Europe's Strange, Self-Destructive Delusions

...the minister for drama has entered the chat...

As I’ve mentioned here countless times here, I love Europe. I lived with my family for years on the continent, and look for any opportunity to return. However, in many ways, they are … well … Europeans.

Tribal, fractious, and self-destructive. Americans think there is a divide between the American people and our ruling elites … well, trust me on this; our government elites are at one with the American people compared to the divide you can find in Europe, especially when it comes to the bureaucrats of the European Union.

Just like many Americans who only know Europe from Jason Bourne movies, the odd comedy sketch, the Paris Olympics Openings, random terrorists slaughtering, EuroTrip, and The Unbearable Lightness of Being - most Europeans, especially their ruling elite - think they understand the USA because they read The Washington Post, The New York Times (or publications derived from them), did a semester at Georgetown, or watch a lot of American movies.

In an almost comical way, we often get each other very wrong. Shocking, I know.

While all that can be funny, it has very serious implications when it comes to national security.

For over two decades, especially during my years living on the continent, I’ve warned my European friends that the USA was just an election, Asian war, or natural disaster away from telling Europeans we were otherwise busy and they have to take point for their own defense.

America has underwritten European defense for so long, generations at this time, that many believe they are entitled to it. This dependency is blended with a snobby-contempt that the European elite have, on balance, always had about Americans.

Especially after the end of the Cold War, the American appetite for paying to defend people who hold you in contempt has continued to wear thin.

The more Europe pokes that bruise, the worse the incredibly valuable - to both parties - security relationship we have.

Just to make things worse, this French guy, Thierry Breton, almost out of central casting, sent a letter to Elon Musk that almost reads like a parody. No reason to cover that here, but if you are not up to speed, click here for a refresher. It hits all the wrong notes for a nation who put it in writing that freedom of speech is not only the #1 rule of the land, it is a right given from our Creator.

The ongoing fussbucketing by Eurocrats on Musk and Trump - which especially in the hindsight given the normal discourse their Spaces talk was about - says much more about their problems than anything else. I’m not sure how they correct it, as there are many in the EU who want nothing more than to cleave away from the English speaking NATO nations, but Europeans need to get their house in order or they will only accelerate trends pre-existing for decades in North America. They just might wind up being the dog that caught the car.

Europe’s contempt for anyone to the right of the American center-left is quickly becoming the existential threat to the alliance they are so quick to accuse others of being.

Aleksandra Gadzala Tirziu has a real solid bit over at The Washington Examiner outlining this problem in sharp relief. Trump derangement syndrome at scale helps no one:

…regardless of who takes office in January, Europe’s weakness and the challenges it faces will persist. Rather than fixate on an election beyond their control, European leaders would do well to focus on bolstering their defenses and crafting strategies to mitigate the growing geopolitical risks — or at the very least, avoid courting them. This, rather than whether Trump wins or loses, will arguably be more critical for Europe’s security and the future of the trans-Atlantic alliance.

Whether Europe is up to the task remains an open question. Despite some promising spending increases, those promises have yet to translate into larger troop sizes or enhanced military capabilities. And as the war in Ukraine has again shown, in war, both matter. 

It is easier to point to Trump than to advocate for additional spending to properly fund your own nations’ defenses like Poland and the Baltic republics are.

Seventy percent of European NATO nations now allocate at least 2% of their gross domestic product to defense. Yet the U.K. plans to reduce its troop levels to 72,500 by 2025, marking the smallest British Army since the Napoleonic Wars. Two years into its Zeitenwende on defense, Germany is 20,000 soldiers short of what it needs to fulfill its current military mandate. Italy and France, the latter boasting Europe’s largest armed force, face similar shortfalls.

For some, even the Russian bear at their door will not wake them from their slumber, or clear away their college-level leftism. So many are still ready to defend Poland to the last Pole, Germany to the last American, and France to the first border guard whose union writes a sternly worded letter about overtime.

For Europe, building the military capabilities needed to contend with its increasingly challenging security environment will require time, money, and willpower. All seem to be in short supply. While Europe’s political class appears aware of the looming threats, there remains in certain circles a peculiar denial about their gravity. It might, so the thinking goes, not all be so dire. Such naive thinking might explain Europe’s continued courtship of Beijing and its persistent economic ties with Russia, with much Euro-Russian trade now routed via central Asia.

As we saw before the latest phase of the Russo-Ukrainian war kicked off in February 2022, the German political class were easily bought by Russian petro-dollars, and they are still vulnerable to what the People’s Republic of China has on offer.

Instead of focusing on the very real threats from global bad actors like Russia, China, Iran and others - the European elites take their cue from the editorial pages of WaPo, NYT, and the ideologically lockstep European press … they see the danger as being Trump.

Nevertheless, the fixation remains with Trump. Can his moods be predicted? Who are his confidants? What of their moods? Are they isolationists? This is not serious. The trans-Atlantic alliance is not between individual people or political parties but nations. Regardless of who occupies the White House, it is a crucial national security partnership that should be treated as such. 

Considering that it is a coin-flip who will win the next election - how smart is it to further drive a divide between half the American public and the Europe they are expected to defend? Why poison the well with what could very well be a second Trump Admiration?

Trump has a track record towards Europe. Read the tape:

Surely, too, European leaders must recall that under Trump, U.S. contributions to the European Deterrence Initiative grew from $1.7 billion in 2017 to $6.5 billion in 2019. U.S. Marines participated in the Finnish Arrow Exercise for the first time ever. NATO exercises continued uninterrupted, and U.S. pressure helped to boost the alliance.

You don’t have to like Trump - but he is just one man. The nation endures before and after. That is what needs to be nurtured.

Americans will, again, enthusiastically rush to defend our friends in Europe if needed, but that is something that assumption cannot stand on its own and should be properly given solid stewardship by responsible people.

In personal life as in the international arena, people are willing to help in collective action as long as everyone contributes their fair share. No one like to help free riders, or worse, entitle free riders who, as you are helping them, make snide remarks about your dress, behavior, and hobbies.

Everyone, and every nation, has its limits. Be careful what your worst leaders are asking for.