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Europe needs to grow up and defend itself With America withdrawing, only France and Britain can protect the continent

The flags of Britain and Germany. Obviously. Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images

The flags of Britain and Germany. Obviously. Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images


December 9, 2020   7 mins

With Britain and the European Union still locked in last-minute haggling over fish in particular, and the nature of our future relationship in general, it may seem an inopportune moment to ponder our future strategic ties with the continental bloc. Whatever the merits of the decision to leave — and it was surely a finely-balanced argument either way — a good proportion of the rhetorical arguments deployed against remaining within the union highlighted the bloc’s trend towards consolidation of military and strategic power. 

The hated, notional “EU Army” of Brexiteer campaign literature, much mocked by Remainers, now appears closer to fruition than it did during the referendum debate — at least if we take the ongoing debates over European military autonomy seriously. 

Partly as a result of Brexit itself, and partly due to the withering of US power and attention on Europe’s frontiers, and the consequent opportunistic rushing of rival powers to fill the empty space, a sense of the European Union as a coherent strategic actor is coming into being. One willing and capable of defending its own interests in a hostile world.

Distracted though we are by our various internal crises, the nature of Britain’s strategic relationship with this aspiring power bloc on our doorstep ought therefore to be discussed more seriously than it currently is.

Most of the debate so far on Europe’s defence has circled around Macron’s attention-grabbing and controversial statements on the “brain death” of Nato, and the question of how far European autonomy can be interpreted as a breach with the United States. But a more measured and perhaps more useful insight into European strategic thinking can be obtained by analysis of last week’s blog post by the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell Fontelles. 

Outlining the stakes with remarkable clarity, Borrell observes that “the next two decades are going to be crucial because China will use them to become the first global power”, a noteworthy statement in itself. China’s rise to global dominance, and its corollary, America’s relative decline, are presented as faits accomplis — there is no notion of challenging China’s ascent, as there is in the drive towards great power competition guiding American policy (and thus, we can assume, Britain’s). 

Europe will need to develop the euro as a global currency, he asserts, to avoid “secondary sanctions”, indicating that the trading relationship with China will continue despite expected American pressure. Europe’s strategic task will be to safeguard its position in a new and more competitive global environment, where “if we do not act together now, we will become irrelevant”, and where strategic autonomy is simply “a process of political survival”.

Borrell’s intervention in the debate can be read as an expression of support for Macron in France’s ongoing and rancorous debate with Germany’s Atlanticist foreign policy establishment. Smoothing the troubled waters by assuring Macron’s critics that no-one is calling for leaving the Nato defence umbrella, Borrell nevertheless emphasises that, as a consequence of America’s strategic shift towards the Pacific, the US is more or less inactive on Europe’s troubled peripheries of the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa.  There is no choice but for European nations to take their security into their own hands: “the exclusive reference to NATO is no longer enough.” 

As Borrell notes, “Europe is today confronted on its periphery with a certain number of conflicts or tensions in the Sahel, in Libya and in the Eastern Mediterranean. In these three cases Europe must act even more, and alone, because these problems do not primarily concern the United States.” Indeed, the Eastern Mediterranean crisis within Nato shows that the Atlantic alliance has already been superseded as the dominant security provider for France, Greece and Cyprus, busy constructing a web of alliances with friendly Middle Eastern states instead.

Like the Holy Roman Empire in its dotage, there is no point in these countries formally leaving Nato: it has simply become irrelevant to their most pressing security concerns, and if this trend continues in Europe’s eastern waters, or spreads over the coming decades to the western or central Mediterranean, then we will already be living in a post-Nato continent, with all the risks and opportunities that implies.

Nevertheless, the fierce resistance of German foreign policy thinkers to any strides towards strategic autonomy acts as both a brake on European ambitions and an opportunity for the UK. At a stroke, Brexit deprived Europe of one of its two most powerful military actors, the only nation other than France capable of projecting force far beyond its immediate borders. As an excellent briefing from the German analyst Fabian Zuleeg in the Berlin Policy Journal last year underlined, “the UK has — together with France — been the only big power in the EU that has had a more strategic approach to external affairs and a more global strategic culture than that of other member states.” 

If a French-led European Union intends to establish itself as a strategic military actor on the world stage, then Britain possesses a uniquely attractive hand waiting to be played. Even in their much-denuded current form, our armed forces are a dramatic force multiplier for Europe. If we consider France’s bloody and not especially successful war in the Sahel as a model of a future European campaign, the initial French deployment to Mali in early 2013 relied on RAF C17 strategic airlift capacity to move armoured vehicles into theatre, and even now RAF helicopters are vital for French troops forced to avoid the country’s increasingly dangerous roads.

Only last week, 300 British troops deployed under the aegis of the UN to support what is fundamentally a French war fought for French interests: we are already France’s military partner of choice, and much more diplomatic capital could be made of this relationship than is currently the case.

