Let Europeans stop whining every time they hear the Americans remind them that they must make the necessary investment for the defense of their country and at the same time the Atlantic Alliance (NATO). Donald Trump is the latest in a long line of American figures to raise their voices towards their European allies. It’s true, he did it with a brutality hitherto unknown.
In front of an audience of his supporters, a few days ago he recounted his confrontation with European leaders going back a few years. “One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, ‘Well, sir, if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, would you protect us?’ » said the billionaire, before revealing his answer. “No, I won’t protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever they want to you. You must pay your debts. » Trump had in mind the commitment made by NATO members ten years ago to devote 2% of their GDP to national defense.
More than half of members have reached or will reach this target this year, including the United States, at 3.5%. It must be understood that this percentage relates to a defense budget whose commitments are not limited to the defense of NATO members alone. It accounts for all American commitments on five continents and in space. Which puts the controversy into perspective when we take the trouble to understand it.
At the same time, sharing the burden of North Atlantic defense has always raised friction between the two sides of the Atlantic. What has changed today is that part of the American elites are ready to break with Europe and are considering leaving NATO. In 2011, Robert Gates, Barack Obama’s Secretary of Defense, predicted this.
Reflecting on NATO’s intervention in Libya, Gates noted that after eleven weeks of war, the Europeans were already running out of ammunition, forcing the United States to fill the gap. Gates emphasized at the time that “if the current decline in European military capabilities is not halted, or even reversed, future American leaders – those who have not experienced the lessons of the Cold War like me – risk everything simply to conclude that the return does not merit U.S. investment in NATO.”
Well, here we are. Trump, like many other American politicians, has avoided military service and has no use for the multilateralism of the Washingtonian elites. Biden is an internationalist, but he knows full well that the future lies in Asia and that the new elites who occupy more and more seats in Congress every day are abandoning Europe. The Old Continent can no longer count on the American security guarantee.
Hasn’t it always been like this? In the 1950s, the American nuclear umbrella protected Europeans thanks to the strategy of massive response. But as the Soviet Union acquired nuclear weapons, the Americans realized that their territory was becoming vulnerable. They adopted the strategy of graduated response, which made it possible to control military escalation, conventional and nuclear, and to limit it to the European battlefield. Some Europeans, including General de Gaulle, then began to doubt the American security guarantee. Clearly, they were not convinced that Washington was prepared to sacrifice New York to defend Berlin.
Take control of your destiny
Sixty years later, we are diving back into the same debate. In 2018, Trump – again – wondered whether the United States would want to start World War III if Montenegro was attacked. We can laugh at the escapades of the former and perhaps future president, but the questions raised by them still arise, especially since Article 5 of the Washington Treaty creating NATO is in no way case an absolute guarantee of military solidarity between allies. Yes, the article says that an attack on one is an attack on all, but you need to read on. Each country then determines its contribution to the defense of the attacked party, which leaves a range of possibilities, not all of them military.
The Europeans cling to Article 5 and the American security guarantee absurdly. It is time for them to seriously consider taking control of their destiny. NATO’s European members spend around 350 billion a year on defense and have the capabilities to deal with a Russia that was unable to invade Ukraine in two years. If a future President Trump withdraws the United States from NATO, this process will take years to complete. In the meantime, the Europeans could negotiate the terms of this withdrawal with the Americans, continue their rearmament, reorganize their military posture in Europe, extend the French and British nuclear umbrellas to the continent and Europeanize NATO.
European defense is a political question. There are those who want it – France, Spain, Belgium, Italy – and those who have been sabotaging it for years – Poland and other small countries of Eastern Europe. The Russian and Trump threats should give them pause, because there is nothing like a good crisis to force leaders to focus on what is essential.