“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 17th,
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
