At the Munich Security Conference in February, Vice President JD Vance delivered a speech criticizing woke European policies, censorship and lawfare against conservative candidates.
Europeans took it to be a U.S. declaration that it would leave NATO. They are now delivering their response to this abandonment by announcing a declaration of European defense independence.
First, the European Parliament adopted a resolution “White Paper on the Future of European Defense” on March 10, which usurps the power of national governments to make decisions about the defense of their own countries for the benefit of the European Union.
By appropriating these powers, the European Parliament naturally isolates the United States and sets itself up in opposition to it, thus threatening the unity of NATO.
Further, to ensure a common European approach, it abandons the principle of unanimity in making decisions and adopts an idea of qualified majority voting with no right of veto. Thus, existential decisions about defense are taken out of the hands of national governments and given to the largest countries Germany and France, which dominate the European Union.
This will result in a loss of sovereignty of smaller European countries and their dependence on the notoriously poor political judgment of Germany in facing the Russian threat.
Only a short time ago, Germany was in alliance with Russia against Europe in its Nordstream energy policy. And within living memory, another alliance with Russia enabled the start of World War II in 1939. Will German appeasement be allowed to be dominant in decisions to defend Central and East European countries?
Second, on March 23, the European Commission issued its own white paper on the European Defense Readiness 2030. It is focused on the European defense industry and a strategy to build it up in the face of the growing Russian threat.
It is meant to prepare the ground for common European defense production to improve areas of European weakness. These weaknesses are: lack of coordination within the European industry, air and missile defense, artillery, ammunition and missiles, drones, mobility, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, critical infrastructure protection and collaborative procurement.
Evidently, these weaknesses are extensive in every area, therefore, the common market in defense production requires common procurement from European vendors only. The United States is explicitly excluded.
Dominant arms manufacturers in Europe are Germany and France, so the great majority of European contracts would go there. But these countries already are unable to provide the desired equipment in any reasonable time frame.
The European Commission's strategy is to prevent the flow of funds to the United States as an alternative supplier. Poland is already facing pressure to break its extensive defense contracts with the United States and South Korea.
In the area of financing these purchases, the Commission proposes that all EU member countries assume a collective debt of $800 billion, with $150 billion to start. This means that all EU member countries would assume responsibility for this debt, while usage and distribution of benefits of the mechanism would likely be uneven.
All EU members would assume debt but some of them would prefer to use their own funds. Most of the benefits would flow to German and French manufacturing facilities. Inevitably, it would lead to the consolidation of industry around the largest players, depriving smaller countries of any manufacturing for their own needs.
Even worse is the example of COVID funds, which were also based on common EU member loans. EU countries did not receive them automatically based on need. The European Commission made the disbursement of these funds dependent on conditions, such as the observance of “rule of law,” meaning its own definition of political submission.
Thus, Poland, which was suffering under the crushing burden of Ukrainian refugees, was unable to access these funds all through the tenure of a conservative government. The moment leftists won the parliamentary election in 2023, funds were disbursed without meeting any “rule of law” conditions.
Many will be wary to bestow such power on the European Commission again.
Thus, the European strategy for independent European defense policy suffers from so many contradictions and constraints that it is unlikely to be fully implemented. Even if it were, Europe still will not be able to match US capabilities in military systems, technology or logistics for decades to come.
Europe is just not in a position to become independent of the United States in the foreseeable future.
In the meantime, the anti-U.S. sentiment allows the woke European elite to advance their agenda of stripping national governments of their sovereignty. This centralization of power is aimed at better controlling smaller member states, limiting their freedom to develop alternative strategies that would better serve their own citizens.
It will give the European establishment more power to steer Europe at will.
It is clear that for them ideology and power are more important than real defense capabilities even in the face of the imminent Russian threat.
Dr. Lucja Swiatkowski Cannon is a senior research fellow at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C. She was a strategist, policy adviser and project manager on democratic and economic reforms in Eastern Europe, the Baltics, and Central, South and Southeast Asia for Deloitte & Touche Emerging Markets, Coopers & Lybrand, and others. She has been an adjunct scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Dr. Cannon received a B.A., M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Columbia University where she was an International Fellow and IREX Scholar at Warsaw University, and the London School of Economics. Read more of Swiatkowski Cannon's reports — Here.
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