Europe's Female Leaders Want War

The less you know about something, the more you are at liberty to fantasize about it.

A friend just sent me a New York Post report from 2022 introducing Europe’s “tough women leaders taking on Vladimir Putin,” replete with this illustration.

Ursula von der Leyen is the EU Commission President, Annalena Baerbock is the German Foreign Minister, Sanna Marin is the former Finnish Prime Minister, now a “strategic advisor” of the Tony Blair Institute. Kaja Kallas is the former Estonian Prime Minister and now Vice President of the European Commission.

The trouble with such “tough women,” it seems to me, is that may often be lulled into thinking that they have something to prove. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy remarked to a confidante that the trouble with General Curtis LeMay, who wanted to commence hostilities with the Russians, was that he allowed his decision-making to be governed by his fear of seeming weak.

I sometimes wonder if John Kennedy was the last man of any real sophistication to hold high office in the West. Since he was assassinated, we have, it seems to me, witnessed a steady decline of intellect in our leaders.

It reminds me of the great opening scene of Patrick O’Brian’s novel, HMS Surprise, set during the Napoleonic Wars. Sir Joseph Blain, the head of British naval intelligence, attends a meeting of the Admiralty and assesses the men who staff it.

[Sir Joseph] leant back in his chair, watching the speakers, assessing their abilities. Poor, on the whole; and the new First Lord was a fool, a mere politician. Sir Joseph had served under Chatham, Spencer, St Vincent and Melville, and this man made a pitiful figure beside them: they had had their failings, particularly Chatham, but not one would so have missed the point…

I once heard a story about a man whose inner ear was ruptured while big wave surfing on Maui, which induced chronic vertigo so severe that he was violently nauseated at all times. I sometimes think about this man’s unfathomable suffering, especially when I hear relatively inexperienced surfers express the desire to go tow-surfing on Jaws—one of the biggest waves in the world.

The less you know about something dangerous, the more you are at liberty to fantasize about it. I fear the “tough women leaders of Europe who wish to take on Vladimir Putin” know little about the reality of war.

I have heard that, in the run-up to the First World War, the German general staff carefully studied the character and the strategy of the American Union General, William Sherman. They found him a fascinating study, though it’s not clear that they learned much from him.

Because “the tough women of Europe” have apparently learned nothing from their own recent history, maybe they could learn something from William Sherman’s warning to Southern men in 1860 when he was at the Louisiana Seminary. In a conversation with David Boyd, one of his professors, about South Carolina's secession, Sherman is reported to have said the following about the forthcoming war.

This country will be drenched in blood. God only knows how it will end. Perhaps the liberties of the whole country, of every section and every man will be destroyed. ... Oh, it is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization. ... You people speak so lightly of war. You don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing. I know you are a brave, fighting people, but for every day of actual fighting, there are months of marching, exposure and suffering. More men die in war from sickness than are killed in battle. At best war is a frightful loss of life and property, and worse still is the demoralization of the people.