风萧萧_Frank
以文会友
附庸的艺术：俄罗斯对乌克兰的战争如何改变了跨大西洋关系
https://ecfr.eu/publication/the-art-of-vassalization-how-Russias-war-on-ukraine-has-transformed-transatlantic-relations/
欧洲外交关系委员会
Jana Puglierin, 柏林 ECFR 负责人，高级政策研究员
杰里米·夏皮罗 (Jeremy Shapiro),研究总监
联系方式 欧洲外交关系委员会
https://ecfr.eu/profiles/
欧洲外交关系委员会（ECFR）是一家屡获殊荣的国际智库，旨在对欧洲外交和安全政策进行前沿的独立研究，并为决策者、活动人士和影响者提供安全的会议空间，以分享观点 想法。 我们在欧洲层面建立变革联盟，并促进关于欧洲在世界中的作用的知情辩论。
政策简报 2023 年 4 月 4 日
概述
尽管欧盟努力实现“战略自主”，但俄罗斯对乌克兰的入侵暴露了欧洲人在安全方面对美国的严重依赖。在过去十年中，欧盟在经济、技术和军事上的实力相对不如美国。欧洲人在自己的关键战略问题上仍然缺乏共识，并期待华盛顿的领导。冷战时期，欧洲是超级大国竞争的中心阵地。 现在，美国希望欧盟和英国能够支持其对华战略，并将利用其领导地位来确保这一结果。
欧洲成为美国的附庸对双方来说都是不明智的。 通过发展支持乌克兰的独立能力并获得更强大的军事能力，欧洲人可以成为大西洋联盟中更强大、更独立的一部分。
介绍
几个月来，向乌克兰派遣“豹”2坦克的问题扰乱了德国和欧洲政坛。 西方集体承诺支持乌克兰与俄罗斯的战争。 乌克兰表示，它需要西方坦克，而德国制造的“豹”式坦克是最符合要求的坦克。 柏林政府并不完全不同意。 但它担心事态升级和莫斯科的反应，特别是考虑到德国与俄罗斯的麻烦历史，因此拒绝首先采取行动。 “我们始终与我们的盟友和朋友一起行动，”德国总理奥拉夫·肖尔茨坚称。 “我们从不孤单。”
奇怪的是，没有人要求德国单独行动。 英国已经宣布将向乌克兰派遣14辆挑战者主战坦克。 波兰和芬兰政府已公开表示，他们将准备与其他盟国一起提供“豹2”坦克。 2022年10月，欧洲议会投票支持了欧盟在这方面的一项倡议。美国、法国和德国本身已经承诺向乌克兰派遣步兵战车，这是一种外行人甚至无法将其与坦克区分开来的武器系统。 更广泛地说，豹子问题发生的背景是，包括德国和美国在内的西方国家已经向乌克兰提供了数百亿美元的军事装备，其中大部分对俄罗斯人来说已经相当致命。
但“孤独”对于肖尔茨来说有着非常特殊的意义。 他不愿意向乌克兰派遣豹2坦克，除非美国也派遣自己的主战坦克M1艾布拉姆斯。 其他合作伙伴派遣坦克或美国可能派遣其他武器是不够的。 就像一个害怕的孩子在一个充满陌生人的房间里一样，如果山姆大叔没有握住德国的手，德国就会感到孤独。
出于盟国团结的利益，美国最终介入并同意向乌克兰提供 31 辆艾布拉姆斯坦克，尽管美国经常声称艾布拉姆斯坦克对乌克兰没有什么军事意义。 德国政府不再“孤军奋战”，批准向乌克兰出口和转让“豹”。 美国领导层再次允许联盟解决盟国之间的争端。 几个月内，除了少数跨大西洋防务专家之外，整个事件可能会被所有人遗忘。
不应该的。 这一事件引发了有关大西洋联盟的更根本性问题，而不仅仅是向乌克兰发送哪种武器系统的问题。 为什么欧洲最强大国家的领导人认为，除非他与美国步调一致，否则他将是孤独无助的？ 为什么在欧洲大陆发生战争的情况下，美国仍然需要发挥领导作用来解决哪怕是很小的盟国间争端？ 几年前，欧洲人对唐纳德·特朗普入主白宫感到震惊，他们似乎准备好从心烦意乱且政治上不可靠的美国手中掌控自己的命运。
但当下一次危机到来时，美国和欧洲政府都回到了旧的联盟领导模式。 正如欧盟外交事务高级代表何塞普·博雷尔在俄罗斯入侵之前大声哀叹的那样，在处理俄罗斯-乌克兰危机时，欧洲并没有真正参与其中。 相反，它开始了附庸化的过程。
本文着眼于美国领导地位为何如此强力地回归欧洲、它是否能在乌克兰战争结束后持续下去，以及美国回归欧洲对跨大西洋联盟和欧盟成员国的未来意味着什么。
当然，最直接的原因是俄罗斯入侵乌克兰。 但更深层次的答案在于跨大西洋关系的结构和欧盟成员国之间的内部分歧。 但乌克兰战争并没有改变美国外交政策的基本轨迹 — — 面向太平洋 — — 也没有改变其国内关于是否继续投资于欧洲防务的深刻分歧。 为了长期生存和繁荣，大西洋联盟仍然需要一个既有军事能力又政治独立的欧洲支柱。 但联盟对乌克兰战争的反应使得实现这种平衡变得更加困难。 因此，本文提出了有关欧洲和美国政策制定者如何在乌克兰战争期间和之后建立更加平衡、更加可持续的联盟的想法。
欧洲的美国化
在现在看来已经遥远的过去（特朗普政府），联盟的未来看起来非常不同。 美国外交政策的重点是中国，特朗普正在与俄罗斯调情，并威胁要放弃美国的欧洲盟友。 欧洲各地的政策制定者开始谈论“主权”和“自治”，以此作为建立独立性、摆脱日益反复无常的美国盟友的机制。
与往常一样，法国和欧盟机构的声音最为强烈，但它们也在德国、荷兰等传统大西洋主义据点甚至偶尔在东欧产生了共鸣。 德国总理安格拉·默克尔 (Angela Merkel) 在 2017 年的一次竞选集会上表示，“我们可以完全依赖他人的时代在某种程度上已经结束了。”
欧洲的这种广泛认识首先反映了对特朗普滑稽动作和反盟友言论的震惊。 但它也表达了一种清醒的观点，即除了特朗普的特质之外，美国的外交政策正在战略性地转向亚洲，而美国的国内政治却正在走向自我封闭。 这对于美国对欧洲的安全承诺来说都不是好兆头。
2019年，欧盟委员会新任主席乌尔苏拉·冯德莱恩组建了新的“地缘政治委员会”，并誓言要让欧盟成为全球事务中的独立行动者。 她在 2019 年向欧洲议会提交报告时承诺，“我的委员会将不会害怕说出信任的语言。 但这将是我们的方式，欧洲的方式。 这就是我心目中的地缘政治委员会，也是欧洲迫切需要的。” （原文中的强调。）从言辞上来说，布鲁塞尔、巴黎和柏林的政治领导人已经同意这样的想法：欧洲人需要能够领导应对本地区危机的行动。 但几乎没有将这个想法转化为实际行动。
2022 年 2 月，俄罗斯全面入侵乌克兰，这不仅仅是让这一想法受到质疑。 它暴露了它几乎完全是空的。 美国的强烈反应以及整个欧盟的欢迎，使联盟重新回到了传统的冷战模式。 正如冷战期间的许多危机一样，美国发挥了带头作用，贡献了最大的资源。 从其欧洲盟友那里，它基本上只是要求政治默许以及对美国主导战略的军事和财政贡献。 正如豹子事件中那样，盟军之间的斗争一直围绕着这些贡献的程度进行。 战略决策全部在华盛顿做出。 目前，欧盟各国政府，甚至传统上独立的法国政府，都没有反对美国回归传统的领导地位。 相反，大多数人都接受它，甚至寻求确保它在乌克兰战争结束后继续存在。
从某种程度上来说，这并不奇怪。 欧洲国家目前没有能力保卫自己，因此他们别无选择，只能在危机中依赖美国。 但这种观察只是回避了问题。 这些都是富裕的先进国家，他们承认存在安全问题，并且越来越意识到继续依赖美国会带来长期风险。 那么，为什么他们仍然如此无力制定自己的应对邻里危机的措施呢？
有两个根本原因。 所有对美国相对于中国的衰落以及最近美国国内政治动荡的关注都掩盖了过去15年来跨大西洋联盟的一个关键趋势。 自2008年金融危机以来，美国相对于其欧洲盟友变得越来越强大。 跨大西洋关系并没有变得更加平衡，而是更加由美国主导。 欧洲人在俄罗斯-乌克兰危机中缺乏行动力源于西方联盟中日益严重的权力失衡。 在拜登政府的领导下，美国变得越来越愿意发挥这种日益增长的影响力。
第二个原因是，欧洲人未能就更大的战略主权应该是什么样子、如何为此组织起来、危机中的决策者是谁以及如何分配成本等问题达成共识。 更深刻的是，欧洲国家在如何行动上没有达成一致，彼此之间也没有足够的信任来就这些问题达成妥协。 在这种情况下，欧洲人不知道他们会在更大的自主权下做什么，或者他们与美国有何不同，因为他们没有程序或能力来决定自己的政策。 美国在欧洲的领导作用仍然是必要的，因为欧洲人仍然没有能力领导自己。
本文依次考察了这些因素。
欧洲相对衰落
美国在大西洋联盟中日益增强的主导地位在几乎所有国家实力领域都显而易见。 按照最粗略的 GDP 衡量标准，过去 15 年美国的增长速度大大超过了欧盟和英国的总和。 2008 年，欧盟经济规模略大于美国：16.2 万亿美元，而美国为 14.7 万亿美元。 到2022年，美国经济已增长至25万亿美元，而欧盟和英国加起来仅达到19.8万亿美元。 美国经济现在增长了近三分之一。 它比不含英国的欧盟大 50% 以上。
当然，就权力而言，经济规模并不是一切。 但欧洲在大多数其他实力衡量标准上也落后了。
这种增长差异与美元相对于欧元的全球使用量增加同时发生——再次与预测相反。 根据国际清算银行最近的三年一次中央银行调查，2022 年 4 月全球外汇交易中约 88% 的交易是美元买卖。这一比例在过去 20 年来一直保持稳定。 相比之下，欧元的交易量占 31%，较 2010 年 39% 的峰值有所下降。美元也维持了其作为世界主要储备货币的地位 — — 约占官方货币的 60%。 外汇储备; 欧元仅占21%。 美国从其货币的持续主导地位中获利，获得了不断扩大的对其敌人和盟友实施金融制裁的能力，而无需任何人的合作。 俄罗斯和中国正在反击这种能力，并取得了一些成功，但欧洲人大多接受了它。
美国对欧洲的技术主导地位也有所增强。 美国大型科技公司——“五巨头”Alphabet（谷歌）、亚马逊、苹果、Meta（Facebook）和微软——现在几乎像在美国一样，在欧洲科技领域占据主导地位。 欧洲人正试图利用竞争政策来反击这种主导地位，例如，对滥用搜索引擎主导地位的谷歌处以近 25 亿欧元的罚款。 但是，与中国人不同的是，他们一直无法开发本地替代品——因此，这些努力似乎注定要失败。 因此，人工智能等新发展似乎将加强美国对欧洲的技术主导地位。 当欧洲人在技术方面落后时，强调欧盟监管权力的所谓“布鲁塞尔效应”也会失去影响。
自2008年以来，与美国相比，欧洲的军事实力也大幅下降。 2014 年俄罗斯入侵乌克兰后欧洲军费开支的上升有时掩盖了这一趋势。 但是，当然，所有实力都是相对的：由于欧洲的军费开支增幅大大低于美国，因此它已经落后得更远了。 2008年至2021年间，美国军费开支从6560亿美元增加到8010亿美元。 同期，欧盟27国和英国的军费开支仅从3030亿美元增加到3250亿美元。 [1] 更糟糕的是，美国在新国防技术上的支出仍然是所有欧盟成员国总和的七倍多。
当然，军费开支只是军事实力的一个近似衡量标准。 但欧洲对此类支出的分歧态度意味着，即使这些数字也可能夸大了欧洲的实力。 欧洲人在支出相对较少的预算时几乎不进行合作，因此效率仍然很低。
欧盟成员国未能兑现 2017 年将至少 35% 的设备采购预算用于相互合作的承诺。 2021 年这一数字仅为 18%。
更糟糕的是，这些粗略的权力衡量标准实际上低估了欧洲的弱点，而长期的分歧又加剧了欧洲的弱点。 当欧盟《里斯本条约》于 2009 年生效时，它似乎预示着欧洲人将有新的能力制定共同外交政策并利用当时世界最大经济体的潜在实力。 但《里斯本条约》的机构，特别是欧洲对外行动署和博雷尔担任的办公室，未能弥合欧盟内部在外交政策上的分歧。
尽管欧盟有着地缘政治野心，但它仍然无法制定共同的外交和安全政策。 相反，金融危机分裂了南北，移民危机和乌克兰战争分裂了东西方，而英国脱欧则分裂了英国和几乎所有其他国家。 特别是欧盟第二大经济体和最强军事力量英国的丧失，对欧盟的威信和地缘政治影响力造成严重打击。
由于所有这些原因，美国在该联盟中的主导地位在过去十五年中不断增强。 权力很重要。 美国在两国关系中的影响力日益增大，这意味着欧洲人越来越觉得自己无能为力，美国人也越来越对欧洲人对安全问题的看法越来越不感兴趣——即使这一点目前被拜登政府的“不用担心，我们帮你解决”所掩盖。 关于战争的政策。
软弱的后果
