Good evening.
Guten appetit!
February 2019
It is of
course an honour to be here at the Munich Security Conference supporting the
US-German Loisach Group. My subject – why the US-German strategic partnership
is vital even if it is not special. We are amongst friends so I am not going to
pull my punches. My theme – US-German leadership at a strategic inflexion
point. My challenge – if we cannot face hard truths together about each other,
as friends and allies, we will never rebuild the transatlantic relationship,
for that is what is at stake. My message – Europe and the wider transatlantic
relationship needs German leadership. Honest, open, listening German
leadership. Real German leadership that does not hide in the EU or manipulate
power behind EU scenes. Leadership that reflects what you Germans today are –
democratic, tolerant and decent. A Germany that understands that Germans cannot
be secure and prosperous unless other Europeans are secure and prosperous. During
my remarks I will address Germany and Great Power competition, German
leadership and the transatlantic relationship, Germany and a European Army, strategic responsibility and autonomy, a European future force, Europe’s
only real defence choice, Brexit and the future of the transatlantic
relationship.
Let me start
with this statement of the strategically obvious: without German leadership the
transatlantic relationship – that cornerstone relationship of European and
world peace will fade. The EU might be
Germany’s vehicle of choice for its values and influence in Europe, but it is
the German relationship with the US that is the only real vehicle of choice for
German and European values and influence in the world. The alternative is Realpolitik and does modern Germany want
really to go there? Nordstream 2 presents a Germany that plays bad Realpolitik when it suits and claims Lexpolitik – the upholding of ‘law’ and international
community - when it is convenient. Berlin cannot have it both ways. There must
also be a sense of urgency because the transatlantic relationship is
fragmenting and losing momentum just at the moment its value and utility is
most clear. America is offering little more than frustration, as we saw with
Vice-President Pence’s speech here yesterday, and Germany is offering little
more than words, as we saw from Chancellor Merkel. If we continue down that track given the
challenges we face the West will fail and we will lose the great battles of
strategic contention that are now washing over us.
The impetus for
my remarks:
The impetus
for my remarks is the MSC 2019 report “The Great Puzzle: Who Will Pick up the
Pieces? The report is impressive but was also a puzzle to me because the answer
to the questions it poses is not THIS Europe and certainly not this Germany.
Several
things stood out to me from the report:
•
All Great
Powers are the same and there is a kind of moral and strategic equivalency between
the US, China and Russia.
•
Germany is
calling for the defence of multilateralism via a European Army.
•
Brexit is purely
self-inflicted, but has no strategic implications for the defence of Europe.
•
‘Europe’ must
show leadership and strategic responsibility, but little about Germany showing
leadership and responsibility.
My plea
My plea thus comes in the form of a plea from a British friend and ally not
just about the vital importance of the US-German strategic partnership, but the
need for Berlin and Washington to stop playing at it and start really working
at it. You see, my country, Britain’s days as a transatlantic leader could well
be done. Britain is broken and defeated by Brexit, a defeat Germany has helped
bring about (more of that later). The security and defence of Europe is thus in
the balance at a time when much of Europe is just plain broke. European publics
just wallow in the vacuum of ignorance created by a lack of leadership. Put
simply, there can be no defence of Europe without American engagement and German
leadership. Where is it?
My essential take
on the MSC report was thus: those that value rules don’t like power, whilst
those that have power don’t like rules, most obviously China and Russia (in
that strategic order). Still, I was struck by how the report implied the US is also
part of the latter group, even if Ambassador Ischinger qualified that impression
at his MSC press conference. Surely, after all the US has done for Europe, and
whatever one might think of President Trump, Americans deserve better.
The report
also talked at length about ‘evidence’. For me the critical evidence pertinent
to the defence of Europe and an equitable transatlantic relationship was missing:
According to the IMF between 1999 and 2017 the Eurozone countries grew by a
total of 26% compared with UK compound growth at 44% and US at 42%. Italy grew
by a total of 6.7%. Add indebtedness to the mix and where is the growth to fund
defence? The one Eurozone country with the money to help fund and thus lead European
defence is Germany. By the way, China and India grew by factors of multiples.
Great power
competition
Let me deal
with the issue of Great Powers and equivalency head on. Yes, I see where it is coming from. There are
legitimate concerns about the Trump administration. The abrogation of INF is
not the European way even though there are good reasons for that and Germany
has a different take on how to deal with Russia.
