風蕭蕭_Frank
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附庸的藝術：俄羅斯對烏克蘭的戰爭如何改變了跨大西洋關係
https://ecfr.eu/publication/the-art-of-vassalization-how-Russias-war-on-ukraine-has-transformed-transatlantic-relations/
歐洲外交關係委員會
Jana Puglierin, 柏林 ECFR 負責人，高級政策研究員
傑裏米·夏皮羅 (Jeremy Shapiro),研究總監
聯係方式 歐洲外交關係委員會
https://ecfr.eu/profiles/
歐洲外交關係委員會（ECFR）是一家屢獲殊榮的國際智庫，旨在對歐洲外交和安全政策進行前沿的獨立研究，並為決策者、活動人士和影響者提供安全的會議空間，以分享觀點 想法。 我們在歐洲層麵建立變革聯盟，並促進關於歐洲在世界中的作用的知情辯論。
政策簡報 2023 年 4 月 4 日
概述
盡管歐盟努力實現“戰略自主”，但俄羅斯對烏克蘭的入侵暴露了歐洲人在安全方麵對美國的嚴重依賴。在過去十年中，歐盟在經濟、技術和軍事上的實力相對不如美國。歐洲人在自己的關鍵戰略問題上仍然缺乏共識，並期待華盛頓的領導。冷戰時期，歐洲是超級大國競爭的中心陣地。 現在，美國希望歐盟和英國能夠支持其對華戰略，並將利用其領導地位來確保這一結果。
歐洲成為美國的附庸對雙方來說都是不明智的。 通過發展支持烏克蘭的獨立能力並獲得更強大的軍事能力，歐洲人可以成為大西洋聯盟中更強大、更獨立的一部分。
介紹
幾個月來，向烏克蘭派遣“豹”2坦克的問題擾亂了德國和歐洲政壇。 西方集體承諾支持烏克蘭與俄羅斯的戰爭。 烏克蘭表示，它需要西方坦克，而德國製造的“豹”式坦克是最符合要求的坦克。 柏林政府並不完全不同意。 但它擔心事態升級和莫斯科的反應，特別是考慮到德國與俄羅斯的麻煩曆史，因此拒絕首先采取行動。 “我們始終與我們的盟友和朋友一起行動，”德國總理奧拉夫·肖爾茨堅稱。 “我們從不孤單。”
奇怪的是，沒有人要求德國單獨行動。 英國已經宣布將向烏克蘭派遣14輛挑戰者主戰坦克。 波蘭和芬蘭政府已公開表示，他們將準備與其他盟國一起提供“豹2”坦克。 2022年10月，歐洲議會投票支持了歐盟在這方麵的一項倡議。美國、法國和德國本身已經承諾向烏克蘭派遣步兵戰車，這是一種外行人甚至無法將其與坦克區分開來的武器係統。 更廣泛地說，豹子問題發生的背景是，包括德國和美國在內的西方國家已經向烏克蘭提供了數百億美元的軍事裝備，其中大部分對俄羅斯人來說已經相當致命。
但“孤獨”對於肖爾茨來說有著非常特殊的意義。 他不願意向烏克蘭派遣豹2坦克，除非美國也派遣自己的主戰坦克M1艾布拉姆斯。 其他合作夥伴派遣坦克或美國可能派遣其他武器是不夠的。 就像一個害怕的孩子在一個充滿陌生人的房間裏一樣，如果山姆大叔沒有握住德國的手，德國就會感到孤獨。
出於盟國團結的利益，美國最終介入並同意向烏克蘭提供 31 輛艾布拉姆斯坦克，盡管美國經常聲稱艾布拉姆斯坦克對烏克蘭沒有什麽軍事意義。 德國政府不再“孤軍奮戰”，批準向烏克蘭出口和轉讓“豹”。 美國領導層再次允許聯盟解決盟國之間的爭端。 幾個月內，除了少數跨大西洋防務專家之外，整個事件可能會被所有人遺忘。
不應該的。 這一事件引發了有關大西洋聯盟的更根本性問題，而不僅僅是向烏克蘭發送哪種武器係統的問題。 為什麽歐洲最強大國家的領導人認為，除非他與美國步調一致，否則他將是孤獨無助的？ 為什麽在歐洲大陸發生戰爭的情況下，美國仍然需要發揮領導作用來解決哪怕是很小的盟國間爭端？ 幾年前，歐洲人對唐納德·特朗普入主白宮感到震驚，他們似乎準備好從心煩意亂且政治上不可靠的美國手中掌控自己的命運。
但當下一次危機到來時，美國和歐洲政府都回到了舊的聯盟領導模式。 正如歐盟外交事務高級代表何塞普·博雷爾在俄羅斯入侵之前大聲哀歎的那樣，在處理俄羅斯-烏克蘭危機時，歐洲並沒有真正參與其中。 相反，它開始了附庸化的過程。
本文著眼於美國領導地位為何如此強力地回歸歐洲、它是否能在烏克蘭戰爭結束後持續下去，以及美國回歸歐洲對跨大西洋聯盟和歐盟成員國的未來意味著什麽。
當然，最直接的原因是俄羅斯入侵烏克蘭。 但更深層次的答案在於跨大西洋關係的結構和歐盟成員國之間的內部分歧。 但烏克蘭戰爭並沒有改變美國外交政策的基本軌跡 — — 麵向太平洋 — — 也沒有改變其國內關於是否繼續投資於歐洲防務的深刻分歧。 為了長期生存和繁榮，大西洋聯盟仍然需要一個既有軍事能力又政治獨立的歐洲支柱。 但聯盟對烏克蘭戰爭的反應使得實現這種平衡變得更加困難。 因此，本文提出了有關歐洲和美國政策製定者如何在烏克蘭戰爭期間和之後建立更加平衡、更加可持續的聯盟的想法。
歐洲的美國化
在現在看來已經遙遠的過去（特朗普政府），聯盟的未來看起來非常不同。 美國外交政策的重點是中國，特朗普正在與俄羅斯調情，並威脅要放棄美國的歐洲盟友。 歐洲各地的政策製定者開始談論“主權”和“自治”，以此作為建立獨立性、擺脫日益反複無常的美國盟友的機製。
與往常一樣，法國和歐盟機構的聲音最為強烈，但它們也在德國、荷蘭等傳統大西洋主義據點甚至偶爾在東歐產生了共鳴。 德國總理安格拉·默克爾 (Angela Merkel) 在 2017 年的一次競選集會上表示，“我們可以完全依賴他人的時代在某種程度上已經結束了。”
歐洲的這種廣泛認識首先反映了對特朗普滑稽動作和反盟友言論的震驚。 但它也表達了一種清醒的觀點，即除了特朗普的特質之外，美國的外交政策正在戰略性地轉向亞洲，而美國的國內政治卻正在走向自我封閉。 這對於美國對歐洲的安全承諾來說都不是好兆頭。
2019年，歐盟委員會新任主席烏爾蘇拉·馮德萊恩組建了新的“地緣政治委員會”，並誓言要讓歐盟成為全球事務中的獨立行動者。 她在 2019 年向歐洲議會提交報告時承諾，“我的委員會將不會害怕說出信任的語言。 但這將是我們的方式，歐洲的方式。 這就是我心目中的地緣政治委員會，也是歐洲迫切需要的。” （原文中的強調。）從言辭上來說，布魯塞爾、巴黎和柏林的政治領導人已經同意這樣的想法：歐洲人需要能夠領導應對本地區危機的行動。 但幾乎沒有將這個想法轉化為實際行動。
2022 年 2 月，俄羅斯全麵入侵烏克蘭，這不僅僅是讓這一想法受到質疑。 它暴露了它幾乎完全是空的。 美國的強烈反應以及整個歐盟的歡迎，使聯盟重新回到了傳統的冷戰模式。 正如冷戰期間的許多危機一樣，美國發揮了帶頭作用，貢獻了最大的資源。 從其歐洲盟友那裏，它基本上隻是要求政治默許以及對美國主導戰略的軍事和財政貢獻。 正如豹子事件中那樣，盟軍之間的鬥爭一直圍繞著這些貢獻的程度進行。 戰略決策全部在華盛頓做出。 目前，歐盟各國政府，甚至傳統上獨立的法國政府，都沒有反對美國回歸傳統的領導地位。 相反，大多數人都接受它，甚至尋求確保它在烏克蘭戰爭結束後繼續存在。
從某種程度上來說，這並不奇怪。 歐洲國家目前沒有能力保衛自己，因此他們別無選擇，隻能在危機中依賴美國。 但這種觀察隻是回避了問題。 這些都是富裕的先進國家，他們承認存在安全問題，並且越來越意識到繼續依賴美國會帶來長期風險。 那麽，為什麽他們仍然如此無力製定自己的應對鄰裏危機的措施呢？
有兩個根本原因。 所有對美國相對於中國的衰落以及最近美國國內政治動蕩的關注都掩蓋了過去15年來跨大西洋聯盟的一個關鍵趨勢。 自2008年金融危機以來，美國相對於其歐洲盟友變得越來越強大。 跨大西洋關係並沒有變得更加平衡，而是更加由美國主導。 歐洲人在俄羅斯-烏克蘭危機中缺乏行動力源於西方聯盟中日益嚴重的權力失衡。 在拜登政府的領導下，美國變得越來越願意發揮這種日益增長的影響力。
第二個原因是，歐洲人未能就更大的戰略主權應該是什麽樣子、如何為此組織起來、危機中的決策者是誰以及如何分配成本等問題達成共識。 更深刻的是，歐洲國家在如何行動上沒有達成一致，彼此之間也沒有足夠的信任來就這些問題達成妥協。 在這種情況下，歐洲人不知道他們會在更大的自主權下做什麽，或者他們與美國有何不同，因為他們沒有程序或能力來決定自己的政策。 美國在歐洲的領導作用仍然是必要的，因為歐洲人仍然沒有能力領導自己。
本文依次考察了這些因素。
歐洲相對衰落
美國在大西洋聯盟中日益增強的主導地位在幾乎所有國家實力領域都顯而易見。 按照最粗略的 GDP 衡量標準，過去 15 年美國的增長速度大大超過了歐盟和英國的總和。 2008 年，歐盟經濟規模略大於美國：16.2 萬億美元，而美國為 14.7 萬億美元。 到2022年，美國經濟已增長至25萬億美元，而歐盟和英國加起來僅達到19.8萬億美元。 美國經濟現在增長了近三分之一。 它比不含英國的歐盟大 50% 以上。
當然，就權力而言，經濟規模並不是一切。 但歐洲在大多數其他實力衡量標準上也落後了。
這種增長差異與美元相對於歐元的全球使用量增加同時發生——再次與預測相反。 根據國際清算銀行最近的三年一次中央銀行調查，2022 年 4 月全球外匯交易中約 88% 的交易是美元買賣。這一比例在過去 20 年來一直保持穩定。 相比之下，歐元的交易量占 31%，較 2010 年 39% 的峰值有所下降。美元也維持了其作為世界主要儲備貨幣的地位 — — 約占官方貨幣的 60%。 外匯儲備; 歐元僅占21%。 美國從其貨幣的持續主導地位中獲利，獲得了不斷擴大的對其敵人和盟友實施金融製裁的能力，而無需任何人的合作。 俄羅斯和中國正在反擊這種能力，並取得了一些成功，但歐洲人大多接受了它。
美國對歐洲的技術主導地位也有所增強。 美國大型科技公司——“五巨頭”Alphabet（穀歌）、亞馬遜、蘋果、Meta（Facebook）和微軟——現在幾乎像在美國一樣，在歐洲科技領域占據主導地位。 歐洲人正試圖利用競爭政策來反擊這種主導地位，例如，對濫用搜索引擎主導地位的穀歌處以近 25 億歐元的罰款。 但是，與中國人不同的是，他們一直無法開發本地替代品——因此，這些努力似乎注定要失敗。 因此，人工智能等新發展似乎將加強美國對歐洲的技術主導地位。 當歐洲人在技術方麵落後時，強調歐盟監管權力的所謂“布魯塞爾效應”也會失去影響。
自2008年以來，與美國相比，歐洲的軍事實力也大幅下降。 2014 年俄羅斯入侵烏克蘭後歐洲軍費開支的上升有時掩蓋了這一趨勢。 但是，當然，所有實力都是相對的：由於歐洲的軍費開支增幅大大低於美國，因此它已經落後得更遠了。 2008年至2021年間，美國軍費開支從6560億美元增加到8010億美元。 同期，歐盟27國和英國的軍費開支僅從3030億美元增加到3250億美元。 [1] 更糟糕的是，美國在新國防技術上的支出仍然是所有歐盟成員國總和的七倍多。
當然，軍費開支隻是軍事實力的一個近似衡量標準。 但歐洲對此類支出的分歧態度意味著，即使這些數字也可能誇大了歐洲的實力。 歐洲人在支出相對較少的預算時幾乎不進行合作，因此效率仍然很低。
歐盟成員國未能兌現 2017 年將至少 35% 的設備采購預算用於相互合作的承諾。 2021 年這一數字僅為 18%。
更糟糕的是，這些粗略的權力衡量標準實際上低估了歐洲的弱點，而長期的分歧又加劇了歐洲的弱點。 當歐盟《裏斯本條約》於 2009 年生效時，它似乎預示著歐洲人將有新的能力製定共同外交政策並利用當時世界最大經濟體的潛在實力。 但《裏斯本條約》的機構，特別是歐洲對外行動署和博雷爾擔任的辦公室，未能彌合歐盟內部在外交政策上的分歧。
盡管歐盟有著地緣政治野心，但它仍然無法製定共同的外交和安全政策。 相反，金融危機分裂了南北，移民危機和烏克蘭戰爭分裂了東西方，而英國脫歐則分裂了英國和幾乎所有其他國家。 特別是歐盟第二大經濟體和最強軍事力量英國的喪失，對歐盟的威信和地緣政治影響力造成嚴重打擊。
