of full and not-full federalism—wherein the federal head or the states enjoy sovereignty, the American compromise of dual-sovereignty “split the atom” of unitary governmental sovereignty and the E.U., but not any of its states, is based on that compromise, rather than either of Althusius’ types of federalism.

With regard to the Russian-Ukrainian war, the foreign minister (i.e., Secretary of State) of the U.S., Marco Rubio, said, “The US stands ready and prepared to help to do whatever we can to help facilitate the end of this war, and hopefully the opportunity will present itself at some point.”[4] However, offers to facilitate, a word that connotes neutrality, do not usually stand back, waiting for an opportunity to arise. Such a tenuous position may implicitly say that the U.S. would step into a facilitating role whenever Putin, rather than Zelensky, wants it. Kallas’ position that the E.U. would complement the role of the U.S. not only is in tension with the E.U.’s partiality toward Ukraine, but also assumes that the U.S. was sufficiently neutral to have credibility in facilitating negotiations between the warring countries, but at least Kallas was transparent as to the stance of the E.U. being pro-Ukrainian—something from which the U.S. could take a lesson.

Just as a person who already has a girlfriend or boyfriend and is doing that one’s bidding should not be assumed to be neutral with respect to a potential usurper’s interests even though that new connection represents a potentially deeper flame of romance, President Trump’s “bromance” with Putin (and Netanyahu—irrespective of what the International Criminal Court had to say about those two “bad boys”) should not have been lost on Zelensky in his endeavors to influence Trump to distance himself from Putin and come closer to Ukraine’s side. Even the promise of a ring made of rare earths could not be assumed to be enough for the gold-loving Trump. If the proverbial card deck is stacked in favor of the existing relationship, the newcomer should look elsewhere for love, especially once he or she sees that the preference and indeed the loyalty of the person being sought lies with someone else who is actually calling the shots behind the scenes. “Distance yourself emotionally and physically from the potential usurper!” an existing boyfriend or girlfriend might say during a visit. From that point on, the usurper is easy prey, being emotionally vulnerable to the new beloved, and should flee from that person, who is actually an agent, to higher ground with haste. Hence, Zelensky turned to the E.U. from having beseeched the U.S. in vain. That deck had already been stacked in favor of Putin, so Zelensky didn’t have a chance. Go to Putin; he is your type, Zelensky could have told Trump before closing the door; I’m going to Von der Leyen. That she and her foreign minister had trouble getting the E.U. to speak with one voice at the federal level is thus truly a hindrance (but Trump would be jealous anyway). Too bad; you had your chance. You’re stuck with the other guy, who holds you at a distance as a trophy, Zelensky could have told Trump harmlessly from a distance. I believe the actual term in the Castro is trophy whore. The pains of hell await anyone who falls in love with such a creature; Zelensky was too smart for that. But enough of subterranean homoeroticism applied to politicians on the world stage; I'll leave to the reader the matter of whether the term translates over to Trump's wives.

Meanwhile, Ukraine and especially Gaza were being ravaged by hostile aggressors with impunity and perhaps too much testosterone. Of course, Nietzsche claims that our natural instincts are best suited to the state of nature—that our species is “well adapted to the wilderness, to war, to prowling, to adventure” but that within society (and a world order), those instincts have been “disvalued and ‘suspended’” such that “all those instincts of wild, free, prowling man” have been “turned backward against man himself.”[5] Perhaps Nietzsche would applaud the collapse of the post-World-War-II world-order, with the reversion back to Hobbes’ state of nature being accomplished as if by fiat by aggressor states, for Putin, Netanyahu, and even Trump himself doubtlessly felt no “bad conscience” in having commenced unprovoked military maneuvers in the 2020s ironically amid the progress of the species technologically and thus in a narrow sense. Nietzsche would be the first to point out that human nature has not changed, and that our artificial societal/cultural cages are a problem rather than the solution; indeed, they have made humankind into a problem as externally-oriented instinctual urges have been turned inward. But what of the instinctual urge to be humane? What of that of compassion? What of love? Are these instincts not native to our species too? If so, why not restrain military aggressors from being free-wheeling actors jumping into the power-vacuum left by the impotent UN and ICC? Must life be short, nasty, and brutish, as it was for too many people in Ukraine and especially Gaza even when Kallas was making her statement in 2026 after having just met with divided state-level officials in the E.U. on Ukraine?

