The rules-based world order has been destroyed by the Wokerati. The United Nations, an institution designed to address the shortcomings of the League of Nations, is exhausted and no longer fit for purpose. Nato is an under-funded paper tiger. The United States, still the richest and most powerful nation in the history of humanity, is quickly recovering from its near-death experience under the Democrats and their self-hating and divisive ideology. Meanwhile, the rest of the West dithers.

Trump’s attempt to bring an end to the Russia-Ukraine war is based on realpolitik, taking into account the actual circumstances rather than adopting a particular moral stance. Against this backdrop, the rest of the West, which is largely broke and unable to defend itself, has based its response on idealpolitik, a belief that ideals can be achieved through politics. In practice, Trump’s approach is based on reason, while the rest of the West’s response to global affairs is naively based on emotion.

It’s not hard to tell how this will work out.

The response to Ukrainian President Zelensky’s Oval Office spat has been mixed. But almost universally, the rest of the West and the mainstream media have been critical of Trump. As soon as the footage of the Oval Office spat become front-page news, Facebook profiles changed en masse to ‘I stand with Ukraine’ with Ukrainian flags. Ordinary folk see Trump as a bully and Zelensky as the underdog. While that may well be the case, it is naïve to want the greatest power in human history, our ally, to be led by a wimp.

Following the spat, Zelensky went to Britain where Keir Starmer, a man who may well be responsible for putting the final nails in the coffin of what was previously the greatest power in human history, has committed to British ‘boots on the ground’ in Ukraine. With Britain’s economy and society reeling from its own failed energy and immigration policies, the Brits have barely 180,000 uniformed personnel. Australia has just over 57,000, New Zealand just over 15,000, and Canada 68,000.

The rest of the West has a combined force of some 320,000 uniformed personnel. Their capacity to increase recruitment has fallen in direct proportion to the Woke policies that have been adopted in their education sectors and as emotion, rather than reason, has driven their foreign policy. This played out in Australia recently with a quibble about who knew what in the government about Chinese warships conducting live-fire drills off the coast near Sydney. Defence is seen as an anachronism which has been replaced by feel-good policy based on a dangerous naivety.

The attitude towards defence is reflected in the figures. The UK’s annual defence budget is US$76 billion or 2.3 per cent of GDP. Australia’s annual defence budget is currently US$33 billion or 2 per cent of GDP. Canada’s annual budget is US$23 billion or 1.4 per cent of GDP, which is less than the 2 per cent required by Nato. New Zealand’s annual defence budget is just under US$3 billion or 1.2 per cent of GDP. The rest of the West contributes a total of US$135 billion to defence.

The US has some 1.4 million uniformed personnel. Its annual budget is US$916 billion or about 3 per cent of GDP. It sends more support to Ukraine than any other country.

The US has more than four times the personnel of the rest of the West combined and outspends them by some seven times more on defence.

The rest of the West all came out in support of Zelensky following the spat, with a moral requirement for each other to condemn Putin while ‘standing’ with Ukraine. It’s not even chest-beating, it is hypocrisy. The rest of the West is clearly playing to their Woke domestic audiences to make them ‘feel’ better.

The so-called ‘Coalition of the Willing’ is fighting its way out of a wet paper bag to the cheers of the Wokerati in the rest of the West. Of course, none of the cheer squad will wear a uniform.

Russia has about one million uniformed personnel with some two million reserves. It is hard to see how British boots on the ground can make a meaningful contribution to Ukraine’s war effort. In practice, it might mean something more akin to Australia’s commitment to defending Red Sea shipping, where Australia has committed up to 16 personnel. Boots on the ground, but hardly a commitment.

In Australia, the responses to the Oval Office spat almost universally condemned Trump and backed Zelensky.

The ABC’s QandA program was a love-in of Wokerati who tut-tutted about anything to do with Trump while its hand-picked Woke audience asked lame questions about Elon Musk, banging on about how he was not elected. Others talked about Elon Musk having his kid in the Oval Office. So much for the inclusive and family-friendly agenda the entitled Wokerati love to claim for themselves.

But what I found most bizarre was the condemnation of JD Vance. Sharri Markson suggested that Vance ‘has a dangerous isolationist view of the world, and didn’t hold back from insulting Zelensky’.

Zelensky may well be a war hero. But like Keir Starmer, he was actively supporting Joe Biden in the recent US election. Playing your hand in the domestic politics of an ally is always a recipe for disaster and now Zelensky is almost all out of cards. The ultimate hypocrisy is that defence leaners should have such a sense of entitlement. It’s clear the US is doing all the lifting and Vance was right to call it out.

Trump is no fool and Vance will be the next US President. With the rest of the West hacking at its wet paper bag, the US would be crazy to be anything other than isolationist. One can only hope the US will return to rescue us all once again when it all goes to putty. History proves this point.

Without the US, Britain would have lost the first world war and the second world war. Australia would have been invaded, too.

As the figures prove, the rest of the West has zero credibility if it had to physically stand with Ukraine rather than make supportive social media posts about it.

Trump is dealing with the reality of geopolitics, employing his skills in the art of the deal. The rest of the West is playing its ‘stand with Ukraine’ game based on emotion. But this emotional approach will backfire if the US decides not to waste any more of its taxpayers’ money on supporting Ukraine or indeed the rest of the West. That would be far from ideal.

Dr Michael de Percy @FlaneurPolitiq is a political scientist and political commentator. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILTA), and a Member of the Royal Society of NSW. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy, Chairman of the ACT and Southern NSW Chapter of CILTA, and a member of the Australian Nuclear Association. Michael is a graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon and was appointed to the College of Experts at the Australian Research Council in 2022. All opinions in this article are the author’s own and are not intended to reflect the views of any other person or organisation.