因此，俄罗斯于 2022 年 2 月入侵乌克兰，恰逢欧洲地缘政治严重疲软之际。 与前任奥巴马政府和特朗普政府一样，拜登政府曾强烈发出信号，表示打算将外交政策的注意力和资源集中在东亚。 在第一年，它基本上成功地保持了这一重点。 它在没有与欧洲盟友协调的情况下从阿富汗撤军，并与澳大利亚缔结了一项重要的新防御协议和潜艇协议“AUKUS”，甚至不惜以疏远法国为代价。
但当美国情报部门于 2021 年秋天发现俄罗斯在乌克兰边境集结军队时，美国决策者很快意识到，需要美国的领导才能做出强有力的统一反应。 正是美国提供了有关克里姆林宫意图的情报，并对即将到来的入侵发出了警告，而欧洲的反应往往是持怀疑态度。 西方对俄罗斯的大多数制裁，尤其是针对俄罗斯央行的措施，都是由美国制定的。 当然，如果没有欧洲的遵守，制裁的力度就会减弱。 但正是美元和美国对国际金融体系的控制给制裁带来了影响。
美国的反应实际上阻止甚至扭转了拜登政府所宣称的将重点放在亚洲的意图。 因此，尽管美中在台湾问题上的紧张局势加剧，但美中经济与安全审查委员会仍于 2022 年 11 月得出结论，“将现有武器和弹药库存转移到乌克兰……加剧了已批准交付的武器的大量积压”。 向台湾出售武器，破坏了该岛的准备状态。”
因此，美国在向乌克兰提供军事和人道主义援助方面超过了所有欧盟成员国的总和，并且还同意回填这些盟友向乌克兰提供的许多武器系统。 短短几个月内，美国在欧洲的驻军人数从战后历史最低的约6.5万人增至10万人。 在2022年6月的北约峰会上，拜登宣布美国将进一步扩大在欧洲的驻军，包括在波兰、罗马尼亚和波罗的海国家增派大量新部队和总部。
当然，许多欧洲国家和欧盟机构正在为乌克兰做出重要贡献，提供必要援助。 德国已向乌克兰提供了超过140亿欧元的援助，其联邦议院刚刚批准了未来几年另外120亿欧元的军事援助。 波兰、爱沙尼亚和英国一直处于西方支持乌克兰的最前沿。 许多国家接收了大量乌克兰难民。 但总体而言，他们的努力范围比美国小得多。 例如，以占国内生产总值的比例来衡量，爱沙尼亚的贡献令人印象深刻。 但以人均计算或收容难民并不能赢得战争。 即使综合起来，东欧的资源也远不足以完成这项任务。
但美国的领导力不仅仅在于资源。 事实证明，美国有必要组织和统一西方对俄罗斯入侵的反应。 近年来，
近年来，欧盟内部在俄罗斯问题上存在巨大分歧。 波兰、瑞典和波罗的海国家等国家在这一问题上对法国、德国和意大利等欧盟成员国深感不信任。
直到入侵前夕，肖尔茨和马克龙都相信与俄罗斯达成妥协是可能的。 他们试图对诺曼底模式进行新的调整，以阻止俄罗斯进一步入侵乌克兰。 2022 年 2 月 24 日，俄罗斯的入侵突然结束了这些努力。 在大多数中欧和东欧人眼中，德国和法国对俄罗斯的政策方针都是不可信的。 因此，德国最初无法像2014年吞并克里米亚后那样，在欧洲对乌克兰战争的反应中发挥主导作用。这次东欧成员国并不认为柏林是“诚实的中间人”。 他们也没有忘记马克龙2019年在没有咨询他们的情况下提出的建议，建议与俄罗斯就新的欧洲安全秩序进行谈判。
总体而言，东方人认为，这些国家的领导层要么被廉价的俄罗斯天然气和利润丰厚的支出所腐蚀，要么对俄罗斯政权的本质抱有无可救药的天真。 2022 年 4 月，波兰总理马特乌什·莫拉维耶茨基 (Mateusz Morawiecki) 嘲讽道：“马克龙总统，你与普京谈判了多少次？ 你取得了什么成就？ 你会与希特勒、斯大林、波尔布特谈判吗？”
欧盟最强大的国家无法发挥领导作用，因为它们没有得到关键参与者的信任。 与此同时，最一贯反俄的国家也无法发挥领导作用，因为它们得不到法国和德国的信任。 它们规模较小或相对贫穷，因此缺乏资源。 波兰是一个声音活跃的国家，但其政府对法治的破坏使其在欧盟内部产生分裂。 从这个意义上说，欧洲不可能制定自主政策，因为如果没有美国，欧洲人可能根本不会就任何事情达成一致。 美国确实是唯一的选择。 正如爱沙尼亚总理卡亚·卡拉斯 2023 年 2 月在推特上所说，“美国的领导力在为乌克兰争取前所未有的支持方面发挥了关键作用。” 事实上，大西洋两岸都很难找到一个政策制定者或专家相信还有其他方式可以组织对俄罗斯入侵的统一而有力的反应。
由于这些原因，跨大西洋联盟的成员正在恢复冷战习惯，即美国领导，欧洲人要么在后面推动，要么干脆跟随。 大西洋两岸的欧洲都没有独立努力的空间或兴趣，即使是在曾经被视为安全领域之外的美欧贸易等问题上也是如此。
乌克兰战争后大西洋联盟的动态
很难想象，乌克兰战争总有一天会结束。 当这种情况发生时，或者甚至在这种情况发生之前，美国政策制定者可能会恢复之前将资源转移到亚洲的努力。 毕竟，在西方把注意力集中在乌克兰的同时，美国外交政策中的中国挑战并没有消失。
2022 年 10 月发布的美国国家安全战略明确描述了这一方向，确认美国“将优先考虑保持对（中国）的持久竞争优势”。 鉴于美国目前正花费数百亿美元支持乌克兰对抗俄罗斯，并且在此过程中冒着与世界最大核国家的冲突升级的风险，这似乎是一个不同寻常的优先事项。
但原因很清楚。 正如《国家安全战略》所述，“[中国]是唯一一个既有意重塑国际秩序，又拥有越来越多的经济、外交、军事和技术实力来实现这一目标的竞争对手。” 中国的人口是美国的四倍，其经济可能很快就会超过美国，其军队规模超过美国，而且技术能力日益增强。 它比苏联或俄罗斯更加融入全球经济。 中国已将自己置于美国及其盟友所依赖的许多关键供应链的核心。 它在文化和意识形态上反对美国和民主理念，利用其新财富将独裁控制技术传播到地球上的每个大陆。
通过将西方的注意力和资源从印度-太平洋地区转移，并确保俄罗斯变得更加依赖中国，乌克兰战争只会让应对这一战略挑战变得更加困难。 事实上，未来的共和党政府可能会加倍关注中国，因为大多数共和党领导人对中国的看法比民主党领导人更加悲观，对欧洲盟友的看法也更加偏见。 对于一些有影响力的共和党外交政策思想家来说，
中国问题的严重性意味着，即使“我们必须让欧洲暴露在风险之下，也罢……亚洲比欧洲更重要。”
但是，尽管华盛顿有这一明确的观点，但欧洲对美国未来在欧洲安全中的作用的看法似乎完全不同。 正如美国外交关系委员会的利亚纳·菲克斯指出的那样，美国的领导力“几乎过于成功，不利于其自身利益，使得欧洲人没有动力自行发展领导力”。
拜登政府投入了大量时间甚至更多飞行里程来与欧洲人接触并协调西方对战争爆发的反应。 部分原因是，欧洲人很乐意从第二排提供支持，尽管战争是在他们自己的战区发生的。
即使在法国，这个长期以来最强烈支持欧洲脱离美国自治的国家，也没有对美国在当前危机中的领导地位提出抗议。 法国仍在寻求欧洲更大的独立能力，特别是在国防工业能力方面。 但正如所指出的，法国此前对俄罗斯的立场意味着，它在欧盟的同伴已经所剩无几了。 巴黎似乎是最后的莫西干人，而欧洲其他国家几乎完全放弃了更大战略自主权的想法。
德国的转变更为深刻。 肖尔茨仍然谈到欧洲需要更多的战略主权。 德国政府似乎已经轻松适应了当前的跨大西洋劳动分工。 总理办公室利用每一个机会强调肖尔茨和拜登之间的个人关系有多么出色。 在对乌克兰的军事支持方面，对柏林来说，没有什么比华盛顿步调一致更重要的了。 2017 年社会民主党总理候选人马丁·舒尔茨 (Martin Schulz) 谴责德国将其国内生产总值的 2% 用于国防的北约承诺，并宣称他“不会屈服于美国重新武装的逻辑”，这样的日子已经一去不复返了。 曾经对美国持相当批评态度的社会民主党现在显然在华盛顿的庇护下感到足够自在。
德国总理 2022 年 2 月关于德国政策 Zeitenwende（转折点）的演讲以及相关的影响深远的德国国防公告，给欧洲和美国带来了希望，即德国最终可能成为欧洲国防的领导者。 一年过去了，柏林仍在为这个想法而苦苦挣扎。 在向乌克兰提供武器方面，德国甚至不是第一个行动者，也没有激励其他国家效仿。 它一直在等待其他人指明道路。
总体而言，在安全和国防方面，《Zeitenwende》的实施进展极其缓慢，这一点尤其引人注目，因为德国在其他领域正在以闪电般的速度前进，例如建设液化天然气进口码头。 肖尔茨演讲中宣布的 1000 亿欧元特别基金在 2022 年没有花完。更糟糕的是，该特别基金根本不足以弥补德国联邦国防军数十年来资金不足的情况。 德国未能实现北约 2022 年 GDP 支出 2% 的目标，预计也无法在 2023 年实现这一目标。 总体而言，政府仍未为联邦国防军提供必要的结构和物质能力，使其成为欧洲安全的稳定支柱。
英国长期以来一直是美国在欧洲最坚定的盟友，它似乎因美国重返欧洲的领导地位而感到振奋。 它已成为乌克兰的主要支持者，并通过供应主战坦克引领了乌克兰的步伐。 它与波兰和波罗的海国家以及瑞典和芬兰建立了特别密切的合作，并为其提供了双边安全保证。 然而，在欧洲其他国家，英国的参与仍然受到怀疑——英国脱欧的创伤很深。 乌克兰战争可能成为英国未来在支持东欧安全、甚至帮助解决欧盟内部外交政策争端方面发挥新作用的机会。 然而，目前英国远未实现欧盟的统一，可以说是欧盟内那些不信任西方成员国的北部和东部国家的替代伙伴。
在俄罗斯全面入侵乌克兰之后，正是这些北部和东部国家最深刻地改变了欧盟内部的动态。 波兰、瑞典、捷克共和国和波罗的海国家在欧洲外交政策中表现出了某种道德领导力。 他们认为，事件表明他们对俄罗斯政权的评估是正确的，而西欧国家并没有听取他们应有的意见。 “[西方国家]认为这是因为我们特殊的历史：我们受到了伤害，我们无法原谅。 但我们并不生活在伤害之中。 我们只是看到他们。 我们知道俄罗斯人的行为方式，”拉脱维亚议会国防委员会主席艾纳斯·拉特科夫斯基斯说。
他们还认为，作为前线国家的地位赋予他们独特的权力来决定西方对俄罗斯和乌克兰的政策。 拉脱维亚外交部长埃德加斯·林克维奇表示：“我们有这样的理解：在我们地区，北约通过捍卫其领土要么成功，要么失败。 这对北约来说是一个生死攸关的问题。” 最后，他们认为只有美国才能最终保证他们的安全。 他们一直对战略自主的想法持怀疑态度，现在认为这无异于战略自杀。 因此，他们正在采取措施，鼓励美国更多地参与欧洲并发挥领导作用，特别是提倡美国在东欧驻军更多、更持久，并促进瑞典和芬兰加入北约。
总体而言，新的欧洲内部政治动态已经在构建欧洲未来的国防政策。 尽管德国和其他欧盟国家的Zeitenwendes刺激了欧洲国防开支的实际增长，但这种开支的结构意味着它实际上会造成对美国更大的依赖。 面对战争，“国防规划仍然主要是孤立完成的”，许多欧洲国家“认为国防合作具有挑战性，只有在与国家计划相一致时才考虑它，并且更经常选择国家解决方案或非欧盟供应商” ”，欧洲防务局在 2022 年 11 月所谓的国防协调年度审查中警告道。
创建一个有弹性、有竞争力和创新的欧洲国防技术和工业基础的努力已经退居二线。 政策制定者经常认为欧盟或欧洲跨国采购计划过于耗时且复杂。 重点是快速填补能力差距。 例如，德国政府决定购买现成的、主要是美国的设备，包括 F-35 和支奴干重型运输直升机。
作为德国提出的欧洲天盾计划的一部分，以色列正在考虑采购“箭3”系统来防御远程弹道导弹。 此外，美国爱国者系统是该倡议的核心组成部分。 重要的欧洲伙伴，尤其是法国和意大利，目前不愿加入“天盾”计划，理由之一是该计划在选择防空系统时没有考虑到欧洲的替代方案。 波兰最近决定从美国购买艾布拉姆斯坦克，并从韩国购买坦克和榴弹炮，以迅速建设自己的军队。 这将产生持续数十年的依赖关系。 结果是，欧洲人面临着放弃发展强大、有竞争力的欧洲国防工业的风险，而欧洲国防工业在未来战略技术方面的专业知识与其他大国不相上下。
这次的附庸
美国及其欧洲伙伴可能已经恢复了冷战同盟习惯，但当前的地缘政治局势当然与冷战时期有很大不同。 当时的欧洲是与苏联斗争的中心阵线，美国的战略，尤其是早期，主要是在经济和军事上重建西欧，以应对来自东方的挑战。 因此，美国从未（或至少很少）利用其主导的安全角色来获取国内经济优势。 相反，美国允许其战后巨额贸易顺差被侵蚀，并成为欧洲复苏国家的首选出口市场。 西欧国家在美国安全保护伞下实现繁荣，部分原因是这是美国冷战战略的一部分。
