The US president turned up late and came with a different agenda....Trump charged forward, saying his predecessors in the White House had pushed for an increase by Europeans on defence spending and he was not going to put up with it. Dispensing with the usual diplomatic niceties, he pointed at Merkel, whom he dislikes on a personal level as well as over their policy differences, and said: “You, Angela.”
The most stunning comment came from a source reported by Reuters: “He said they must raise spending by January 2019 or the United States would go it alone.”
This was greeted with shocked silence. It had seemed unthinkable: a US president threatening to pull out of a military alliance that the US has regarded as a cornerstone of its military strategy for 69 years.
No one appears to be disputing the words. What is being disputed is the interpretation. Reuters reported Trump as having threatened to quit Nato but then rescinded this. Macron insisted this had not been Trump’s meaning.
But just as alarming was the apparent ultimatum. European leaders who have so far failed to reach Nato’s 2% defence spending target are talking about achieving this years from now, not by January.--Ewen MacAskill reporting in The Guardian.
One of the peculiarities of the United States Constitution is that in order to get a foreign treaty ratified the American President requires a bipartisan/consensus style "two thirds" majority of the "Senate;" but the President is, it seems, barely constrained to pull out or renege on these very same treaties (unless s/he needs money -- and so approval from Congress -- to do so) [for some history see here]. In a process driven US executive, such a decision would not be taken quickly (given the reputational risks of coming to seem an unreliable partner), although it has happened in the past with and without Senate consent.
In President Trump a distaste for international law and international organization combines with a zero-sum understanding of international affairs (recall my posts [here; here; and here]) and a highly personalized interpretation of the nature of the executive branch. For Trump, executive power just is the will of the President. As it happens this will is least constrained when withdrawing from international commitments and treaties. As an aside, I believe Trump actually focuses on areas where he can act with little constraint in order to project (an image of) power and, thereby, to act as de facto sovereign. The idea of an imperial presidency precedes Trump, of course, but that's a different creature (from Trump's more personalist conception of the presidency); the whole point of empire -- as the Romans taught us -- is its intertwining with bureaucracy and rule-following.
It's possible that the Unites States will tire of such personification of rule or that vested interests and voters will find a way to bring it back under control, but both US allies and enemies should assume this is unlikely in the foreseeable future.* What is most puzzling is that European states have not yet responded by accelerating plans to create an independent defense capability. For right now, they are/act as powerless US protectorates while Russia, Turkey, and increasingly the US threaten vital economic, territorial, and political interests. Currently they allow themselves to be consumed by an ersatz immigration crisis while -- like ostriches with their heads in the sand [recall]-- they ignore the acute dangers to their way of life--the US's reshaping of the Transatlantic international economic order and the undermining of the rules-based system that supports it, is an existential threat to the trade-dependent states of the EU.
As I have noted before (recall), Brexit is a godsend to those that wish to undermine the liberal political order of Europe.** For it does not only undermine the single market and the four freedoms, it creates hostility and suspicion among once-allies, who will need each other more. Divided, the EU is in an awful strategic position, lacking the continental depth and geographic isolation of the US, Russia, China, Brazil, Australia and India; on its own each individual EU market is too small to sustain innovation, a high standard of living, and sufficient defense capabilities. But united the peoples of Europe can draw strength from its internal regional diversity and rich cultural legacies
While the EU member states will probably never be capable of threatening US hegemony (or scaring China or India in the future), it should be possible, if there were a will, to create sufficient deterring power in relatively short amount of time even without the participation of the UK. Such a deterrence could be focused on France (which already has nuclear weapons) and Germany (which has riches and the capacity to build up nuclear power quickly).+ President Trump seems to have asked for 4% of GDP defense spending of his NATO allies in order to boost US arms sales. The foreseeable, perhaps intended consequence is the destruction of trust that provided the glue of Pax Americana. What remains is raw power capable of exacting tributes.
Doubling defense spending is the least preferable policy expense for Europe's voters and politicians today. It is reckless that European politicians are not making the case for this (recall here). Even so, if we want to maintain our standard of living and way of life it will be required. The Europeans should sincerely promise President Trump to rise to his spending demands in order to be in a position to call any American President's bluff.
For some countries (Singapore, Israel, Saudi Arabia, etc.), dependency on US power may well be unavoidable given their strategic challenges. But European dependency on US power is an artifact of the cold war; while there is no historical justice, this dependency was fully deserved after Europe's self-inflicted implosion (1914-1945). Three generations of penance is sufficient time.
*Why I think that, I discuss another time. (Luckily for those who disagree with me; I have a terrible track-record forecasting.)
**Given Europeans' imperial history, I do not pine for a return to European hegemony.
+Obviously, inclusion of the UK would make a European deterrence and European solidarity (recall) much more credible. But nothing sensible can be expected from the present British political class, which is imploding. To be sure, here I do not rely on a theoretical or emotional argument against non hegemonic, sovereign states going it alone. But that's only possible in a world in which power is more equally distributed, or if there is a willingness to pay tribute to one's protector.
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