Divining the future of European-American relations is particularly difficult when so many Western nations face contentious, rapidly changing domestic politics. In America, the one certainty is that there will be a new president on January 20, 2025, although we cannot confidently predict who. Since neither Donald Trump nor Kamala Harris have clear national security views, the prospect is for more confusion and disarray. Recent European elections have also produced inconclusive results, with more ahead. In such circumstances, taking a longer view of recent US-European relations may tell us more than speculating about transitory election results. A convenient starting point is the West’s victory in the Cold War. Today, few remember the Cold War theory of “convergence,” which held that communism and capitalism would gradually grow more alike, with peaceful relations emerging as socio-economic systems shed many differences. In short, pro-convergence advocates saw a world not too hot and not too cold, but just one large, happy social democracy.
Instead, Ronald Reagan proposed, “We win and they lose.” To the dismay of the chattering class worldwide, he was right. Unfortunately, when the Warsaw Pact dissolved and the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the West drew exactly the wrong conclusions. Analysts proclaimed “the end of history,” with “globalization” sweeping away geopolitical conflict. Former enemies like Russia and China would be merely economic competitors. NATO members could, therefore, reduce their defense budgets dramatically without fear and spend the resulting “peace dividend” on welfare programs rather than weapons systems. In America, Bill Clinton won the 1992 presidential election under the mantra “It’s the economy, stupid,” implying no need to worry about outmoded geostrategic factors.
Fantasies like “global governance” emerged, recalling post-World War II ideas of “world government,” and imagining that the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly would arise from their Cold War stupor to function as originally intended. New multilateral institutions like the International Criminal Court, and the ICC, were conjured, as if the failures of the International Court of Justice and other transnational tribunals could be ignored.
Many Europeans became absorbed in transforming the Common Market into “ever closer union,” as in a religious crusade. This process began before Cold War victory, but accelerated via the Maastricht Treaty, with the geographic term “Europe” substituted for “European Union” as if Nirvana had already been reached. As EU member governments ceded sovereignty to Brussels, they thought helpfully they would cede some of America’s as well to the UN and other international bodies like the ICC. Instead, Americans disagreed, viewing collective-defense alliances as fundamentally different from other multilateral organizations. A part from traditional politico-military alliances, the US tended toward unilateralist rather than multilateralist approaches, which remains true today. Even presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden made no effort for America to join the ICC, although they cooperated with it more than Presidents George W.Bush and Donald Trump.
No end of history in sight
The end of history, globalization, and global governance embodied a new, worldwide convergence theory, which proved just as wrong as the original convergence theory. From this conceptual mistake flowed serious real-world consequences for both Europe and North America, albeit often producing differing attitudes and strategies. In particular, mutual mistakes and differences regarding the two principal former adversaries, Russia and China, were significant and remain so today.
The West broadly saw the Soviet Union’s collapse leading inevitably toward democracy and market-oriented economic policies, which Russia attempted in the 1990s. After a decade, however, Russia receded into authoritarianism from which it has never recovered. We failed to predict this outcome and did little to prevent it. Still, in the Cold War’s waning days, when Britain’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said she could “do business” with Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan warned Europe generally not to become dependent on Russian oil and gas. Europe ignored this warning to its detriment even before Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and even more painfully now. Europe, ironically, clung to Cold War paradigms as Washington abandoned them, particularly on arms-control issues.
Wrong on China
Our mistakes on China were even more profound and continued well into this century. There were two foundational errors, both based on the belief that Deng Xiaoping’s mid[1]1980s economic reforms would produce lasting change in China, particularly sustained economic growth and a rising middle class. Few outsiders perceived that Deng was not permanently abandoning communist theory, but making tactical changes to overcome the human and material devastation of Mao Tse-tung’s Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. We took Deng’s admonition for China to “hide and bide” as a sign of appropriate modesty, rather than seeing the real meaning of “hide your strength and bide your time.” We see it now, to our dismay. The first mistake was to predict China would accept the existing international norms and pro[1]cesses in international trade and more broadly that Beijing would engage in a “peaceful rise,” and would be a “responsible stakeholder” in global affairs. The exact opposite was true. China’s economic growth fueled its unprecedented full-spectrum arms buildup in peacetime, from nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to creating a blue-water navy, to war-fighting capabilities in space and cyberspace. Our second mistake was believing that China’s growing economy would lead to democratization at all levels of government. Precisely the opposite has happened. The Communist Party has strengthened its control, and Xi Jinping is China’s most powerful leader since Mao, with the opposition fragmented and underground. So much for democratization.
Unfortunately, Europe and the United States perceived the rising threats from Russia and China as well as nuclear proliferation threats of rogue states like Iran and North Korea in significantly different ways.