So far, we have kept our close military relationship with France separate from Brexit negotiations— though whether this has worked to our advantage is doubtful. As Perry Anderson noted recently, the most obvious British card to play against the EU’s punitive Brexit negotiating tactics was a “warning that if pressed on this plane, the EU could suffer security — military and diplomatic — costs as well.”

Yet as he notes, “any such notion, above all, May and her ministers were voluble in disavowing,” and the opportunity to use this gambit has long since been lost. Nevertheless, the lure of Britain’s strategic muscle remains a powerful diplomatic tool waiting to be deployed, and our greatest asset, perhaps unexpectedly, is the fecklessness of Germany’s foreign policy establishment, still trapped in the conceptual safe space of the early 2000s and America’s unipolar moment. 

Merkel is, fundamentally, a relic of the age of Bush and Blair, and the think-tank establishment around her is similarly unwilling to face the unwelcome realities slowly dawning on the rest of Europe. While still loudly proclaiming its loyal Atlanticism and rejecting all talk of European autonomy, Germany is deeply invested in its trading relationship with China, all but ensuring a future crisis as this essential paradox plays out and the world is forced to choose between the two opposing blocs.

This situation is perhaps unlikely to long survive her retirement — there is an amusing irony to the fact that the neurotic Atlanticism of the German establishment is not shared by German voters, who are probably the most indifferent to America’s survival as global hegemon in all of Western Europe. As a recent poll showed, 82% of Germans would wish to remain neutral in a Cold War between America and China, and this indifference to the interests of Germany’s superpower sponsor can in itself be read as a certain popular will for autonomy. 

Yet until the desires of Germany’s voters are reflected by the policies of its government, any European effort towards an autonomous strategic vision will founder on German intransigence, leaving Britain looking more and more attractive as a strategic partner. In any case, the inherent difficulty of marshalling the varied and often opposing interests of the EU nations together in the service of a common goal, whether geopolitical or otherwise, will always counteract any attempt at unified foreign policy action, again enhancing our appeal.

Whether or not future strategic cooperation would be with a European Union in which France has become the  dominant diplomatic power, or simply bilaterally with France, can only be determined by the course of future events, by their nature impossible to foresee. Yet with our strategic utility already established, the greater question is whether such deepened cooperation with a Union we are leaving in such traumatic and contested circumstances is in our national interests. 

Until the delayed SDSR is released, we will not know for certain the strategic assumptions underlying future British policy. It is likely, and fortunate, that the British Government has finally lost its appetite for idealistic crusades in unstable or failing states in the Islamic world, yet the search for a new role brings with it new dangers as well as opportunities.

The options, fundamentally, are that we consider ourselves a European power, and focus on maintaining the continent’s security by sea in the North Atlantic and by land on NATO’s eastern frontier, or that we continue to maintain a tenuous status as a global power, which will in effect mean a predominantly naval effort stretching from the Persian Gulf to the western Pacific. Neither option would mean a breach with the Atlantic alliance; either option would be an attractive addition to Europe’s capabilities.

If the publication, last week, of the MoD’s guidance on Multi-Domain Integration can be read for clues on Britain’s future strategic orientation, then the statement that “Russia is our primary adversary and pacing threat” indicates the European continent and perhaps its near abroad will remain our area of strategic focus; yet the investment in naval rearmament, with the future status of our land forces remaining unclear, implies the opposite: a naval orientation centred on our two giant new carriers will naturally lead us eastward on the open seas, where the obvious future adversary will be a rising China.

The fundamental assumption driving European strategic thought, if Borrell’s blogpost is an accurate guide, is that the outcome of a contest between the United States and China in the Pacific will be China’s winning of hegemonic status. Perhaps this is wrong: perhaps China will blink first, or perhaps both superpowers will exhaust themselves in the struggle, leaving space for smaller powers, like India, or Russia or even Europe, to expand their reach as a result. What seems clear is that this historic future struggle, whose outcome is so uncertain, is not one the European Union has any interest in actively taking part in, and this is probably a sensible decision. 

Whatever the outcome of the future contest in the Pacific, the shift in American attention away from Europe and Middle East is most likely permanent, with the result that Europe will be forced to defend its territorial and political authority even on the edges of our own continent. Whatever our global aspirations, or memories, we are a European power and it is in Europe’s near abroad that our interests will primarily be threatened. 

Serious engagement with the European debate on grand strategy should therefore be a British priority: once the dust settles on our rancorous departure from the union, the fact will remain that, to defend our interests, we will still need them and they will still need us. Once we’re finished haggling over fish, it should be the Government’s priority to determine what a long-term, self-interested strategic relationship with our closest neighbours — distinct from, though not in opposition to NATO — would look like.

Europe’s strategic autonomy may end up less something to be consciously aimed for than a situation thrust upon the continent by events. We would be wise to carefully consider the full range of possibilities for Britain offered by the aspiring regional power bloc on our doorstep.


Aris Roussinos is an UnHerd columnist and a former war reporter.