由於所有這些原因，美國在該聯盟中的主導地位在過去十五年中不斷增強。 權力很重要。 美國在兩國關係中的影響力日益增大，這意味著歐洲人越來越覺得自己無能為力，美國人也越來越對歐洲人對安全問題的看法越來越不感興趣——即使這一點目前被拜登政府的“不用擔心，我們幫你解決”所掩蓋。 關於戰爭的政策。
軟弱的後果
因此，俄羅斯於 2022 年 2 月入侵烏克蘭，恰逢歐洲地緣政治嚴重疲軟之際。 與前任奧巴馬政府和特朗普政府一樣，拜登政府曾強烈發出信號，表示打算將外交政策的注意力和資源集中在東亞。 在第一年，它基本上成功地保持了這一重點。 它在沒有與歐洲盟友協調的情況下從阿富汗撤軍，並與澳大利亞締結了一項重要的新防禦協議和潛艇協議“AUKUS”，甚至不惜以疏遠法國為代價。
但當美國情報部門於 2021 年秋天發現俄羅斯在烏克蘭邊境集結軍隊時，美國決策者很快意識到，需要美國的領導才能做出強有力的統一反應。 正是美國提供了有關克裏姆林宮意圖的情報，並對即將到來的入侵發出了警告，而歐洲的反應往往是持懷疑態度。 西方對俄羅斯的大多數製裁，尤其是針對俄羅斯央行的措施，都是由美國製定的。 當然，如果沒有歐洲的遵守，製裁的力度就會減弱。 但正是美元和美國對國際金融體係的控製給製裁帶來了影響。
美國的反應實際上阻止甚至扭轉了拜登政府所宣稱的將重點放在亞洲的意圖。 因此，盡管美中在台灣問題上的緊張局勢加劇，但美中經濟與安全審查委員會仍於 2022 年 11 月得出結論，“將現有武器和彈藥庫存轉移到烏克蘭……加劇了已批準交付的武器的大量積壓”。 向台灣出售武器，破壞了該島的準備狀態。”
因此，美國在向烏克蘭提供軍事和人道主義援助方麵超過了所有歐盟成員國的總和，並且還同意回填這些盟友向烏克蘭提供的許多武器係統。 短短幾個月內，美國在歐洲的駐軍人數從戰後曆史最低的約6.5萬人增至10萬人。 在2022年6月的北約峰會上，拜登宣布美國將進一步擴大在歐洲的駐軍，包括在波蘭、羅馬尼亞和波羅的海國家增派大量新部隊和總部。
當然，許多歐洲國家和歐盟機構正在為烏克蘭做出重要貢獻，提供必要援助。 德國已向烏克蘭提供了超過140億歐元的援助，其聯邦議院剛剛批準了未來幾年另外120億歐元的軍事援助。 波蘭、愛沙尼亞和英國一直處於西方支持烏克蘭的最前沿。 許多國家接收了大量烏克蘭難民。 但總體而言，他們的努力範圍比美國小得多。 例如，以占國內生產總值的比例來衡量，愛沙尼亞的貢獻令人印象深刻。 但以人均計算或收容難民並不能贏得戰爭。 即使綜合起來，東歐的資源也遠不足以完成這項任務。
但美國的領導力不僅僅在於資源。 事實證明，美國有必要組織和統一西方對俄羅斯入侵的反應。 近年來，
近年來，歐盟內部在俄羅斯問題上存在巨大分歧。 波蘭、瑞典和波羅的海國家等國家在這一問題上對法國、德國和意大利等歐盟成員國深感不信任。
直到入侵前夕，肖爾茨和馬克龍都相信與俄羅斯達成妥協是可能的。 他們試圖對諾曼底模式進行新的調整，以阻止俄羅斯進一步入侵烏克蘭。 2022 年 2 月 24 日，俄羅斯的入侵突然結束了這些努力。 在大多數中歐和東歐人眼中，德國和法國對俄羅斯的政策方針都是不可信的。 因此，德國最初無法像2014年吞並克裏米亞後那樣，在歐洲對烏克蘭戰爭的反應中發揮主導作用。這次東歐成員國並不認為柏林是“誠實的中間人”。 他們也沒有忘記馬克龍2019年在沒有谘詢他們的情況下提出的建議，建議與俄羅斯就新的歐洲安全秩序進行談判。
總體而言，東方人認為，這些國家的領導層要麽被廉價的俄羅斯天然氣和利潤豐厚的支出所腐蝕，要麽對俄羅斯政權的本質抱有無可救藥的天真。 2022 年 4 月，波蘭總理馬特烏什·莫拉維耶茨基 (Mateusz Morawiecki) 嘲諷道：“馬克龍總統，你與普京談判了多少次？ 你取得了什麽成就？ 你會與希特勒、斯大林、波爾布特談判嗎？”
歐盟最強大的國家無法發揮領導作用，因為它們沒有得到關鍵參與者的信任。 與此同時，最一貫反俄的國家也無法發揮領導作用，因為它們得不到法國和德國的信任。 它們規模較小或相對貧窮，因此缺乏資源。 波蘭是一個聲音活躍的國家，但其政府對法治的破壞使其在歐盟內部產生分裂。 從這個意義上說，歐洲不可能製定自主政策，因為如果沒有美國，歐洲人可能根本不會就任何事情達成一致。 美國確實是唯一的選擇。 正如愛沙尼亞總理卡亞·卡拉斯 2023 年 2 月在推特上所說，“美國的領導力在為烏克蘭爭取前所未有的支持方麵發揮了關鍵作用。” 事實上，大西洋兩岸都很難找到一個政策製定者或專家相信還有其他方式可以組織對俄羅斯入侵的統一而有力的反應。
由於這些原因，跨大西洋聯盟的成員正在恢複冷戰習慣，即美國領導，歐洲人要麽在後麵推動，要麽幹脆跟隨。 大西洋兩岸的歐洲都沒有獨立努力的空間或興趣，即使是在曾經被視為安全領域之外的美歐貿易等問題上也是如此。
烏克蘭戰爭後大西洋聯盟的動態
很難想象，烏克蘭戰爭總有一天會結束。 當這種情況發生時，或者甚至在這種情況發生之前，美國政策製定者可能會恢複之前將資源轉移到亞洲的努力。 畢竟，在西方把注意力集中在烏克蘭的同時，美國外交政策中的中國挑戰並沒有消失。
2022 年 10 月發布的美國國家安全戰略明確描述了這一方向，確認美國“將優先考慮保持對（中國）的持久競爭優勢”。 鑒於美國目前正花費數百億美元支持烏克蘭對抗俄羅斯，並且在此過程中冒著與世界最大核國家的衝突升級的風險，這似乎是一個不同尋常的優先事項。
但原因很清楚。 正如《國家安全戰略》所述，“[中國]是唯一一個既有意重塑國際秩序，又擁有越來越多的經濟、外交、軍事和技術實力來實現這一目標的競爭對手。” 中國的人口是美國的四倍，其經濟可能很快就會超過美國，其軍隊規模超過美國，而且技術能力日益增強。 它比蘇聯或俄羅斯更加融入全球經濟。 中國已將自己置於美國及其盟友所依賴的許多關鍵供應鏈的核心。 它在文化和意識形態上反對美國和民主理念，利用其新財富將獨裁控製技術傳播到地球上的每個大陸。
通過將西方的注意力和資源從印度-太平洋地區轉移，並確保俄羅斯變得更加依賴中國，烏克蘭戰爭隻會讓應對這一戰略挑戰變得更加困難。 事實上，未來的共和黨政府可能會加倍關注中國，因為大多數共和黨領導人對中國的看法比民主黨領導人更加悲觀，對歐洲盟友的看法也更加偏見。 對於一些有影響力的共和黨外交政策思想家來說，
中國問題的嚴重性意味著，即使“我們必須讓歐洲暴露在風險之下，也罷……亞洲比歐洲更重要。”
但是，盡管華盛頓有這一明確的觀點，但歐洲對美國未來在歐洲安全中的作用的看法似乎完全不同。 正如美國外交關係委員會的利亞納·菲克斯指出的那樣，美國的領導力“幾乎過於成功，不利於其自身利益，使得歐洲人沒有動力自行發展領導力”。
拜登政府投入了大量時間甚至更多飛行裏程來與歐洲人接觸並協調西方對戰爭爆發的反應。 部分原因是，歐洲人很樂意從第二排提供支持，盡管戰爭是在他們自己的戰區發生的。
即使在法國，這個長期以來最強烈支持歐洲脫離美國自治的國家，也沒有對美國在當前危機中的領導地位提出抗議。 法國仍在尋求歐洲更大的獨立能力，特別是在國防工業能力方麵。 但正如所指出的，法國此前對俄羅斯的立場意味著，它在歐盟的同伴已經所剩無幾了。 巴黎似乎是最後的莫西幹人，而歐洲其他國家幾乎完全放棄了更大戰略自主權的想法。
德國的轉變更為深刻。 肖爾茨仍然談到歐洲需要更多的戰略主權。 德國政府似乎已經輕鬆適應了當前的跨大西洋勞動分工。 總理辦公室利用每一個機會強調肖爾茨和拜登之間的個人關係有多麽出色。 在對烏克蘭的軍事支持方麵，對柏林來說，沒有什麽比華盛頓步調一致更重要的了。 2017 年社會民主黨總理候選人馬丁·舒爾茨 (Martin Schulz) 譴責德國將其國內生產總值的 2% 用於國防的北約承諾，並宣稱他“不會屈服於美國重新武裝的邏輯”，這樣的日子已經一去不複返了。 曾經對美國持相當批評態度的社會民主黨現在顯然在華盛頓的庇護下感到足夠自在。
德國總理 2022 年 2 月關於德國政策 Zeitenwende（轉折點）的演講以及相關的影響深遠的德國國防公告，給歐洲和美國帶來了希望，即德國最終可能成為歐洲國防的領導者。 一年過去了，柏林仍在為這個想法而苦苦掙紮。 在向烏克蘭提供武器方麵，德國甚至不是第一個行動者，也沒有激勵其他國家效仿。 它一直在等待其他人指明道路。
總體而言，在安全和國防方麵，《Zeitenwende》的實施進展極其緩慢，這一點尤其引人注目，因為德國在其他領域正在以閃電般的速度前進，例如建設液化天然氣進口碼頭。 肖爾茨演講中宣布的 1000 億歐元特別基金在 2022 年沒有花完。更糟糕的是，該特別基金根本不足以彌補德國聯邦國防軍數十年來資金不足的情況。 德國未能實現北約 2022 年 GDP 支出 2% 的目標，預計也無法在 2023 年實現這一目標。 總體而言，政府仍未為聯邦國防軍提供必要的結構和物質能力，使其成為歐洲安全的穩定支柱。
英國長期以來一直是美國在歐洲最堅定的盟友，它似乎因美國重返歐洲的領導地位而感到振奮。 它已成為烏克蘭的主要支持者，並通過供應主戰坦克引領了烏克蘭的步伐。 它與波蘭和波羅的海國家以及瑞典和芬蘭建立了特別密切的合作，並為其提供了雙邊安全保證。 然而，在歐洲其他國家，英國的參與仍然受到懷疑——英國脫歐的創傷很深。 烏克蘭戰爭可能成為英國未來在支持東歐安全、甚至幫助解決歐盟內部外交政策爭端方麵發揮新作用的機會。 然而，目前英國遠未實現歐盟的統一，可以說是歐盟內那些不信任西方成員國的北部和東部國家的替代夥伴。
在俄羅斯全麵入侵烏克蘭之後，正是這些北部和東部國家最深刻地改變了歐盟內部的動態。 波蘭、瑞典、捷克共和國和波羅的海國家在歐洲外交政策中表現出了某種道德領導力。 他們認為，事件表明他們對俄羅斯政權的評估是正確的，而西歐國家並沒有聽取他們應有的意見。 “[西方國家]認為這是因為我們特殊的曆史：我們受到了傷害，我們無法原諒。 但我們並不生活在傷害之中。 我們隻是看到他們。 我們知道俄羅斯人的行為方式，”拉脫維亞議會國防委員會主席艾納斯·拉特科夫斯基斯說。
他們還認為，作為前線國家的地位賦予他們獨特的權力來決定西方對俄羅斯和烏克蘭的政策。 拉脫維亞外交部長埃德加斯·林克維奇表示：“我們有這樣的理解：在我們地區，北約通過捍衛其領土要麽成功，要麽失敗。 這對北約來說是一個生死攸關的問題。” 最後，他們認為隻有美國才能最終保證他們的安全。 他們一直對戰略自主的想法持懷疑態度，現在認為這無異於戰略自殺。 因此，他們正在采取措施，鼓勵美國更多地參與歐洲並發揮領導作用，特別是提倡美國在東歐駐軍更多、更持久，並促進瑞典和芬蘭加入北約。
總體而言，新的歐洲內部政治動態已經在構建歐洲未來的國防政策。 盡管德國和其他歐盟國家的Zeitenwendes刺激了歐洲國防開支的實際增長，但這種開支的結構意味著它實際上會造成對美國更大的依賴。 麵對戰爭，“國防規劃仍然主要是孤立完成的”，許多歐洲國家“認為國防合作具有挑戰性，隻有在與國家計劃相一致時才考慮它，並且更經常選擇國家解決方案或非歐盟供應商” ”，歐洲防務局在 2022 年 11 月所謂的國防協調年度審查中警告道。
創建一個有彈性、有競爭力和創新的歐洲國防技術和工業基礎的努力已經退居二線。 政策製定者經常認為歐盟或歐洲跨國采購計劃過於耗時且複雜。 重點是快速填補能力差距。 例如，德國政府決定購買現成的、主要是美國的設備，包括 F-35 和支奴幹重型運輸直升機。
作為德國提出的歐洲天盾計劃的一部分，以色列正在考慮采購“箭3”係統來防禦遠程彈道導彈。 此外，美國愛國者係統是該倡議的核心組成部分。 重要的歐洲夥伴，尤其是法國和意大利，目前不願加入“天盾”計劃，理由之一是該計劃在選擇防空係統時沒有考慮到歐洲的替代方案。 波蘭最近決定從美國購買艾布拉姆斯坦克，並從韓國購買坦克和榴彈炮，以迅速建設自己的軍隊。 這將產生持續數十年的依賴關係。 結果是，歐洲人麵臨著放棄發展強大、有競爭力的歐洲國防工業的風險，而歐洲國防工業在未來戰略技術方麵的專業知識與其他大國不相上下。
這次的附庸
