Italic Studies can relate to just about anything, including current events.
President Donald Trump may think his idea of securing mineral rights in Ukraine is an original way to give that embattled country an ‘unofficial’ American security guarantee from future Russian aggression. Ukraine can never join NATO for such a guarantee because it could never achieve the required unanimous vote. Moreover, no individual European nation will send troops to augment Ukraine’s valiant but dwindling manpower and risk being a target for Russian revenge. If I were President Zelenskyy, I would have respectfully put on a suit and tie and signed the lifeline he was offered last Friday. Partnering with the U.S. in a commercial venture would checkmate Russia’s ambitions, and the presence of American mining activities would be a redline preventing any further intrusions.
The British tried this very thing in 1935 to forestall an Italian invasion of Ethiopia. Only they acted too late and too deviously. Unlike transparent Trump, the British ambassador to Ethiopia, Sir Sydney Barton, surreptitiously introduced Emperor Haile Selassie to Francis Rickett, a British oil promoter. After weeks of secret negotiations, Selassie sought his rescue in deeding over the drilling rights to half his country to Standard Oil of New Jersey, an American company. Mussolini, it would seem, was now checkmated in his invasion plans.
Unfortunately for Selassie and the British, the United States Congress had recently passed the Neutrality Act. When Congress heard of the Standard Oil contract it quickly barred the company from such a deal. As President Trump would say, Selassie had “no cards” left to stop the Italians. Nine months later, Ethiopia became an Italian colony. Rickett, ever the promoter, eventually tried to sell his Ethiopian contract to the Italians for $5 million after they annexed Ethiopia. Obviously, Mussolini had no need of Rickett’s contract at that point – it was now void. Today, Ethiopia ranks 98th in oil production, just a bit player.
Interestingly, Ukraine might have done better with Fascist Italy than with NATO in relieving his manpower shortage. Right after his conquest of Ethiopia in 1936, Mussolini was asked to help rebel Gen. Francisco Franco overthrow the Communist-riddled republic of Spain. Like today, it was Russia at the gates of Western Europe. Vladimir Putin’s idol Josef Stalin saw in Spain an opportunity for the expansion of Communism. His predecessor Vladimir Lenin had founded the Communist International (Comintern) for that purpose in 1919. One of its first targets was Italy, beset by internal strife after the First World War. Out of that strife Italy went Fascist not Communist. Mussolini, the victor in that turmoil, understood the similar stakes in the Spanish Civil War.
If Europeans today really want to defeat Vladimir Putin in Ukraine they wouldn’t need NATO as a cover. France, Britain, and Poland could send “volunteer” forces as America once did with the Lafayette Escadrille in World War I France and the Flying Tigers against the Japanese in China in the 1930s. Putin freely uses mercenaries (Wagner Group) and even North Korean soldiers to replace his manpower losses.
Mussolini went all in for Spain: 70,000 ‘volunteers’ and an air force of 700 planes. Italian submarines even torpedoed Russian supply ships sustaining Stalin’s republican puppet. The 3-year civil war (1936-1939) cost Italy $4 billion in today’s money. The victorious Franco didn’t pay Italy back even a peseta or cede the Italians any rights, ‘mineral’ or otherwise. Worse, defeating Stalin exhausted Italy, leaving it totally unprepared for the Second World War.
Clearly, the Europeans haven’t the will to stop Russia a la Mussolini. The fear of expanding the war and their inadequate military preparedness now leave them dependent on the man they despise the most, Donald Trump. They will put up a unified front for the media but they’ll never send men to the real Front. President Zelenskyy of Ukraine will soon realize that, as always, the United States will have to bail out Europe and save what’s left of his country.
Even Haile Selassie understood making an American oil deal was his last option. Zelenskyy should take the cards Trump is handing him. -JLM
My concern is given the current state of affair in the US there are very few checks and balances left in the US system of governance, and all power is in the process of being consolidated into a political system very similar to a corporate state, and all that entails. The American people have in essence spoken.
As for Europe I would have never imagined both Sweden and Finland become part of NATO, but I also see all along the border of the old Soviet Union the recently freed nations fearing Russian expansion, especially given the new entente with the Trump Administration. Appeasing ruthless dictatorships of the right or left, is tragically a formula for disaster. Add to that the new factor of cyber warfare, and nuclear warfare, that was not a key factor until the end of WWII and it is not a happy scenario. The old analogies only go so far, except for the key one—human nature….
Making deals is often scary, like making sausage. There is no entente with Russia just jockeying for position. I would think Trump’s offer to partner with Ukraine is Putin’s worst nightmare. If Trump is an “isolationist” he is sure not acting like one if he wants to put American money and personnel into Ukraine. What has Europe been doing to stop the bleeding all these years? From a racial point of view, the Slavic nations from the Balkans (Serbia vs Croatia in the 90s) to Russia-Ukraine today have been killing off “White people” at an alarming rate. It’s time for Western Europe to wake up from La Dolce Vita and take control of their continent – maybe that’s another method to Trump’s ‘madness’.