V-E Day amid uncertainty

a reflection on whither our European friends and colleagues

New York Times columnist Roger Cohen writes this morning,

"[N]ever did I imagine, less than a year ago, that so much so dear to so many could unravel so fast; nor that the 80th anniversary on Thursday of V-E Day, or Victory in Europe, would come with so many Europeans no longer sure whether to regard Mr. Trump's America as ally or adversary."

World War II concluded more than three-quarters of a century ago, of course. President Trump chose not travel to Europe to commemorate this year as his predecessor participated in 2024 celebrations on the eightieth anniversary of Normandy invasion, an incredible logistical and operational achievement, which helped facilitate the war's end. The "greatest generation" is virtually gone, so little national focus turns to this monumental conflict and the plan we created, then executed for a post-war world using radically different methods to prevent subsequent strife. Cohen's Europeans were relieved they could begin rebuilding in early May 1945, while Asia waited for Japan to surrender just over three months later.

Russians, who bore the onslaught of massive Nazi efforts from 1941 through 1945, culminating in the victory celebrated yesterday, see things somewhat more Russo-centric. The country Russians dominated, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, long ago ceased to exist, even if annual victory parades still march to the Kremlin on V-E Day to glorify the success in the Great Patriotic War.

Therein lies a dramatic difference: Russians (and some Europeans) look back to the sacrifices and pain that war engendered. The post-war steps to legislate a global peace made two overt and perhaps one covert assumptions.

First, the conflict killed tens of millions in its worldwide scope. The United States indeed lost more than 400,000 men and women in our efforts in both the Pacific and Atlantic theaters, where we conducted simultaneous but almost distinct conflicts. Every death was a tragedy, but, according to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, other countries experienced traumatic levels: China lost 20 million, surpassed by Russia's 24 million. Instigators Germany and Japan suffered at least 6 million and 3 million, respectively. These were on top of massive deaths in a prior war, a generation earlier.

The victors—Churchill and especially FDR—sought to build a post-war structure to prevent such a reoccurrence. These leaders created more than a single organization with imperfect goals, like the League of Nations, to entrust decision-making in hopes of avoiding war. The new construct had a web of organizations to ensure economic and political interlocking. Theirs was indeed a different approach to recreate the world where tens of millions would not die every generation due to global conflict.

To Churchill's dismay, FDR determined that a post-colonial world would ensue. Including Chiang Kai-shek at the Cairo meeting in 1843 and as one of the proposed "Five Policemen" of the United Nations structure horrified his Victorianesque partner who intended to resume Britain's (and France's) mastery of vast swaths of the globe but FDR recognized he held the preponderance of power in the bilateral relationship with Prime Minister. Hardly meriting such a designation, Chiang relied, to his chagrin and nationalist ire, on Washington's vast infusions of monetary assistance through the conflict. Still, FDR appreciated that the Chinese leader represented the central feature of a post-war Asia, like it or not. Perhaps the President believed naming China as an equal would stave off the anticipated Maoist resumption of the civil war. Still, China's geography encompasses most of East Asia, with a vast population spread within its borders.

The new structure, this multilateral attempt to prevent conflict through a bicameral body under which all recognized governments would take a seat (as equals in the General Assembly and as rotating members of the Security Council along with those five permanent powers) would work in coordination with a web of economic agreements unveiled by Britain and the United States at Bretton Woods. Colonialism did not have a role in that system, nor was Washington willing to endorse a return to the competitive arrangements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, seen as part of the spark for conflict.

The unstated justification, of course, was not merely to lift those in colonies from their exploited conditions but to open access for Americans to these previously closed markets, as we believed we could excel. Indeed, U.S. engagement in global trade exploded after 1945 under the Bretton Woods arrangements, cementing what we smugly label the liberal international order.

Actions create consequences, which is the most apt description of what ensued.

The Soviets not only chose not to participate but sought to sabotage the rest of the world at every turn—the essence of the Cold War. The failed Soviet economy and political charade ran its course by 1991, opening the door to the country's choice regarding what would come next: a new path of representational governance and openness, with the accompanying messiness of human behavior, or a return to the traditional authoritarian, exploitative country relying on its might to create a coherent society. Putin won the inside game, choosing the second option, despite hopes a quarter century ago that all had changed.

Today, authoritarian Russia is not welcome in many capitals, cavorting with the like-minded dictators in Pyongyang and Beijing to celebrate the end of World War II while menacing those countries that escaped Moscow’s control following the Soviet disintegration. The Ukrainian war exemplifies Putin's determination to recreate the memory he treasures of a feared, dominating nation, despite the reality of its Potemkin-village reality.

Eighty years after the war's conclusion, China has regained its groove rather than remaining a secondary player, as was true for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The hundred million members of the Chinese Communist Party retain a stranglehold behind the Party's curtain of secrecy, determined to govern in perpetuity despite heinous behavior towards most citizens. The difference between China and Russia is that the former learned to play by the rules established by Bretton Woods half a century ago. At the same time, Moscow eschewed them until its economy, population, and everything else broke. While allied in their opposition to the U.S. leadership of that Bretton Woods system, these two countries have divergent economic conditions. At the same time, their political leaders synonymously reject anything other than authoritarian rule, united by their fear of democracies seeking to oust Xi and Putin from power.

The United States conceptualized, paid for, and embraced this post-World War II vision until it no longer suited us. Our politicians forgot the basics of capitalism, which is at its heart a system whereby some win and some lose in a dynamic and evolving environment. Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and the great economic minds who created the basis to the capitalist system never saw it as a “one and done” game. Capitalism requires on-going work to sustain its prowess.