Consider what comes next, starting with China and the so-called “pivot” to Asia. In recent years, both Presidents Trump and Biden have imposed sanctions and tariffs against China, in part for reasons of pure protectionism but also because of Chinese theft of intellectual property and because of the weaponization of companies like Huawei and ZTE. Europe has been harder than expected to convince of the severity of Beijing’s threat despite ample evidence. Of course, it took the U.S. time to grasp the reality, and we are fortunate Australia and New Zealand saw it as early as they did. Nonetheless, Europe’s dependence on China’s market, reminiscent of its reliance on Russian oil and gas, remains a significant obstacle to cooperating effectively against the threat. Japan, South Korea, and others along China’s Indo-Pacific periphery have responded with far greater alacrity.
Politically and militarily, the threat is hardly distant. For over ten years, China has sought to engorge nearly the entire South China Sea. China is not kidding, building air and naval bases on rocks and reefs that are normally only inches above water. States like Vietnam and the Philippines see exactly what China is up to, and so must the West. Taiwan is most often mentioned as a Chinese target, with good reason. Taiwan’s citizens have a functioning democracy, and having seen what happened to freedom in Hong Kong, have no intention of suffering the same fate. Taiwan is a major global trading partner, and its manufacture of highly sophisticated chips for telecommunications and information-technology applications makes it critical for the global and especially Western economies. Fortunately, acting effectively now can strengthen Taiwan’s defenses and its political ties to the West, thereby deterring China before it launches a military conflict. The next few years are extremely dangerous, which East Asia already fully understands.
America’s “pivot” to Asia was an Obama brainchild, reflecting both Beijing’s growing threat, and Obama’s fatigue with Middle Eastern wars against terrorism. Today, even some Republicans, including Vice Presidential nominee J. D. Vance, believe America must concentrate its limited resources against Chinese belligerence in Asia and mostly leave defending Europe and the Middle East to the nations in those regions. This theory is wrong and dangerous on many levels, not least of all because America’s capabilities, allowed to weaken after the Cold War, can certainly be restored.
An Asia-only focus misses the critical point that reducing the US presence in Europe and the Middle East would invite China and Russia to fill the vacuum, as they have already started to do. Ignoring the China-Russia axis and its ability to support its members’ respective objectives is a fatal weakness to a Washington strategy focusing nearly exclusively on threats in Asia. The China-Russia threat is global, and so must be America’s and Europe’s response.
The threat from Russia
Turning to Russia, French President Emmanuel Macron called NATO “brain dead,” even though NATO allies were fully consulted, and indeed concurred because of consistent Russian violations of INF obligations. Macron’s criticism followed a long line of French thinking that rests on the view that the EU should have its own defense capabilities as a way of easing the United States out of a major role in Europe. That, at least, is how the United States sees it, on a bipartisan basis. Macron may get what he asks for if Trump is elected in November, because there is little doubt he would withdraw from NATO at an opportune moment, as he almost did in 2018.
Just over two years after Macron’s “brain dead” comment, Russia attacked Ukraine, extending its 2014incursion.NATOrespondedwith near unanimity to provide Ukraine with lethal, financial, and other assistance. Although there is considerable debate about the strategic efficacy of NATO’s response and outliers like Hungary and Turkey have sympathized with Russia, NATO’s support for Ukraine’s fierce defense has clearly prevented a Russian victory. Sweden and Finland abandoned decades of Cold War-era neutrality to become NATO members.
Unfortunately, it is also clear that China provides Russia with considerable support for its invasion through significantly increased purchases of Russian oil and gas, facilitating financial flows through China’s banking system to avoid international sanctions, and providing other material assistance for Russia’s war effort. Outliers of the China-Russia axis like North Korea and Iran also provide military supplies for Moscow to use against Kyiv. This tangible evidence shows how the emerging Chinese-Russian alliance works against vital Western interests.
Europe needs to do more
Nonetheless, the virus of isolationism now circulating in the US, caused in substantial measure by Trump, sees Europe as unwilling to carry its fair share of the burden. At some point, Trump’s simplistic views might prevail even if he loses in November, as Americans tire of French carping and German and others’ unwillingness to hit the 2 per cent GDP defense spending target consistently. This would be tragic, because opposing the emerging Beijing-Moscow axis means defense spending, urgently and inevitably, must rise above the 2014 Cardiff 2 per cent commitment for NATO members. Indeed, Washington must return to Reagan-era defense-spending levels of 5 – 6 per cent of GDP, meaning European NATO states will have to increase to 4 per cent or beyond. This is hardly the time to talk about alternative European defense arrangements.
All this tells us that the illusions that arose at the end of the Cold War must finally be laid to rest. The lions are not lying down with the lambs any time soon.
This article was first published in European Voices on September 24, 2024. Click here to read the original article.