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Fraser Bailey
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago

An astute and eloquent analysis by Aris, as always. But as we have all known for many years, there is no chance of Europe growing up and defending itself. The Western/European mind cannot ‘grow up’ when it further regresses towards a childlike state with each passing day.

Europe’s leaders would rather depend on Russian gas and cover the hills with wind turbines than defend itself through energy security. They would rather punish central European leaders for resisting alien cultures, than resist those cultures themselves. They would rather punish Britain for showing some backbone than show some backbone themselves. They would rather close the schools than teach the science and math skills necessary to compete in the 21st century. (Not that most European education systems can teach those skills, according to some of my information from industry). And they would rather light candles and sing ‘Imagine’ than put in place armed forces capable of doing anything useful. They would rather force people to take an (almost certainly) unsafe vaccine than evolve ways to live with a virus that is no danger to any healthy person below the age of about 65.

Europe cannot even defend itself from people in rubber dinghies armed only with smartphones. Nor can it prevent those people from wandering around the continent at will, killing us as and when they feel like it. Moreover, Europe routinely rewards these people with huge amounts of welfare etc. This is a failing belief system and a failing continent. And the idea pathogens that have entered the Western mind are now so engrained and enforced that there is no way back.

One could go and on, but the the fact is that the vast majority of Europe’s leaders are ignorant, arrogant and incompetent. Thus Europe faces one of two futures, obeisance to Islam or obeisance to China. This is what Europe’s hopeless, corrupt politically correct, economically illiterate leaders have brought us to.

Jonathan Weil
Jonathan Weil
3 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

“Almost certainly unsafe”? On what basis do you make this claim? On the same basis that you claim covid is no danger to any healthy person under 65? You don’t have to approve all the measures taken against covid (I certainly don’t) to see the falsity of this. I (39 years old) and many, many others have lost most of this year to Long Covid. It has not been fun. It has blighted personal and professional lives. The long term effects are still unknown ” certainly less known, and less knowable, than the effects of the vaccines.

Carl Goulding
Carl Goulding
3 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan Weil

So actually how many is many many others? Is it as many as all those who have taken their own lives as a result of the COVID measures? Or as many as those that will die prematurely from undiagnosed cancer and other diseases? I don’t know what the definition of a “safe”vaccine is. However I won’t be rushing forward to be injected with a product that has not been subjected to the normal robust testing regime, especially when the manufacturer is not accountable for any negative side effects that may become apparent after mass vaccinations.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
3 years ago
Reply to  Carl Goulding

I don’t know what the definition of a “safe”vaccine is.
Take heart; no one else knows, either. Nor can anyone define “safe” itself, meaning no one will be able to recognize that condition. I’m starting to think that’s intentional. The wannabe tyrants whose dictates impact others but never themselves have grown to love their newfound power, and they will not give it up willingly.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
3 years ago
Reply to  Carl Goulding

They are not accountable as the government has indemnified them. Or you could say they have closed their eyes to it.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
3 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan Weil

On the same basis that you claim covid is no danger to any healthy person under 65?
Have you missed that the overwhelming majority of victims are OVER 65? And that they usually carry other health factors that covid exacerbates? Yes, people have essentially lost a year. And most of them have gone along with it, happily outsourcing all responsibility for risk to an unaccountable third party that dictates where and how they can work, eat, shop, and play.

We are gradually going to find out that the hysteria in treating covid as the modern black plague was worse than the virus itself. In the meantime, the people in power will continue pushing mandates on you while exempting themselves, and they will continue with orders that have no effect on their own lives.

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
3 years ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

Spot on, in fact the average for a C-19 death in the UK is now 82.5, whereas UK life expectancy is 81.1! What’s the problem?

Jeremy Smith
Jeremy Smith
3 years ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

May be we should let C19 run wild. It would thin the Brexit herd.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
3 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Smith

And the Remainers.

roger white
roger white
3 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Smith

Yes Remainers truly are the good people, morally superior & full of empathy for others.

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
3 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan Weil

How sad you feel like this. In fact you are perfect example of what Fraser has annunciated above. In a nutshell, and to lapse into the vernacular, the whole of Western Europe “has lost its bottle”.

Sadly, my generation and the two before me, are responsible for this terrible state of affairs. We just weren’t paying attention, as we attempted to emulate the great days of the Pax Romana The expression “Dives in omnia”, just about sums it up.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark Corby

The EU is the second try out of Pax Romana. Hitler was second and the Kaiser wasn’t far off the hope of it.

Ralph Windsor
Ralph Windsor
3 years ago
Reply to  Tony Conrad

Nonsense. In no way was the Pax Romana comparable with the EU or Nazi or Kaiser Germany – or Napoleonic France for that matter. The Roman Republic and Empire lasted for centuries, not a few decades at best; it was centred for much of its existence in one city; and it covered a huge area of the Middle East and North Africa as well as much of Western Europe. And, at least until the end, it it had great confidence in itself. So did Kaiser Bill, Hitler and Napoleon, you might argue, but what did they leave behind in the way of hegemony?