美國及其歐洲夥伴可能已經恢複了冷戰同盟習慣，但當前的地緣政治局勢當然與冷戰時期有很大不同。 當時的歐洲是與蘇聯鬥爭的中心陣線，美國的戰略，尤其是早期，主要是在經濟和軍事上重建西歐，以應對來自東方的挑戰。 因此，美國從未（或至少很少）利用其主導的安全角色來獲取國內經濟優勢。 相反，美國允許其戰後巨額貿易順差被侵蝕，並成為歐洲複蘇國家的首選出口市場。 西歐國家在美國安全保護傘下實現繁榮，部分原因是這是美國冷戰戰略的一部分。
21世紀與中國的鬥爭看起來截然不同。 歐洲不是中心戰線，其繁榮和軍事實力也不是美國戰略的核心。 拜登領導下的美國有意識地采取了旨在實現美國再工業化和對中國技術主導地位的戰略性產業政策。 這一戰略是國內經濟政策的一部分 — — 應對國內去工業化的“中產階級外交政策” — — 也是對中國近年來在太陽能和 5G 等戰略性行業取得主導地位的成功的外交政策回應。 正如現任拜登國家安全顧問傑克·沙利文和現任拜登國際經濟高級主管詹妮弗·哈裏斯在擔任這些職務之前指出的那樣，“倡導產業政策……曾經被認為是令人尷尬的——現在應該被認為是近乎顯而易見的事情。 ......如果華盛頓繼續如此嚴重依賴私營部門的研發，美國公司將在與中國公司的競爭中繼續失去優勢。”
從概念上講，歐洲盟友在這場與中國的地緣經濟鬥爭中發揮著作用，但並不像冷戰時期那樣，為了致富並為中央戰線的軍事防禦做出貢獻。 相反，從美國的角度來看，它們的關鍵作用是支持美國的戰略產業政策，並幫助確保美國相對於中國的技術主導地位。 他們可以通過默許美國的產業政策並根據美國的戰略技術概念來限製與中國的經濟關係來做到這一點。
重要的是，在與中國的這場新的地緣經濟鬥爭中，不會有純粹的經濟問題。 與中國衝突的技術和經濟性質意味著美國能夠而且將會把幾乎所有國際爭端都安全化。 從這個意義上說，歐洲關於是否允許中國設備製造商華為進入歐洲5G電話網絡的爭論是未來安全與經濟問題融合的預兆。 美國政府聲稱，華為與中國政府的密切關係意味著在如此敏感的關鍵基礎設施中使用其服務會帶來不可接受的安全風險。 作為歐洲的安全提供者，美國擁有提出此類論點的獨特權力。 這並沒有錯，但正如許多人指出的那樣，禁止華為在歐洲銷售也為美國公司建立更大的技術主導地位創造了機會。
由於這些政策有可能降低歐洲的經濟增長，導致（進一步）去工業化，甚至否定歐洲人在未來關鍵行業的主導地位，因此預計它們可能會引起整個歐盟的強烈反對。 在某種程度上，他們確實做到了。 歐盟和英國正在激烈爭論歐洲是否需要遵循美國對華政策，或者是否可以自行出擊。 美國通過的新產業政策措施，例如《減少通貨膨脹法案》和《CHIPS 與科學法案》，引起了布魯塞爾和其他地方對歐洲人如何保護自己的戰略產業的咬牙切齒。 這些法案出台後，歐洲理事會於 2022 年 12 月得出結論，歐盟需要推行“雄心勃勃的歐洲產業政策，使歐洲經濟適應綠色和數字化轉型，並減少戰略依賴，特別是在最敏感的領域。” （原文強調。）
然而，目前還不清楚這場辯論是否會轉化為影響美國對外經濟政策的政策措施。 自烏克蘭戰爭爆發以來，許多政府官員在接受多位作者采訪時都表示，歐洲人可能會發牢騷和抱怨，但他們對美國日益增長的安全依賴意味著他們大多會接受美國經濟政策的一部分。 全球安全角色。 這就是附庸化的本質。
要了解這一自動服從過程的實際情況，請更詳細地考慮歐洲對愛爾蘭共和軍的做法，這是美國曆史上最重要的氣候和工業政策立法。 在國會通過該法案的過程中發生了一件奇怪的事情。 沒有人考慮該立法對歐洲的影響。 盡管該法案 3690 億美元的氣候補貼可能對歐洲工業造成毀滅性影響，但對該法案的廣泛辯論卻幾乎沒有提及其對美國歐洲盟友的影響。
更奇怪的是，對該法案對歐洲盟友的負麵影響缺乏關注，這種影響也延伸到了歐洲人本身。 該法案的條款並不是秘密——它們隻是在國會公開辯論了一年多。 加拿大政府看到了這一危險，並通過協調一致的遊說活動成功地獲得了該法案“購買美國貨”條款的例外。 歐洲似乎沒有做出類似的努力。
該法案通過後，在歐洲各方尤其是法國引起強烈抗議。 但歐盟委員會仍然堅持認為，愛爾蘭共和軍是應對氣候變化努力的關鍵貢獻，並將歐洲對美國行動的挑戰限製為要求將歐洲公司納入美國的各種補貼計劃。 該委員會沒有在世界貿易組織正麵挑戰美國或尋求報複，而是選擇宣揚歐盟已經在實施超過美國的綠色補貼計劃，並尋求豁免。 馮德萊恩誇口道：“僅歐盟和美國就投入了近 1 萬億歐元來加速綠色經濟。” 換句話說，歐盟不需要對愛爾蘭共和軍做出強有力的反應——它隻需增加目前的綠色補貼即可。 今年二月，歐盟委員會提出了一項綠色交易工業計劃，旨在擴大歐盟對綠色技術的投資。 美國政府冷靜地支持這一合作應對措施。
事後協調
最終，愛爾蘭共和軍可能不會出現嚴重的跨大西洋危機。 相反，這個問題可能會遵循拜登政府製定的美歐經濟關係新劇本，這可能被稱為“事後協調”。
這一模板與針對烏克蘭戰爭的精心協調有很大不同。 本質上，美國的行動沒有認真征求其歐洲盟友的意見。 不出所料，大西洋彼岸會做出憤怒的反應。 美國政府對盟友的不安表示驚訝和擔憂，並派遣多位高級特使前往歐洲各國首都，認真聽取歐洲的抱怨，並公開承諾解決這些問題。 總統隨後宣布，他已經聽到並理解歐洲的擔憂，現階段他能做的有限，但隨後他將做出一些象征性的讓步。 歐洲人宣稱他們對讓美國人解決他們的問題的努力感到滿意，每個人都繼續他們的生活。 似乎沒有人注意到美國在這一過程中幾乎成功地得到了它想要的一切。
這是美國在阿富汗撤軍和2021年“AUKUS”辯論中遵循的模板，當時美國背著法國與澳大利亞和英國締結了一項新的防務協議，從其最古老的盟友手中奪取了一份利潤豐厚的潛艇合同。 這似乎是對 IRA 和 CHIPS 和科學法案反應的新興模板。 正如 Politico 所說，拜登政府決定“稍微屈服於歐洲的壓力”，並允許歐洲汽車製造商獲得美國清潔汽車稅收抵免的部分機會。
在更加平衡的跨大西洋夥伴關係中，美國絕不會在未經協商的情況下考慮愛爾蘭共和軍等舉措，因為其決策者天生就知道，確保歐洲在地緣經濟舉措上的夥伴關係既是必要的，也是重要的。 歐洲人會參與這些政策製定的早期階段，可能會引發許多艱難的談判。 但他們會避免麵臨既成事實。 例如，就愛爾蘭共和軍而言，這意味著歐盟將從一開始就參與其組建，歐洲企業將可以獲得補貼和“購買美國貨”條款的豁免。
然而，在目前的夥伴關係中，事後協調之所以有效，是因為歐洲對美國的安全依賴日益加深，以及安全和經濟領域的日益一體化，意味著他們的討價還價能力要小得多，即使在經濟問題上也是如此。
歐洲人如何重新平衡跨大西洋關係
對於即將到來的激烈地緣政治競爭時代來說，附庸化並不是一項明智的政策——無論是對美國還是對歐洲。 與美國的聯盟對於歐洲安全仍然至關重要，但完全依賴心煩意亂、內向的美國來獲取最重要的主權要素，將使歐洲國家在最好的情況下成為地緣政治上的無關緊要，在最壞的情況下成為一個玩物。 的超能力。 為了能夠保護自己的經濟和安全利益（這些利益有時與美國的利益不同），歐洲人需要建立更加平衡的跨大西洋關係。
此外，附庸化最終不會有助於美國繼續參與歐洲事務。 華盛頓經常大聲要求歐洲為共同防禦努力做出更大貢獻。 即使美國的許多行動促進附庸化，但根據作者的經驗，大多數美國政策製定者都知道，他們需要一個強大的歐洲夥伴來應對即將到來的地緣政治競爭。 他們認識到，這樣的合作夥伴將更加獨立，而且這種獨立性雖然在具體問題上並不總是受到歡迎，但與日益弱小和無關緊要的歐洲合作夥伴相比，對功能性夥伴關係的威脅要小得多。 最終，隻有當美國相信可以從合作夥伴那裏獲益時，美國才會繼續參與歐洲事務。 這種感覺需要更平衡的夥伴關係，而不是更多的附庸。
更大的歐洲主權仍然是一些政府的重要目標，特別是法國和歐盟機構。 但大多數成員國目前甚至不想要更獨立的政策。 歐洲政策製定者幾乎普遍地私下承認依賴美國的風險，並對特朗普或類似人士重新擔任美國總統表示擔憂。 但是，尤其是在烏克蘭戰爭期間，大多數人都感到集體沒有能力獲得更大的自治權，並且不想為此做出政治或財政犧牲。 而且，在更深層次上，許多國家之間的不信任程度超過了他們對被美國拋棄的恐懼。
目前看來很明顯，隻有當美國提供相當明確的證據證明它並不把歐洲利益放在心上時，這種觀點才能改變。 在特朗普動蕩的任期內，他缺乏外交技巧的直率意味著他為歐洲自治所做的貢獻比戴高樂以來的任何人都多。 但即使在那些日子裏，進展也是緩慢且斷斷續續的。 拜登所傳達的更為複雜的信息是，優先考慮亞洲，同時領導歐洲對俄羅斯戰爭的反應，這種信息過於微妙，無法激發歐洲做出艱難的決定。
在這種情況下，目前最好的途徑是針對美國將注意力轉向其他地方的可能性進行對衝。 歐洲人可以通過為更加平衡的跨大西洋關係奠定基礎並在歐洲各國政府之間建立信任來做到這一點。 幾種這樣的對衝已經成為可能。
發展獨立能力，在長期戰爭中支持烏克蘭。 當所有歐盟成員國（可能除了匈牙利）都認為有必要做出這樣的努力時，歐洲富裕國家卻無法帶頭反擊對自己大陸的侵略，這種想法令人震驚地證明了歐洲的戰略不足。 歐洲外交關係委員會提出了一項支持烏克蘭的計劃，其中包含四個基本要素：通過新的安全契約提供長期軍事援助； 在俄羅斯各種可能升級的情況下提供安全保證； 經濟安全努力將提供財政援助並開始漫長的重建進程，作為“擴大夥伴關係”的一部分； 以及將烏克蘭更緊密地融入歐盟能源基礎設施的能源安全措施。 歐盟及其成員國和英國應采取這些措施，並共同努力實現這些措施。
將更多西歐軍隊部署到東部，在某些情況下取代美軍。 在跨大西洋團結的表麵之下，烏克蘭戰爭的第一年加深了歐盟內部的分歧，尤其是中東歐與法國和德國之間的分歧。 絆線部隊類似於冷戰期間駐德美軍的模式，對於在西歐和東歐之間建立信任是必要的。 波蘭和波羅的海國家已經有一些西歐軍隊，但更長期駐紮、更有能力的軍隊，旨在防止或抵抗俄羅斯的入侵，將創造更大的信心和信任。
追求更強大的歐洲軍事能力和更大的北約內部和外部自主行動能力。 不管美國的政策如何，歐洲人都需要更強的軍事能力，特別是在戰略空運等一些關鍵的支持能力方麵； 情報、監視和偵察； 和精確製導彈藥——美國在所有領域都占據主導地位。 他們可以在北約內部和外部實現這一目標。 瑞典和芬蘭加入北約將為該聯盟增添重要的軍事和國防工業能力。 它可以提供在北約內部建立歐洲支柱的機會，該支柱可以集中資源並發展歐洲人可能需要自衛的能力，並可以補充歐盟的聯合采購努力。 歐盟可以為北約分擔負擔做出的最大貢獻是讓成員國承諾更多、更明智地投資於其防禦能力和創新技術。 因此，未來的主要目標應該是（在歐盟框架內）獲得聯合軍事能力，同時增強北約的威懾和防禦能力。 從這個意義上說，歐盟應該成為歐洲防務的推動者。 一個更有能力、更自主的歐洲還必須包括一個強大、創新和有競爭力的歐洲國防工業，其在未來戰略技術方麵的專業知識與其他大國不相上下。 從長遠來看，歐洲人增加國防開支並將其保持在更高水平的努力隻有在為歐洲創造就業機會並有利於國內工業的情況下才在政治上可持續。
提議美國、歐盟和英國組成地緣經濟北約。 最近關於 5G 和綠色技術補貼的爭論表明，與中國的鬥爭將深入滲透到西方國內領域，並將使迄今為止純粹是經濟問題變得安全化。 確實，在中西方競爭的世紀裏，地緣經濟領域很可能成為中心戰線。 因此，美國和歐洲需要一個論壇來考慮產業政策等經濟問題的地緣戰略影響。 “地緣經濟北約”將允許跨大西洋夥伴戰略性地思考地緣經濟問題並共同決定對外經濟政策，而不是歐洲人僅僅接受美國的決定。
這樣一個論壇的目的是製定一項美歐對華聯合戰略經濟政策，既更有效，又減少附庸。
建立特殊的歐盟-英國防務夥伴關係。 歐盟最有能力的軍隊的損失在地緣政治上削弱了歐盟和英國，其程度超出了雙方都願意承認的程度。 隨著英國脫歐的痛苦慢慢開始消退，這些合作夥伴迫切需要找到一種方案，通過一項承認英國獨特能力和對歐洲安全貢獻的定製安排，將英國軍隊重新融入歐盟防務合作結構。 歐盟需要向英國提供更具吸引力的“對接機製”，以進入歐盟機構和項目。 它應該將與倫敦的夥伴關係視為歐盟實現更多戰略主權的手段，而不是更少。 從長遠來看，這甚至可能有助於英國重新加入歐盟，盡管目前這是一個非常遙遠的前景。
