Let us not mince words: the seizure of a Russian oil tanker in the Channel, with French gendarmes leaping aboard under the watchful eye of the Royal Navy, is a tableau straight out of the Napoleonic era. President Macron, in a moment of uncharacteristic decisiveness, has declared this a triumph of European resolve. But what does it truly signify? That the Entente Cordiale is alive and kicking? That the liberal order still has teeth? Or that we are watching a slow-motion replay of 1914, where great powers stumble into conflict by way of symbolic gestures?
First, the facts. The vessel, a rusting hulk carrying crude from the Arctic, was sanctioned by the EU and the UK. France provided the muscle; Britain provided the shadow. This is not a blockade. This is not a war. This is a legalistic pirouette, a piece of theatre designed to show that the West can still act in concert. But a theatre that requires a navy to enforce sanctions against a country that is already bleeding from a thousand cuts is a theatre of the absurd. We are sanctioning a nation that has already been severed from SWIFT, denied technology, and stripped of its reserves. What more do we hope to achieve? A moral victory? A headline?
Look closer. This seizure occurs against the backdrop of a Europe that is exhausted, divided, and increasingly resentful of American leadership. Macron, ever the Gaullist, is positioning himself as the strongman of Europe, the man who will not be cowed by Moscow. But his domestic standing is crumbling, his pension reforms have sparked riots, and his party is haemorrhaging support. What better way to distract a restless populace than a patriotic flourish on the high seas? It is the oldest trick in the book: wave the flag, seize a ship, and pretend that the decline of the nation has been arrested.
And yet, there is a deeper rot. The intellectual class in both London and Paris has convinced itself that this is a battle of civilisation versus barbarism, a new Thermopylae. But Thermopylae was a defeat. The West is not defending its shores; it is engaging in economic warfare that hurts ordinary Russians far more than it hurts Putin. The oligarchs have yachts in Dubai; the peasants have no heat. And we, in our sanctimony, applaud the seizure of a tanker as if it were a blow for freedom.
The historical parallel that haunts me is not 1914 or 1805. It is the decline of the Byzantine Empire, which spent its final centuries boycotting Venetian merchants and burning heretical icons while the Turks massed at the gates. Sanctions are the icons of our age: we burn them to prove our piety, and we ignore the fact that the barbarians are at the gates. The Russian tanker is a symbol, nothing more. It will not stop the war in Ukraine. It will not bring back the dead. It will merely provide a fleeting moment of unity for a continent that is fracturing along lines of nationalism, austerity, and resentment.
As for the British role, let us not pretend that this is about solidarity. Britain, post-Brexit, is a island nation desperately seeking a role. It cannot trade with Europe without friction; it cannot project power without American approval. So it clings to the coattails of France, the old enemy, and pretends that a joint naval operation is a sign of renewed vigour. It is not. It is a sign of weakness. The Royal Navy is a shadow of its former self, and the French Marine Nationale is not much better. Together, they can seize a single tanker. But can they patrol the Med? Can they secure the Baltic? No. They are coastguards with delusions of grandeur.
So what is the lesson? That the West is capable of symbolic acts of defiance. That Macron and Sunak can smile for the cameras. That a tanker full of Russian oil will now sit in a French port while lawyers argue over its fate. Meanwhile, the war grinds on. The gas flows through TurkStream. The diamonds still arrive in Antwerp. And the great game of nations continues, with all the cynicism and hypocrisy that has always defined it. We are not living in the age of Trafalgar or Waterloo. We are living in the age of Potemkin villages: grand facades built on hollow foundations. The seizure of this tanker is one such village. Do not be fooled.
Arthur Penhaligon