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
3 years ago
Reply to  Tony Conrad

Historically there have quite a few attempts to replicate the Pax Romana, and all have ended in abject failure.
S.P.Q.R.

Michael Dawson
Michael Dawson
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark Corby

Why reply with something that does not address the post from Jonathan Weil? There is a big difference between the number of deaths of people under 65 being very low, and there being ‘no danger’. Or maybe the only danger in life is death?

Put it another way, if a vaccine causes the equivalent symptoms to ‘long Covid’ in the same proportion of cases, would you say that was nothing to bother about? I suspect, not: it will become a major issue, covered up by an incompetent and corrupt deep state/big pharma. As it is, there is plenty of evidence that Covid is very unpleasant for many, leads to longer term health issues for a minority and kills a lot of people – very largely older, unwell people. On the other hand, there is no evidence that the vaccine has anything but minor side-effects for some people, whilst being very effective in stopping people getting the virus.

There can be a debate about whether the government’s response has been the right one – certainly not in many respects, in my view. But to let your views on that cloud the vaccine question is ridiculous

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
3 years ago
Reply to  Michael Dawson

I am sorry my epistle was too obtuse for you. In plain English I was castigating Mr Weil (39) and probably you, for complete lack of backbone over this ludicrous C19 Scamdemic.

If Mr Weil and you are truly representative of the ‘youth’ of this country, God help us.

bocalance
bocalance
3 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

The first reply to your point that European leaders are inept show that the pathogens are strong, indeed. They apparently affect reading comprehension and, perhaps, induce blindness.

Pauline Ivison
Pauline Ivison
3 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

Great comment, thank you.

John Nutkins
John Nutkins
3 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

Excellent corollary to a good commentary.

Kate H. Armstrong
Kate H. Armstrong
3 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

Excellent synopsis of our current ‘conditions’ in relation to the EU. Your final sentence applies equally to all Western European leaders after Regan and Thatcher … I would add to “hopeless, corrupt, politically correct, economically illiterate” my own perceptions of; deliberate historical illiteracy and narcissistic self-aggrandisement.

Lickya Lips
Lickya Lips
3 years ago

To paraphrase Gordon Brown – these are just growing pains of the New World Order.

7882 fremic
7882 fremic
3 years ago

Trump was the last gasp before the West sinking into oblivion.

mike otter
mike otter
3 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

Totally agree with most of this except i believe the native Europeans will, at some stage, fight back. It may take 2 more generations, but i think the global liberal appeasers have little idea of feelings in the poorer parts of the EU, from Eire to Spain and on to S&E Europe. All they need is a movement strong and amoral enough to lead them. Such an outfit will learn from what has just happened in the USA and make sure that they cannot be driven out by fixed elections, or, i expect, any elections at all!

Fraser Bailey
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
Reply to  mike otter

Perhaps – but can we afford to wait two generations?

Andrew Thompson
Andrew Thompson
3 years ago
Reply to  mike otter

Two generations will be three generations too late I fear.

Jeremy Smith
Jeremy Smith
3 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

How do you know that the vaccine is “almost certainly unsafe”…data and no online based conspiracy theories!

Andrew Thompson
Andrew Thompson
3 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

An astute and eloquent analysis by Fraser Bailey, as always.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
3 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

Europe should share defence though. It needn’t be under the EU but between sovereign countries.

Doug Pingel
Doug Pingel
3 years ago
Reply to  Tony Conrad

Oh! You mean like …um…NATO?

Annette Kralendijk
Annette Kralendijk
3 years ago

Putting aside whether or not it’s a good idea, the EU army will never materialize for mainly one reason……money. To create such a military force, a good deal of German money would be required. And that won’t happen. Germans like their defense courtesy of other militaries, specifically the US one. This isn’t necessarily a criticism of Germany, it’s simply reality.

That said, there are some people even today that wouldn’t be all that comfortable with Germany becoming a first world military power. Should China start to assert itself militarily in a way that threatens Germany, you can be sure that the phone will ring in Washington DC. Until then, everyone will be content to make money with China.

The UK’s best security option is NATO and a strengthened Anglosphere. Biden is not as anti-British as Obama was but he is probably less pro-British than Trump. The US would undoubtedly defend the UK. I’m less sure that Germany or France would expend the resources to do so.

bocalance
bocalance
3 years ago

“Until then, everyone will be content to make money with China.”
You could add “and voice disdain for America.” The insults have been heard across the Atlantic.

Tom Krehbiel
Tom Krehbiel
3 years ago

How is calling the Germans free-loaders not a criticism of them?

Annette Kralendijk
Annette Kralendijk
3 years ago
Reply to  Tom Krehbiel

It’s reality. Germans have gotten comfortable with their security provided by others. It’s a somewhat teenage way of being but not unexpected when someone else so readily steps forward to foot the bill. And the US to be fair has been part of the infantilization of Germany, by refusing to recognize that it’s not 1945.