---

1. Jorge Liboreiro, “E.U. Will Never Be a Neutral Mediator Between Ukraine and Russia, Says Kallas,” Euronews.com, 28 May, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Friedrich Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals, in Basic Writings of Nietzsche, Trans and Ed., Walter Kaufmann (New York: The Modern Library, 1968), Second Essay, Sec. 16, pp. 520-21.

Vendetta Violence: Israeli Settlers Sanctioned by the E.U.

What a difference even just a month can make. On 11 May, 2026, the E.U. enacted sanctions against “Israeli settlers over their violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, a move enabled by backing from Hungary’s incoming government.”[1] A month earlier, Viktor Orbán was the sitting prime minister of the E.U. state of Hungary. As a supporter of U.S. President Trump, who in turn supported Israel even in its decimation of Gaza razing entire cities into leveled ground for real estate “properties,” Orbán would have wielded Hungary’s veto in the European Council.

Kaja Kallas, the E.U.’s foreign minister, marveled at the time, “We move from political deadlock that was there for a long time. Violence and extremism carry consequences.”[2] The long time is likely a reference to Orbán’s 16 years in power in the E.U. state of Hungary, and her point overall is that with that governor out of the European Council, the E.U. can inflict consequences on foreign actors who engage in violence under the aegis of some extremist ideology. In the case of the Israeli settlers, the ideology is Zionism, which in coming from a religious text has overreached into the political domain, even circumventing international law.

That the violence occurred in the occupied West Bank renders Israel itself especially culpable, for under international law, “all settlements are considered illegal, with the International Court of Justice describing the State of Israel’s ‘continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory’ as ‘unlawful.’”[3] Both the unprovoked violence of the settlers and the Israeli government’s attempted holocaustic genocide of the population of Gaza are on top of the fact that Israel has no justified basis internationally to even be in Gaza and the West Bank. In other words, Israel is two degrees of separation from being a lawful state in terms of international law. That the Netanyahu government was able to ignore that law so easily suggests that there is no such thing as international law—that only guidelines were by then operating in the collapsed post-World War II global order. In a Hobbesian state of nature, no law exists because no international or global government exists. No world federation certainly, which Kant admitted in Perpetual Peace would only make world peace possible but not probable.

The recurrent violence and theft was being committed even in broad daylight by Israeli settlers against defenseless Palestinians—even walking into their houses and nonchalantly taking appliances and furniture!—because impunity must surely have been assured by means of the tacit approval of a government that, after all, had been determined by the UN to have committed a genocide in Gaza. The violations of human rights occurred on both the societal and interpersonal level. A counter-move international could therefore be expected beyond the E.U. sanctioning individual settlers and related organizations.

Given the harm that was being unleashed directly or indirectly by the Israeli government, Kallas’ claim that violence and extremism abroad would trigger negative consequences by the E.U. rings hollow because those consequences are so inadequate to meet the magnitude and depth of the suffering, both interpersonally and at the societal level (i.e., an entire people). So even though a month made a difference in the European Council, the global “community” was still holding back from enforcing international law. With no other enforcement mechanism, can such law even be called law?