考慮歐洲的核威懾力量。 烏克蘭戰爭表明，核武器與地緣政治的關係並不像人們想象的那樣無關緊要。 這意味著，如果沒有一定的獨立歐洲核威懾能力，就不可能有歐洲戰略主權。 由於歐洲擁有兩個核國家，因此它有足夠的能力建立這樣的威懾力量。 目前這仍然是一個禁忌話題。 但要對衝美國的不可靠性，至少需要辯論和理解哪些政治協議和能力發展對於在美國擴大威懾的同時形成歐洲威懾是必要的。 馬克龍多次提出與歐盟夥伴就此進行對話。 現在需要其他成員國，特別是德國，接受他們的這一提議。
總的來說，這些想法旨在實現跨大西洋聯盟的更大平衡，並使歐洲人能夠為自己鄰國的安全與穩定承擔更多責任。 它們絕不是為了讓歐洲人與其美國盟友脫鉤。 相反，他們尋求建立更有能力、更負責任的歐洲夥伴，這是美國在未來的鬥爭中所希望和需要的。
任何一位美國總統都會廣泛支持這樣的努力，即使其中一些細節可能會引起華盛頓部分地區的恐慌，因為他們擔心歐洲政策會更加獨立。 即使是最不善於外交、最關注亞洲的美國總統也始終看到在危險的世界中有能力、有效的合作夥伴的價值。 因此，歐洲的這些或類似的努力對於防止聯盟惡化為附庸體係是必要的，隨著時間的推移，這種體係會讓歐洲人感到不滿，讓美國人感到蔑視。
關於作者
傑裏米·夏皮羅（Jeremy Shapiro）是歐洲外交關係委員會研究主任，也是布魯金斯學會非常駐高級研究員。 2009年至2013年，他在美國國務院任職。
賈娜·普列林 (Jana Puglierin) 是歐洲外交關係委員會柏林辦事處主任兼高級政策研究員。 她還是 ECFR 的 Re:shape Global Europe 計劃的主任，該計劃旨在為不斷變化的國際秩序及其如何影響歐洲在世界上的地位提供新的視角。
致謝
作者要感謝蘇西·丹尼森 (Susi Dennison)、安東尼·德沃金 (Anthony Dworkin)、馬伊達·魯格 (Majda Ruge)、西莉亞·貝林 (Célia Belin) 和阿斯利·艾丁塔斯巴斯 (Asli Aydintasbas) 仔細閱讀了早期草稿，感謝他們提出了精明的評論，並將我們從最嚴重的過激行為中拯救出來。 他們還要感謝 Malena Rachals 的研究援助和 Angela Mehrer 對他們兩人的忍受（大部分）。 和往常一樣，他們要感謝亞當·哈裏森的專業編輯、傳奇般的耐心和堅持不懈的邏輯。 他們還想將任何錯誤歸咎於這些人，但不幸的是他們不能，因為所有錯誤都是作者的錯。
[1] 基於 SIPRI 軍費數據庫的作者計算。
歐洲外交關係委員會不采取集體立場。 ECFR 出版物僅代表其個人作者的觀點。
The art of vassalisation: How Russia's war on Ukraine has transformed transatlantic relations
Jana Puglierin @jana_puglierin on Twitter
https://ecfr.eu/profiles/
Summary
- Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has revealed Europeans’ profound dependence on the US for their security, despite EU efforts at achieving “strategic autonomy.”
- Over the last decade, the EU has grown relatively less powerful than America – economically, technologically, and militarily.
- Europeans also still lack agreement on crucial strategic questions for themselves and look to Washington for leadership.
- In the cold war, Europe was a central front of superpower competition. Now, the US expects the EU and the UK to fall in line behind its China strategy and will use its leadership position to ensure this outcome.
- Europe becoming an American vassal is unwise for both sides. Europeans can become a stronger and more independent part of the Atlantic alliance by developing independent capacity to support Ukraine and acquiring greater military capabilities.
Introduction
The issue of sending Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine roiled German and European politics for months. The West had collectively committed to support Ukraine in its war with Russia. Ukraine said it needed Western tanks – and the German-made Leopards were the tank that best fit the bill. The government in Berlin did not precisely disagree. But it worried about escalation and the reaction from Moscow, particularly given Germany’s troubled history with Russia, and so refused to move first. “We always act together with our allies and friends,” Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, insisted. “We never go alone.”
The curious part was that no one was asking Germany to act alone. Britain had already announced that it would send 14 of its Challenger main battle tanks to Ukraine. The Polish and Finnish governments had publicly signalled that they would be ready to supply Leopard 2 tanks in conjunction with other allies. The European Parliament voted in favour of an EU initiative in this regard in October 2022. The United States, France, and Germany itself had already committed to send infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine, a weapons system that the lay person cannot even distinguish from tanks. More broadly, the Leopard issue took place in a context in which the West, including Germany and the US, had already provided tens of billions of dollars of military equipment to Ukraine, much of which was already quite deadly to Russians.
But “alone” had a very specific meaning for Scholz. He was unwilling to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine unless the US also sent its own main battle tank, the M1 Abrams. It was not enough that other partners would send tanks or that the US might send other weapons. Like a scared child in a room full of strangers, Germany felt alone if Uncle Sam was not holding its hand.
In interests of allied unity, the US eventually stepped in and agreed to provide 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, despite its oft-stated belief that the Abrams made little military sense for Ukraine. No longer “alone,” the German government approved the export and transfer of Leopards to Ukraine. US leadership once again allowed the alliance to resolve an inter-allied dispute. The whole episode will probably be forgotten by all but a few transatlantic defence wonks within a few months.