Peter Branagan
Peter Branagan
3 years ago

Europe needs to defend itself against what exactly?
If I was not retired I most definitely would not write this.
For most of the last 60yrs I strongly felt that Western values were worth arguing for and in extremis worth defending. Democracy is never very efficient but at least it claimed to offer a degree of personal freedom.
However, over the past 2 to yrs I have lost any sense of valuing Western ‘values’. Wokeism has hollowed out the very concept of personal freedom. We now have the worst of all possible worlds -a totalitarianism without a central focus. The threat can come from any quarter, at any time in any place – your colleagues, the HR dept (the local branch of the Stasi), your children (after comprehensive brain washing in wokeism in schools). Even a solitary outburst of frustration either in person or online can not only ruin a career with prospects it will get you fired, so you can no longer make a livelihood and support yourself or your loved ones. What used to be considered crude behaviour or an unfortunate outburst or simply bad manners is now a criminal offence. No gulag needed – you’re just finished anyway.

If you are a person that has to work for a living the only way to survive now in the West is to conform totally to a multifaceted totalitarian dogma that punishes the slightest fleeting deviation.
Keep the head down, say as little as possible and don’t even think outside the orthodoxy in case you might blurt out something in your sleep.

And every year that passes more laws are passed criminalising more and more aspects of human interactions. Nineteen Eighty Four has finally arrived.
Now what exactly is worth defending?

Ralph Windsor
Ralph Windsor
3 years ago
Reply to  Peter Branagan

But 1984 not quite as Orwell imagined it. More a toxic mix of pre-Reformation religion, neo-Sharia and a digital Stasi.

Cathy Carron
Cathy Carron
3 years ago
Reply to  Peter Branagan

Couldn’t agree more. Moreover, I find myself ‘hating’ in ways I couldn’t believe imaginable. I used to care about race issues and equality, etc. Now? I could care less. I just won’t buy into any of the ‘Cesspool of Woke Belief’.

Fraser Bailey
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
Reply to  Peter Branagan

Sadly, you are entirely correct.

7882 fremic
7882 fremic
3 years ago
Reply to  Peter Branagan

Not 1984, but a Brave, New, 1984, where the totalitarian is done by the hedonism and nihilism, solipsism, and a ‘Social Credit Score’.

Nigel Clarke
Nigel Clarke
3 years ago

“… a sense of the European Union as a coherent strategic actor is coming into being…”

Do you think? You would need the eye of faith to actually believe this. Coherent and strategic the EU ain’t.

Andrew Baldwin
Andrew Baldwin
3 years ago

Aris is concerned about the MoD’s statement: “Russia is our primary adversary and pacing threat” mainly because it seems out of synch with planned heavy naval investments. He doesn’t seem to be concerned that it might be out of synch with reality. A relentlessly aggressive NATO encouraged Georgia to think it could be a NATO member, leading to the Georgian aggression against South Ossetia that led to the Russo-Georgian war. The imbecilic decision by the Obama-Biden administration to sabotage an EU-brokered arrangement for early presidential elections in Ukraine and back an unconstitutional removal of President Yanukovych from office in favour of a pro-NATO anti-Russophone interim government led directly to the Russian takeover of Crimea and the tragic war in the Donbas, conducted with Russian aid to the rebels. These are basically the only important aggressive moves made by Russia in the European theatre since Putin took office, both more correctly viewed as defensive moves in response to moronic NATO provocation. Russia under Putin is, sad to say, an authoritarian state, and not the democracy people hoped for, but it should not be viewed as the UK’s primary threat. Perhaps the NATO alliance itself, with its brain-dead policies, should be regarded as the main threat to UK national security and some thought should be given to how it can either be restructured or replaced.

mike otter
mike otter
3 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Baldwin

I think O’Biden would rather Russia took Crimea back than Ukraine elected a nationalist government. Knee jerk appeaser mentality – my enemy’s enemy is my friend. Watch O’Biden try to create a nuclear armed Iran, gleefully by-passing the SCOTUS and Congress if he has to.

Fraser Bailey
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Baldwin

Good point. Russia is far less of a threat to the UK than is the EU. Not in a militaristic sense, but in legal/trade/psychological sense.

Jeremy Smith
Jeremy Smith
3 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

Utterly risible.

Jeremy Smith
Jeremy Smith
3 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Baldwin

Surely independent countries like Georgia or Ukraine have the right to decide if they want to join NATO or EU?
Or is that right only available to the British?
I find it absurd the “fascination” with Putin and Russia.
Putin is basically a gangster, a thief. He (and has friends) have robbed Russia blind.
He is not Frederick the Great and his friends are not the Junker Class.

Christin
Christin
3 years ago

Is it some sort of ingrained subservience that prompts Germans to think that they can be “neutral” in the face of Communist China’s latest pronouncement that the entire world “owes allegiance to Beijing”? All the while, Germans refuse to fund their own military and rely entirely on the US for strategic defense. France, on the other hand, faces the distinct possibility that it will become an Islamic “republic” by the end of this century. Good luck with that.