21世纪与中国的斗争看起来截然不同。 欧洲不是中心战线，其繁荣和军事实力也不是美国战略的核心。 拜登领导下的美国有意识地采取了旨在实现美国再工业化和对中国技术主导地位的战略性产业政策。 这一战略是国内经济政策的一部分 — — 应对国内去工业化的“中产阶级外交政策” — — 也是对中国近年来在太阳能和 5G 等战略性行业取得主导地位的成功的外交政策回应。 正如现任拜登国家安全顾问杰克·沙利文和现任拜登国际经济高级主管詹妮弗·哈里斯在担任这些职务之前指出的那样，“倡导产业政策……曾经被认为是令人尴尬的——现在应该被认为是近乎显而易见的事情。 ......如果华盛顿继续如此严重依赖私营部门的研发，美国公司将在与中国公司的竞争中继续失去优势。”
从概念上讲，欧洲盟友在这场与中国的地缘经济斗争中发挥着作用，但并不像冷战时期那样，为了致富并为中央战线的军事防御做出贡献。 相反，从美国的角度来看，它们的关键作用是支持美国的战略产业政策，并帮助确保美国相对于中国的技术主导地位。 他们可以通过默许美国的产业政策并根据美国的战略技术概念来限制与中国的经济关系来做到这一点。
重要的是，在与中国的这场新的地缘经济斗争中，不会有纯粹的经济问题。 与中国冲突的技术和经济性质意味着美国能够而且将会把几乎所有国际争端都安全化。 从这个意义上说，欧洲关于是否允许中国设备制造商华为进入欧洲5G电话网络的争论是未来安全与经济问题融合的预兆。 美国政府声称，华为与中国政府的密切关系意味着在如此敏感的关键基础设施中使用其服务会带来不可接受的安全风险。 作为欧洲的安全提供者，美国拥有提出此类论点的独特权力。 这并没有错，但正如许多人指出的那样，禁止华为在欧洲销售也为美国公司建立更大的技术主导地位创造了机会。
由于这些政策有可能降低欧洲的经济增长，导致（进一步）去工业化，甚至否定欧洲人在未来关键行业的主导地位，因此预计它们可能会引起整个欧盟的强烈反对。 在某种程度上，他们确实做到了。 欧盟和英国正在激烈争论欧洲是否需要遵循美国对华政策，或者是否可以自行出击。 美国通过的新产业政策措施，例如《减少通货膨胀法案》和《CHIPS 与科学法案》，引起了布鲁塞尔和其他地方对欧洲人如何保护自己的战略产业的咬牙切齿。 这些法案出台后，欧洲理事会于 2022 年 12 月得出结论，欧盟需要推行“雄心勃勃的欧洲产业政策，使欧洲经济适应绿色和数字化转型，并减少战略依赖，特别是在最敏感的领域。” （原文强调。）
然而，目前还不清楚这场辩论是否会转化为影响美国对外经济政策的政策措施。 自乌克兰战争爆发以来，许多政府官员在接受多位作者采访时都表示，欧洲人可能会发牢骚和抱怨，但他们对美国日益增长的安全依赖意味着他们大多会接受美国经济政策的一部分。 全球安全角色。 这就是附庸化的本质。
要了解这一自动服从过程的实际情况，请更详细地考虑欧洲对爱尔兰共和军的做法，这是美国历史上最重要的气候和工业政策立法。 在国会通过该法案的过程中发生了一件奇怪的事情。 没有人考虑该立法对欧洲的影响。 尽管该法案 3690 亿美元的气候补贴可能对欧洲工业造成毁灭性影响，但对该法案的广泛辩论却几乎没有提及其对美国欧洲盟友的影响。
更奇怪的是，对该法案对欧洲盟友的负面影响缺乏关注，这种影响也延伸到了欧洲人本身。 该法案的条款并不是秘密——它们只是在国会公开辩论了一年多。 加拿大政府看到了这一危险，并通过协调一致的游说活动成功地获得了该法案“购买美国货”条款的例外。 欧洲似乎没有做出类似的努力。
该法案通过后，在欧洲各方尤其是法国引起强烈抗议。 但欧盟委员会仍然坚持认为，爱尔兰共和军是应对气候变化努力的关键贡献，并将欧洲对美国行动的挑战限制为要求将欧洲公司纳入美国的各种补贴计划。 该委员会没有在世界贸易组织正面挑战美国或寻求报复，而是选择宣扬欧盟已经在实施超过美国的绿色补贴计划，并寻求豁免。 冯德莱恩夸口道：“仅欧盟和美国就投入了近 1 万亿欧元来加速绿色经济。” 换句话说，欧盟不需要对爱尔兰共和军做出强有力的反应——它只需增加目前的绿色补贴即可。 今年二月，欧盟委员会提出了一项绿色交易工业计划，旨在扩大欧盟对绿色技术的投资。 美国政府冷静地支持这一合作应对措施。
事后协调
最终，爱尔兰共和军可能不会出现严重的跨大西洋危机。 相反，这个问题可能会遵循拜登政府制定的美欧经济关系新剧本，这可能被称为“事后协调”。
这一模板与针对乌克兰战争的精心协调有很大不同。 本质上，美国的行动没有认真征求其欧洲盟友的意见。 不出所料，大西洋彼岸会做出愤怒的反应。 美国政府对盟友的不安表示惊讶和担忧，并派遣多位高级特使前往欧洲各国首都，认真听取欧洲的抱怨，并公开承诺解决这些问题。 总统随后宣布，他已经听到并理解欧洲的担忧，现阶段他能做的有限，但随后他将做出一些象征性的让步。 欧洲人宣称他们对让美国人解决他们的问题的努力感到满意，每个人都继续他们的生活。 似乎没有人注意到美国在这一过程中几乎成功地得到了它想要的一切。
这是美国在阿富汗撤军和2021年“AUKUS”辩论中遵循的模板，当时美国背着法国与澳大利亚和英国缔结了一项新的防务协议，从其最古老的盟友手中夺取了一份利润丰厚的潜艇合同。 这似乎是对 IRA 和 CHIPS 和科学法案反应的新兴模板。 正如 Politico 所说，拜登政府决定“稍微屈服于欧洲的压力”，并允许欧洲汽车制造商获得美国清洁汽车税收抵免的部分机会。
在更加平衡的跨大西洋伙伴关系中，美国绝不会在未经协商的情况下考虑爱尔兰共和军等举措，因为其决策者天生就知道，确保欧洲在地缘经济举措上的伙伴关系既是必要的，也是重要的。 欧洲人会参与这些政策制定的早期阶段，可能会引发许多艰难的谈判。 但他们会避免面临既成事实。 例如，就爱尔兰共和军而言，这意味着欧盟将从一开始就参与其组建，欧洲企业将可以获得补贴和“购买美国货”条款的豁免。
然而，在目前的伙伴关系中，事后协调之所以有效，是因为欧洲对美国的安全依赖日益加深，以及安全和经济领域的日益一体化，意味着他们的讨价还价能力要小得多，即使在经济问题上也是如此。
欧洲人如何重新平衡跨大西洋关系
对于即将到来的激烈地缘政治竞争时代来说，附庸化并不是一项明智的政策——无论是对美国还是对欧洲。 与美国的联盟对于欧洲安全仍然至关重要，但完全依赖心烦意乱、内向的美国来获取最重要的主权要素，将使欧洲国家在最好的情况下成为地缘政治上的无关紧要，在最坏的情况下成为一个玩物。 的超能力。 为了能够保护自己的经济和安全利益（这些利益有时与美国的利益不同），欧洲人需要建立更加平衡的跨大西洋关系。
此外，附庸化最终不会有助于美国继续参与欧洲事务。 华盛顿经常大声要求欧洲为共同防御努力做出更大贡献。 即使美国的许多行动促进附庸化，但根据作者的经验，大多数美国政策制定者都知道，他们需要一个强大的欧洲伙伴来应对即将到来的地缘政治竞争。 他们认识到，这样的合作伙伴将更加独立，而且这种独立性虽然在具体问题上并不总是受到欢迎，但与日益弱小和无关紧要的欧洲合作伙伴相比，对功能性伙伴关系的威胁要小得多。 最终，只有当美国相信可以从合作伙伴那里获益时，美国才会继续参与欧洲事务。 这种感觉需要更平衡的伙伴关系，而不是更多的附庸。
更大的欧洲主权仍然是一些政府的重要目标，特别是法国和欧盟机构。 但大多数成员国目前甚至不想要更独立的政策。 欧洲政策制定者几乎普遍地私下承认依赖美国的风险，并对特朗普或类似人士重新担任美国总统表示担忧。 但是，尤其是在乌克兰战争期间，大多数人都感到集体没有能力获得更大的自治权，并且不想为此做出政治或财政牺牲。 而且，在更深层次上，许多国家之间的不信任程度超过了他们对被美国抛弃的恐惧。
目前看来很明显，只有当美国提供相当明确的证据证明它并不把欧洲利益放在心上时，这种观点才能改变。 在特朗普动荡的任期内，他缺乏外交技巧的直率意味着他为欧洲自治所做的贡献比戴高乐以来的任何人都多。 但即使在那些日子里，进展也是缓慢且断断续续的。 拜登所传达的更为复杂的信息是，优先考虑亚洲，同时领导欧洲对俄罗斯战争的反应，这种信息过于微妙，无法激发欧洲做出艰难的决定。
在这种情况下，目前最好的途径是针对美国将注意力转向其他地方的可能性进行对冲。 欧洲人可以通过为更加平衡的跨大西洋关系奠定基础并在欧洲各国政府之间建立信任来做到这一点。 几种这样的对冲已经成为可能。
发展独立能力，在长期战争中支持乌克兰。 当所有欧盟成员国（可能除了匈牙利）都认为有必要做出这样的努力时，欧洲富裕国家却无法带头反击对自己大陆的侵略，这种想法令人震惊地证明了欧洲的战略不足。 欧洲外交关系委员会提出了一项支持乌克兰的计划，其中包含四个基本要素：通过新的安全契约提供长期军事援助； 在俄罗斯各种可能升级的情况下提供安全保证； 经济安全努力将提供财政援助并开始漫长的重建进程，作为“扩大伙伴关系”的一部分； 以及将乌克兰更紧密地融入欧盟能源基础设施的能源安全措施。 欧盟及其成员国和英国应采取这些措施，并共同努力实现这些措施。
将更多西欧军队部署到东部，在某些情况下取代美军。 在跨大西洋团结的表面之下，乌克兰战争的第一年加深了欧盟内部的分歧，尤其是中东欧与法国和德国之间的分歧。 绊线部队类似于冷战期间驻德美军的模式，对于在西欧和东欧之间建立信任是必要的。 波兰和波罗的海国家已经有一些西欧军队，但更长期驻扎、更有能力的军队，旨在防止或抵抗俄罗斯的入侵，将创造更大的信心和信任。
追求更强大的欧洲军事能力和更大的北约内部和外部自主行动能力。 不管美国的政策如何，欧洲人都需要更强的军事能力，特别是在战略空运等一些关键的支持能力方面； 情报、监视和侦察； 和精确制导弹药——美国在所有领域都占据主导地位。 他们可以在北约内部和外部实现这一目标。 瑞典和芬兰加入北约将为该联盟增添重要的军事和国防工业能力。 它可以提供在北约内部建立欧洲支柱的机会，该支柱可以集中资源并发展欧洲人可能需要自卫的能力，并可以补充欧盟的联合采购努力。 欧盟可以为北约分担负担做出的最大贡献是让成员国承诺更多、更明智地投资于其防御能力和创新技术。 因此，未来的主要目标应该是（在欧盟框架内）获得联合军事能力，同时增强北约的威慑和防御能力。 从这个意义上说，欧盟应该成为欧洲防务的推动者。 一个更有能力、更自主的欧洲还必须包括一个强大、创新和有竞争力的欧洲国防工业，其在未来战略技术方面的专业知识与其他大国不相上下。 从长远来看，欧洲人增加国防开支并将其保持在更高水平的努力只有在为欧洲创造就业机会并有利于国内工业的情况下才在政治上可持续。
提议美国、欧盟和英国组成地缘经济北约。 最近关于 5G 和绿色技术补贴的争论表明，与中国的斗争将深入渗透到西方国内领域，并将使迄今为止纯粹是经济问题变得安全化。 确实，在中西方竞争的世纪里，地缘经济领域很可能成为中心战线。 因此，美国和欧洲需要一个论坛来考虑产业政策等经济问题的地缘战略影响。 “地缘经济北约”将允许跨大西洋伙伴战略性地思考地缘经济问题并共同决定对外经济政策，而不是欧洲人仅仅接受美国的决定。
这样一个论坛的目的是制定一项美欧对华联合战略经济政策，既更有效，又减少附庸。
建立特殊的欧盟-英国防务伙伴关系。 欧盟最有能力的军队的损失在地缘政治上削弱了欧盟和英国，其程度超出了双方都愿意承认的程度。 随着英国脱欧的痛苦慢慢开始消退，这些合作伙伴迫切需要找到一种方案，通过一项承认英国独特能力和对欧洲安全贡献的定制安排，将英国军队重新融入欧盟防务合作结构。 欧盟需要向英国提供更具吸引力的“对接机制”，以进入欧盟机构和项目。 它应该将与伦敦的伙伴关系视为欧盟实现更多战略主权的手段，而不是更少。 从长远来看，这甚至可能有助于英国重新加入欧盟，尽管目前这是一个非常遥远的前景。
考虑欧洲的核威慑力量。 乌克兰战争表明，核武器与地缘政治的关系并不像人们想象的那样无关紧要。 这意味着，如果没有一定的独立欧洲核威慑能力，就不可能有欧洲战略主权。 由于欧洲拥有两个核国家，因此它有足够的能力建立这样的威慑力量。 目前这仍然是一个禁忌话题。 但要对冲美国的不可靠性，至少需要辩论和理解哪些政治协议和能力发展对于在美国扩大威慑的同时形成欧洲威慑是必要的。 马克龙多次提出与欧盟伙伴就此进行对话。 现在需要其他成员国，特别是德国，接受他们的这一提议。
总的来说，这些想法旨在实现跨大西洋联盟的更大平衡，并使欧洲人能够为自己邻国的安全与稳定承担更多责任。 它们绝不是为了让欧洲人与其美国盟友脱钩。 相反，他们寻求建立更有能力、更负责任的欧洲伙伴，这是美国在未来的斗争中所希望和需要的。
