French President Emmanuel Macron said the American security umbrella is a thing of the past and that Europe needs to build its own credible defense strategy if it wants to survive.
I’m not a fan of American foreign policy at all, but following the European news lately I don’t know if our governments can be trusted without the US providing security.
I fear that the moment European nations need to be serious about their own defense they become way less trustful of their neighbors, creating all the incentives for an arms race. Especially with the current crop of nationalist politicians it’s not hard to imagine a serious cool down in the relationship between a France and a Germany lead by Le Pen and the AFD (in a coalition government or not). In such a world it’s suddenly way less pleasant to be a smaller nation that can not seriously compete with Germany or France.
I really hope I’m wrong and that we truly learned the lesson from the second word war, but I think not needing to provide our own security plays at least a role in the relative peace within the EU member states.
The problem is that Europe doesn’t really have an idea of what a European defense organization would look like. The national model isn’t going to work as most nations are too small to provide meaningful contributions. However, it feels like most countries aren’t ready to hand over more foreign policy competencies to the EU.
I’m not a fan of American foreign policy at all, but following the European news lately I don’t know if our governments can be trusted without the US providing security.
I fear that the moment European nations need to be serious about their own defense they become way less trustful of their neighbors, creating all the incentives for an arms race. Especially with the current crop of nationalist politicians it’s not hard to imagine a serious cool down in the relationship between a France and a Germany lead by Le Pen and the AFD (in a coalition government or not). In such a world it’s suddenly way less pleasant to be a smaller nation that can not seriously compete with Germany or France.
I really hope I’m wrong and that we truly learned the lesson from the second word war, but I think not needing to provide our own security plays at least a role in the relative peace within the EU member states.
The problem is that Europe doesn’t really have an idea of what a European defense organization would look like. The national model isn’t going to work as most nations are too small to provide meaningful contributions. However, it feels like most countries aren’t ready to hand over more foreign policy competencies to the EU.