MAGA anti-global views are far from unique or new: the Seattle anti-globalism riots in 1999 were a wake-up call to Washington, as had been H. Ross Perot's anti-NAFTA platform thirty-two years ago. No one understood, seemingly, that globalization would benefit a portion of Americans while undercutting the livelihood of millions more. Politically, we cling to a system still proclaiming that all citizens have at least the option of getting their views heard before government officials but the frustration, the disappointment, the stagnation, the anti-historism mean many abandoned those democracy and free market beliefs in favor of closing out the rest of the world.

These trends coincide with the widespread suspicion that someone is stealing from us rather than recognizing we no longer value intellectual curiosity, math and science in conjunction with reasoning, or the hopefulness and confidence characteristic of the past. Millions voted for massive change in hopes it would recapture the vision we have from a contorted rearview mirror, thinking change can save us from those we fear for whatever reason. Too many believe the reason is “wokeness” (whatever that is) based on race or gender distinctions rather than considering how the world we are in is moving at lightning speed, much as we desired it to when we created the post-WWII system. The resulting face we offer the world is not a pretty nor happy, but in the hands of elected officials struggling over virtually everything related to governing because they seek to destroy the current structures without a genuinely agreed-upon objective with which to replace what they are tearing down. Negative objectives never work in the long run because they become part of a never-ending list of unacceptable ends. We know what we don't want, but are completely in disagreement on what we seek in concrete terms. We see that many fellow Americans no longer seek a world where we share an objective with others: the reactions by some to the new Pope—an Yankee Pope, after all—tell the story as his initial day in office became a debate on whether he is too much like the rest of the world for our liking. Many Americans simply regard “foreigners” too threatening and different, much for what these people hope as the future.

Consequences again arise.

Americans welcomed free trade and participatory governance until we didn't. That latter phase roughly coincided with when we realized that others who followed precisely the same objectives we advocated, created, and promoted—adherence to the global norms under Bretton Woods, the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade and its successor the World Trade Organization, and both the United Nations and North Atlantic Treaty Organization as interlocking links to address global bullies.

Have other countries "cheated"? Yes, states pursue their interests, so some cheat if they can to achieve their desired ends. But we were naïve if we expected the rest of the world to follow our guidance without improving their positions relative to our own. They would, as China regularly does, argue we do precisely the same, by the way. The economic policies we most endorsed assumed that growth in those other places would benefit us in the long run, as more consumers could buy more stuff and more services and would feel protective of peace and stability rather than expansionist behavior.

Authoritarians tend to be expansionists but Europe is watching a Republican (in the small and large sense) administration talk about taking over Greenland and forcing Canada into the 51st state. I doubt Europeans can believe these genuine statements but they should.

The 9/11 attacks by relatively unsophisticated non-state actors and the self-induced 2008 financial crisis (created, of course, by too little regulation in a voraciously busy property market using those very types of securities gradually creeping back) curiously coincided with abandoning the system we wrought with Sir Winston. No system is sustainable forever, though we see ourselves as uniquely exceptional and indispensable. We have decided that what hurt us was our culture wars, rather than recognizing that our economic model had problems that we were hoping would disappear magically.

Europeans, four hundred million people who worship in an array of houses and speak different languages in more than two dozen countries, are left at a crossroads. The overwhelming majority recognize that the threat Putin, Xi, and the authoritarian vision pose has not worked well for peace and economic prosperity in multiple cases. As Cohen indicates, Europe did not celebrate the eightieth anniversary without wondering what the continent will confront eight years from now. European states are choosing between authoritarians of their own (last weekend's Romanian election the most recent reminder), along with what economic partners and arrangements best suit them. It's hardly a foregone conclusion on how it will end, but we certainly are not as obviously a collaborating state as we were even a generation ago.

Europe recognizes, unlike Americans, that geography matters. They share a wide, open continent with an egotistical figure to the east, whose revanchist thirst is apparent even if his economic sustainability is not. Sadly, this man is reopening, often with tanks, disputes long considered settled by others along Russia's periphery.

Europe is stepping forward to pay more for defense, but with a population older than our own, it struggles with priorities as we do. Europeans would prefer respected partnerships within a healthy Alliance, but they may never be able to satisfy MAGA adherents focused on historic grievances, a tendency echoing authoritarians everywhere. Europeans are hardly unaware of the dangers of too many ties to China's increasing role. Still, they may find a stronger relationship there more appealing than vulnerabilities induced by fickle friends anchored in selective memory.

No wonder Cohen sees our European friends as so unsure.

I welcome your thoughts on the changes afoot. As I note virtually weekly, states pursue interests rather than personal ties or whims, yet Europe appears to see its future differently than it did twenty or eight years ago. I genuinely want to know how you see things.

Thank you for the time considering actions and consequences. I appreciate subscribers who pledge financial support at $8 monthly or $55 for the year, making these columns possible.

Eastport was cloudy but alive with colors in anticipation of most welcome rain this morning. We saw the azaleas en route to our beloved Eastport Bakers & Co.

Wishing mothers a day or appreciation, thanks, and acknowledgement as we celebrate Mother’s Day in the United States Sunday.

Be well and be safe. FIN

Roger Cohen, “Europe Alone and in Shock on V.E. Day”, NewYorkTimes.com, 89 May 2025, retrieved at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/08/world/europe/europe-ve-day-trump.html

“Research Starters: Worldwide Deaths in World War II“, nationalwwIImuseum.org, retrieved at https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/research-starters-worldwide-deaths-world-war

Satyajit Das, “The risks from derivaties have morphed”, FT.com, 7 October 2022, retrieved at https://www.ft.com/content/917f8395-8fdd-4e8b-b3ae-b6e1c7872f60