任何一位美国总统都会广泛支持这样的努力，即使其中一些细节可能会引起华盛顿部分地区的恐慌，因为他们担心欧洲政策会更加独立。 即使是最不善于外交、最关注亚洲的美国总统也始终看到在危险的世界中有能力、有效的合作伙伴的价值。 因此，欧洲的这些或类似的努力对于防止联盟恶化为附庸体系是必要的，随着时间的推移，这种体系会让欧洲人感到不满，让美国人感到蔑视。
关于作者
杰里米·夏皮罗（Jeremy Shapiro）是欧洲外交关系委员会研究主任，也是布鲁金斯学会非常驻高级研究员。 2009年至2013年，他在美国国务院任职。
贾娜·普列林 (Jana Puglierin) 是欧洲外交关系委员会柏林办事处主任兼高级政策研究员。 她还是 ECFR 的 Re:shape Global Europe 计划的主任，该计划旨在为不断变化的国际秩序及其如何影响欧洲在世界上的地位提供新的视角。
致谢
作者要感谢苏西·丹尼森 (Susi Dennison)、安东尼·德沃金 (Anthony Dworkin)、马伊达·鲁格 (Majda Ruge)、西莉亚·贝林 (Célia Belin) 和阿斯利·艾丁塔斯巴斯 (Asli Aydintasbas) 仔细阅读了早期草稿，感谢他们提出了精明的评论，并将我们从最严重的过激行为中拯救出来。 他们还要感谢 Malena Rachals 的研究援助和 Angela Mehrer 对他们两人的忍受（大部分）。 和往常一样，他们要感谢亚当·哈里森的专业编辑、传奇般的耐心和坚持不懈的逻辑。 他们还想将任何错误归咎于这些人，但不幸的是他们不能，因为所有错误都是作者的错。
[1] 基于 SIPRI 军费数据库的作者计算。
欧洲外交关系委员会不采取集体立场。 ECFR 出版物仅代表其个人作者的观点。
The art of vassalisation: How Russia's war on Ukraine has transformed transatlantic relations
Jana Puglierin @jana_puglierin on Twitter
https://ecfr.eu/profiles/
Summary
- Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has revealed Europeans’ profound dependence on the US for their security, despite EU efforts at achieving “strategic autonomy.”
- Over the last decade, the EU has grown relatively less powerful than America – economically, technologically, and militarily.
- Europeans also still lack agreement on crucial strategic questions for themselves and look to Washington for leadership.
- In the cold war, Europe was a central front of superpower competition. Now, the US expects the EU and the UK to fall in line behind its China strategy and will use its leadership position to ensure this outcome.
- Europe becoming an American vassal is unwise for both sides. Europeans can become a stronger and more independent part of the Atlantic alliance by developing independent capacity to support Ukraine and acquiring greater military capabilities.
Introduction
The issue of sending Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine roiled German and European politics for months. The West had collectively committed to support Ukraine in its war with Russia. Ukraine said it needed Western tanks – and the German-made Leopards were the tank that best fit the bill. The government in Berlin did not precisely disagree. But it worried about escalation and the reaction from Moscow, particularly given Germany’s troubled history with Russia, and so refused to move first. “We always act together with our allies and friends,” Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, insisted. “We never go alone.”
The curious part was that no one was asking Germany to act alone. Britain had already announced that it would send 14 of its Challenger main battle tanks to Ukraine. The Polish and Finnish governments had publicly signalled that they would be ready to supply Leopard 2 tanks in conjunction with other allies. The European Parliament voted in favour of an EU initiative in this regard in October 2022. The United States, France, and Germany itself had already committed to send infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine, a weapons system that the lay person cannot even distinguish from tanks. More broadly, the Leopard issue took place in a context in which the West, including Germany and the US, had already provided tens of billions of dollars of military equipment to Ukraine, much of which was already quite deadly to Russians.
But “alone” had a very specific meaning for Scholz. He was unwilling to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine unless the US also sent its own main battle tank, the M1 Abrams. It was not enough that other partners would send tanks or that the US might send other weapons. Like a scared child in a room full of strangers, Germany felt alone if Uncle Sam was not holding its hand.
In interests of allied unity, the US eventually stepped in and agreed to provide 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, despite its oft-stated belief that the Abrams made little military sense for Ukraine. No longer “alone,” the German government approved the export and transfer of Leopards to Ukraine. US leadership once again allowed the alliance to resolve an inter-allied dispute. The whole episode will probably be forgotten by all but a few transatlantic defence wonks within a few months.
It shouldn’t be. The episode raises more fundamental questions about the Atlantic alliance than just the issue of which weapons system to send to Ukraine. Why does the leader of the most powerful country in Europe believe he is alone and defenceless unless he acts in lockstep with the US? Why, with a war taking place on the European continent, does US leadership remain necessary to solve even minor inter-allied disputes? A few short years ago, stunned by Donald Trump’s entry into the White House, Europeans seemed poised to take control of their own fates from a distracted and politically unreliable America. But when the next crisis came, both the US and the governments of Europe fell back on old models of alliance leadership. Europe, as EU high representative for foreign affairs Josep Borrell loudly lamented prior to Russia’s invasion, is not really at the table when it comes to dealing with the Russia-Ukraine crisis. It has instead embarked on a process of vassalisation.
