In the early 19th century when Britannia — John Bull — ruled the waves and funded all Europe’s struggle against Napoleon, there was a popular English song:
Who pays the piper?
I, said John Bull.
Whoever plays the Fool,
I pay the piper!
For the past 80 years, whoever has “played the fool” on the world stage, it has been the United States that has paid the piper.
While MAGA supporters decline to accept that exercising the leadership of democracies has advanced American political and economic interests, most economists believe that dominance of NATO, and of its costs, hasn’t been a downside transactional burden for the US.
Yet even assuming this is true, what is for sure is that this era is ending. Europe is preparing for a new life, almost certainly further distanced from the US than at any time since Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Though it is likely to be many months before we know the detail — just how deep could become the strategic divide between the continents — the big picture is plain. If President-elect Donald Trump makes good on his promise to work with Russia’s Vladimir Putin to foreclose on Ukraine, the future for NATO and collective Western security is bleak.
The days are over when Europeans could look to the US as its shield. Joe Biden is likely to prove to have been the last president to regard the continent’s security as a vital interest — even the predominant foreign interest — of the US. The strategic standoff with China will dominate Washington policymaking in the years ahead.
Some of us believe that Trump, in his incomprehensible enthusiasm for Putin, is making a disastrous mistake. He promises to pull back support for Ukraine and, indeed, for NATO. But the one big global issue on which Trump has made a strong, rational case is that of denouncing the Western Europeans for failing to carry our portion of defense burden-sharing.
It is outrageous that European Union members spend so little on their own security. Spain, for instance, currently allocates just 1.8% of its gross domestic product to its armed forces. Italy does worse — 1.5%. Britain — now outside the EU, but traditionally Europe’s leader on defense — claims to spend 2.3%, but this figure includes stuff such as service pensions, which contribute nothing towards manning, arming and equipping men and women to fight at the sharp end.
Only the Eastern Europeans — above all Poland, which has more than doubled its armed forces budget in a decade — together with the Nordic states are dramatically increasing their defense spending in the face of Russian aggression.
In 2017, EU nations committed themselves to a big joint program of weapons and ammunition procurement, but pathetically little of this has been made good.
As for European support for Ukraine, I have written many times that without the US, the cause of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s nation would be doomed.
European governments must continue to do everything in their power to sustain a close relationship with the US, and to persuade the new Trump administration that it is strongly in American interests — no good talking about European interests, or about “the cause of freedom” or suchlike mantra — to continue to lead NATO.
Nonetheless, if the European nations are to make policy prudently, they must also increase their own defense spending and their support for Ukraine, in anticipation of American cuts.
Unfortunately, the leadership of the major European nations isn’t in great shape; indeed, it looks pretty awful. France’s Emmanuel Macron, an erratic policymaker even on a good day, has been a lame duck since he impulsively called a July election. Germany’s Olaf Scholz talked a good game about Ukraine when Russia invaded in February 2022, but has since failed to make good on many of his promises.
Britain has traditionally led the European continent within NATO, because its armed forces were the most effective. This is no longer true in the post-Brexit world.
Europe needs some leaders who will cry from the rooftops to their peoples that they can no longer regard security as an optional extra to the core issues voters care about — immigration, welfare and health services, their economies.
In 2024, EU governments collectively budgeted $326 billion for defense, about one-third of US spending, which provides two-thirds of NATO’s budget.
Despite a 2017 EU commitment dramatically to increase collaborative defense equipment spending to 35%, today only half this figure has been achieved.
A struggle lies ahead to persuade MAGA Republicans that, while the US remains the mightiest nation on earth it, too, needs allies. We all do.
Bloomberg