It shouldn’t be. The episode raises more fundamental questions about the Atlantic alliance than just the issue of which weapons system to send to Ukraine. Why does the leader of the most powerful country in Europe believe he is alone and defenceless unless he acts in lockstep with the US? Why, with a war taking place on the European continent, does US leadership remain necessary to solve even minor inter-allied disputes? A few short years ago, stunned by Donald Trump’s entry into the White House, Europeans seemed poised to take control of their own fates from a distracted and politically unreliable America. But when the next crisis came, both the US and the governments of Europe fell back on old models of alliance leadership. Europe, as EU high representative for foreign affairs Josep Borrell loudly lamented prior to Russia’s invasion, is not really at the table when it comes to dealing with the Russia-Ukraine crisis. It has instead embarked on a process of vassalisation.
This paper looks at why US leadership has returned so forcefully to Europe, whether it will outlast the Ukraine war, and what America’s return to Europe means for the future of the transatlantic alliance and the member states of the European Union.
The proximate cause was, of course, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But the deeper answer lies in the structure of transatlantic relations and internal divides between EU member states. But the war in Ukraine has not changed the fundamental trajectory of the United States’ foreign policy – which towards the Pacific– nor altered its deep domestic divides about whether to remain invested in the defence of Europe. To survive and prosper in the long term, the Atlantic alliance still needs a European pillar that is both militarily capable and politically independent. But the alliance response to the war in Ukraine has made achieving that type of balance much harder. The paper accordingly presents ideas for how, both during and after the war in Ukraine, European and American policymakers can build a more balanced and thus more sustainable alliance.
The Americanisation of Europe
In what now seems like the distant past (the Trump administration), the future of the alliance looked very different. US foreign policy was focused on China and Trump was flirting with Russia and threatening to abandon America’s European allies. Policymakers across Europe began talking about “sovereignty” and “autonomy” as mechanisms to establish their independence from an increasingly capricious American ally.
As always, the voices were strongest in France and the EU institutions, but they also resonated in traditionally Atlanticist strongholds such as Germany, the Netherlands, and even occasionally eastern Europe. “The times,” Chancellor Angela Merkel told a campaign rally in 2017, “when we could completely rely on others are, to an extent, over.”
This broad realisation in Europe reflected, in the first instance, shock at Trump’s antics and his anti-ally rhetoric. But it also expressed a sober view that, even beyond Trump’s idiosyncrasies, US foreign policy was strategically moving towards Asia, while US domestic politics were drifting toward self-absorption. Neither augured well for the American security commitment to Europe.
In 2019, the new president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, formed a new “geopolitical Commission” and vowed to make the EU an independent actor in global affairs. “My Commission,” she promised on presenting it to the European Parliament in 2019, “will not be afraid to speak the language of confidence. But it will be our way, the European way. This is the geopolitical Commission that I have in mind, and that Europe urgently needs.” (Emphasis in the original.)Rhetorically speaking, political leaders in Brussels, Paris, and Berlin had signed up to the idea that Europeans would need to be able to lead the response to crises in their region. But little happened to turn this idea into practical action.
The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 did more than just call that idea into question. It exposed it as almost entirely empty. The strong US response, and the welcome that response found throughout the EU, reset the alliance back into its traditional cold war mode. As in so many crises during the cold war, the US took the lead and contributed the lion’s share of resources. From its European allies, it essentially just asked for political acquiescence and military and financial contributions to a US-led strategy. The inter-allied fights, as in the Leopards episode, have been over the extent of those contributions. The strategic decisions are all made in Washington. For the moment, no government in the EU, even in traditionally independent France, is objecting to this return to traditional American leadership. To the contrary, most are embracing it and even seeking to ensure that it continues beyond the war in Ukraine.
At one level, this is not surprising. The nations of Europe are not currently capable to defend themselves and so they have no choice but to rely on the US in a crisis. But that observation just begs the question. These are wealthy, advanced nations with acknowledged security problems and a growing awareness that continuing to rely on the US contains long-term risks. So why do they remain so incapable of formulating their own response to crises in their neighbourhood?
