Europe’s Nightmare: Isolationist America

Ghosts are haunting Europe, writes Paul Mason. It is the specter of Trumpism, Mark 2.

Polling evidence from the first month of this year suggests that Donald Trump could beat Joe Biden in the US presidential election in November. It’s a long road ahead in campaigns and courts, but the minds of Europe’s leaders are turning to nightmarish questions. The question is what will happen to Ukraine and, by extension, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization if Trump becomes president again.

Emmanuel Macron was also troubled by this issue, as the French president said in a speech at the Swedish National Defense Academy last week. “This is a decisive and testing moment for Europe. We must be ready to act to protect and support Ukraine, whatever it takes and whatever decisions the United States makes.” said Macron, suggesting the project could strengthen Europe’s autonomy from its transatlantic allies.

The same concerns lie behind a joint letter signed by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the prime ministers of Estonia, Denmark, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic, calling for a significant increase in European military aid to Ukraine. “If Ukraine loses, the long-term consequences and costs will be far greater for all of us,” the letter said.

There was relief on Thursday at the European Council’s unanimous decision to raise 50 billion euros for Ukraine over the next two years. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban overturned his previous veto under pressure. However, strategic concerns remain.

political capital

Despite Trump threatening to withdraw from NATO at the 2018 Brussels summit, it is unlikely that the United States will leave the alliance completely even if he is re-elected. A decision to abandon the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty would require a vote in Congress, expending political capital that President Trump may not have.

But executive orders also allow him to reduce American personnel from NATO missions in Europe and withdraw from NATO’s military command structure, following the French model from 1966 to 2009. More specifically, he could extract aid, intelligence support, and ammunition supplies to Ukraine in order to engineer a sell-out peace deal favorable to Russia.

European leaders therefore face three major challenges. They need to find tens of billions of euros to fill the funding gap left by the US. A fragmented and competing arms industry must be strengthened to supply the necessary weapons, ammunition, and intelligence. And they must do all this while building up reliable forces on NATO’s borders, with no guarantee of American support, to deter further Russian aggression.

Let’s be honest. Assuming they were able to find the funds and expand Europe’s defense industrial capacity to support Ukraine, and even that the UK, as a former EU member but NATO, was fully integrated into this project. let’s. The intelligence, surveillance, targeting, and reconnaissance missions currently carried out under U.S. leadership will exceed those currently prepared by European countries.

Whether they give their all to the task and fail, or perhaps fail in the face of the enormity of the problem, the impact on Ukraine will be the same. To avoid being overrun again in the summer of 2025, it will be forced to seek temporary peace with Russia.

strategy concept

In other words, Europe needs a unified defense strategy and the ability to implement it. Fortunately, the foundations exist to build on.

NATO’s new strategic concept, approved after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, outlines the size of the required conventional force and suggests its structure. The treaty envisages the ability to deploy 100,000 troops within 10 days of a crisis under Article 5 (mutual defense clause) of the treaty; twice as many, and then 500,000 people.

There are 1.4 million military personnel in the United States, so if they are included, it is possible. But if the United States is not involved, or is only prepared to participate in the third phase, it will likely require significant pre-positioning of military forces from Europe. With a total of 1.3 million personnel, Europe’s armed forces are roughly comparable to those of the United States, but not as heavily armed.

Poland is investing in 1,000 new tanks and 1,400 new combat vehicles designed by South Korea. It has clearly positioned itself as the linchpin of forward defense, and one can expect a rearmed and refurbished force. German Bundeswehr To fight together. Finland has a strong military reserve, and Sweden is gradually increasing the output of its famous weapons industry. Meanwhile, Britain has reduced its military numbers to the lowest since Napoleon and is still formally committed to an “Indo-Pacific tilt” that emphasizes post-imperialist maritime power and a presence across the Gulf and Far East.

But while some countries are keen on rearmament and others are not, European countries are exposing fundamental weaknesses. A lack of standardization, an obsession with “sophisticated” weapons created to enhance the global reputation of favored defense companies, and an inability to reproduce vehicles and aircraft lost in combat. , unstable supply chains, and a swarm of “national champions” needlessly competing with each other.

sinister side

If the worst-case scenario is a second Trump presidency and an unjust peace imposed on Ukraine, another ominous aspect could be Russia’s rapid rearmament with equipment from China. That’s why military planners from the UK to Estonia are giving speeches to Gen Z, warning them that the risk of armed conflict in their lifetimes cannot be ignored.

What is needed is a co-ordinated plan to rapidly expand Europe’s defense industrial capacity (and with the UK an engaged player rather than a bystander). European countries need to solve the problem of creating “mass” on the battlefield through partnership and standardization. This means producing cheap, versatile and reliable military vehicles, artillery and air defense systems that can be quickly replaced if destroyed, and training reserves. they.

States will likely need to lead this effort, since such production is considered of low value by the private equity and venture capital groups that make up the defense industry’s ownership structure. Even better would be a large consortium of states working together. But beyond that, NATO’s European members need to grapple with two questions that politicians have barely begun to answer: how to fight and why to fight.

Regarding the former, it is a truism that the military starts wars, but society and the economy win them. Europe has an economy and civil society that can successfully deter aggression. However, the United States plays a coordinating role within NATO, and no one can replace it. For example, the US military has declared a return to “divisionism” in its operational concept. Essentially, the smallest counter on a US general’s map would represent three brigades of up to 15,000 soldiers. Although most European militaries do not operate division-level command structures, they are rapidly adapting to changes in U.S. emphasis. It is unclear who will make such decisions if the United States becomes an unreliable ally.

existential questions

“Why do we fight?” The question is an existential one. In cafes in Helsinki and Tallinn, even among Gen Zers, the answer is simple. They understand that their high-tech, liberal cities could become hellscapes from day one if attacked by Russia. It feels very different in the older Western democracies, which are the main targets of Russia’s hybrid warfare and disinformation, but public memory of the Soviet Union is non-existent.

Few of the current generation of leaders entered politics with a focus on national security, rather than economic growth or fighting for human rights and justice. Even among the few who understand the scale of the danger, there is a political party to steer, a budget to balance, and a voting base of pacifism to manage.

Therefore, the threat of Mr. Trump becoming president for a second term must be the focus of politicians. There is a clear mismatch between the concept of NATO (forward military deployment to deter Russian aggression) and its ability to execute. This problem needs to be solved through partnerships, proactive industrial strategy, and geopolitical management of supply chains.

Above all, voters need to be warned of the seriousness of the threat if a resurgent Trump strikes a blow against Europe.

This is a joint publication by. social europe and IPS Journal