Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, German Marshall Fund of the US President, says three things must occur in order to redress Europe’s defense situation, a situation which I believe currently threatens its ability to survive a war as a collection of sovereign, independent nations. Some of these steps apply to us, and we are also, I believe, in the same war-losing peril of our own sovereignty and independence.
First, Europe must rearm, and fast.
Indeed. But even today, I see little stomach for that in too many of the continent’s nations critical to the continent’s survival against a Russian attack. Both France and Germany are in financial crisis and are showing no political will to correct that. The UK is even worse off; its political management doesn’t even seem aware of the depth of its failure. Until they do gain the awareness and the will to act—and then act—they’ll be unable to be serious about rearming, much less hardening their digital and material (water, fuel, and heating distribution) infrastructure against cyber attacks. Only those nations still fresh from the Russian boots on their necks—Poland, the Baltics, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Moldova—remember what that life was like. Poland and the Baltics are serious about rearming, but they’re smaller even than Ukraine compared to the barbarian’s hordes and equipage. And they have a knife poised at their back in the form of Hungary, which is busily toadying up to Russia in its own effort to mitigate the consequences of being conquered again. Rearming is necessary, but it doesn’t seem promising, much less occurring any time soon.
Second, defense innovation must become a shared transatlantic mission. Neither side of the Atlantic can out-innovate geopolitical rivals alone.
De Hoop Scheffer fleshed this one out a bit; however, she’s mistaken in her proposed execution.
The US leads in emerging technologies, but Europe brings industrial capacity and advanced manufacturing. Joint work on protecting critical infrastructure, countering hybrid threats, and developing secure telecommunications and next-generation defense technologies must continue regardless of political noise.
Yes, and no. The US certainly can out-innovate our enemies alone. That’s how we ran the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics out of existence. We can—and we must—do so again, for all that we’re facing an aggressive Russia and an innovative People’s Republic of China. Our economic players’ freedom to innovate as they see fit gives them, and us as a nation, much more flexibility, and the ability to profit from their innovations, gives them much more incentive to innovate and to run the risks necessary for innovation than can any centrally planned process.
We need, though, to do our own manufacturing. Europe can never be an arsenal of democracy, especially with respect to modern weapons and cyber and space threats. Additionally, the industrial powerhouse of Europe, Germany, is not that anymore. Their industrial capacity is shrinking, and it’s becoming ever more expensive and unreliable as the German government insists on unreliable and expensive “renewable” energy sources while disdaining cheap, reliable oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear energy sources.
Aside from that, we’re too likely to have to fight two or three wars simultaneously; we need our own manufacturing capacity to meet those equipment expenditure needs.
That doesn’t mean we should not share innovations with our friends and allies; of course, we should and they should with us. Accumulating best practices speeds innovation. We just need to guard against becoming dependent on others. Our dependence on the PRC for far too many items critical to our economy, our health, and our defense capability demonstrates the destructive folly of that. Friends and allies may be less likely to cut us off at critical moments, but that’s a non-zero proposition. See, for instance, an earlier France kicking our military out of that nation. See the German bureaucracy getting in the way of serious training exercises, including joint exercises.
Nor does that mean we shouldn’t buy European manufactures, also. We just can’t be dependent on them. Aside from the continent’s incapacity, two world wars showed vulnerability of US weapons flowing to Europe. That threat applies to the flow of manufactures from Europe to us in the event of another shooting war.
Third, Washington and European capitals must accept that their alignment is no longer automatic.
This is especially true given that fully a third of the European NATO members continue to welch on their financial and equipment obligations to NATO (and in so doing betray the other members of NATO) and continue to freeload off American money and our promise of American blood in defense of NATO Europe, legitimate members and scofflaws alike.
They need to build flexible coalitions outside the usual trans-Atlantic circle based on shared benefits, not only historical ties.
This is especially true for us. We need to stand up a new mutual defense arrangement that incudes the nations of the Three Seas Initiative, us, and the UK; although the latter’s inclusion should depend on its getting its fiscal house in order and then plussing up its defense establishment to something firmer than a secondary school football team. Absent both of those, the UK would be a net drain and so should not be considered.