The coming year will be a challenging one. Europe needs the United States, but Donald Trump’s reelection as U.S. president has complicated this alliance. The continent must rethink and renew its transatlantic relationship.
Russian police officers on Red Square in Moscow: Putin will continue to challenge Europe in 2025.
Maxim Shemetov / Reuters
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Even as it has struggled to respond to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, Europe has not yet developed into a resolute, united player on the world stage. The idea of Europe as a world power remains utopian.
In recent decades, it has repeatedly seemed as if Europe’s hour had come. The brutal wars in the disintegrating Yugoslavia of the 1990s were seen by many as a moment at which economic integration at last had to be complemented by foreign and security policy integration.
The Iraq War was another such moment. In May 2003, political philosophers Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida jointly declared that nothing less than the «rebirth of Europe» was at stake. Europe was being called «to throw its weight on the scales to counterbalance the hegemonic unilateralism of the United States,» they wrote.
Foreign policy ambitions
Spurred by occasions such as these, the EU’s member states ultimately ceded Brussels some foreign policy responsibilities, at least on paper. An EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy has overseen this portfolio since 2009. This figure in turn has access to an extensive bureaucratic apparatus, the European External Action Service. Moreover, the EU regularly adopts foreign policy strategies.
But the major capitals, especially Paris and Berlin, in fact pay little attention to what comes out of Brussels in terms of foreign policy, while continuing to pursue their own strategies. The common EU foreign policy has remained a topic for idealistic speeches that are generally forgotten the next day.
In recent years, a new push for a common foreign and security policy has come from Paris. French President Emmanuel Macron, who took office in May 2017, saw Donald Trump’s first U.S. presidency as an opportunity to implement an independent foreign and security policy, using the EU as a force multiplier.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel offered mixed signals in response. That was enough for Paris to believe it had a green light. To Macron, it seemed as if the moment had finally arrived for Europe to become «sovereign» and «autonomous» under French leadership.
Macron’s moment
The longed-for decoupling from America now seemed to be within reach. Many Europeans felt affronted by Trump, and were more willing than ever before to jump on the French bandwagon. France’s perpetual rival for power, the United Kingdom, which has close ties with America, was also out of the game as a result of Brexit.
When Russia then made good on its threats and launched a major attack on Ukraine in February 2022, this could indeed have been Europe’s hour. Paris, Berlin, London, Warsaw and others could have jointly taken the lead in the West’s strategic and military response, in coordination with Washington.
Donald Trump visits French President Emmanuel Macron following his reelection as U.S. president.
Telmo Pinto / Imago
But history took a different course. From the beginning, Europe failed to show determination in confronting Russia, instead taking refuge behind U.S. leadership. The Europeans left almost everything to Washington, including the tasks of developing a common strategy, building the coalition and holding it together, and providing the bulk of the military support needed. There was little sign that Europe held any ambition of itself ensuring peace on the continent.
This war did not fit in with Macron’s concept of European autonomy. It took him many months to adjust to the new situation and adopt a more resolute tone toward Russia.
Negotiations with Russia
The close transatlantic cooperation that was necessary to stand up to an aggressive Russia contradicted Macron’s vision of Europe. This idealized EU was actually supposed to be post-American – that is, a separate, autonomous bloc able to act on an equal footing with China and the U.S. as the other global power centers, not quite at an equidistant point, but somewhere between the two.
In drawing up his geopolitical blueprint, Macron had identified Russia as a partner. The idea was to integrate a supposedly weakening Russia into the European bloc. To this end, he sought to charm Russian President Vladimir Putin with a great deal of pomp during that leader’s visits to France. Bypassing the rest of Europe, Macron also entered into bilateral negotiations with Moscow regarding the potential reordering of Europe. These talks ultimately came to nothing.
French President Emmanuel Macron gives Vladimir Putin a tour of the Palace of Versailles in 2017.
Mikhail Svetlov / Getty
Today, little remains of these dreams of «sovereignty» and «autonomy.» Reality has overtaken such ideas.
Attack of the autocrats
Russia and China see the West as being weak and in decline. They regard Europe effectively as no more than an annex of America that they would like to dominate themselves.
This diagnosis has not been denied clearly enough by the Europeans. The EU’s leaders have given Russia considerable space to act, in Ukraine and elsewhere. Meanwhile, Brussels’ attempts at formulating a consistent China policy have been regularly undermined by Berlin and Paris.
The two powerful Eurasian autocracies are increasingly working hand in hand. And they are making it very evident what they want: a different world order under their leadership. One thing is clear: The Europeans will not be able to assert themselves in this environment in the absence of close alliances with the United States and other democracies.
When Trump returns to the White House this month, he will find a changed Europe. The past visions of European greatness and independence have collapsed. Russia’s attack has brought even Macron to his senses.
It is becoming increasingly plain that Europe now has only two choices. It can either act collaboratively with the United States, or it can become a pawn for Russia and China.
On paper, Europe’s states have sufficient resources to assert their own interests. But these are less than the sum of their parts. The various member states assess threats differently and have divergent ambitions. This typically makes it difficult to fashion a unified political will.
Trump’s return
In view of this situation, there is an obvious need to negotiate as a bloc with America, the leading power. It is no coincidence that Europe’s heads of state and government are queuing up to pay their respects to Trump. On the other hand, this cooperation will become more difficult and more demanding.
The cozy Cold War world of Joe Biden, in which America has looked after the Europeans like a father, is coming to an end. It is being replaced by the brutal, Darwinian world of real estate mogul Trump, in which nations compete for resources with sharp elbows – and in which others can at most be business partners, never friends.
Trump is prepared to maintain the security partnership with Europe, but only on the basis of reciprocity, not nostalgia. Europeans can count on U.S. support only if they significantly increase the capacities of their own armed forces.
By making this explicit, Trump is in fact simply formulating what has long been the consensus in Washington: that Europe must take responsibility for its own security, and keep Russia in check largely by itself. America’s main task is to manage the rise of China. All other security tasks are being handed off.
Europeans are stumbling irritably into this new geopolitical era without any promising ideas or strategies. All too often, they are still allowing the past to guide their hopes rather than focusing on the dynamically developing present.
Transatlantic Europe
Neither the old, romantic Atlanticism nor the no less romantic idea of strategic autonomy will help. The one is a relic of the West German tradition from the Cold War, the other a revived Gaullism.
The present poses new challenges. The world’s liberal democracies face the task of fending off attacks from Russia and China and of protecting the existing order. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine is only the first stage in this new conflict.
This requires a deeper partnership with other democracies, the largest and most powerful of which is the United States. Europe needs a new vision – one of a transatlantic Europe.
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Publish date : 2025-01-07 03:03:00
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