Only roughly four months separate Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp’s “We’re all Gaullists now” statement (in early March after the Oval Office shoutout) and that of his compatriot NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s flattering messages to President Trump, praising the latter’s leadership, imitating his language and referring in slightly unsettling language to an American “Daddy”.
These two positions mark the extremes in the ongoing debate about Europe’s new security architecture and the future of transatlantic relations: Between a Europe that is trying to become independent from the US, and a Europe that is bending over backward in order to keep the US interested and invested in Europe as an ally.
In fact, these two tendencies are not mutually exclusive as long as Europeans regard traditional Gaullism as a thing of the past, distinguish between the short- and the long-term, and think beyond NATO and the EU as the exclusive instruments to make freedom sustainable on our continent. I would call that strategic responsibility.
One thing is clear: Gaullism is a poor blueprint for Europe’s future. That grand old man of wartime and postwar France may, from today’s vantage point, seem clairvoyant with his distrust of the US and his fear of America and Russia one day ganging up on Europe.
But he was not only anti-American but also anti-British, and today it is clear that Britain is indispensable to the future of European security. Indeed, we should be grateful to Donald Trump for making this so clear and thereby helping to overcome the effects of Brexit and weld Britain and the continent together, at least in defense and security.
Moreover, de Gaulle not only weakened NATO during the Cold War (through withdrawal from the military structure and the expulsion of US forces in the 1960s), but he was also opposed to any supranational integration in the European Economic Community (the precursor of the EU). In today’s terms, his “Europe of the fatherlands” would be closer to Viktor Orbán than to the EU mainstream. Confronted with an unprecedentedly aggressive Russian (and Chinese) threat, neo-Gaullism is simply not the answer.
Neither is its opposite — pandering to a completely transactional US whose definition of national interest, at least at the moment, does not include the necessity of maintaining present US troop levels in Europe, let alone maintaining consistent assistance to Ukraine in its existential defense (Trump suggested on July 7 that suspended military aid might once again be restored.)
Plus, a United States whose current government can’t seem to make up its mind whether Europeans should continue to buy American in significant parts of their arms procurement, or develop true independence in defense production.
Moreover, how should Europeans tackle the fact that the credibility of NATO’s Article 5 (an attack on one is an attack on all) has already been undermined by Trump’s vacillation, and yet, for the upcoming years, no European replacement for US protection — especially in nuclear terms — is on the horizon?
The answer is to make a clear distinction between the next couple of years, and the decades thereafter. In the near future, even a reduced US engagement in European security is better than none. Equally, it is better to have British and French nuclear deterrents (both are currently being renewed at enormous national expense — around $100bn in total) than not to have them, even if they are purely national.
And as long as Europe cannot come up with sophisticated fifth-generation fighter aircraft, for instance, it will need to buy some weapons systems in the US. To create a truly independent deterrence against Russian or other threats, the work has to start now, but Europeans will need stopgaps in the meantime. There is opportunity here; if the transatlantic relationship is to be transactional, then the enormous contracts Europe can offer US companies can be a significant element of the new grand bargain.
While NATO will remain the primary instrument to maintain transatlantic security, it has already been complemented by the EU (with its remarkable recent efforts in common rearmament policies) and increasingly, by ad hoc coalitions of the willing.
NATO has the advantage that it includes non-EU members like Canada, the UK, Norway, and Turkey. But at the moment, it has the severe disadvantage that it is not the primary instrument anymore for either helping Ukraine or for even openly discussing the Russian threat.
After all, both NATO and the EU are too easy to paralyze by national vetoes from Kremlin-friendly states such as Hungary and Slovakia. One solution to many of the challenges would be to create a European Defense Community — including countries like Britain and Norway but excluding Hungary.
But that is for the long term. In the meantime, not only should the EU make every effort to circumvent national vetoes — and that includes more serious attempts to withdraw voting rights from repeated violators of basic EU values, as well as much more bilateral economic and political pressure by member states on leaders such as Viktor Orbán. It also includes enhanced cooperation in coalitions of the willing, possibly going beyond the EU and reaching out to like-minded democracies around the globe in a new “Ramstein” format.
Europeans have to grow up. It was the double shock of an increasingly aggressive Russia and an unprecedentedly transactional US, which brought us closer than ever to adulthood in security and defense.
If our continent is to have a future in freedom, we will need to avoid two delusions: that of Gaullist-style autarky and that of excessive pandering to the whims of whoever is the current US President.
European strategic autonomy is not on the cards in the near future — and yet, a Europe able to take care of its own security is the only viable long-term goal. And one thing is for sure: Trump is not history’s last word on America. That is why we should not slam the door on a future, more balanced and, therefore, more mature transatlantic partnership based on the shared values of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law.
Roland Freudenstein is Co-Founder of Brussels Freedom Hub and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow with CEPA.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.