But…to even
imply that the United States, the state which remains the indispensable core of
European defence precisely because we Europeans and you Germans do not want to
pay for the real cost of our own defence, is not only unfair, and unfair
bordering on the insulting. Worse, it is unhelpful. The actual evidence of continued US
commitment to the defence of Europe suggests a wholly different reality. As for the recent Pew surveys on popular European
viewpoints on US power, it just reveals how many Europeans are bloody ignorant
and how too many European ‘leaders’, including German leaders, are willing to
justify such nonsense as an excuse for inaction. Indeed, my sense is that too
many Europeans, with Germans to the fore, are using President Trump as an alibi
to avoid the responsibility Berlin claims it wants.
Germany and a
European Army?
Which brings
me to the German call for a European Army. Years ago I found myself in what is my
normal state of being the Yorkshireman in the European doghouse when I wrote a
piece in the International Herald Tribune.
For fifty years, I wrote, we the allies have told Germany it could not do very
much because of World War Two, for the last ten years Germany has been telling
us it cannot do very much because of World War Two. Today?
The strategic
bottom-line, ladies and gentlemen is thus: the land component of Alliance deterrence
will rest increasingly on the capability, capacity and credibility of German
forces. And, for all the political finessing I have heard of late from Berlin
the Bundeswehr is in a state of
almost complete disrepair with the gap between Berlin rhetoric and Bundeswehr reality would grace a Gunter
Grass novel. Instead, Berlin bangs of about the fantasy of a European Army. This
begs a question: is modern, democratic Germany serious about a European Army,
or even an army of Europeans? Or, is it simply more German political displacement
games to given the appearance of responsibility where little or none really exists?
The contradiction
at the heart of the Aachen Treaty would suggest so. It called for a
Franco-German Defence and Security Council to provide “…aid and assistance by
all means at their disposal, including armed forces, in cases of aggression
against their territory”. Very French, very joint. BUT, it also stated that the
Council would help foster a “common military culture” that, “…contributes to
the creation of a European Army”. What on earth does that mean?
You see there
can be no European Army without a European Government. The failed European
Defence Community of 1952-1954 is a salutary lesson from history. It could
never have worked then or now because the placing of our young people in harm’s
way involves a complex mix of identity, authority and legitimacy. The EU simply
does not have that in anything like a level of sufficiency of those vital
political commodities. Only nation-states do. And, recent operations such as
Libya, Sahel, Syria etc. have again highlighted divisions between member-states
and shown the more defence efforts are integrated the less chance a force could
be used unless in absolute extremis.
Strategic
responsibility?
There has
also been much French and German talk of late about strategic responsibility
and autonomy. It is certainly time Europeans took more responsibility for our
own continent’s defence. The Americans are over-stretched, Europeans face a
range of emerging threats, Transatlantic relations need a Europe that at the
very least can act as an effective first responder, NATO cannot function unless
Europeans generate more capability and capacity and the Brits maybe in no mood
to seriously defend other Europeans. As for the much discussed recent
‘increase’ in European defence expenditure just how many new expeditionary and
deployable new forces will emerge and when?
Which brings
me to strategic autonomy. Yes, it is time for some European strategic
autonomy, I get that. But, such autonomy
will only emerge as a function of real European military power not empty European
rhetoric. Again, it is hard to escape
the conclusion that Germany still sees defence as essentially an issues of Berlin
politics. The real German leadership challenge will be to change that
perception on the part of those of us who would welcome German leadership.
So, let’s not
get distracted by more empty blah, blah. It is getting too dangerous for that.
To evince real strategic responsibility Europeans will need to develop more
capable, interoperable and standardised forces to make NATO work better and to
ensure the EU-NATO strategic partnership is credible given the threats
Europeans face. These forces will also often be organised into coalitions
operating either under NATO, EU or national flags. Or, to be clear, German
leadership might we be embedded in the EU but at times the sound defence of
Europe will require German leadership and Germany must stop trying to avoid
that hard reality.
What a real
German-led European Future Force would look like…
A future European Future Force will need to be
a joint force not a common force, which would simply generate more lawyers than
warriors. It would be focussed squarely on the nation-state. It would need to
be protectable and projectable and strengthen the European pillar of NATO and
give credence to EU-flagged operations in really dangerous places. Given that the
only real European ‘army’ choice Europeans have is between an analogue EU-led
army of Europeans that just bolts together a lot of European legacy stuff, or
an information-led digital 5D future defence that counters disinformation,
destabilisation, disruption, deception and destruction which Germany helps lead
Europe towards.
