On November 19, news broke of a US-brokered peace proposal imposing stringent conditions on Ukraine. It was news to European leaders, too, with a US official adding insult to injury: “We don’t really care about the Europeans.” For the first forty-eight hours, the Europeans responded with stunned, sullen silence.Since Marco Rubio declared the arrival of a multipolar order, we’ve been watching a repeat reel of Europe’s foreign policy establishment having the rug pulled from under their feet.

Americans mostly saw the unedifying spectacle. Europeans, meanwhile, have been watching their elites succumb to a rearmament frenzy, characterized by shrill fearmongering (“our last summer at peace”), contrived drill-sergeant swagger, and dizzying war profiteering. Tired clichés are being exhausted: our youth are too soft for war, and whoever doesn’t want to die and kill for the fatherland is a danger to public morale.

What explains this frenzy among European elites? What explains their sudden readiness to throw strict fiscal rules to the wind, alienate citizens with yet more austerity and then scold them for their discontent, meekly forfeit their positions on trade, or suspend democracy itself? Why revive militarist propaganda tropes reeking of early-twentieth-century rot?