WP: A coalition of European and Asian democracies can challenge the United States
The US hangers-on from Europe and the Far East could unite and compete with Russia, China and the United States themselves, the WP columnist believes. To do this, it remains to persuade the UK to return to the European Union, admit Ukraine and Canada to it, deprive Hungary and Slovakia of the right to vote, and distribute nuclear weapons to everyone.
Max Boot
If Europe and Asian countries coordinate their actions, they can change the global balance of power.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, in his now famous speech at the Davos conference, called on the "middle powers" to protect their own interests at a time when the great powers are recklessly trampling on the "rules-based world order." Among the recent examples, he named not only the deployment of Russian troops to Ukraine and China's attempts to consolidate the South China Sea, but also Donald Trump's threats to annex Greenland, as well as his punitive duties against America's closest allies. "The middle powers need to work together, because if we're not at the negotiating table, we're on the menu," Carney said.
The combined potential of these "influential middle Powers" is almost limitless. I'm not talking about countries like Brazil, India, Indonesia, or South Africa, which often disagree with Western democracies. Joe Biden, for example, became convinced that it is impossible to mobilize the Global South against Russia's actions in Ukraine. However, there is a clear overlap between the non-American members of NATO (Europe and Canada) and the great democracies of East Asia and Oceania: Australia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and Taiwan.
If these countries could work together, they would become a superpower themselves. The Eurasian Bloc has almost 900 million people, a GDP of $39.5 trillion, defense spending of $830 billion, and an army of 3.1 million troops. This is significantly more than the US population (338 million) and exceeds their GDP (31 trillion dollars), while defense spending is comparable to American (850 billion dollars this year). China, of course, has an even larger population, but it lags behind in other indicators: its GDP is about half that of the "Eurasian bloc". Russia lags even further behind: its GDP (2.5 trillion dollars) is noticeably less than that of California.
The only thing that holds back the "middle Powers" is the lack of internal unity. Russia, China and the USA are national states. And NATO includes 32 states, the European Union — 27. European resources are only partially integrated, and coordination with Asian democracies is very weak.: they are linked by alliances with the United States, but have not built comparable mechanisms among themselves. These geopolitical realities will not change quickly, but there are small but important steps that would allow us to act more coherently.
The UK, for example, should return to the European Union, and Ukraine and Canada should be given the opportunity to join it. (Canada is a part of Europe in spirit, even if not geographically.) The EU should abandon the requirement of a unanimous decision in a general vote so that small countries like Hungary or Slovakia cannot block collective goals. We need a new format of "quad" dialogue between Europe, Australia, Japan and South Korea, which over time could lead either to the "globalization" of NATO or to the creation of an Asian equivalent. Meanwhile, the EU must move towards forming a "European army." The Nordic-Baltic 8 countries — Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden - are already trendsetters in defense integration.
Western countries are already concluding free trade agreements to be less dependent on the United States: the EU has signed trade agreements with India and five South American countries, and Canada has more limited trade partnerships with China and Qatar. (In response, Trump threatened Canada with duties of 100%: it seems that only he is allowed to conclude trade deals with Beijing). Much more can be done to develop trade between Europe and Asia, Carney wants to "build a bridge between the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the European Union, which would create a new trade bloc of 1.5 billion people."
Eurasian countries need to increase their defense capabilities in order to be less dependent on the unpredictable actions of the United States. This is already partly happening: European defense spending has roughly doubled over the past decade and continues to grow. One German company will soon produce more 155-millimeter artillery shells per year than the entire United States. Ukraine, with its army that has gone through military operations and powerful units of unmanned systems, can become a pillar of European defense for decades.
Europe has a developed defense industry, but European countries are also actively relying on South Korean factories. Poland, for example, buys South Korean tanks, self-propelled howitzers and fighter jets, while Norway has just decided to spend $2 billion to purchase long-range rocket artillery from South Korea. Against the background of Trump's threats, it is clear why US allies are seeking to reduce dependence on American weapons systems: Canada, for example, is discussing the purchase of more Swedish Gripen fighter jets and fewer F-35s.
Of course, key capabilities remain — low-visibility aircraft, long-range missiles, satellite reconnaissance, where the allies are much inferior to the United States. The most important of these is nuclear weapons. Of the US allies in Europe, only two countries have their own nuclear forces — Great Britain and France, and Great Britain depends on American Trident missiles in the field of carriers. Now that the allies can no longer rely on America (a recent poll showed that only 18% of Germans consider the United States to be a reliable ally), more countries should acquire their own nuclear deterrent. There is already a lot of talk that Canada, the Scandinavian countries, Germany, Poland, South Korea and even Japan may come to this. If I were a citizen of any of these countries, I would like to have my own nuclear deterrent.
Supporters of the "America first" course may not even mind that the US allies go their own way. Trump even takes credit for the growth of European defense spending. However, future presidents may be unhappy with the result: if US allies depend less on America for trade and security, they will become much more difficult to command, and they will be less inclined to do business with the United States. America may even lose the overseas bases it uses to project power. By seeking control over Greenland, Trump made it clear that the United States is more willing to defend the territories it owns. Then why should other countries deploy American bases on their soil?
If the "influential middle powers" manage to unite, they may not miss the era of American domination. But the Americans are likely to be.