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
3 years ago
Reply to  Christin

Sino delenda est!

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
3 years ago
Reply to  Christin

The prognosis is that Britain will be an Islamic country by 2050.

Christin
Christin
3 years ago
Reply to  Tony Conrad

I believe the UK has a much better chance to avoid that grim fate.

Andrew Best
Andrew Best
3 years ago

Is this a joke?
We don’t have an army, we have a self defence force, less them 100,000 troops is not an army.
The recruitment is terrible and the army now relies on the ta to fill out it’s numbers, who would be a soldier to be paid a pittance to put your life on the line to die in a desert somewhere?
2 aircraft carriers is not a navy to behold and strike fear in anyone.
We can’t even police the English channel.
We struggled in the Falklands in the 80s with our navy and it has not got better since then.
Are your children going to serve or is it the poor, working class yet again?
And why would we yet again put ourselves any where near an EU army?
A sure fire vote loser to any government that ties us to the EU, again!
Absolute rubbish article

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
3 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Best

Mr Rousssinos is a former soldier and old habits/nostalgia die hard.

Those ‘two ski jump’ aircraft carriers you refer to are an utter disgrace. They were built purely to benefit Gordon Brown’s constituency and others in lowland Scotland.

Even the wretched Chinese have the technology to sink them with ease, and no doubt should we be stupid enough to use them, they will end up on the bottom of the South China Sea, just like their predecessors HMS Prince of Wales & HMS Repulse.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
3 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Best

Why does a defence agreement have to be under the EU. It could be with the EU but not under it. Norway could join as well.

vince porter
vince porter
3 years ago

Since WW2, only fortune tellers in circus tents have been wrong as often as strategic thinkers.

Fraser Bailey
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
Reply to  vince porter

Journalistic groupthink, too, is often as wrong as the strategic thinkers.

neilyboy.forsythe
neilyboy.forsythe
3 years ago

No! Forget it! We’re not propping up with finance and lives, an institution that despises us.
Just pay your bloody dues!

Colin Elliott
Colin Elliott
3 years ago

While I enjoyed reading an intelligently-written article, I put forward a few points to consider.
1 I understand that believers in an EU superstate and those who see advantage in such a bandwagon would like an EC-controlled instrument of foreign policy and a protectionist military-industrial complex, but to start competing with NATO is surely idiocy. It would be better to question why members of the EU aren’t members of NATO.
2 I agree that the existence of both Greece and Turkey within NATO while each are hostile to one another is a major problem. In the past, the threat of Russia made sense of it, yet didn’t lead to reconciliation, but now the government of Turkey has changed radically, a solution should be sought. Incidentally, both countries’ military expenditure might be called excessive, but I would accept that Greece’ is more defensive in nature.
3 It seems highly unlikely to me that an EU army would be effective in the average international emergency (unless an effective superstate comes about) because of the divergence of interests and sentiment within its members. Evidence of how small countries tend to prefer neutrality is provided by both world wars.
4 The UK is surely morally right to exclude defence as a mean of pressure in its negotiations with the EU, but the EU has no scruples about using unrelated issues to achieve negotiation ‘victory’, so in view of the vital and long-term importance of these negotiations, the UK should have clearly put it on the scales, too. Iceland, whose population is but a rounding error compared with that of the UK won the Cod Wars this way. Not only has this long been forgiven, but one could argue that their cause has also been justified by the consequent conservation.
5 The article includes no reference to Australia, Canada, or New Zealand. It would surely be the wish and policy of the UK to aid any of these countries should they ever have need, irrespective of treaties.
6 The UK and many EU members put too low a priority on defence spending, much like a householder skimping on insurance premiums, but many people, including Germans themselves, would naturally feel uneasy if Germany, the dominant economic power in the EU, also became the dominant military power. It’s not that one doubts temperament or democratic values, it’s to do with concentration of power. At least within NATO, the presence of the UK, USA and Canada do much to keep it balanced.
7 NATO exists for defence, and I see it as inhibited from aggressive actions, which is a good thing, although there may be times when the difference is unclear.
8 Another difference worth bearing in mind is that France quit NATO for many years, which would have been unthinkable for the UK.

mike otter
mike otter
3 years ago

Merkel is so post NATO she is, with Putin, a main cheer leader for Nord Stream 2. Macron is so post NATO he is willing to wreck relations with the UK for the sake of a few fish. We need to massively increase our armed services and defence industry in UK, and further cement our alliance with other North Atlantic allies. Not to assist the EU, but to fill the vacuum left by the posturing Macron and Putin appeasing Merkel. Once the Visigrad and Iberian Europeans realise they’ve been shafted by the Franco-German axis they will be only too pleased to join with us.