The force
would need to be physically and intellectually-equipped with appropriate
enablers to operate to effect across the seven domains of air, sea, land,
cyber, space, information and knowledge.
It would need to be supported by a European defence and technological
industrial base that embraces the revolution in military technology and the
application to the battlespace of artificial intelligence, big data,
machine-learning, quantum-computing et al?
Talking of
distraction - Brexit
Brexit is
indeed, as Germans like to point out ad
nauseam self-inflicted but only to a point. And yes, not only do I regret
it because Britain needs to be applying its not inconsiderable influence from
within the EU not much reduced influence from beyond. I do not for a moment
absolve London and the British elite for the utter strategic and political
incompetence they have shown of late and which shames me. Lions led by donkeys has never been more apt.
BUT, Germany has helped turn Brexit into something worse than it need be and
Germany will pay a strategic price for that, whatever Berlin, Paris and London
are saying about the tripartite group etc. The German attitude towards Brexit
reminds me of Voltaire’s remark in “Candide” about the the execution of Admiral
Byng for having failed to sink enough of the French. It was, Voltaire wrote,
‘pour encourager les autres’.
Let me
illuminate that remark with two Brexit quotes I received this past week. The
first came from a senior German EU official. “The increasingly less hidden
consensus in this grandstanding-quarter of this city seems to be to punish and
humiliate Great Britain for voluntarily leaving this best-ever Europe for good.
My own government - quite sadly – is also playing an unholy part in that
devious manoeuvre of ostracizing Great Britain”.
The second
quote was given to me by a senior Briton in London. “Lancaster House is dead.
The way the French have played us over Galileo is disgusting. Forget CJEF. We
are simply going through the motions. Intelligence-sharing? Their threats are
laughable given that we give them the bulk of the actionable intelligence they
need”.
So, what are
the implications for transatlantic relations and the defence of Europe from
this bad Brexit? Britain is to all intents and purposes a defeated country – at
least its spineless elite. There is a real danger that Britain will turn inward
like any defeated country. The EU ‘victory’ in negotiations and the appalling
Withdrawal Agreement will lead to years of friction between Britain and its
Continental neighbours which will undermine the commitment of the British
people to the defence of fellow Europeans.
If you do not
believe me then look at Britain’s defence-strategic choices. Is London
rebuilding the British Army of the Rhine? No. It is investing in new fleet aircraft
carriers, nuclear ballistic missile submarines, new nuclear attack submarines,
new frigates and a host of F-35 strike aircraft which do not a Continental
Strategy make. The British Army is the smallest it has been since Napoleonic
times and could fit inside Wembley Stadium. No, London is hoping the
post-Brexit British economy will hold up sufficiently to close the funding gap
from which the British defence budget suffers. If the British economy does not
hold up who do you think will get the blame?
Implications
for the defence of Europe? Transatlantic relations for what they would worth
could split into a capable Yankosphere and a German-led and ever-so-not capable
Eurosphere. Rather than the Alliance, alliance and cohesion-killing coalitions
would emerge, more five eyes than many eyes.
To conclude…
Yes, the
Yanks can be bloody annoying, we Brits know that and have much experience of
it. But you Germans can also be annoying, especially given the way you play at
power and leadership like some first time swimmer worried about the temperature
of the water. Your angst too often
drives you to want control without the costs of leadership. Some of you will
say I am being anti-German. I am not. I WANT my friend democratic, open,
tolerant powerful Germany to stop talking about leadership and start doing it!
I am not asking Germans to abandon Brussels or forget history as that could
never be nor should it. But, Berlin must stop hiding behind Brussels and using
history as an alibi.
To conclude,
if we fellow Europeans have a say in any or all of this we need you Americans
and Germans to get on and rebuild the transatlantic relationship. This is because
if rules are to be re-established as the basis of the global order they will
only do so if Americans reinforce power with rules and Europeans reinforce
rules with power and that can only come from the US and Germany in strategic
sync. It is time – get on with it! You
need each other and the rest of us need you both to need each other. Clear?
The US-German
strategic partnership might not be ‘special’ in the way the automaticity of the
US-UK relationship still is. Frankly, you both seem to find too many ways to
makes sure it isn’t and seem too often to define each other by annoying each
other. However, the US-German strategic partnership is more than essential, if
it vital and not just for Americans and Germans. It is the cornerstone of the
twenty-first century transatlantic relationship and whatever irritations
Americans and Germans might have with each other you have far more in common, which
is the only reason I am here.
Guten appetit!
Julian
Lindley-French,
Munich,
February 2019
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