This paper looks at why US leadership has returned so forcefully to Europe, whether it will outlast the Ukraine war, and what America’s return to Europe means for the future of the transatlantic alliance and the member states of the European Union.
The proximate cause was, of course, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But the deeper answer lies in the structure of transatlantic relations and internal divides between EU member states. But the war in Ukraine has not changed the fundamental trajectory of the United States’ foreign policy – which towards the Pacific– nor altered its deep domestic divides about whether to remain invested in the defence of Europe. To survive and prosper in the long term, the Atlantic alliance still needs a European pillar that is both militarily capable and politically independent. But the alliance response to the war in Ukraine has made achieving that type of balance much harder. The paper accordingly presents ideas for how, both during and after the war in Ukraine, European and American policymakers can build a more balanced and thus more sustainable alliance.
The Americanisation of Europe
In what now seems like the distant past (the Trump administration), the future of the alliance looked very different. US foreign policy was focused on China and Trump was flirting with Russia and threatening to abandon America’s European allies. Policymakers across Europe began talking about “sovereignty” and “autonomy” as mechanisms to establish their independence from an increasingly capricious American ally.
As always, the voices were strongest in France and the EU institutions, but they also resonated in traditionally Atlanticist strongholds such as Germany, the Netherlands, and even occasionally eastern Europe. “The times,” Chancellor Angela Merkel told a campaign rally in 2017, “when we could completely rely on others are, to an extent, over.”
This broad realisation in Europe reflected, in the first instance, shock at Trump’s antics and his anti-ally rhetoric. But it also expressed a sober view that, even beyond Trump’s idiosyncrasies, US foreign policy was strategically moving towards Asia, while US domestic politics were drifting toward self-absorption. Neither augured well for the American security commitment to Europe.
In 2019, the new president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, formed a new “geopolitical Commission” and vowed to make the EU an independent actor in global affairs. “My Commission,” she promised on presenting it to the European Parliament in 2019, “will not be afraid to speak the language of confidence. But it will be our way, the European way. This is the geopolitical Commission that I have in mind, and that Europe urgently needs.” (Emphasis in the original.)Rhetorically speaking, political leaders in Brussels, Paris, and Berlin had signed up to the idea that Europeans would need to be able to lead the response to crises in their region. But little happened to turn this idea into practical action.
The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 did more than just call that idea into question. It exposed it as almost entirely empty. The strong US response, and the welcome that response found throughout the EU, reset the alliance back into its traditional cold war mode. As in so many crises during the cold war, the US took the lead and contributed the lion’s share of resources. From its European allies, it essentially just asked for political acquiescence and military and financial contributions to a US-led strategy. The inter-allied fights, as in the Leopards episode, have been over the extent of those contributions. The strategic decisions are all made in Washington. For the moment, no government in the EU, even in traditionally independent France, is objecting to this return to traditional American leadership. To the contrary, most are embracing it and even seeking to ensure that it continues beyond the war in Ukraine.
At one level, this is not surprising. The nations of Europe are not currently capable to defend themselves and so they have no choice but to rely on the US in a crisis. But that observation just begs the question. These are wealthy, advanced nations with acknowledged security problems and a growing awareness that continuing to rely on the US contains long-term risks. So why do they remain so incapable of formulating their own response to crises in their neighbourhood?
There are two fundamental causes. All the focus on America’s decline relative to China and the recent upheavals in US domestic politics have obscured a key trend in the transatlantic alliance over the last 15 years. Since the 2008 financial crisis, the US has become ever more powerful relative to its European allies. The transatlantic relationship has not become more balanced, but more dominated by the US. Europeans’ lack of agency in the Russia-Ukraine crisis stems from this growing power imbalance in the Western alliance. Under the Biden administration, the US has become ever more willing to exercise this growing influence.