Ralph Windsor
Ralph Windsor
3 years ago
Reply to  mike otter

And maybe even our Hibernian neighbours across the Irish Sea? Hmmm, maybe not.

mike otter
mike otter
3 years ago
Reply to  Ralph Windsor

I have said elsewhere on this thread that the global liberal appeasers have little idea of feelings in the
poorer parts of the EU, from Eire to Spain and on to S&E Europe. The poorest 50% of the Irish have been massively shafted by the celtic tiger nonsense and Eire’s attempts to be a colder version of Panama for tax avoidance. Maybe that’s why Sinn Fein is now so popular in the 26 counties?

Peter LastSpurrier
Peter LastSpurrier
3 years ago

I would have thought we should be more concerned about China than Russia. Russia is economically weak. China could become the dominant world power, which wouldn’t bode well for democracy in any country that China cared about. An alliance, of the many nations which are concerned about China, might be useful.

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
3 years ago

A very well argued polemic Mr Roussinos, you should have kept up your military career.

The real problem, as always is Germany.
Having been completely emasculated and denazified after 1945, in order to further the cult of the ” good German”, they now find it an anathema to even consider their military responsibilities

All this is great shame as for a thousand years, from the time of say Otto the Great, War has been the national sport of the Germans.
The performance of the Imperial Army and Wehrmacht in the twentieth century was outstanding, and only let down by the performance of their CEO’s. The over optimistic Eric Ludendorff, and the rank incompetence of “that stinker Hitler”.

Anyone who doubts the military psyche of the German people should visit the astonishing
Volkerschlachtdenkmal, outside Leipzig, preferably wearing Mp3 headphones playing the Overture to Wagner’s ‘Tannhauser’.

If Europe is to survive Germany must wake up, properly rearm, and take the centre stage again. Consuming industrial quantities of bratwursts, as it appears Mrs Merkel has done, just will not do.

Jeremy Smith
Jeremy Smith
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark Corby

“…the national sport of the Germans…”
You can say the same thing for the French, Poles, Russians

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
3 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Smith

I disagree, the Germans were/are synonymous with Warfare, they almost made it an art form.
From Barbarossa, to the Landsknechts, the Prussian General Staff, (the Carmine Stripe) and the Waffen SS, there has been nothing like them since the Legions of Ancient Rome.

The others you mention had their day, but for sheer consistency you have to hand it to the Germans, the self-proclaimed Master Race.

Ralph Windsor
Ralph Windsor
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark Corby

The Legions of Rome were more consistent over a longer period – despite a lost match against an early German side in the Teutoberger Wald.

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
3 years ago
Reply to  Ralph Windsor

They had their revenge and retrieved the three lost Eagles!

Ralph Windsor
Ralph Windsor
3 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Smith

And, indeed, the British. We particularly liked away games against France.

Ross Towes
Ross Towes
3 years ago

The American pivot is real but overstated. Just a couple of months ago, the US Army re-established V Corps HQ to command US forces in Europe, with 200 people permanently stationed in Poland. The European nations would need decades to replace what would be lost to NATO if the Americans left Europe altogether – they know that as much as we do.

Geoffrey Simon Hicking
Geoffrey Simon Hicking
3 years ago

Australia and New Zealand are also allies and will be at the heart of any strategy we put together. Throw in the Indians and Japanese requests to work more closely with us, and we should perhaps be wary of relentless focus on Europe. The RN will seek to be at the heart of any confrontation, and that for now is the Asia-Pacific region.

Jeremy Smith
Jeremy Smith
3 years ago

NZ is modern day Sparta.
Despite endless attempts from USA, India has refused to join Uncle Sam in checking the rise of China.
Why would Japan side with UK against…EU?
RN at the heart of any confrontation….LOL!!!

Geoffrey Simon Hicking
Geoffrey Simon Hicking
3 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Smith

Japan feels extremely threatened by China. That is who they would ally with us against.

India is not particularly keen on China either. Having your soldiers beaten up by them does that to you.

How is NZ modern day Sparta?

Ralph Windsor
Ralph Windsor
3 years ago

I think that is meamt to be ironic. St Jacinda is certainly no Spartan and the Church of Woke is well established down there.

Geoffrey Simon Hicking
Geoffrey Simon Hicking
3 years ago
Reply to  Ralph Windsor

Can’t always tell with Mr Smith.

I have heard that their resident woke saint is pro-CANZUK though. *shrugs* (non British lefties can be surprisingly pro-CANZUK and Commonwealth these days)

GA Woolley
GA Woolley
3 years ago

Any idea of a military structure based on the EU is a nonsense: it doesn’t and will never have either a foreign policy or a defence policy, the members’ interests are far too divergent and contradictory. The answer is a reformulated NATO as a ‘Europe Atlantic Treaty Organisation’ in which the US military contribution and command leadership are relegated to no more than equality with any other member. It’s essential to remember that NATO is not just a flag; it is 70 years of designing and refining planning and decision-making structures, operating procedures, terminology, rules of engagement, friend or foe recognition procedures, weapon systems interoperability, and so on. Redesigning or duplicating those would be expensive, time-consuming, and confusing, to say the least, so simply taking them over under new management would make eminent sense. A European-led organisation would overcome France’s sensitivity to US pre-eminence – its leaders could preen and posture while looking a little less ridiculous. Those European states which wished to be members of ‘EATO’ would do so as sovereign nations, and subscribe to defence policies and decisions without the drag-anchors of either EU bureaucracy or those EU member states which didn’t want to get involved in any sort of conflict. And those member which did subscribe would no longer be able to hide behind the belief that the US will bail them out militarily, so they don’t need to take responsibility for their own collective defence.

