Jolly japes at summit show extent to which G7 leaders are out of touch with reality

“We’ve got to show them our pecs!” quipped United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the G7 Summit on Sunday, suggesting that the leaders of the G7 countries and the European Union should flex their muscles to intimidate Russia.

Johnson’s “English humor” mocking Russian President Vladimir Putin for his stripped-to-thewaist horse-riding and fishing photos and videos, drew laughter from the rest of the summit attendants at the round table.

The “ha-ha” moment of the leaders of the richest economies in the world gathered at a luxury hotel in Schloss Elmau, Krun, southern Germany, was in sharp contrast with the sufferings of people in many parts of the world, particularly those in the less-developed countries, as a consequence of the situation that has evolved to what it is now under their connivance.

After their three-day meeting in the Alps, the G7 leaders again came up with nothing conducive or constructive to end the Ukraine crisis. Instead, they pledged to further heighten the already extreme sanctions on Russia in the hope that the harsh economic measures will cripple the Russian economy, forcing Moscow to compromise. That the conflict in Ukraine has continued to escalate, and the severity of its spillover effects have continued to increase dramatically — in the forms of hunger, inflation, supply shortages and unemployment — has failed to induce the allies to end their proxy war against Russia.

That the previous sanctions have not generated their intended effects is not because they are not harsh enough but because they simply do not represent the right solution to the problem.

It is telling that the leaders of the West can talk in a jovial mood in a quiet holiday resort without batting an eyelid at the turmoil they have triggered and without any qualms about the consequent human sufferings. As far as they are concerned, it seems out of sight is out of mind.

With Finland and Sweden applying to join NATO, and Ukraine and Moldova granted European Union candidate membership recently, the traditional buffer zone in Europe, which has been the key to keeping the stability of the continent after World War II, is quickly disappearing.

The European leaders should be wary of where their blind following of the US in its geopolitical games is leading them. Not only does it quickly downgrade an independent Europe — a vision for which the EU was built that came close to being realized before German chancellor Angela Merkel’s retirement — into an appendage of the US, it has also turned the continent itself into an arena for one of Washington’s hot-war power plays. Like oil spills, these have a tendency to disperse over an ever wider area and get messy very quickly.

A lasting, sustainable and balanced security mechanism of Europe cannot be built by armchair strategists. The European leaders should set aside the jokes and appreciate the seriousness of the moment. They should consider the observation that war is the unfolding of miscalculations and try to avoid making any more mistakes. Playing live-fire war games with Washington is a grave miscalculation by any standard.