Can a Mouse Roar?

 

“There has been a leap forward on strategic autonomy compared to several years ago.”European Council President, Charles Michel, April 2023

The Great Leap Forward?

April 17^th, 2023.  There was something deliciously absurd hearing a former Belgian Prime Minister talking about Europe’s strategic autonomy during an interview on French television last week.  It reminds me of that wonderful 1959 Peter Sellers film, “The Mouse That Roared”.  Sellers told the story of the mythical Duchy of Grand Fenwick, an overlooked Central European state-let that had been founded by a group of drunken thirteenth century English knights who whilst on Crusade got lost. Sellers, as Chief Minister, declares war on the United States because he concludes that everyone who had declared war on the Americans had in the end made money. The European Union?

What was interesting about Michel’s interview was not only that it echoed President “His Master’s Voice” Macron’s call for European strategic autonomy but that said autonomy so sought seemed to be from fellow democracy and long-time liberator and defender of Europe the United States.  Macron made his strategic autonomy comment in China which in 2019 the EU had described as an “economic competitor in the pursuit of technological leadership” and also a “systemic rival promoting alternative models of governance”.  Location, location, location.  Macron was kow-towing to his Chinese host by hinting that Europeans would not get dragged into some future American war, i.e. Taiwan. 

The current buzz-word in EU-Chinese relations is ‘de-risking’ which translated into Mandarin means “nothing to do with us, Guv”.  And yet, not only is the inference that Europe is seeking more strategic autonomy from the Americans, it implies a Europe that is seeking less strategic autonomy from that great defender of freedom, China. Worse, it implies an equivalency in the European elite mind between the Americans and Chinese.  Remind me how many Chinese soldiers are buried above Omaha Beach? No wonder Xi smiled inscrutably when Macron asked China to join ‘Europe’ to persuade Russia to end its war on Ukraine.

Another inference in both the M&M interventions was that Europe can still roar on the world stage even if it is only a soft roar. Selling Volkswagens to the Chinese would seem to trump the values espoused in now countless EU treaties and declarations.  This could also help to explain the mixture of irritation and boredom on Xi’s face when Macron was banging on (as he does) about European power. Less Peter Sellers more Jacques Tati.  

The new ion curtain

What is most galling about this nonsense is the fantasy of some European leaders that Europe can have real influence without real power that the likes of Xi define.  Global Britain is also prone to this fantasy. It is particularly dangerous because an Ion Curtain is descending across Europe. Behind its digital and not-so-digital lines lies Beijing and Moscow with all those under the yoke of a China-propped Russian sphere subject, in one form or another to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from both Beijing and Moscow.

It is all part of Putin’s new drive to increase fear in certain western European NATO members in which the threat of mass destruction and mass disruption combined is reinforced by cyber-attacks and desinformatsiya.  Putin is being re-galvanised by increasing talk in the West about Ukraine possibly losing the Russo-Ukraine War, or rather if the West allows Ukraine to lose the war?

For the record, the answer is clear.  If the West allows Ukraine to lose Russia’s war on Ukraine the West will lose the world. It would be the latest calamity in Western foreign and security policy since 2003 in which a mix of poor American leadership (!!!), European weakness and transatlantic divisions have ‘enabled’ the West to lose Iraq, to lose Libya, to lose Syria and to lose Afghanistan. Another failure in Ukraine would simply confirm to the increasingly influential non-aligned states that only China has both the paying power and the staying power.  

The Duchy of Grand Brussels-wick

What was perhaps most galling was the public division evident in China between Macron and ‘President’ of the European Commission, Grand Duchess Ursula von der Leyen.  What she attempted in China was little more than a foreign policy coup as she endeavoured to put the European Commission in the driving seat of ‘European’ policy. Macron firmly slapped her down by reminding that it was the European Council, i.e. EU member-states that decide European foreign policy, not the European Commission. That begs two big questions? What policy? What power? 

European strategic autonomy as currently envisaged is an alibi for wilful European strategic weakness.  An instrument to enable incompetent European leaders to again blame the Americans for their own strategic pretence and indolence and thus enable them retreat for another few years into the fantasy of a super Grand Brussels-wick in which soft power is real power and ever more acronyms count for ever less military power.  Until that is the day hard power comes out of the blue to once again bash down Europe’s rotten door.

Until Europeans finally wake up and realise that soft power is only every credible if backed up by credible hard power then Europe will continue to destabilise the world with its weakness, President-for-Life Xi will continue to yawn when Europeans speak, Americans will continue to bear the burden of defending the ungrateful and smaller countries no-so-far away about which we care to know little will see their people murdered.   

Autonomy and responsibility

Strategic autonomy’ is a function of relative power not relative words.  Take Michel's country, Belgium. In spite of a 10% hike to the defence budget in 2021 Belgian defence expenditure is still some 5% below the NATO minimum threshold of 2% GDP on defence by 2024 of which 20% per annum should be spent on new equipment.  The Brussels Times even suggests it will be 2035 before Belgium spends 2% GDP on defence, let alone spends it well. Contrast that with China.  The Financial Times states that, “Although China’s military spending is only a third of the US level, it has grown fivefold over the past two decades, according to the US think-tank CSIS, and now exceeds that of the 13 next-largest military spenders in the Indo-Pacific combined”. Moreover, Chinese defence expenditure now outstrips all other forms of Chinese public investment. Where is the Great Leap Forward in that?

REAL European strategic autonomy will require strategic judgement built on strategic unity of purpose and effort.  Judgement and unity are as important as strategic capability and there was little of either apparent in the Macron and von der Leyen visit to China or Michel’s nonsense on French television. In other words, European strategic autonomy must mean European strategic responsibility and what happened last week in Beijing was European strategic irresponsibility. Empty words from empty leaders who count on their emptiness to absolve them of responsibility. Yes, President Macron really does speak for Europe albeit only the French bit of it.

The Mouse that Roared

In The Mouse that Roared Tully Buscombe, commander of Grand Fenwick’s 15 strong invasion force of the United States, eventually meets the US Secretary of State. Faced with the prospect of declaring war on a tiny European state-let the Americans decide instead to sue for peace for fear of being accused by the Soviets of bullying ‘peace-loving peoples”. The following conversation than ensues which might also throw some light on Macron’s strategy in Beijing:

President Macron (sorry, Tully Buscombe): “We want a million dollars”.

President Xi (sorry, US Secretary of State): “You mean a billion dollars”.

Tully: “No, sir, just a million”.

US Secretary of State: “You can’t expect us to give you a measly million? That’s less than we spent in Germany on one city alone”.

Tully: “Yes, but you see, sir, they lost”.

US Secretary of State: “Oh, I can’t promise to get that though Congress. You will have to take a billion.

Tully: “Well, if you could try, sir”.

If Europeans invest more in their own defence they will become more autonomous from the Americans, the Chinese at al. However, European strategic autonomy will only be possible if the ambition is to share burdens and risks with Europe's American ally and for Europeans to act responsibly together on the world stage.  To imply in any way that any such autonomy would be driven by a desire to decouple Europe from the US will not only doom such ambition to fail, it will also cripple NATO.  

There is an alternative. France can declare war on the US, just like Grand Fenwick!

Julian Lindley-French