Between Europeans and Americans, there is no misunderstanding but differences
(B2)" With the United States, there is no misunderstanding, but differences of opinion explained Nicole Gnesotto during the IHEDN meetings. For the former director of the EU Institute for Security Studies (and current chair of the IHEDN Board of Directors), the situation has completely changed since the fall of the wall. " The United States does not perceive Russia in the same way as Poland or France. They do not see, for example, the annexation of Crimea as a threat ". Certain threats seem to have thus disappeared on the other side of the Atlantic: the Red Army will not invade Poland or Germany ". Europe is therefore no longer of vital interest to American security. They have other priorities: Israel's security, the "containment of China", the securing of sea lanes.
For Nicole Gnesotto, there are two kinds of possible attitudes.
1° Denial. " Some Europeans are currently in a kind of denial. They do not want to believe that the United States can be dangerous for Europeans [because they don't have the same interests] or the security environment deteriorates. They persist in believing that Brexit will not happen. Above all, they believe that nothing should be done to prevent the United States from losing interest in Europe...”
2° The burst. A "healthy reaction". Europeans must make up for this absence of America, " this uncertainty, through great strategic voluntarism ". Which is no easy task. For this, the French must resist three temptations. Firstly, it is not a question of making France a European policeman. Certainly France has capabilities, almost all capabilities, but the objective is more psychological than military. It is a question of creating a collective policeman, of convincing the Europeans to be able to intervene in external conflicts. Nor is it a question of saying that France intervenes and that the others pay. If that's the goal, it's not even worth trying. It failed in advance. Finally, it is not a question of replacing NATO but of being able to replace it if necessary, to make up for its absence”.
Nb: A fundamental question at a time when the United States is more than uncertain about its policy and when Turkey is evolving in a not very positive way – it is a “quasi-dictatorship” according to Nicole Gnesotto – and in a direction that is often contrary to European interests.
(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde, in Paris)
