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Blog AnalysisEU Defense (Doctrine)

The USA scolding Europe. When the cowboy pulls his gun, should we be afraid?

(credit: US Marines, June 2017 - B2 archives)

(B2) In matters of European defence, the Americans have a totally contradictory and frustrated vision. At least apparently...

A permanent double game

On the one hand, they want the Europeans to take charge of themselves, become independent, take charge of their own defence, become more involved in NATO as well as in the operations and actions of the Atlantic Alliance around the world. . They have been saying it for years: we need to share the burden. Well Named...

On the other hand, as soon as there is a tremor, that the Europeans try to set up a few instruments, they roll their eyes, admonish Europe not to duplicate NATO, to avoid any duplication , to bear in mind the necessary interoperability, and... above all, not to develop a European industry.

US Ambassador to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison said this today during a press briefing. " We don't want this to become a protectionist tool for the EU “, she said in reference to the project of permanent structured cooperation or PESCO (read: The United States undermines the strategic autonomy of Europe with a slogan: not without us!) asking, as in the past, that there be a " fair process (1).

This ambiguity (at best), this double game (in fact) must be viewed with a cool head. In other words, when the cowboy pulls out his gun, let's not look where his gun is pointing but where his eyes are pointing...

A double vision that crosses America as Europe

There have always been several tendencies in the United States in terms of foreign and defense policy that run through its various institutions (presidency, Congress, ministries...), one encouraging Europe to autonomy, to become a strong pillar alongside the Americans, the other encouraging Europe to remain subservient and under American authority. These two tendencies sometimes coexist within the Department of State and Defense.

This dichotomy is not specific to the United States. It also crosses our different countries. It is common knowledge that in France, the Quai d'Orsay is more enthusiastic about European defense than certain army chiefs who only revere the partnership with "serious people" (Americans, British, etc. .), even NATO, but not the European Union, a "formless" being. It is not really different in Germany, for other reasons: defense generally sees in NATO a career and the Americans a reference where it feels lost in European structures, and diplomats, on the contrary, are comfortable. Etc.

The dialectic of duplication

Next, we must not fall into the dialectical trap set by the Americans. There is no duplication and there cannot be any duplication between NATO and the EU, each has its role and its differences are ultimately quite marked.

In NATO the tasks of the hard power and territorial defence. In the EU, the function of power mix, complex interventions, mixing civil and military, external financing and operational action. No matter what some say, their members are totally different. A clear majority of the Alliance does not belong to the EU, at least in its military expression (United States, Turkey, Canada, Norway...), that weighs. As for operational efficiency, allow me to be very dubious. If Europe does not always shine with a thousand lights, its external interventions are not all failures, far from it. For the Alliance, the last two major military operations – Afghanistan and Libya – have not really been a resounding success: one is a solid quagmire without certain victory, the other a bitter failure (2). In reality, the real fields of friction between the two organizations are, in fact, quite weak: there is no possible duplication of European and NATO HQs, there is no divergence in the analysis of threats or missing capacities, contrary to what is officially claimed, etc. Admittedly, there are many squabbles over devices, quarrels over egos and, above all, the frozen Cypriot-Turkish conflict, which is far from being a detail and poisons the whole atmosphere. But this is not what provokes this American wrath today. The reality, in fact, is elsewhere...

An economic war that does not say its name

What the Americans really fear is that the Europeans will take them at their word, empower themselves a little, develop their defense industry a little and buy (a little) more Europeans and, therefore, a little less Americans. You have to see that there is not a divergence on the security options, but a concrete, precise, important economic battle. The race for 2% of the gross domestic product devoted to defense had two objectives: to regenerate the forces but also and above all to allow American industry to benefit from a captive, growing market. By giving a short period (10 years) to the rise in power, significant budgetary margins are released. By imposing a rapid rearmament, we offer a premium to existing, tested, amortized, interoperable equipment, in a word: American equipment.

The European grain of sand

The European strategy initiated under the aegis of the European Commission and the Franco-German duo (with the Italians and the Spaniards) is inserted into this power strategy. By setting up European funding, a bonus for European cooperation, a certain European preference, it is trying to rebalance the game. Which is not to the taste of the Americans who are in a dominant position in this field and play all the arguments , as they had done in the past: in the dispute between Airbus and Boeing, when the Euro was born against the Dollar or when Galileo was thought of as an alternative to GPS (3). Each time, the process is similar, we try to stifle European convergence in the bud, and failing that, to weaken it. The Americans today lack a serious trump up their sleeve: the British who have already lost their influence to undermine the system from within.

Comment: the Europeans must remain stoic, but they cannot remain without reacting in the face of such bad faith. Europe must have its defence. This is not directed against the Americans. Everyone knows it. But it cannot rely entirely on NATO. The Trump episode showed it, Erdogan's mistakes demonstrate it, the Russian reaction proves it. It is with two equally endowed legs that the Euro-Atlantic couple walks, not just one.

(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)

(1) Which will make people cry in the cottages but will not deceive those who read the statistics. In the ten largest defense companies in the world, there are seven US companies and only two or three European companies: Airbus (European consortium based in the Netherlands), Leonardo (Italy) as well as BAE systems (British but linked to the industrial system American). The United States has a formidable tool for export — the FMS (Foreign Military Sales) — which regularly proves its effectiveness. The sales of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) thus reached $2017 billion for the 42 fiscal year (including $32 billion for the FMS alone) (read here). Finally, if we refer to the contracts signed, it is only necessary to look at the last contracts signed by the Americans on the Patriots in Sweden, Romania; for the new F-35 as for the old F-16, Washington does not have to be ashamed of its position. 

(2) In Afghanistan, the gains are so limited that the ever-present Taliban are leading the offensive in Kabul against diplomatic and civilian targets. In Libya, the political defeat is so violent that it erased in a few months the few military successes obtained on the ground for weeks. The security and state vacuum created at European borders is a tremendous lesson in failure. All the experts, all the diplomats agree...at least in veiled terms.

(3) Hence the insistence on keeping Galileo as a civilian instrument and not denying it a possible security role, the prerogative of the only American GPS (at least officially).

On the same subject, read also:

 

Nicolas Gros Verheyde

Chief editor of the B2 site. Graduated in European law from the University of Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne and listener to the 65th session of the IHEDN (Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Défense Nationale. Journalist since 1989, founded B2 - Bruxelles2 in 2008. EU/NATO correspondent in Brussels for Sud-Ouest (previously West-France and France-Soir).

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