There are two fundamental causes. All the focus on America’s decline relative to China and the recent upheavals in US domestic politics have obscured a key trend in the transatlantic alliance over the last 15 years. Since the 2008 financial crisis, the US has become ever more powerful relative to its European allies. The transatlantic relationship has not become more balanced, but more dominated by the US. Europeans’ lack of agency in the Russia-Ukraine crisis stems from this growing power imbalance in the Western alliance. Under the Biden administration, the US has become ever more willing to exercise this growing influence.
The second cause is that Europeans have failed to reach a consensus on what greater strategic sovereignty should even look like, how to organise themselves for it, who their decision-makers would be in a crisis, and how to distribute the costs. More profoundly, the nations of Europe do not agree on what to do and do not trust each other enough to reach compromises on these questions. In this context, Europeans cannot know what they would do with greater autonomy or how they might differ from America because they have no process or capacity to decide on their own policies. American leadership remains necessary in Europe because Europeans remain incapable of leading themselves.
The paper examines these factors in turn.
Europe’s relative decline
The growing dominance of the US within the Atlantic alliance is evident in virtually every area of national strength. On the crudest GDP measure, the US has dramatically outgrown the EU and the United Kingdom combined over the last 15 years. In 2008 the EU’s economy was somewhat larger than America’s: $16.2 trillion versus $14.7 trillion. By 2022, the US economy had grown to $25 trillion, whereas the EU and the UK together had only reached $19.8 trillion. America’s economy is now nearly one-third bigger. It is more than 50 per cent larger than the EU without the UK.
Of course, economic size is not everything when it comes to power. But Europe is falling behind on most other measures of power as well.
That growth differential has coincided – again, contrary to predictions – with an increase in the global use of the dollar relative to the euro. According to the most recent Triennial Central Bank Survey from the Bank for International Settlements, the US dollar was bought or sold in around 88 per cent of global foreign exchange transactions in April 2022. This share has remained stable over the past 20 years. In contrast, the euro was bought or sold in 31 per cent of transactions, a decline from its peak of 39 per cent in 2010. The dollar has also sustained its position as the world’s primary reserve currency – accounting for roughly 60 per cent of official foreign exchange reserves; the euro accounts for only 21 per cent. The US has profited from the continuing dominance of its currency to gain an ever expanding capacity to impose financial sanctions on its enemies and allies alike, without really needing anyone’s cooperation. Russia and China are fighting back against this capacity, with some success, but Europeans have mostly accepted it.
American technological dominance over Europe has also grown. The large US tech companies – the ‘big five’ of Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta (Facebook), and Microsoft – are now close to dominating the tech landscape in Europe as they do in the US. Europeans are trying to use competition policy to push back against this dominance by, for example, fining Google nearly €2.5 billion for abusing its dominance in search engines. But, unlike the Chinese, they have been unable to develop local alternatives – so, these efforts seem doomed to failure. As a result, new developments such as artificial intelligence seem set to reinforce US technological dominance over Europe. And the so-called “Brussels effect,” which emphasises the EU’s regulatory power, also loses its impact when Europeans fall behind in technology.
Since 2008, Europeans have also suffered a dramatic loss of military power when compared to the US. The uptick in European military spending after the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine sometimes obscures this trend. But, of course, all power is relative: as military spending in Europe has increased substantially less than that of the US, it has fallen further behind. Between 2008 and 2021, US military expenditure increased from $656 billion to $801 billion. In the same period, the military expenditure of the EU27 and the UK rose only from $303 billion to $325 billion.[1] Worse, US spending on new defence technologies remains more than seven times that of all EU member states combined.
Of course, military spending is only an approximate measure of military strength. But Europe’s divided approach to such expenditure means that even these figures probably overstate European power. Europeans barely collaborate in spending their relatively small budget – so it remains inefficient. EU member states have fallen short of a 2017 commitment to spend at least 35 per cent of their equipment procurement budgets in cooperation with one another. This figure stood at just 18 per cent in 2021.
Worse, these crude measures of power actually underestimate European weakness, which is exacerbated by chronic divisions. When the EU’s Lisbon Treaty entered into force in 2009, it seemed to herald a new capacity for Europeans to forge a common foreign policy and harness the latent strength of what was then the world’s largest economy. But institutions of the Lisbon Treaty, particularly the European External Action Service and the office that Borrell holds, have failed to bridge internal EU differences in foreign policy.
The EU, for all its geopolitical ambitions, remains incapable of formulating a common foreign and security policy. Instead, the financial crisis divided north and south, the migration crisis and the war in Ukraine divided east and west, and Brexit divided the UK and practically everyone else. In particular, the loss of Britain, the EU’s second largest economy and strongest military power, was a serious blow to the EU’s prestige and capacity to exercise geopolitical influence.
For all of these reasons, US dominance in the alliance has grown over the last decade and a half. And power matters. The growing weight of the US in the relationship means that Europeans feel increasingly incapable of acting and Americans feel increasingly less interested in what Europeans think about security issues – even if this is currently obscured by the Biden administration’s ‘No worries, we got you covered’ policy with regard to the war.
The consequences of weakness
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 thus came at a moment of severe European geopolitical weakness. Like the Obama and Trump administrations before it, the Biden administration had strongly signalled that it intended to focus its foreign policy attention and resources on east Asia. And in its first year, it largely succeeded at maintaining this focus. It withdrew US forces from Afghanistan without coordinating with its European allies and concluded “AUKUS,” a major new defence pact and submarine deal with Australia, even at the cost of alienating France.
But when US intelligence detected the Russian troop build-up along the Ukrainian border in the autumn of 2021, US policymakers quickly realised that a forceful and unified response required American leadership. It was the US that provided intelligence on the Kremlin’s intentions and warned about the coming invasion, often meeting with a sceptical European response. It is the US that has shaped most Western sanctions on Russia, particularly the measures targeting its central bank. Of course, without European compliance, sanctions would be less powerful. But it is the US dollar and American control of the international financial system that have given the sanctions their bite.
The US response has effectively halted and even reversed the Biden administration’s stated intention to focus on Asia. So, despite the increased tensions with China over Taiwan, the US China Economic and Security Review Commission concluded in November 2022 that “the diversion of existing stocks of weapons and munitions to Ukraine … has exacerbated a sizeable backlog in the delivery of weapons already approved for sale to Taiwan, undermining the island’s readiness.”
And so, the US has outstripped all EU member states combined in providing military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, and has also agreed to backfill many of the weapons systems that these allies have provided to Ukraine. In just a few months, US troop deployments in Europe increased from a post-war historic low of around 65,000 to 100,000. At the June 2022 NATO summit, Biden announced the US would further expand its force presence in Europe, including substantial new forces and headquarters in Poland, Romania, and the Baltic states.
Of course, many European countries and the EU institutions are making important contributions and providing essential assistance to Ukraine. Germany has provided more than €14 billion in aid to Ukraine and its Bundestag has just approved another €12 billion in military aid for the next few years. Poland, Estonia, and the UK have been at the forefront of Western efforts to support Ukraine. Many countries have taken in very large numbers of Ukrainian refugees. But overall their efforts are much more modest in scope than that of the US. Estonian contributions, for example, are impressive when measured as a share of GDP. But you do not win a war on a per capita basis or by hosting refugees. Even combined, eastern European resources are not remotely up to the task.
But American leadership is about more than just resources. The US has proven necessary to organise and unify the Western response to the Russian invasion. Within the EU, there had been enormous divisions on the question of Russia in recent years. Countries such as Poland, Sweden, and the Baltic states deeply distrust EU members such as France, Germany, and Italy on the issue.
Scholz and Macron believed until the very eve of the invasion that a compromise with Russia was possible. They had tried to put a new spin on the Normandy format to dissuade Russia from invading Ukraine further. On 24 February 2022, Russia’s invasion ended these efforts abruptly. In the eyes of most central and eastern Europeans, both the German and French policy approaches towards Russia were discredited. Germany was therefore initially unable to take the leading role in formulating the European response to the war in Ukraine in the way it had after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Eastern EU member states this time did not perceive Berlin as an ‘honest broker.’ They had also not forgotten Macron’s 2019 effort, taken without consulting them, to suggest negotiating with Russia over a new European security order.
Overall, easterners believe that the leadership of these countries have either been corrupted by cheap Russian gas and lucrative payouts or are hopelessly naive about the nature of the Russian regime. “President Macron,” taunted Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki in April 2022, “how many times have you negotiated with Putin? What have you achieved? Would you negotiate with Hitler, with Stalin, with Pol Pot?”
The most powerful countries in the EU could not lead because they did not have the trust of key actors. Meanwhile, the most consistently anti-Russian countries could not lead because, in turn, they did not have the confidence of France and Germany. They are also small or relatively poor and thus lack the resources. Poland is a vocally active, but its government’s undermining of the rule of law make it divisive within the bloc. In this sense, no autonomous European policy was possible because, without the US, Europeans probably would not have agreed on anything at all. America was really the only choice. As Estonian prime minister Kaja Kallas tweeted in February 2023, “US leadership has been key in rallying unprecedented support for Ukraine.” Indeed, it is difficult to find a policymaker or expert on either side of the Atlantic that believes that there was any other way to organise a unified and forceful response to Russia’s invasion.
For these reasons, members of the transatlantic alliance are reverting to their cold war habits in which the Americans lead while the Europeans either push from behind or simply follow. There is little room or appetite for independent European efforts on either side of the Atlantic, even on issues such as US-EU trade that were once considered outside of the security realm.
Atlantic alliance dynamics after the war in Ukraine
It is hard to imagine, but the war in Ukraine will end some day. When it does, or perhaps even before it does, American policymakers will likely return to their previous efforts to shift resources to Asia. After all, the China challenge in US foreign policy has not gone away while the West has focused on Ukraine.
The US National Security Strategy, published in October 2022, starkly describes this direction, affirming that the US “will prioritize maintaining an enduring competitive edge over the [China].” This might seem an unusual priority given that the US is currently spending tens of billion of dollars supporting Ukraine in war against Russia, and in the process is risking escalation with the world’s largest nuclear power.
But the reasons are clear. As the National Security Strategy states, “[China] is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it.” China has four times the population of the US, its economy may soon exceed that of the US, and its military is larger than the American military and growing more technologically capable by the day. It is more integrated into the global economy than the Soviet Union was or Russia ever has been. China has placed itself at the heart of many critical supply chains that the US and its allies depend on. It has defined itself in cultural and ideological opposition to the US and to the idea of democracy, using its new wealth to spread the techniques of authoritarian control to every continent on Earth.