Fraser Bailey
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
Reply to  GA Woolley

You make many good points, but would the US really want to be part of the NATO (or EATO) that you outline?

Peter KE
Peter KE
3 years ago

There should not be a free arrangement where Europe receives military support and we should return to the negotiating tactics of a “warning that if pressed on this plane, the EU could suffer security ” military and diplomatic ” costs as well.”. If the European’s do not want to deploy their own manpower etc then the U.K. should be paid for our deployment.

Carl Goulding
Carl Goulding
3 years ago

Europe needs to wake up before it can grow up.

Ted Ditchburn
Ted Ditchburn
3 years ago

I can’t see the EU not wanting a military and I can’t see it getting an effective one.

If the German assertiveness does return as the article describes it might, post-Merkel, I cannot see the EU containing that as starts being expressed in armament production (say) or whatever else.

The central idea that Europe somehow evolves and remains in it’s present form, trying to not get involved with China, the USA and India, which may not be a *smaller power* than Russia in the not too dsitant future, seems remote.

It seems more likely to me that instead of agglomerating uniformly, countries in Europe will , as with the French in their post-colonial activities, have separate and distinct interests (and not interested at alls*) more suited to a looser EU…more like the EEC…than a tighter one.

In the way Nato was when successful, with more independent countries pursuing independent aims within the overarching concern of ensuring Wrestern Europe’s existence (when the Treaty Organisation was created).

It’s effectiveness has been undermined most by the de-secularisation of Turkey, something that for the time being can be exploited by Russia and also welcomed as a way to try and stablilise it’s own eroding borderlands.

That may not last. But I feel if NATO is to atrophy, which is the contention of the article then not only will it present the bilateral opportuniy for the UK towards France, but indeed the more effective response would be that confederation of independent states, like a NATO without Turkey and if it is to be so, the USA.

Than using it as yet another argument for *more* EU and attempt to create the superstate in a rush that Remain supporters always maintained, just 4 years ago was a figment of Leave’s swivel eyed, loonies.

gardner.peter.d
gardner.peter.d
3 years ago

Of course ‘Europe’, whatever that means, should defend itself and should pay for its defence. For years it has taken the USA for granted. But the EU seeks to become the world’s hegemonic power. That is not in America’s interests, nor, I would argue the world’s. The EU is, by its nature, anti-democratic. It has no demos. A demos can not exist beyond the borders of a nation state. It wants its own EU forces, according to Juncker, a former president of the EU Commission, for power projection in support of its expansion and hegemonic aim. Arming the anti-democratic EU is an act of collective insanity.
There is an extraordinary parallel with history as Germany unified and armed itself, to become the most powerful nation on the continent, and leaving world powers in a state of incomprehension. After failing in 1919, it regrouped, re-armed, re-built through the 1930s. Once again the world’s powers failed to understand and they appeased Germany, expressing sympathy with the aim of uniting all Germans in one state.
Now look at the EU today, dominated absolutely in economic terms by Germany. The French-German axis is maintained by France having both the EU’s only nuclear weapons and the EU’s only permanent seat on the UN Security Council. The EU has been enviously eyeing France’s seat since the UK decided to leave the EU, forcing the EU to cease scheming to take the UK’s seat.

The EU is the next trouble making monster to emerge from the troubled continent of Europe. Its next act of suppression of democratic nation states is to enact new treaties to replace the Lisbon Treaty at the end of the current five year plan in 2025, because ‘Ever closer union’ has reached the limits of the current treaties. The hope is then to found the Federal State of Europe during or at the end of the next five year plan, around 2028-30.
Within ten years the EU will demand and expect to be given a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and recognition as a state in its own right as the Federal State of Europe, a state born as a nuclear power and one of the three most economically powerful in the world. Who would deny it? It will call itself democratic – in the manner of the German Democratic Republic – and it will be appeased as uniting all Europeans in one nation state. And it will be a monster.

That moment will mark formally the end of the democratic nation state in Europe. The globalists will have achieved a major milestone on their march to one world government.
Except that UK will not be part of it. It will be independent. 1939 all over again. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
3 years ago

It would be the death of Britain to be politically under the EU. However military co-operation would be a good thing. NATO did not cause countries to be dominated say by the USA. Surely something to replace NATO would be a good thing for Europe without the EU dominating other countries politically. Defence agreements have always been like this so why not?