The second cause is that Europeans have failed to reach a consensus on what greater strategic sovereignty should even look like, how to organise themselves for it, who their decision-makers would be in a crisis, and how to distribute the costs. More profoundly, the nations of Europe do not agree on what to do and do not trust each other enough to reach compromises on these questions. In this context, Europeans cannot know what they would do with greater autonomy or how they might differ from America because they have no process or capacity to decide on their own policies. American leadership remains necessary in Europe because Europeans remain incapable of leading themselves.
The paper examines these factors in turn.
Europe’s relative decline
The growing dominance of the US within the Atlantic alliance is evident in virtually every area of national strength. On the crudest GDP measure, the US has dramatically outgrown the EU and the United Kingdom combined over the last 15 years. In 2008 the EU’s economy was somewhat larger than America’s: $16.2 trillion versus $14.7 trillion. By 2022, the US economy had grown to $25 trillion, whereas the EU and the UK together had only reached $19.8 trillion. America’s economy is now nearly one-third bigger. It is more than 50 per cent larger than the EU without the UK.
Of course, economic size is not everything when it comes to power. But Europe is falling behind on most other measures of power as well.
That growth differential has coincided – again, contrary to predictions – with an increase in the global use of the dollar relative to the euro. According to the most recent Triennial Central Bank Survey from the Bank for International Settlements, the US dollar was bought or sold in around 88 per cent of global foreign exchange transactions in April 2022. This share has remained stable over the past 20 years. In contrast, the euro was bought or sold in 31 per cent of transactions, a decline from its peak of 39 per cent in 2010. The dollar has also sustained its position as the world’s primary reserve currency – accounting for roughly 60 per cent of official foreign exchange reserves; the euro accounts for only 21 per cent. The US has profited from the continuing dominance of its currency to gain an ever expanding capacity to impose financial sanctions on its enemies and allies alike, without really needing anyone’s cooperation. Russia and China are fighting back against this capacity, with some success, but Europeans have mostly accepted it.
American technological dominance over Europe has also grown. The large US tech companies – the ‘big five’ of Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta (Facebook), and Microsoft – are now close to dominating the tech landscape in Europe as they do in the US. Europeans are trying to use competition policy to push back against this dominance by, for example, fining Google nearly €2.5 billion for abusing its dominance in search engines. But, unlike the Chinese, they have been unable to develop local alternatives – so, these efforts seem doomed to failure. As a result, new developments such as artificial intelligence seem set to reinforce US technological dominance over Europe. And the so-called “Brussels effect,” which emphasises the EU’s regulatory power, also loses its impact when Europeans fall behind in technology.
Since 2008, Europeans have also suffered a dramatic loss of military power when compared to the US. The uptick in European military spending after the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine sometimes obscures this trend. But, of course, all power is relative: as military spending in Europe has increased substantially less than that of the US, it has fallen further behind. Between 2008 and 2021, US military expenditure increased from $656 billion to $801 billion. In the same period, the military expenditure of the EU27 and the UK rose only from $303 billion to $325 billion.[1] Worse, US spending on new defence technologies remains more than seven times that of all EU member states combined.
Of course, military spending is only an approximate measure of military strength. But Europe’s divided approach to such expenditure means that even these figures probably overstate European power. Europeans barely collaborate in spending their relatively small budget – so it remains inefficient. EU member states have fallen short of a 2017 commitment to spend at least 35 per cent of their equipment procurement budgets in cooperation with one another. This figure stood at just 18 per cent in 2021.
Worse, these crude measures of power actually underestimate European weakness, which is exacerbated by chronic divisions. When the EU’s Lisbon Treaty entered into force in 2009, it seemed to herald a new capacity for Europeans to forge a common foreign policy and harness the latent strength of what was then the world’s largest economy. But institutions of the Lisbon Treaty, particularly the European External Action Service and the office that Borrell holds, have failed to bridge internal EU differences in foreign policy.
The EU, for all its geopolitical ambitions, remains incapable of formulating a common foreign and security policy. Instead, the financial crisis divided north and south, the migration crisis and the war in Ukraine divided east and west, and Brexit divided the UK and practically everyone else. In particular, the loss of Britain, the EU’s second largest economy and strongest military power, was a serious blow to the EU’s prestige and capacity to exercise geopolitical influence.
For all of these reasons, US dominance in the alliance has grown over the last decade and a half. And power matters. The growing weight of the US in the relationship means that Europeans feel increasingly incapable of acting and Americans feel increasingly less interested in what Europeans think about security issues – even if this is currently obscured by the Biden administration’s ‘No worries, we got you covered’ policy with regard to the war.
The consequences of weakness
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 thus came at a moment of severe European geopolitical weakness. Like the Obama and Trump administrations before it, the Biden administration had strongly signalled that it intended to focus its foreign policy attention and resources on east Asia. And in its first year, it largely succeeded at maintaining this focus. It withdrew US forces from Afghanistan without coordinating with its European allies and concluded “AUKUS,” a major new defence pact and submarine deal with Australia, even at the cost of alienating France.
But when US intelligence detected the Russian troop build-up along the Ukrainian border in the autumn of 2021, US policymakers quickly realised that a forceful and unified response required American leadership. It was the US that provided intelligence on the Kremlin’s intentions and warned about the coming invasion, often meeting with a sceptical European response. It is the US that has shaped most Western sanctions on Russia, particularly the measures targeting its central bank. Of course, without European compliance, sanctions would be less powerful. But it is the US dollar and American control of the international financial system that have given the sanctions their bite.
The US response has effectively halted and even reversed the Biden administration’s stated intention to focus on Asia. So, despite the increased tensions with China over Taiwan, the US China Economic and Security Review Commission concluded in November 2022 that “the diversion of existing stocks of weapons and munitions to Ukraine … has exacerbated a sizeable backlog in the delivery of weapons already approved for sale to Taiwan, undermining the island’s readiness.”
And so, the US has outstripped all EU member states combined in providing military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, and has also agreed to backfill many of the weapons systems that these allies have provided to Ukraine. In just a few months, US troop deployments in Europe increased from a post-war historic low of around 65,000 to 100,000. At the June 2022 NATO summit, Biden announced the US would further expand its force presence in Europe, including substantial new forces and headquarters in Poland, Romania, and the Baltic states.
Of course, many European countries and the EU institutions are making important contributions and providing essential assistance to Ukraine. Germany has provided more than €14 billion in aid to Ukraine and its Bundestag has just approved another €12 billion in military aid for the next few years. Poland, Estonia, and the UK have been at the forefront of Western efforts to support Ukraine. Many countries have taken in very large numbers of Ukrainian refugees. But overall their efforts are much more modest in scope than that of the US. Estonian contributions, for example, are impressive when measured as a share of GDP. But you do not win a war on a per capita basis or by hosting refugees. Even combined, eastern European resources are not remotely up to the task.
But American leadership is about more than just resources. The US has proven necessary to organise and unify the Western response to the Russian invasion. Within the EU, there had been enormous divisions on the question of Russia in recent years. Countries such as Poland, Sweden, and the Baltic states deeply distrust EU members such as France, Germany, and Italy on the issue.
Scholz and Macron believed until the very eve of the invasion that a compromise with Russia was possible. They had tried to put a new spin on the Normandy format to dissuade Russia from invading Ukraine further. On 24 February 2022, Russia’s invasion ended these efforts abruptly. In the eyes of most central and eastern Europeans, both the German and French policy approaches towards Russia were discredited. Germany was therefore initially unable to take the leading role in formulating the European response to the war in Ukraine in the way it had after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Eastern EU member states this time did not perceive Berlin as an ‘honest broker.’ They had also not forgotten Macron’s 2019 effort, taken without consulting them, to suggest negotiating with Russia over a new European security order.
Overall, easterners believe that the leadership of these countries have either been corrupted by cheap Russian gas and lucrative payouts or are hopelessly naive about the nature of the Russian regime. “President Macron,” taunted Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki in April 2022, “how many times have you negotiated with Putin? What have you achieved? Would you negotiate with Hitler, with Stalin, with Pol Pot?”
The most powerful countries in the EU could not lead because they did not have the trust of key actors. Meanwhile, the most consistently anti-Russian countries could not lead because, in turn, they did not have the confidence of France and Germany. They are also small or relatively poor and thus lack the resources. Poland is a vocally active, but its government’s undermining of the rule of law make it divisive within the bloc. In this sense, no autonomous European policy was possible because, without the US, Europeans probably would not have agreed on anything at all. America was really the only choice. As Estonian prime minister Kaja Kallas tweeted in February 2023, “US leadership has been key in rallying unprecedented support for Ukraine.” Indeed, it is difficult to find a policymaker or expert on either side of the Atlantic that believes that there was any other way to organise a unified and forceful response to Russia’s invasion.
For these reasons, members of the transatlantic alliance are reverting to their cold war habits in which the Americans lead while the Europeans either push from behind or simply follow. There is little room or appetite for independent European efforts on either side of the Atlantic, even on issues such as US-EU trade that were once considered outside of the security realm.
Atlantic alliance dynamics after the war in Ukraine
It is hard to imagine, but the war in Ukraine will end some day. When it does, or perhaps even before it does, American policymakers will likely return to their previous efforts to shift resources to Asia. After all, the China challenge in US foreign policy has not gone away while the West has focused on Ukraine.
The US National Security Strategy, published in October 2022, starkly describes this direction, affirming that the US “will prioritize maintaining an enduring competitive edge over the [China].” This might seem an unusual priority given that the US is currently spending tens of billion of dollars supporting Ukraine in war against Russia, and in the process is risking escalation with the world’s largest nuclear power.
But the reasons are clear. As the National Security Strategy states, “[China] is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it.” China has four times the population of the US, its economy may soon exceed that of the US, and its military is larger than the American military and growing more technologically capable by the day. It is more integrated into the global economy than the Soviet Union was or Russia ever has been. China has placed itself at the heart of many critical supply chains that the US and its allies depend on. It has defined itself in cultural and ideological opposition to the US and to the idea of democracy, using its new wealth to spread the techniques of authoritarian control to every continent on Earth.
By diverting Western attention and resources away from the Indo-Pacific and by ensuring Russia becomes dramatically more dependent on China, the war in Ukraine has only made addressing this strategic challenge even harder. Indeed, a future Republican administration would likely double down on focusing on China, as most Republican leaders have a yet more dire view of China and yet more jaundiced view of European allies than their Democrat counterparts do. For some influential Republican foreign policy thinkers, the severity of the China problem means that even “if we have to leave Europe exposed, so be it … Asia is more important than Europe.”
