Absolutt.
Given Europe’s massive advantage in resources, there is no reason why it cannot organize an effective defense against Russia. What, then, is stopping Europe from doing so?
Part of the answer has to do with U.S. policy and Washington’s view of its role in the world. Since the end of World War II, U.S. leaders have sought to lead their European allies and, as a corollary, frowned on any steps by Europe toward greater self-sufficiency in defense. U.S. officials opposed efforts, including a 1998 British-French initiative, to increase the EU’s military effectiveness and a bid, two decades later, to promote the joint development of European armaments.
[NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg dismissed calls by French President Emmanuel Macron to put France’s nuclear deterrence at the center of European defense strategy, saying the United States and Britain already provide an effective security umbrella]
As a recent analysis by the Brookings Institution noted aptly, “Europe has wanted autonomy without providing adequate defense resources, while the United States has wanted greater European defense contributions without diminishing NATO and U.S. political influence.”
The U.S. government isn’t being disingenuous when it says it favors a strong Europe; it just fails to add that it also wants Europeans to remain dependent on U.S. protection and even compliant when it comes to U.S. preferences on matters of security.
The idea of Europe developing a self-sufficient military capability outside U.S.-dominated NATO has long been disliked in Washington. In his last address to NATO defense ministers in December 2000, U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen warned that NATO “could become a relic” if the EU built up what he labeled as a competing, redundant defense organization.
Nearly two decades later, after the EU formed a joint fund for collaborative defense projects in 2017, a top U.S. defense official at the time commented that the plans must not distract from NATO’s current activities. “We don’t want to see EU efforts pulling requirements or forces away from NATO and into the EU,” said Katie Wheelbarger, the then-principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs.
European governments don’t automatically follow Washington’s script—though they follow its lead more often than not—but have heeded the warnings, happy to oblige and play the role of dependent. After all, if you can count on a superpower to be your external protector and spend less on defense than you otherwise would, why not take the deal?
This arrangement has deep roots and won’t be easy to change. The U.S. security guarantee to Europe has been in place since NATO was established in 1949. Multiple generations of European leaders have internalized the belief that U.S. leadership is irreplaceable and that their continent cannot survive without it, never mind that Europe has long since become an economic and technological powerhouse itself, one that produces an array of advanced weaponry.
This same orthodoxy—Europe would be imperiled absent U.S. protection—has also long been gospel within the U.S. foreign-policy establishment. Moreover, it aligns with the ubiquitous narrative that the world would descend into chaos were there not a constellation of U.S. military bases overseas to maintain order. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s quip in 1998 about the United States being the “indispensable nation” continues to be repeated or paraphrased by foreign-policy luminaries today, and the underlying worldview long preceded her.
In light of all this, no one should be surprised that Putin’s war in Ukraine has reinforced the conventional wisdom: Russia’s imperial ambitions, coupled with Europe’s frailties, necessitate an open-ended, even increased, U.S. commitment to protect the continent.
But the facts suggest precisely the opposite. The U.S.-European security relationship has therefore become progressively divorced from reality. If it is to change, what Europe needs is not more resources but greater political will and self-confidence. Washington, for its part, must jettison the axiom that it has no choice but to serve as Europe’s perpetual protector par excellence.
