Let's show Donald Trump's America who we are and what we are worth!

(B2) Donald Trump and Brexit compel Europeans to take a hard look at the situation with regard to defense issues. However, it is clear that beyond the new geostrategic deal being established, the most important thing is perhaps not the arrival of new leaders and new policies, but the underlying technological developments.

The weight of artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence will transform our lives with a speed and intensity that we still have trouble imagining. It will upset the way of thinking about war, particularly in the areas of combat aviation, land combat, naval warfare, cyber warfare and perhaps even in the development of strategy. American companies have acquired a considerable lead in this area and the investments they are making are massive.

The Defense Innovation Initiative

With or without the Defense Innovation Initiative, better known as 'third offset initiative', these companies, in particular the giants of the Net which have colossal cash flow are accelerating. If we do nothing, European companies will be downgraded in five years at most. Faced with this situation, what is Europe doing? Or more exactly what are we doing, because we are Europe?

To be respected...

... Europe must be respectable, that is to say honor the commitments made within the framework of NATO in 2014 by gradually increasing the defense effort of the States to 2% of GDP and 20% of these expenditures on military equipment. But let us have no illusions, the fact of respecting these commitments one by one will not solve our problems.

To be respected, Europe must also be autonomous. We must stop moaning and wait for the affairs of the world to be settled outside of us. We must take our destiny into our own hands, as the German Chancellor invites us to do. The worst solution would be to remain inert and wait for the skies to become clement again.

Let's stop being afraid and reopen the treaties

Everyone in Brussels, at European Union level, talks about permanent structured cooperation, that is to say a vanguard of Member States capable of giving themselves the means to build an autonomous capacity between themselves based on credible military means. This is precisely what we need. To establish it, it is enough to apply the treaties and the signature of two States which can and which want it. If the will is there, this provision can be established in three months. And if that doesn't fit... then let's do something else. Let's stop being afraid of our shadow and let's say that it will probably be necessary to reopen the treaties on certain issues, in particular defence.

Now is the time to remind ourselves to dare and show Mr. Trump's America who we are and what we are worth.

Frederic Mauro

Lawyer at the bars of Paris and Brussels, established in Brussels
Counsel for defense matters