Alliance erasure
Europe, Daddy hates you even if you keep flattering him!
Multiple news sources reported this afternoon that the new National Security Strategy of the Trump Administration paints Europe in general, but also the European Union specifically, in less than flattering terms. The continent as a whole is in danger of “civilisational erasure” for its migration policies, according to the document, while the Union fares no better. Apparently, it undermines democracy, favours censorship and suppresses political opposition.
Mr Trump and his allies have made similar claims multiple times. At the Munich Security Conference last February, Vice President JD Vance shocked his audience when, during a speech, he identified Europe’s main threat to its security not as Russia or China, but as coming “from within”, in a nod to immigration and free speech issues. The President talks of the EU as an organisation created to “rip off” the United States and in the past expressed strong support for Brexit.
Yet, this Strategy review does mark a significant shift, even in Trumpian times. For a start, it is an official document of the White House, signalling for the first time on paper that this is government policy of the (once) most steadfast ally of pretty much every European country and of the EU. Forget flattering the President and convincing him to back the continent against an overtly expansionist Russia: Europe is on its own on this front. How can your best friend talk about you in terms of “civilisational erasure”?
But secondly, and more alarmingly for Europe, the Strategy does not imply that the United States is indifferent to the continent’s security and interests. The document mentions that the US will act to “correct” Europe’s trajectory and “restore Greatness” to the continent, for instance by “encouraging” political allies, with a reference to “patriotic” (more prosaically, far-right) domestic European political allies. It also mentions that the US will aim to “prevent” any other foreign adversary from dominating Europe. It may well have added that it is the United States that should dominate Europe.
Moreover, the document hints to the possibility of a change in the relations between Europe and Russia, suggesting that this is a core interest of the United States. That this might involve the end of Ukraine “as a viable state” did apparently not occur to its authors.
European governments are painted as subversive to democratic processes, and a key aim of the United States in Europe is said to be the restoration of “genuine” democracy and freedom of expression. Only the single national cultures and traditions are worth of celebration, apparently not the European Union, implicitly accused of overregulation.
Perseverare autem diabolicum
From the start of the second Trump Administration, Europe has been cautious not to provoke Mr. Trump’s ire against itself. It has accepted bad deals on trade and a substantial imposition of tariffs in spite of those deals. It has said nothing when the US stopped weapons shipments to Ukraine, nor when it stopped intelligence sharing. Its flattering of President Trump reminds of Virgil and his praises for Emperor Augustus. But where Virgil wrote one of the finest works in human history, European statesmen and diplomats opted for much more mundane tactics. In public, Europe has managed not to reject the President’s recent far-fetched peace (or surrender) plans even when they appeared to be dictated in Russian by Kremlin emissaries.
The thinking goes that US involvement on the side of Ukraine remains crucial for a good and just outcome of the war, as well as for European security more broadly. However, that assumes that Joe Biden is still president and Mr. Trump a pariah, when the reverse is true these days. Daddy has radically different plans in mind for Europe and the new Strategy makes them very clear. What would it take for European governments to change course and act accordingly?