Will the rising European Right bow to Putin?

Europe’s recent lurch to the right in balloting for the European Parliament

 concerns me as an American, because so much evil has come out of Europe’s Right. To be precise, Nazis and other fascists.

And yet I know the lurch to the right comes as a response to the drift to the left, under the aegis of the European Union. And the European Left can be every bit as bad as the Right. To be precise, Communists.

Both extremes are antithetical to freedom.

I define the force that moved the political needle as the 3 I’s — Immigration, Inflation, Insecurity (which means fear of crime).

Sound familiar? Just like here in the U.S. of A.

(I am not predicting that a similar rightward drift here will result in a  Donald J, Trump victory in November, although it might.)

Rightward ho went France, Germany, Holland, Spain and Italy, part of a rightward slide elsewhere in the world, driven by the 3 I’s and also by heavy-handed environmental policies that have a negative impact on farmers. (A few days earlier, the world’s largest democracy, India, narrowly re-elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi, an autocratic, populist leader, to an historic third term.)

While right-wing parties have always existed, they pretty much were relegated to the fringes in Europe since the end of World War II. In recent years they have been less stigmatized and have feasted on grievances of the working class.

It’s not like the European Union will pull apart. There are too many benefits to the federation. Rather than leave, as Britain did, the disgruntled Euroskeptics are choosing to fight from within, and rewrite the policies.

One change that I won’t like is reducing or cutting off aid to embattled Ukraine.

As we see with American Republicans, the Right emits an isolationist odor, forgetting that the globe is interconnected as a spider’s web. Things that happen in faraway lands reverberate here.

American isolationists might delude themselves into thinking our oceans protect us despite terror attacks that are evidence to the contrary, but what about Europe’s Right?

Some of them are thisfar from a Russian attack, either physical or cyber or political. Under Vladimir Putin, the Russian bear is on the prowl.

Appeasement stokes his hunger, as it did Hitler. Allowing him to gobble up other countries merely delays the day when he feasts on you.

The proof is obvious. The world stood by with its hands in its pockets as Russia grabbed 20% of Georgia in 2008, stole Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, before invading Ukraine itself in 2022, which finally drew a response from the West.

Outnumbered and outgunned, Ukraine — which wants to join the European Union and NATO — has put up a heroic defense, which reminds me of the Greeks at Thermopylae, and the Texans at the Alamo.

Each of those celebrated battles, alas, was a military defeat.

If Ukraine falls, despite the enormous cost inflicted on the Russians — an estimated 500,000 casualties — there is little reason to doubt that Putin will stop. He has stated his desire to reincarnate the Russian empire.

The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania could be next. If Putin crossed their borders, that would ignite World War III because they are NATO members and NATO’s Article 5 states that an attack on one is an attack on all and must be met with all actions necessary.

Meanwhile, Putin repeatedly has threatened to use tactical nuclear weapons if Russia is threatened.

The threats may have slowed President Joe Biden’s delivery of arms to Ukraine. His typical process is to receive a request for advanced arms from Ukraine, he rejects the request because we know their needs better than they do, and he then reverses himself six months later, after the delay has harmed Ukraine. This is stupid. Putin knows if he employs nukes he’ll get a taste of the same. Thursday Biden did it again when he said Ukraine would be allowed to use U.S. weapons against military targets in Russia, but only when they are close to the border.

Meanwhile, Putin lobs missiles at the Ukrainian capital with no fear of retaliation. 

Putin knows the only threat to Russia is the response to its own aggressions. In its 75 years, NATO has never been an aggressor. Putin knows this, even as he fans false fears that NATO is encircling Russia in order to harm it.

Encircle, yes.

Harm, no.

Putin may want to be the greatest czar since Peter the Great, but he’s not suicidal. He bluffs. He knows he is no match for the West. His ambitions eventually will be thwarted by the West.

The question is, when?

For the Right, the answer is, not now.

That is a recipe for paying a steeper price later.