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They Can’t Stop the War. They Can’t Survive It.

So European leaders have deployed – to use an Ursula von der Leyen saying – all means possible. Except that those means were never enough to meet Ukraine’s needs.

‘if I give the promise to the people in Ukraine, “we stand with you, as long as you need us,” then I want to deliver. No matter what my German voters think.’

Europe has also closed off access to a consumer market of 143 million people in Russia – Europe was Russia’s biggest trade partner before the Ukraine crisis began – because we can’t stand to trade with those Russians.

The AfD win in Germany and Reform’s landslide in Britain show why Europe’s liberal governments are trapped — continue Ukraine and they lose the voters; end it and they lose them anyway.

Ian Proud, The Peace Monger, Sep 08, 2026

The victory of AfD in a local election in Germany was as consequential as the Reform Party’s landslide in local elections in Britain in May.

Why? Because a nationalist party won. This is another sign that liberalism is dying in Europe. What does this mean for the politics of Europe and for the war in Ukraine?

Politics in Europe Is Changing – The Ukraine War Is Driving a Shift Away from Liberalism

I have said for some time that the changing politics of Europe will ultimately decide the outcome of the war in Ukraine. Foreign policy always starts and ends at home.

And what I mean by that is, even if our governments support a proxy war in Ukraine, they are limited by essentially domestic considerations in how much support they can give.

European states have shown themselves unwilling to commit to direct war with Russia principally because they can’t guarantee they will garner political support at home, not least given the large number of casualties that would result.

Liberalism is predicated on a stable capitalist system, and a direct war would have devastating consequences for the economies of Europe.

Liberal European governments can’t give Ukraine as much money and equipment as they would prefer, as they are heavily indebted and don’t have the fiscal space to do this at a time when ordinary people feel that public services are being ignored.

So European leaders have deployed – to use an Ursula von der Leyen saying – all means possible. Except that those means were never enough to meet Ukraine’s needs.

Ukraine will lose the war against Russia because European leaders decided they could not bear the financial, human and political cost of direct war. That they encouraged war to continue for so long reflects the essential liberalism of Europe, that Ukraine was a prized project in the bid to create another liberal democracy on the periphery of Europe as a counterpoint to nationalist Russia. And that helps to explain why ordinary, often working-class, citizens are turning against liberalism.

Put simply, even though European governments have avoided a direct war with Russia, they haven’t been able to shield their citizens from the consequences of proxy war, nor deliver the strategic defeat that they promised, and this leaves ordinary people poorer, uncertain about their future employment prospects, worried about their children and feeling less safe.

It would be impossible for them not to make a connection with the war in Ukraine because that is the topic their leaders seem to talk about most when travelling abroad to grand summit meetings that never seem to resolve the world’s problems.

Indeed, Annalena Baerbock, while foreign minister, said in 2022, ‘if I give the promise to the people in Ukraine, “we stand with you, as long as you need us,” then I want to deliver. No matter what my German voters think.’

She was roundly criticised by parties like AfD at the time who were accused of a disinformation campaign. But her words were on the record. And the message that sent to ordinary Germans was that the Federal government cares about Ukrainian people more than you, which was a politically suicidal thing to say.

In this day of high-speed media, ordinary people can see what is going on.

Even though national priorities have placed some limited guardrails on liberal foreign policy hegemony, specifically the temptation to get sucked into a general war across Europe – that foreign policy consensus has nonetheless still funded a dreadful war in Ukraine for four-and-a-half years which is held aloft as more important than domestic concerns despite the severe consequences for ordinary German people.

Ordinary people are not stupid and can make the connection between their condition of life and the need to keep funnelling money and weapons into a war that shows no end in sight, which their leaders refuse to bring to a close.

In terms of the feeling of being poorer and less secure about the future, Europe has chosen economic warfare instead of actual warfare, and this has backfired. In the process, sanctions have rendered European industry uncompetitive through the closing off of cheap sources of energy. Europe has also closed off access to a consumer market of 143 million people in Russia – Europe was Russia’s biggest trade partner before the Ukraine crisis began – because we can’t stand to trade with those Russians.

German unemployment is now at its highest level in well over a decade. Germany was Russia’s biggest trading partner before the Ukraine crisis started.

Let’s be clear, cutting off supplies of Russian energy doesn’t benefit the people of Ukraine; that country is energy dependent too and also, by the way, bankrupt, which means that European capitals have to subsidize its expensive energy costs as well as its own.

It doesn’t hurt Russia, which has diverted its energy supply to Asia.

It only hurts the economies of Europe and, in doing so, the cost of living and job security of ordinary European citizens.

Meanwhile, ordinary people see the threat of future war with Russia dangled before them in the mainstream press which conjures up all sorts of fake news stories on a near-daily basis about Russia’s plan to invade and conquer Europe.

While all this is happening, people can see that the rest of the world – particularly in Asia – is powering ahead.

Outside of West Asia and the Middle East they see a part of the world relatively free of conflict where economic growth is lifting the living standards of millions each day.So ordinary people in Europe are starting to ask ‘why are we losing out?’

And the answer that increasing numbers keep coming back to is the war in Ukraine.

Europe has chosen economic stagnation, unemployment, falling living standards and the fear of war as a price to pay to weaken Russia, even though Russia has managed the shock of conflict and war far better, has a bigger industry, plentiful supplies of energy and access to the largest market in the world, in Asia.

More and more people in Europe are starting to see that their liberal governments do not have the interest of their citizens at heart.

And liberal governments have no way out of the Ukraine war. In fact, they are terrified of the war ending.

Liberalism’s Ukraine War Trap

European government have found themselves caught in a Ukraine War Trap in which they face electoral obliteration whether they end the Ukraine war or if they continue it.

What is devastating for liberal political leaders is that they have no way out of the cycle of electoral suicide they have put themselves in.

If they continue the war, they will get devastated in the polls.

If they end the war, they will also get devastated in the polls.

Firstly, what will happen if they continue the war?

Energy.

Even if Donald Trump ends his damaging war in Iran, Europe will remain locked into high energy prices. Indeed, an end to the Iran war will simply accentuate the difference between Europe, stuck in an era of uncompetitive high energy costs, and the rest of the world, which will start to benefit from a gradual normalisation of energy prices……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://thepeacemonger.substack.com/p/they-cant-stop-the-war-they-cant?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3221990&post_id=214714777&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

September 10, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | EUROPE, politics international