The transatlantic alliance is experiencing a renaissance. The war in Ukraine has drawn Washington‘s attention to Europe in a way not seen since the 1990s, when the United States orchestrated NATO’s eastward expansion and fought two wars in the Balkans. The United States has backed Ukraine with massive amounts of weapons, rallied the West around unprecedented economic sanctions against Moscow, and supported NATO with additional troop deployments. It is hard to imagine a time in the past generation when transatlantic relations were stronger.
However, the Biden administration’s engagement with Europe is ultimately unsustainable. Russia and the war in Ukraine will no doubt remain a significant focus of the United States in the coming months and years. But while US support for Ukraine is unlikely to waver, there is no way that Washington will be able to maintain its current level of diplomatic engagement, deployment of forces and resources in Europe over the long term. The turn to Asia is not over. The risk of conflict in Asia, where China could attack Taiwan, could sharply change US priorities. China’s continued rise will draw US attention to the Pacific. It will likely be impossible for Washington to balance the demands of its allies in Europe and Asia while maintaining the force presence necessary to deter Russia and China. The United States is overburdened.
But instead of developing a strategy to address this dilemma, especially given Europe’s newfound focus on security — not to mention its population of more than 450 million and an economy the size of the United States — the Biden administration pretended it didn’t exist. While the United States has proven indispensable, it has not seized this moment to address the deep-rooted structural issues plaguing European defense. The United States should pursue a strategy to encourage Europe to take responsibility for its own security, transforming Europe from a security dependent to a true security partner. The United States should call for the creation of a European pillar within NATO and fully support the European Union in becoming a stronger defense actor. The danger is that instead of transforming European defense in response to the Russian invasion and ushering in a new era, the response merely entrenches a status quo that both sides of the Atlantic ultimately find deeply frustrating and unsustainable.
AMERICAN AMBIVALENCE
Washington does not know what it wants from Europe. Every American president has urged the Europeans to spend more on defense, but the overarching goal of American policy has not been to force Europe to stand alone, side by side with the United States. This may interest you : Commentary: As the World changes, so will the United States. American political leaders and top officials may believe that the United States is making clear that it wants Europe to do more to address its security. But diplomats and officials developing American policy toward Europe relish European dependence and the influence it provides: The United States has the right to take the hits—and it wants as much American influence in Europe as possible.
In 2000, Lord George Robertson, then Secretary General of NATO, highlighted this divide. “The United States is suffering from a kind of schizophrenia,” he said. “On the one hand, the Americans say: ‘You Europeans have to carry more of the burden.’ And then when the Europeans say, ‘Okay, we’re going to carry more of the burden,’ the Americans say, ‘Well, wait a minute, are you trying to tell us to go home?'” Almost two decades later, as French President Emmanuel Macron led advocating for European “strategic autonomy”, Washington was concerned about a renewed plot to break Europe away from NATO. As a result, the United States used its enormous influence in Europe to block efforts that could lead to a more independent Europe.
It would be acceptable to preserve American necessity if American attention and resources were unlimited. But the challenge for the United States is that there is only so much attention at the senior level. Time is precious, and the fight for resources within government and Congress is often zero. Moreover, the US military assets are not unlimited, despite a budget of 750 billion dollars. This leads to intense bureaucratic conflicts over which region or theater should be a US priority for high-level attention and resources.
The Biden administration took office prioritizing Asia, rightly describing China as a “moving threat.” But the Russian invasion has now temporarily put Europe on top in the bureaucratic struggle for resources and visibility. As a result, Europe has been flooded with visits by senior US officials and additional US troops—20,000 additional personnel since the end of June, everywhere from the Baltics and Poland to Italy and Spain.
European officials praised the return of the United States to the continent. But as Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August hinted, the foreign policy pendulum will eventually swing back to Asia. Europe will lose this zero-sum battle for American attention and resources.
A NEW ERA FOR EUROPE
On the surface, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine looks like a shock that would finally force Europe to accept US pleas to increase its defense spending. European countries will mostly reach the NATO spending target of two percent. Germany announced a Zeitenwende (new era) and approved a 100 billion euro increase in defense spending. See the article : News Release – Mayor Malik Evans Announces Rochester’s Total Health and Wellness Initiative. Europe has pledged to spend around 200 billion dollars in the coming years. The additional funds are supposed to improve the poor capabilities of European military forces, strengthen NATO and reduce some of Europe’s primary combat reliance on the United States.
But the spending increases are unlikely to ease much of the burden on U.S. forces or go far enough in the long term. Over the past six months, European countries have sent huge amounts of advanced equipment to Kiev. Eastern Europe has handed fleets of Soviet-era equipment into Ukrainian hands. Western European countries have sent advanced anti-tank weapons and artillery, reducing the stocks they will eventually have to replace. Moreover, rising inflation is also eroding the value of increasing European defense spending.