---

1. Maia de la Baume, “E.U. Approves Sanctions on Israeli Settlers after Hungarian Backing,” Euronews.com, 11 May, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

On America’s Dominance in NATO: The E.U. as a Contributory Factor

Just after the E.U. had successfully negotiated (mostly) free-trade treaties with India and a few South American state-level countries, the E.U. and U.S. were at odds on the ownership and control of Greenland to such an extent that the NATO alliance was strained if not fraught. The resulting power-vacuum with respect to military alliances could be filled by the E.U. strengthening its federal foreign policy and defense powers and forming a military alliance with India and even South America in order to put less reliance and thus pressure on the weakened NATO alliance.  This is not to say that new military alliances would necessarily or even probably form; rather, such alliances would be in line with the dynamics and logic of power itself at the international level. I contend that the unbalanced balance of federal-state power in foreign policy and defense in the E.U. was a major contributory factor of the dominance of the U.S. in NATO.

U.S. President’s politically aggressive threats regarding making Greenland a U.S. territory (but not a state) made the American dominance in NATO suddenly unsavory to the Europeans. At the end of January, 2026, the former European Council president Charles Michel was unusually blunt by European (but not American Midwestern) standards. “NATO chief Mark Rutte should stop being an ‘American agent’ and unite the fraught military alliance in the face of the United States’ ‘hostile rhetoric’ and ‘intimidation’,” Michel told Euronews.[1] Whereas his words, hostile rhetoric and intimidation, applied to President Trump were nothing new; it was the expression, American agent, that stood out. Even though the dominance of the mighty American military power in NATO was hardly news, that Michel said it out loud signaled the depth of the Europeans’ displeasure at Trump’s overt messaging on Greenland. Michel was just as blunt about Rutte himself. “I want to be clear, Mark Rutte is disappointing and I’m losing confidence. . . . I’m not expecting Mark Rutte to be an American agent. I’m expecting Mark to work for unity within NATO,” Michel said.[2]

Rutte’s claim that Trump was the “Daddy” of NATO was admittedly over the top (Trump’s ego hardly needed the accolade of Daddy), but Michel’s criticism is weaker concerning Rutte’s efforts to find “an off-ramp for Trump to climb down on his recent threats to trigger a trade war” with the E.U. over differences on Greenland.[3] Dissipating the related economic and political escalations between countries in NATO served the interests of unity in NATO, so Rutte deserves credit for providing Trump with an off-ramp.

Michel also claimed that the E.U. had been a “very loyal partner” to the U.S. and thus did not deserve Trump’s threats.[4] Instead of going on to analyze the relative validity of the positions of the E.U. and U.S. on which continent should own and control Greenland, the road less travelled by analysts concerns the argument that the E.U. would be more likely to reach a parity of power with the U.S. in NATO were the E.U. states willing to transfer more governmental sovereignty to the federal level in foreign policy and defense. This would include (but not be limited to) moving off reliance on the principle of unanimity to hold votes in the Council by qualified-majority. As the executive branch, the Commission would of course have more shared and exclusive competencies (i.e., enumerated powers) in foreign affairs and militarily (with control over more than the 60,000 troops). As in the U.S., both the states and the Union would have armies, and the Commission could temporarily borrow the state militias as needed. That the state governments have direct power in the European Council and the Council of Ministers, whereas the American states are only indirectly represented in the U.S. Senate, means that the E.U. would be less likely to abuse its federal police and even the federal borrowing of state armies as Trump was able to do.

Moreover, that the U.S. had become so violent, in part due to the astounding corruption in local police departments and in part due to the Trump administration is itself a reason why E.U. citizens and their elected representatives have good reason to bolster defense at the federal level. Gone were the days when America stood for the little guys rather than the bullies in the world. Unfortunately, the language that speaks most clearly to Trump, Netanyahu, and Putin is that of counter-force. Were the E.U. not so bottom-heavy militarily (i.e., reliant on the state armies), perhaps a federal force could have gone into Ukraine and Gaza to push the aggressors back. Might-Makes-Right would have suffered a set-back rather than stand to become the default in post post-World War II global order. Therefore, the Europeans could stand to do some navel gazing on why the U.S. has been so dominate in NATO.  

1. Mared G. Jones, “Mark Rutte Should Stop Being an ‘American Agent’ and Unite NATO, Charles Michel Says,” Euronews.com, January 30, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.