But, despite this clear view coming from Washington, the perspective in Europe on America’s future role in European security seems entirely different. As Liana Fix of the US Council on Foreign Relations notes, American leadership “has been almost too successful for its own good, leaving Europeans no incentive to develop leadership on their own.”
The Biden administration has devoted many hours and even more air miles to engaging the Europeans and coordinating Western responses to the outbreak of war. Partially as a result, Europeans are very comfortable to support from the second row, even though the war is happening in their own theatre.
Even in France, long the strongest proponent of European autonomy from the US, has not protested about American leadership in the current crisis. France still seeks greater independent capability for Europe, especially in terms of defence industrial capacity. But, as noted, France’s previous stances on Russia mean that it has few, if any, fellow travellers left in the EU. Paris seems to be the last of the Mohicans, while the rest of Europe has almost completely renounced the idea of greater strategic autonomy.
The transformation in Germany is more profound. Scholz still speaks about the need for more European strategic sovereignty. The German government seems to have settled comfortably into the current transatlantic division of labour. The chancellor’s office stresses at every available opportunity how excellent the personal relationship between Scholz and Biden is. When it comes to military support for Ukraine, nothing is more important to Berlin than for Washington to move in lockstep. And long gone are the days when Martin Schulz, the Social Democratic candidate for chancellor in 2017, railed against Germany’s NATO commitment to spend 2 per cent of its GDP on defence, declaring that he would “not submit to a US logic of rearmament”. The Social Democrats, who used to be fairly critical of the US, now clearly feel comfortable enough under Washington’s wing.
The chancellor’s February 2022 speech about the Zeitenwende (turning point) in German policy and the associated far-reaching announcements for German defence raised hopes in Europe and the US that Germany might eventually emerge as a leader of European defence. A year on, Berlin is still struggling with this idea. In supplying arms to Ukraine, Germany has hardly even been a first mover that inspired others to follow suit. It has waited for others to show the way.
Overall, the implementation of the Zeitenwende has been proceeding extremely slowly when it comes to security and defence – which is particularly striking because Germany is advancing at lightning speed in other areas, such as the construction of terminals for the import of liquefied natural gas. Nothing of the €100 billion special fund announced in Scholz’s speech was spent in 2022. Worse, the special fund will not be even close to enough to make up for decades of underfunding the Bundeswehr. Germany missed NATO’s 2 per cent of GDP spending target in 2022 and is not expected to meet it in 2023 either. Overall, the government has still not provided the necessary structural and material capability for the Bundeswehr to become an anchor of stability for European security.
The UK, long America’s staunchest ally in Europe, appears energised by the return of US leadership to Europe. It has emerged as a key supporter of Ukraine and set the pace by supplying battle tanks. It has established particularly close cooperation with Poland and the Baltic states, as well as with Sweden and Finland, to which it has given bilateral security guarantees. In the rest of Europe, however, the UK’s engagement is still met with suspicion – the wounds of Brexit cut deep. The war in Ukraine could be an opportunity for the UK to play a new role in supporting eastern European security in the future and even helping to settle disputes within the EU over foreign policy. For the moment, however, far from unifying the EU, the UK arguably serves as an alternative partner to those northern and eastern states within the EU that distrust the western member states.
It is these northern and eastern states that have most profoundly changed the internal EU dynamic following Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine. Poland, Sweden, the Czech Republic, and the Baltic states have demonstrated a sort of moral leadership in European foreign policy. They believe events have shown that their assessment of the Russian regime was correct and that western EU states did not listen to them as they should have. “[Western states] thought this was because of our peculiar history: that we were hurt and we can’t forgive. But we don’t live in hurt. We simply see them. We know how Russians act,” said Ainars Latkovskis, chair of the defence committee in Latvia’s parliament. They also believe that their status as frontline states gives them a unique authority to determine Western policy toward Russia and Ukraine. “There is an understanding,” according to Edgars Rinkevics, Latvia’s foreign minister, “that we are the region where NATO, by defending its territory, either succeeds or fails. This is a life-or-death issue for NATO.” Finally, they feel vindicated in their view that only the US can ultimately guarantee their security. Always sceptical about the idea of strategic autonomy, they now think that this would amount to strategic suicide. They are accordingly taking measures to encourage greater US involvement and leadership in Europe, particularly through advocating greater and more permanent US troops presence in eastern Europe and promoting NATO membership for Sweden and Finland.
Overall, the new internal European political dynamic is already structuring European defence policy for the future. Even as Zeitenwendes in Germany and other EU states have spurred real increases in European defence spending, the structure of that spending means that it will actually create greater dependence on the US. In the face of war, “defence planning continues to be done mostly in isolation” and many European countries “regard defence cooperation as challenging, consider it only when it coincides with national plans, and more often opt for national solutions or non-EU suppliers”, warned the European Defence Agency’s so-called Coordinated Annual Review on Defence in November 2022.
The effort to create a resilient, competitive, and innovative European defence technological and industrial base has taken a back seat. Policymakers often see EU or transnational European procurement programmes as too time-consuming and complex. The focus is on quickly filling capability gaps. The German government, for example, has decided to buy off-the-shelf, mainly American equipment, including the F-35 and the Chinook heavy transport helicopter.
As part of the European Sky Shield initiative proposed by Germany, the procurement of the Israeli Arrow 3 system is being considered for defence against long-range ballistic missiles. In addition, the US Patriot system is a central component of the initiative. Important European partners, above all France and Italy, are currently unwilling to join Sky Shield, citing, among other things, that the initiative has not taken into account European alternatives in the choice of air defence systems. Poland recently decided to buy Abrams tanks from the US, as well as tanks and howitzers from South Korea as it rapidly builds up its army. This will create dependencies that will last for decades. The result is that Europeans risk abandoning the development of a strong, competitive European defence industry, whose expertise in strategic technologies of the future is on a par with that of other major powers.
The vassalisation this time
The US and its European partners may have returned to their cold war alliance habits, but of course the current geopolitical situation is vastly different than during the cold war. Europe then was the central front in the struggle with Soviet Union, and US strategy, especially in the early days, hinged on rebuilding western Europe both economically and militarily so that it could stand up to the challenge from the east. Accordingly, the US never (or at least only rarely) used its dominant security role for domestic economic advantage. To the contrary, the US allowed its massive postwar trade surplus to erode and became the export market of choice for the recovering nations of Europe. The nations of western Europe prospered under the US security umbrella in part because it was part of the US cold war strategy that they should.
The 21st century struggle with China looks quite different. Europe is not the central front, and its prosperity and military strength are not central to US strategy. The US under Biden has consciously adopted a strategic industrial policy aimed at American reindustrialisation and technological dominance over China. This strategy is part domestic economic policy – “a foreign policy for the middle class” that responds to deindustrialisation at home – and part a foreign policy response to China’s success in recent years at capturing dominant positions in strategic industries such as solar energy and 5G. As Jake Sullivan, now Biden’s national security adviser, and Jennifer Harris, now his senior director for international economics, noted before taking up these posts, “advocating industrial policy … was once considered embarrassing—now it should be considered something close to obvious. … US firms will continue to lose ground in the competition with Chinese companies if Washington continues to rely so heavily on private sector research and development.”
Conceptually, European allies have a role in this geo-economic struggle with China, but it is not, as during the cold war, to become rich and contribute to the military defence of the central front. To the contrary, their key role from a US perspective is to support US strategic industrial policy and to help ensure American technological dominance vis-à-vis China. They can do so by acquiescing to US industrial policy and by circumscribing their economic relations with China according to American concepts of strategic technologies.
Importantly, in this new geo-economic struggle with China, there will be no purely economic issues. The technological and economic nature of the conflict with China means that the US can and will securitise nearly every international dispute. In this sense, the debate in Europe over whether to allow the Chinese equipment manufacturer Huawei into European 5G telephone networks is a harbinger of the future integration of security and economic issues. The US government claimed that Huawei’s close relationship with the Chinese government meant that using its service in such sensitive critical infrastructure presented an unacceptable security risk. As the security provider for Europe, the US has a unique authority to make such arguments. It is not wrong, but, as many have noted, banning Huawei sales in Europe also creates an opportunity for US firms to establish greater technological dominance.
As these policies have the potential to reduce economic growth in Europe, cause (further) deindustrialisation, or even deny Europeans dominant positions in key industries of the future, they might be expected to generate serious opposition throughout the EU. And to some degree, they have. A debate rages in the EU and the UK about whether Europeans need to follow US policy on China or whether they can strike out on their own. The passage in the US of new industrial policy measures such as the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act have caused much gnashing of teeth in Brussels and elsewhere about how Europeans can preserve their own strategic industries. In the wake of these bills, the European Council concluded in December 2022 that the EU needs to pursue “an ambitious European industrial policy to make Europe’s economy fit for the green and digital transitions and reduce strategic dependencies, particularly in the most sensitive areas.” (Emphasis in the original.)
However, it is far from clear that any of this debate will translate into policy measures that will affect US foreign economic policy. Many administration officials, in various author interviews since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, have expressed the view that Europeans may whine and complain, but that their increasing security dependence on the US means that they will mostly accept economic policies framed as part of America’s global security role. This is the essence of vassalisation.
To see this process of auto-subservience in action, consider in more detail the European approach to the IRA, the most significant piece of climate and industrial policy legislation in American history. A curious thing happened on the way to passing that bill in the Congress. Nobody considered the impact of the legislation on Europe. Despite the potentially devastating effect of the bill’s $369 billion in climate subsidies on European industry, the extensive debate on the bill contained barely any mention of its effect on America’s European allies.
Even more oddly, this lack of attention to the bill’s negative effect on European allies extended to the Europeans themselves. The bill’s provisions were no secret – they were only openly debated in the Congress for a well over a year. The Canadian government saw the danger and succeeded, through a concerted lobbying campaign, in getting an exception from the bill’s “Buy American” provisions. There appears to have been no similar European effort.
