On Monday, I turned to Gemini, Google’s AI oracle, and asked the question on everyone’s lips: Who is worse for peace, Joseph Stalin or Roberta Metsola?
Gemini hemmed and hawed. On the one hand, Stalin helped defeat Hitler; on the other, he killed millions. Gemini said it isn’t easy to weigh all that against Metsola’s record. The president of the European Parliament has often promoted peace; but, by virtue of her role, she’s also implicated in the more doubtful foreign adventures of the EU as a whole.
Who knows, maybe Robert Abela has a point. Abela says Metsola is a warmonger because she’s talking up the need for more coordinated European defence policies and procurement.
To be on the safe side, I asked Gemini: Who is better for peace, Abela or Metsola?
Gemini: It’s difficult to say. Both have spoken in favour of peace. But Metsola’s seniority means she shares collective responsibility for all the EU does. Abela’s words mean less than hers, however, because he’s politically and militarily insignificant.
Reader, you have to take my word for it. Google’s AI Chat has invited universal mockery because of its answers and, as you read this, it is being urgently re-educated. By Tuesday, Gemini was refusing to answer questions it answered confidently only the day before.
I asked who is worse for peace, Stalin or Abela, and was waved away with: “I’m still learning how to answer this question. Try Google Search.”
We’ll have to figure out the warmongering question on our own. I’ve a hunch Abela is going to make it a centrepiece of his European Parliament campaign: Labour means peace; Metsola and the PN want war. I hope he’s not that short-sighted.
Metsola has retorted with the obvious arguments. If you want peace, you must prepare for war. Military investment can be defensive, not aggressive, based on deterrence not conquest.
She’s not arguing for a war machine. She’s saying defence investments need to be better. In 2022, the joint budget of France and Germany alone came to 125 per cent of Russian military spending; but total European expenditure is nowhere near as effective as Russia’s. Indeed, since procurement is fragmented, European weaponry is not as competitively priced as Turkey’s.
The key to an enhanced EU defence policy is that it makes European security independent of the US
The argument is logical but Abela sees a chance to mobilise a part of the base – disillusioned socialists – whose abstention in June is feared by Labour central.
Plus, the force of the argument has been clouded by Emmanuel Macron’s declaration that Europe should not exclude putting boots on the ground to defend Ukraine.
In principle, what the Europeans do to prevent the Ukrainian army’s collapse is separable from the reorganisation of EU defence spending. The first is a desperate short-term measure; the second is rational and medium-term. But they’re difficult to keep apart in the heat of an electoral campaign.
Let’s hope Abela backs away from his foolish course. In missing the most salient lesson of the Ukraine war and the Gaza massacre, he risks making Malta’s commitment to peace more difficult to pursue. Compare what Abela is doing with what Alfred Sant has said. The outgoing MEP has observed that several developments, including the Ukraine war, oblige Malta to have a strategic rethink of its identity within the EU. This isn’t just reasonable; it’s the only sane thing to do.
It’s something else to equate boosting the EU’s defensive capacity with – to cite one line being pushed by Labour propaganda – becoming Washington’s military sidekick. This is absurd.
The key to an enhanced EU defence policy is that it makes European security independent of the US. If that happens, the EU would be less, not more, likely to join the US in military adventures that are patently against European self-interest.
In 2003, the then French president, Jacques Chirac, was confident enough to risk the ire of the US and refuse to join the invasion of Iraq (and, boy, did the US mainstream media smear him). The EU at the time was confident and expansionary; Russia was not then a credible threat.
Times have since changed. Increased European dependence has meant that EU leaders have sometimes gone along with US policy against their better judgement.
Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, leaders of Germany and France in 2008, have both stated they were, at the time, dubious about declaring that Ukraine would join NATO – Russians had been saying for over a decade that this was a bright red line. But, when the US insisted, they went along with it.
As for the current US policy in Gaza, it is difficult to imagine a self-secured EU not taking a distinct line from the US much earlier. Our interests in the region aren’t identical to those of the US.
This problem, of safeguarding European self-interest, isn’t going away. European interests diverge from those of the US even on the question of China.
To be sure, a more integrated EU defence policy would also raise thorny issues for Malta, especially if it decides to remain neutral and retain a differentiating role in the Mediterranean. Those are issues that we need to think hard about, as Sant has urged.
But to paint such a defence policy as inherently warmongering – as Abela is doing – is doubly foolish. It is blind to the strategic opportunities for Europe in general and for some of the issues Malta cares about in particular.
And, by politicising the issue for short-term gain, Abela is jeopardising the chances of building an intelligent consensus about our long-term strategic future.