A more significant structural problem is that the increase in European defense spending does not go towards European collective defense but rather towards the national defense of individual countries. Europe is not spending money on protecting the continent as a whole; The United States does. Washington provides critical capabilities and cutting-edge assets (transportation, aerial refueling, and air and missile defense) that enable Europe to fight for Europe. Almost none of the additional defense spending will go to acquisitions that enable Europe to fight like Europe and therefore reduce pressure on the US military. Germany, given its size, could fill some of the gaps, but its needs elsewhere are too great — for example, to replace its fleet of equipment and increase the readiness of its forces. All European militaries have NATO objectives, which ensure that member countries can fulfill specific roles, but these objectives are designed to help European forces integrate with the United States through NATO, meaning reliance on the US military is baked in. Despite massive defense spending, Europe is likely to remain dependent on the United States, which highlights a wider problem with the current approach to European security.
DEFENSE DYSFUNCTION
The European Union should be a global military power. It collectively spends $200 billion a year on defense, its economy equals that of the United States, and its members are bound together in a political union. Yet Europe’s militaries are in poor shape, despite an increase in defense spending since 2014. This may interest you : China’s Xi warns Biden on Taiwan, asks for cooperation. Europe doesn’t just need to spend more on defense; it needs to rationalize and integrate its efforts. But proposals for European defense reform inevitably run into US opposition, bureaucratic wars (especially between NATO and the EU), parochial national views, and vested commercial and political interests.
As the guarantor of European security, the United States must lead the transformation by insisting on the creation of a strong European pillar of NATO capable of defending the continent. Europe would seek to act as one within NATO, as the alliance would focus on turning European forces into a capable fighting force, with or without the United States. Creating a European pillar within NATO would require the strengthening of the EU, a political and economic union that takes care of broader European interests. The EU’s common currency and central bank provide potential financial support for the EU to assume a prominent defense role. The Union has the legal and institutional leverage to encourage compliance and coordination at the national level, which is key to streamlining Europe’s cumbersome defense industrial sector. The aim of the EU is not to create a European army but to enable Europe to defend itself.
The EU can assume the role of the primary financier of European defense, filling gaps beyond the capacity of member states, such as the procurement of air and missile defense, air tankers and transport. Nothing prevents the EU from buying military equipment, which could be made available to member states or NATO. For example, the EU could finance the acquisition of huge stocks of ammunition, artillery rounds and precision-guided missiles (which Europe ran out of during its intervention in Libya). The EU has already played a similar role in Ukraine, providing €2.5 billion from its new Lethal Aid Fund to fill the defense budgets of countries supplying arms to Ukraine. In June, the European Commission also announced the creation of a €500 million fund to encourage countries to coordinate their new defense spending, conduct joint procurement, increase interoperability and create economies of scale.
These are important initiatives to integrate and streamline European defense efforts, and the United States should press the EU to dramatically expand these programs. Although the Biden administration has described itself as the most pro-EU administration ever, it can only get that title based on economic cooperation. On defense, he largely maintained the traditional skepticism of the United States. It did not actively encourage EU defense initiatives or call on the EU to expand them. For example, when President Joe Biden attended the European Council summit in March, in the early weeks of the war, he missed a golden opportunity to support a proposed proposal to lend the EU funds for defense investment. If the president had simply told European leaders that if the EU could borrow money for military purposes, just as it did for the COVID-19 pandemic, it could help usher in a new era in European defense. The United States retains enormous influence in Europe, especially on defense. If the EU wants to play a more significant defense role, it will need strong support from the US.
DEPENDENT TO PARTNER
The question American officials must ask themselves is whether their goal is to make the United States indispensable to Europe or to make Europe an indispensable partner of the United States. A Europe that can take care of its own security will not break the alliance, undermine NATO or encourage separation from the United States. The transatlantic link will grow stronger as Europe grows stronger.
Just look at what is happening economically between the United States and the EU. The need for transatlantic cooperation to set the economic rules of the road for a rising China prompted the establishment of the US-EU Trade and Technology Council. Overall, he dramatically improved transatlantic relations. A stronger Europe, with capable land, air and naval forces, would be a boon to the United States and its Asian partners. It would also encourage closer coordination within NATO, as the United States would stop taking Europe for granted.
The real threat to the transatlantic alliance is the status quo. A 25-year US-led effort to prevent the EU from being an independent military actor has been largely successful. But while this has preserved the indispensable role of the United States, the result is that the state of European defense could hardly be worse. There is also a clear danger that the United States will decide that it no longer wants to be necessary for Europe. The next president could be anti-Atlantic like Donald Trump or Josh Hawley, the latter of whom voted against Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership on August 3. But just as likely is the outcome in which Europe is relegated, Russia is once again wrongly dismissed as a paper tiger, and the transatlantic alliance suffers as its indispensable partner loses interest.
To prevent this future, the United States must recognize that it wants Europe to be an indispensable partner that can stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States. Implementing such a strategy and building a European pillar within NATO would be a process that would last a generation and would require intensive US engagement, pushing European allies and partners in a new direction. The time to start the transformation is now.