By diverting Western attention and resources away from the Indo-Pacific and by ensuring Russia becomes dramatically more dependent on China, the war in Ukraine has only made addressing this strategic challenge even harder. Indeed, a future Republican administration would likely double down on focusing on China, as most Republican leaders have a yet more dire view of China and yet more jaundiced view of European allies than their Democrat counterparts do. For some influential Republican foreign policy thinkers, the severity of the China problem means that even “if we have to leave Europe exposed, so be it … Asia is more important than Europe.”
But, despite this clear view coming from Washington, the perspective in Europe on America’s future role in European security seems entirely different. As Liana Fix of the US Council on Foreign Relations notes, American leadership “has been almost too successful for its own good, leaving Europeans no incentive to develop leadership on their own.”
The Biden administration has devoted many hours and even more air miles to engaging the Europeans and coordinating Western responses to the outbreak of war. Partially as a result, Europeans are very comfortable to support from the second row, even though the war is happening in their own theatre.
Even in France, long the strongest proponent of European autonomy from the US, has not protested about American leadership in the current crisis. France still seeks greater independent capability for Europe, especially in terms of defence industrial capacity. But, as noted, France’s previous stances on Russia mean that it has few, if any, fellow travellers left in the EU. Paris seems to be the last of the Mohicans, while the rest of Europe has almost completely renounced the idea of greater strategic autonomy.
The transformation in Germany is more profound. Scholz still speaks about the need for more European strategic sovereignty. The German government seems to have settled comfortably into the current transatlantic division of labour. The chancellor’s office stresses at every available opportunity how excellent the personal relationship between Scholz and Biden is. When it comes to military support for Ukraine, nothing is more important to Berlin than for Washington to move in lockstep. And long gone are the days when Martin Schulz, the Social Democratic candidate for chancellor in 2017, railed against Germany’s NATO commitment to spend 2 per cent of its GDP on defence, declaring that he would “not submit to a US logic of rearmament”. The Social Democrats, who used to be fairly critical of the US, now clearly feel comfortable enough under Washington’s wing.
The chancellor’s February 2022 speech about the Zeitenwende (turning point) in German policy and the associated far-reaching announcements for German defence raised hopes in Europe and the US that Germany might eventually emerge as a leader of European defence. A year on, Berlin is still struggling with this idea. In supplying arms to Ukraine, Germany has hardly even been a first mover that inspired others to follow suit. It has waited for others to show the way.
Overall, the implementation of the Zeitenwende has been proceeding extremely slowly when it comes to security and defence – which is particularly striking because Germany is advancing at lightning speed in other areas, such as the construction of terminals for the import of liquefied natural gas. Nothing of the €100 billion special fund announced in Scholz’s speech was spent in 2022. Worse, the special fund will not be even close to enough to make up for decades of underfunding the Bundeswehr. Germany missed NATO’s 2 per cent of GDP spending target in 2022 and is not expected to meet it in 2023 either. Overall, the government has still not provided the necessary structural and material capability for the Bundeswehr to become an anchor of stability for European security.
The UK, long America’s staunchest ally in Europe, appears energised by the return of US leadership to Europe. It has emerged as a key supporter of Ukraine and set the pace by supplying battle tanks. It has established particularly close cooperation with Poland and the Baltic states, as well as with Sweden and Finland, to which it has given bilateral security guarantees. In the rest of Europe, however, the UK’s engagement is still met with suspicion – the wounds of Brexit cut deep. The war in Ukraine could be an opportunity for the UK to play a new role in supporting eastern European security in the future and even helping to settle disputes within the EU over foreign policy. For the moment, however, far from unifying the EU, the UK arguably serves as an alternative partner to those northern and eastern states within the EU that distrust the western member states.
It is these northern and eastern states that have most profoundly changed the internal EU dynamic following Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine. Poland, Sweden, the Czech Republic, and the Baltic states have demonstrated a sort of moral leadership in European foreign policy. They believe events have shown that their assessment of the Russian regime was correct and that western EU states did not listen to them as they should have. “[Western states] thought this was because of our peculiar history: that we were hurt and we can’t forgive. But we don’t live in hurt. We simply see them. We know how Russians act,” said Ainars Latkovskis, chair of the defence committee in Latvia’s parliament. They also believe that their status as frontline states gives them a unique authority to determine Western policy toward Russia and Ukraine. “There is an understanding,” according to Edgars Rinkevics, Latvia’s foreign minister, “that we are the region where NATO, by defending its territory, either succeeds or fails. This is a life-or-death issue for NATO.” Finally, they feel vindicated in their view that only the US can ultimately guarantee their security. Always sceptical about the idea of strategic autonomy, they now think that this would amount to strategic suicide. They are accordingly taking measures to encourage greater US involvement and leadership in Europe, particularly through advocating greater and more permanent US troops presence in eastern Europe and promoting NATO membership for Sweden and Finland.
Overall, the new internal European political dynamic is already structuring European defence policy for the future. Even as Zeitenwendes in Germany and other EU states have spurred real increases in European defence spending, the structure of that spending means that it will actually create greater dependence on the US. In the face of war, “defence planning continues to be done mostly in isolation” and many European countries “regard defence cooperation as challenging, consider it only when it coincides with national plans, and more often opt for national solutions or non-EU suppliers”, warned the European Defence Agency’s so-called Coordinated Annual Review on Defence in November 2022.
The effort to create a resilient, competitive, and innovative European defence technological and industrial base has taken a back seat. Policymakers often see EU or transnational European procurement programmes as too time-consuming and complex. The focus is on quickly filling capability gaps. The German government, for example, has decided to buy off-the-shelf, mainly American equipment, including the F-35 and the Chinook heavy transport helicopter.
As part of the European Sky Shield initiative proposed by Germany, the procurement of the Israeli Arrow 3 system is being considered for defence against long-range ballistic missiles. In addition, the US Patriot system is a central component of the initiative. Important European partners, above all France and Italy, are currently unwilling to join Sky Shield, citing, among other things, that the initiative has not taken into account European alternatives in the choice of air defence systems. Poland recently decided to buy Abrams tanks from the US, as well as tanks and howitzers from South Korea as it rapidly builds up its army. This will create dependencies that will last for decades. The result is that Europeans risk abandoning the development of a strong, competitive European defence industry, whose expertise in strategic technologies of the future is on a par with that of other major powers.
The vassalisation this time
The US and its European partners may have returned to their cold war alliance habits, but of course the current geopolitical situation is vastly different than during the cold war. Europe then was the central front in the struggle with Soviet Union, and US strategy, especially in the early days, hinged on rebuilding western Europe both economically and militarily so that it could stand up to the challenge from the east. Accordingly, the US never (or at least only rarely) used its dominant security role for domestic economic advantage. To the contrary, the US allowed its massive postwar trade surplus to erode and became the export market of choice for the recovering nations of Europe. The nations of western Europe prospered under the US security umbrella in part because it was part of the US cold war strategy that they should.
The 21st century struggle with China looks quite different. Europe is not the central front, and its prosperity and military strength are not central to US strategy. The US under Biden has consciously adopted a strategic industrial policy aimed at American reindustrialisation and technological dominance over China. This strategy is part domestic economic policy – “a foreign policy for the middle class” that responds to deindustrialisation at home – and part a foreign policy response to China’s success in recent years at capturing dominant positions in strategic industries such as solar energy and 5G. As Jake Sullivan, now Biden’s national security adviser, and Jennifer Harris, now his senior director for international economics, noted before taking up these posts, “advocating industrial policy … was once considered embarrassing—now it should be considered something close to obvious. … US firms will continue to lose ground in the competition with Chinese companies if Washington continues to rely so heavily on private sector research and development.”
Conceptually, European allies have a role in this geo-economic struggle with China, but it is not, as during the cold war, to become rich and contribute to the military defence of the central front. To the contrary, their key role from a US perspective is to support US strategic industrial policy and to help ensure American technological dominance vis-à-vis China. They can do so by acquiescing to US industrial policy and by circumscribing their economic relations with China according to American concepts of strategic technologies.
Importantly, in this new geo-economic struggle with China, there will be no purely economic issues. The technological and economic nature of the conflict with China means that the US can and will securitise nearly every international dispute. In this sense, the debate in Europe over whether to allow the Chinese equipment manufacturer Huawei into European 5G telephone networks is a harbinger of the future integration of security and economic issues. The US government claimed that Huawei’s close relationship with the Chinese government meant that using its service in such sensitive critical infrastructure presented an unacceptable security risk. As the security provider for Europe, the US has a unique authority to make such arguments. It is not wrong, but, as many have noted, banning Huawei sales in Europe also creates an opportunity for US firms to establish greater technological dominance.
As these policies have the potential to reduce economic growth in Europe, cause (further) deindustrialisation, or even deny Europeans dominant positions in key industries of the future, they might be expected to generate serious opposition throughout the EU. And to some degree, they have. A debate rages in the EU and the UK about whether Europeans need to follow US policy on China or whether they can strike out on their own. The passage in the US of new industrial policy measures such as the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act have caused much gnashing of teeth in Brussels and elsewhere about how Europeans can preserve their own strategic industries. In the wake of these bills, the European Council concluded in December 2022 that the EU needs to pursue “an ambitious European industrial policy to make Europe’s economy fit for the green and digital transitions and reduce strategic dependencies, particularly in the most sensitive areas.” (Emphasis in the original.)
However, it is far from clear that any of this debate will translate into policy measures that will affect US foreign economic policy. Many administration officials, in various author interviews since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, have expressed the view that Europeans may whine and complain, but that their increasing security dependence on the US means that they will mostly accept economic policies framed as part of America’s global security role. This is the essence of vassalisation.
To see this process of auto-subservience in action, consider in more detail the European approach to the IRA, the most significant piece of climate and industrial policy legislation in American history. A curious thing happened on the way to passing that bill in the Congress. Nobody considered the impact of the legislation on Europe. Despite the potentially devastating effect of the bill’s $369 billion in climate subsidies on European industry, the extensive debate on the bill contained barely any mention of its effect on America’s European allies.
Even more oddly, this lack of attention to the bill’s negative effect on European allies extended to the Europeans themselves. The bill’s provisions were no secret – they were only openly debated in the Congress for a well over a year. The Canadian government saw the danger and succeeded, through a concerted lobbying campaign, in getting an exception from the bill’s “Buy American” provisions. There appears to have been no similar European effort.