Following the bill’s passage, there was an outcry in various quarters in Europe, particularly in France. But the European Commission still insists that the IRA is a key contribution to the effort to combat climate change and has limited the European challenge to US actions to requesting inclusion for European companies in the various US subsidy plans. Rather than frontally challenge the US at the World Trade Organization or otherwise seek retaliation, the commission has chosen to tout that the EU is already running a green subsidy programme that outpaces America’s and to seek exemptions. “Together,” boasted von der Leyen, “the EU and the US alone are putting forward almost €1 trillion to accelerate the green economy.” In other words, the EU does not need a forceful response to the IRA – it can just boost its current green subsidies. In February, the commission proposed a Green Deal Industrial Plan that aims to expand EU investment in green technology. The US government calmly supported this cooperative response.
Ex-post coordination
In the end, there will probably not be a serious transatlantic crisis over the IRA. Rather, the issue will likely follow the new playbook for US-European economic relations established by the Biden administration, which might be called “ex-post coordination.”
The template is quite different from the careful coordination that has characterised the response to the Ukraine war. It is essentially that the US acts without seriously consulting its European allies. There is a predictably angry response from across the Atlantic. The US government expresses surprise and concern that allies are upset and dispatches various high-level envoys to European capitals to listen attentively to European complaints and to publicly pledge to address them. The president then announces that he has heard and understood European concerns, that there is a limited amount he can do at this stage, but he will then offer some token concession. The Europeans declare themselves satisfied with their effort to get the Americans to address their issues and everyone moves on with their lives. No one seems to notice that US has in the process succeeded in getting almost everything it wants.
This is the template the US followed during the Afghanistan withdrawal and in the “AUKUS” debate in 2021 when the US went behind France’s back to conclude a new defence pact with Australia and the UK, wresting a lucrative submarine contract from its oldest ally. And it seems to be the emerging template in the reaction to the IRA and the CHIPS and Science Act. The Biden administration has decided, as Politico put it, to “bow slightly to European pressure” and allowed European carmakers some access to US clean vehicle tax credits.
In a more balanced transatlantic partnership, the US would never have considered initiatives such as the IRA without consultation because its decision-makers would know innately that securing European partnership on geo-economic initiatives is both necessary and non-trivial. Europeans would have participated in the early stages of formulating these policies, probably occasioning many hard negotiations. But they would avoided being presented with a fait accompli. In the case of the IRA, for example, this would have meant that the EU would have been involved from the beginning in its formation and European firms would have had access to the subsidies and exemptions from “Buy American” provisions.
In the current partnership, however, ex-post coordination works because Europeans’ deep and growing security dependence on the US and the increasing integration of the security and economic spheres means that they have much less bargaining power, even on economic issues.
How Europeans can rebalance the transatlantic relationship
Vassalisation is not a smart policy for the coming era of intense geopolitical competition – either for the US or for Europe. The alliance with the US remains crucial for European security, but relying fully on a distracted and inward-looking America for the most essential element of sovereignty will condemn the nations of Europe to become, at best, geopolitically irrelevant and, at worst, a plaything of superpowers. To be able to protect their own economic and security interests, which will be at times distinct from those of the US, Europeans need to build a more balanced transatlantic relationship.
Moreover, vassalisation will not ultimately help keep the US engaged in Europe. Washington has often and loudly demanded greater European contributions to common defence efforts. Even if many US actions promote vassalisation, most US policymakers, in the authors’ experience, know they need a strong European partner for the geopolitical competition to come. They recognise that such a partner would be more independent, and that that independence, while not always welcome on specific issues, is much less of a threat to a functional partnership than increasingly weak and irrelevant European partners. Ultimately, American engagement in Europe will only persist if the US believe it has something to gain from its partners. That sense requires a more balanced partnership, not greater vassalisation.
Greater European sovereignty remains an important goal for some governments, particularly for the French and for the EU institutions. But most member states do not currently even want a more independent policy. Almost universally, European policymakers privately acknowledge the risks of relying on the US and express fear about a return of Trump or his like to the US presidency. But, especially during the war in Ukraine, most feel collectively incapable of greater autonomy and do not want to make political or fiscal sacrifices to attempt it. And, at a deeper level, many countries distrust each other more than they fear abandonment by the US.
It seems clear at this point that this view can only change if and when the US provides fairly definitive proof that it does not have European interests at heart. During his tumultuous term, Trump’s undiplomatic bluntness meant that he did more for European autonomy than anyone since Charles de Gaulle. But even in those days, progress was slow and fitful. Biden’s more mixed message of prioritising Asia while leading the response to a Russian war in Europe is simply too subtle to inspire difficult European decisions.
In these circumstances, the best path for now would be to create hedges against the possibility that the US will focus elsewhere. Europeans can do this by laying the groundwork for a more balanced transatlantic relationship and by building trust among the governments of Europe. Several such hedges are already possible.
Develop an independent capacity to support Ukraine in the long war. The idea that the wealthy nations of Europe cannot take the lead in countering aggression on their own continent, when all EU members (except possibly Hungary) agree that such an effort is necessary, is a startling testament to Europe’s strategic inadequacy. The European Council on Foreign Relations has suggested a plan to support Ukraine that contains four essential elements: long-term military assistance through a new security compact; security assurances in the case of various conceivable Russian escalations; economic security efforts that would provide financial assistance and begin the long reconstruction process as a part of “partnership for enlargement;” and energy security measures that would integrate Ukraine more tightly into EU energy infrastructure. The EU, its member states, and the UK should pursue these measures, and work together to achieve them.
Deploy western European forces to the east in greater numbers, offering to replace US forces in some cases. Beneath the surface of transatlantic unity, the first year of the war in Ukraine has deepened the divides within the EU, especially between central and eastern Europe on the one hand and France and Germany on the other. Tripwire forces, along the model of US forces in Germany during the cold war, are necessary to build trust between western and eastern Europe. There are already some western European forces in Poland and the Baltic states, but more permanently stationed, and more capable forces, configured to prevent or resist a Russian invasion, would create greater confidence and trust.
Pursue greater European military capabilities and greater capacity to act autonomously, both within and external to NATO. Regardless of US policy, Europeans needs greater military capacity, particularly in some of the key enabling capabilities such as strategic air lift; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; and precision-guided munitions – all areas in which the US dominates. They can achieve this both within and external to NATO. The admission of Sweden and Finland to NATO will add significant military and defence industrial capability to the alliance. It could provide an opportunity to build a European pillar within NATO that could pool resources and develop capabilities that Europeans might need to defend themselves and could complement EU joint procurement efforts. The greatest contribution the EU can make to burden sharing in NATO is to commit member states to invest more, and more smartly, in their defence capabilities and in innovative technologies. The main goal in the future should therefore be to procure (within the EU framework) joint military capabilities that can also strengthen NATO’s deterrence and defence capabilities. In this sense, the EU should become an enabler of European defence. A more capable and more autonomous Europe must also include a strong, innovative, and competitive European defence industry whose expertise in the strategic technologies of the future is on a par with that of other major powers. In the long run, efforts by Europeans to increase their defence spending and to keep it on a much higher level will only be politically sustainable if it creates jobs in Europe and benefits domestic industry.
Propose that the US, the EU, and the UK form a geo-economic NATO. Recent debates over 5G and green technology subsidies show that the struggle with China will penetrate deeply into the Western domestic sphere and will securitise questions that heretofore have been purely economic. Indeed, in the century of competition between the China and the West, the geo-economic realm will likely become the central front. The US and Europeans therefore need a forum in which they consider the geo-strategic implications of economic issues such as industrial policy. A ‘geo-economic NATO’ would allow the transatlantic partners to think strategically about geo-economic issues and decide jointly on foreign economic policy, rather than Europeans just accepting US decisions. The intent of such a forum would be to create a joint US-European strategic economic policy on China that would be both more effective and reduce vassalisation.
Create a special EU-UK defence partnership. The loss of the EU’s most capable military has geopolitically weakened both the EU and the UK more than either cares to admit. With the bitterness of Brexit slowly beginning to fade, these partners urgently need to find a formula to reintegrate the British military into EU defence cooperation structures through a bespoke arrangement that recognises the unique capacities and contribution of the UK to European security. The EU needs to offer more attractive ‘docking mechanisms’ to the UK to access EU institutions and programmes. It should see its partnership with London as means to achieving more strategic sovereignty for the EU, and not less. In the long term, this could even help lead to the UK re-entering the EU, even if that is currently a very distant prospect.
Consider a European nuclear deterrent. The war in Ukraine has shown that nuclear weapons are not as irrelevant for geopolitics as one might like them to be. This means that there can be no European strategic sovereignty without some capacity for an independent European nuclear deterrent. As Europe contains two nuclear powers, it collectively has enough capacity to establish such a deterrent. This currently remains a taboo subject. But hedging against US unreliability requires at least debating and understanding what political agreements and capability developments would be necessary to create a European deterrent alongside US extended deterrence. Macron has repeatedly offered to enter into a dialogue on this with his EU partners. It is now up to other member states, particularly Germany, to take them up on this offer.
Collectively, these ideas seek to achieve greater balance in the transatlantic alliance and to enable Europeans to take more responsibility for security and stability in their own neighbourhood. They are in no sense an effort to decouple Europeans from their American ally. Rather, they seek to create the more capable and responsible European partners that the US will want and need in its coming struggles.
Any US president would broadly support such an effort, even if some of the details might cause consternation in parts of Washington that fear more independent European policies. Even the most undiplomatic and Asia-focused US presidents have always seen the value in capable effective partners in a dangerous world. These or similar European efforts are therefore necessary to prevent the alliance from deteriorating into a system of vassalisation that over time will make Europeans resentful and Americans disdainful.
About the authors
Jeremy Shapiro is the director of research at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He served at the US State Department from 2009 to 2013.
Jana Puglierin is head of the Berlin office and senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. She is also director of ECFR’s Re:shape Global Europe initiative, which aims to shed new light on the changing international order and how it affects Europe’s place in the world.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Susi Dennison, Anthony Dworkin, Majda Ruge, Célia Belin, and Asli Aydintasbas for careful reads of an early draft, for their astute comments, and for saving us from our worst excesses. They would also like to thank Malena Rachals for her research assistance and Angela Mehrer for putting up with them both (mostly). And, as usual, they want to thank Adam Harrison for his expert editing, legendary patience, and relentless logic. They would also like to blame these people for any mistakes, but unfortunately they cannot as all mistakes are the fault of the authors.
[1] Author calculation based on the SIPRI Military Expenditure Database.
The European Council on Foreign Relations does not take collective positions. ECFR publications only represent the views of their individual authors.