Following the bill’s passage, there was an outcry in various quarters in Europe, particularly in France. But the European Commission still insists that the IRA is a key contribution to the effort to combat climate change and has limited the European challenge to US actions to requesting inclusion for European companies in the various US subsidy plans. Rather than frontally challenge the US at the World Trade Organization or otherwise seek retaliation, the commission has chosen to tout that the EU is already running a green subsidy programme that outpaces America’s and to seek exemptions. “Together,” boasted von der Leyen, “the EU and the US alone are putting forward almost €1 trillion to accelerate the green economy.” In other words, the EU does not need a forceful response to the IRA – it can just boost its current green subsidies. In February, the commission proposed a Green Deal Industrial Plan that aims to expand EU investment in green technology. The US government calmly supported this cooperative response.
Ex-post coordination
In the end, there will probably not be a serious transatlantic crisis over the IRA. Rather, the issue will likely follow the new playbook for US-European economic relations established by the Biden administration, which might be called “ex-post coordination.”
The template is quite different from the careful coordination that has characterised the response to the Ukraine war. It is essentially that the US acts without seriously consulting its European allies. There is a predictably angry response from across the Atlantic. The US government expresses surprise and concern that allies are upset and dispatches various high-level envoys to European capitals to listen attentively to European complaints and to publicly pledge to address them. The president then announces that he has heard and understood European concerns, that there is a limited amount he can do at this stage, but he will then offer some token concession. The Europeans declare themselves satisfied with their effort to get the Americans to address their issues and everyone moves on with their lives. No one seems to notice that US has in the process succeeded in getting almost everything it wants.
This is the template the US followed during the Afghanistan withdrawal and in the “AUKUS” debate in 2021 when the US went behind France’s back to conclude a new defence pact with Australia and the UK, wresting a lucrative submarine contract from its oldest ally. And it seems to be the emerging template in the reaction to the IRA and the CHIPS and Science Act. The Biden administration has decided, as Politico put it, to “bow slightly to European pressure” and allowed European carmakers some access to US clean vehicle tax credits.
In a more balanced transatlantic partnership, the US would never have considered initiatives such as the IRA without consultation because its decision-makers would know innately that securing European partnership on geo-economic initiatives is both necessary and non-trivial. Europeans would have participated in the early stages of formulating these policies, probably occasioning many hard negotiations. But they would avoided being presented with a fait accompli. In the case of the IRA, for example, this would have meant that the EU would have been involved from the beginning in its formation and European firms would have had access to the subsidies and exemptions from “Buy American” provisions.
In the current partnership, however, ex-post coordination works because Europeans’ deep and growing security dependence on the US and the increasing integration of the security and economic spheres means that they have much less bargaining power, even on economic issues.
How Europeans can rebalance the transatlantic relationship
Vassalisation is not a smart policy for the coming era of intense geopolitical competition – either for the US or for Europe. The alliance with the US remains crucial for European security, but relying fully on a distracted and inward-looking America for the most essential element of sovereignty will condemn the nations of Europe to become, at best, geopolitically irrelevant and, at worst, a plaything of superpowers. To be able to protect their own economic and security interests, which will be at times distinct from those of the US, Europeans need to build a more balanced transatlantic relationship.
Moreover, vassalisation will not ultimately help keep the US engaged in Europe. Washington has often and loudly demanded greater European contributions to common defence efforts. Even if many US actions promote vassalisation, most US policymakers, in the authors’ experience, know they need a strong European partner for the geopolitical competition to come. They recognise that such a partner would be more independent, and that that independence, while not always welcome on specific issues, is much less of a threat to a functional partnership than increasingly weak and irrelevant European partners. Ultimately, American engagement in Europe will only persist if the US believe it has something to gain from its partners. That sense requires a more balanced partnership, not greater vassalisation.
Greater European sovereignty remains an important goal for some governments, particularly for the French and for the EU institutions. But most member states do not currently even want a more independent policy. Almost universally, European policymakers privately acknowledge the risks of relying on the US and express fear about a return of Trump or his like to the US presidency. But, especially during the war in Ukraine, most feel collectively incapable of greater autonomy and do not want to make political or fiscal sacrifices to attempt it. And, at a deeper level, many countries distrust each other more than they fear abandonment by the US.
It seems clear at this point that this view can only change if and when the US provides fairly definitive proof that it does not have European interests at heart. During his tumultuous term, Trump’s undiplomatic bluntness meant that he did more for European autonomy than anyone since Charles de Gaulle. But even in those days, progress was slow and fitful. Biden’s more mixed message of prioritising Asia while leading the response to a Russian war in Europe is simply too subtle to inspire difficult European decisions.
In these circumstances, the best path for now would be to create hedges against the possibility that the US will focus elsewhere. Europeans can do this by laying the groundwork for a more balanced transatlantic relationship and by building trust among the governments of Europe. Several such hedges are already possible.
Develop an independent capacity to support Ukraine in the long war. The idea that the wealthy nations of Europe cannot take the lead in countering aggression on their own continent, when all EU members (except possibly Hungary) agree that such an effort is necessary, is a startling testament to Europe’s strategic inadequacy. The European Council on Foreign Relations has suggested a plan to support Ukraine that contains four essential elements: long-term military assistance through a new security compact; security assurances in the case of various conceivable Russian escalations; economic security efforts that would provide financial assistance and begin the long reconstruction process as a part of “partnership for enlargement;” and energy security measures that would integrate Ukraine more tightly into EU energy infrastructure. The EU, its member states, and the UK should pursue these measures, and work together to achieve them.
Deploy western European forces to the east in greater numbers, offering to replace US forces in some cases. Beneath the surface of transatlantic unity, the first year of the war in Ukraine has deepened the divides within the EU, especially between central and eastern Europe on the one hand and France and Germany on the other. Tripwire forces, along the model of US forces in Germany during the cold war, are necessary to build trust between western and eastern Europe. There are already some western European forces in Poland and the Baltic states, but more permanently stationed, and more capable forces, configured to prevent or resist a Russian invasion, would create greater confidence and trust.
Pursue greater European military capabilities and greater capacity to act autonomously, both within and external to NATO. Regardless of US policy, Europeans needs greater military capacity, particularly in some of the key enabling capabilities such as strategic air lift; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; and precision-guided munitions – all areas in which the US dominates. They can achieve this both within and external to NATO. The admission of Sweden and Finland to NATO will add significant military and defence industrial capability to the alliance. It could provide an opportunity to build a European pillar within NATO that could pool resources and develop capabilities that Europeans might need to defend themselves and could complement EU joint procurement efforts. The greatest contribution the EU can make to burden sharing in NATO is to commit member states to invest more, and more smartly, in their defence capabilities and in innovative technologies. The main goal in the future should therefore be to procure (within the EU framework) joint military capabilities that can also strengthen NATO’s deterrence and defence capabilities. In this sense, the EU should become an enabler of European defence. A more capable and more autonomous Europe must also include a strong, innovative, and competitive European defence industry whose expertise in the strategic technologies of the future is on a par with that of other major powers. In the long run, efforts by Europeans to increase their defence spending and to keep it on a much higher level will only be politically sustainable if it creates jobs in Europe and benefits domestic industry.
Propose that the US, the EU, and the UK form a geo-economic NATO. Recent debates over 5G and green technology subsidies show that the struggle with China will penetrate deeply into the Western domestic sphere and will securitise questions that heretofore have been purely economic. Indeed, in the century of competition between the China and the West, the geo-economic realm will likely become the central front. The US and Europeans therefore need a forum in which they consider the geo-strategic implications of economic issues such as industrial policy. A ‘geo-economic NATO’ would allow the transatlantic partners to think strategically about geo-economic issues and decide jointly on foreign economic policy, rather than Europeans just accepting US decisions. The intent of such a forum would be to create a joint US-European strategic economic policy on China that would be both more effective and reduce vassalisation.
Create a special EU-UK defence partnership. The loss of the EU’s most capable military has geopolitically weakened both the EU and the UK more than either cares to admit. With the bitterness of Brexit slowly beginning to fade, these partners urgently need to find a formula to reintegrate the British military into EU defence cooperation structures through a bespoke arrangement that recognises the unique capacities and contribution of the UK to European security. The EU needs to offer more attractive ‘docking mechanisms’ to the UK to access EU institutions and programmes. It should see its partnership with London as means to achieving more strategic sovereignty for the EU, and not less. In the long term, this could even help lead to the UK re-entering the EU, even if that is currently a very distant prospect.
Consider a European nuclear deterrent. The war in Ukraine has shown that nuclear weapons are not as irrelevant for geopolitics as one might like them to be. This means that there can be no European strategic sovereignty without some capacity for an independent European nuclear deterrent. As Europe contains two nuclear powers, it collectively has enough capacity to establish such a deterrent. This currently remains a taboo subject. But hedging against US unreliability requires at least debating and understanding what political agreements and capability developments would be necessary to create a European deterrent alongside US extended deterrence. Macron has repeatedly offered to enter into a dialogue on this with his EU partners. It is now up to other member states, particularly Germany, to take them up on this offer.
Collectively, these ideas seek to achieve greater balance in the transatlantic alliance and to enable Europeans to take more responsibility for security and stability in their own neighbourhood. They are in no sense an effort to decouple Europeans from their American ally. Rather, they seek to create the more capable and responsible European partners that the US will want and need in its coming struggles.
Any US president would broadly support such an effort, even if some of the details might cause consternation in parts of Washington that fear more independent European policies. Even the most undiplomatic and Asia-focused US presidents have always seen the value in capable effective partners in a dangerous world. These or similar European efforts are therefore necessary to prevent the alliance from deteriorating into a system of vassalisation that over time will make Europeans resentful and Americans disdainful.
About the authors
Jeremy Shapiro is the director of research at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He served at the US State Department from 2009 to 2013.
Jana Puglierin is head of the Berlin office and senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. She is also director of ECFR’s Re:shape Global Europe initiative, which aims to shed new light on the changing international order and how it affects Europe’s place in the world.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Susi Dennison, Anthony Dworkin, Majda Ruge, Célia Belin, and Asli Aydintasbas for careful reads of an early draft, for their astute comments, and for saving us from our worst excesses. They would also like to thank Malena Rachals for her research assistance and Angela Mehrer for putting up with them both (mostly). And, as usual, they want to thank Adam Harrison for his expert editing, legendary patience, and relentless logic. They would also like to blame these people for any mistakes, but unfortunately they cannot as all mistakes are the fault of the authors.
[1] Author calculation based on the SIPRI Military Expenditure Database.
The European Council on Foreign Relations does not take collective positions. ECFR publications only represent the views of their individual authors.
