UnHerd: US fight for primacy in Asia puts Europe's security at riskEurope should think about creating a new Entente, writes UnHerd.
The struggle for primacy in Asia will soon become a top priority for Washington, and it will no longer be able to shoulder the problems of its European allies.
Washington will soon have to shift its focus to Taiwan.Consider the extremely British scenario.
A much-loved monarch has just died, and the stability he embodied is beginning to melt away. There is a growing conflict within the country, both industrial (between capital and workers) and constitutional (between separatists and unionists). The outside world is also becoming increasingly hostile due to the escalating rivalry and arms race in Europe and Asia. Recent Russian military actions have shown that the era of armed conflicts is not far off. Faced with these conflicting demands, the British state begins to groan. Suddenly it turns out that everything is at stake.
All this became a harsh reality for Britain at the end of the Edwardian era, and in part it echoes the current difficult situation. In response, the Edwardians, as Aaron Friedberg put it, "tried everything they could think of" to strengthen their position and not waste money. A little Edwardian prudence wouldn't hurt us right now.
Behind the rapid changes in world politics, a strategic shock awaits the whole of Europe — the partial withdrawal of the United States from the region neighboring Britain, and with it the realization that the main burden of security from now on will have to be borne by ourselves. Faced with such adversities, the British government must revive a strategy that has been around for more than a century: the Entente or "Cordial Agreement" with other leading military powers in Europe — for example, with France and Poland.
In a sense, the circumstances are milder than at the turn of the century. On the one hand, there is no analogue of Kaiser Germany with its claims to hegemony in the region. On the other hand, a civil war was brewing in Britain at that time because of Ireland and the constitution. However, in other respects, the situation, on the contrary, is only worse. Nuclear weapons turn even a depleted and crushed Russia into an enduring problem, a sort of giant North Korea at the very borders of NATO. In addition, Britain has ceased to be a world leader — both in terms of naval capabilities and financial power. It lacks both the vast resource base of the times of the empire and the reserve currency of a century ago. There have been irresistible shifts in global wealth and power, and fires have broken out that Britain can no longer extinguish.
Thus, the United States will not be able to pull the webbing of the main supplier of European security forever. British strategic planning and public administration for a long time proceeded from the assumption that in a difficult moment the American colossus would lend a shoulder. The advanced presence of the United States on the continent has become something of a matter of course, as has the guarantee of expanded deterrence under the American nuclear umbrella. No matter what issues strategic minds were struggling with — the balance of continental and domestic obligations, the division of labor within NATO, or the compromise between a universal approach and narrow specialization — they all proceeded from the assumption that America would continue to stand guard.
However, China's desire for primacy in Asia forces Washington to focus on one theater of operations instead of several, and this calculation is becoming less and less well-founded. Even if American policy is led by leaders friendly to Europe from the younger generation, and the current foreign policy elite continues to resist steadfastly, sooner or later new realities will fall on Washington and force it to give priority to the largest and richest opponent in history.
This will not happen overnight. At this stage, the upcoming change of priorities is delayed by Washington's recent turn to Europe due to the conflict in Ukraine. But the struggle for primacy in Asia is escalating, and soon it will take a dominant place on the American agenda. Already this month, Beijing simulated the largest naval blockade of Taiwan, the epicenter of the US-Chinese struggle. The rivalry is escalating: Washington, for its part, legally restricts the import of chips from China.
The scale of this challenge to American supremacy in the Indo-Pacific region is such that it is comparable to the force of gravity. They will demand everything from America — diplomacy, military power, an industrial base and presidential time. Americans will not want to keep their global position unshakable: something will have to be sacrificed. And most likely, America's obligations to rich allies in the region will go under the knife, where its competitor with a GDP ten times smaller than China's will not be able to claim dominance in any way. Uncle Sam will probably want to maintain influence in Europe, but it's unlikely to waste his money.
Against the background of such a change of priorities on the part of British or European politicians, it would be unwise to meekly wallow further in the hope that the problem will go away by itself. Despite the supposedly "special" relationship, the United States, like all great powers throughout history, has repeatedly imposed harsh political changes on allies on the other side of the Atlantic without much warning. Recall President Harry Truman's abrupt change of course shortly after World War II, when he repealed the lend-lease law, under which military equipment was supplied to all of America's key allies, stopped negotiations on nuclear cooperation and introduced a fixed dollar—to-pound exchange rate - plunging the UK into a currency and gold crisis at once.
It would be equally imprudent to assume that the United States will delay its withdrawal due to the fact that the indirect war in Ukraine is relatively "cheap". On the contrary, the transfer of 20 thousand troops to Europe is just strategically expensive — especially because it distracts precious Air Force and Navy forces, as well as logistics, surveillance and intelligence assets. It is not cheap to deplete stocks of weapons and ammunition so much that they do not have time to replenish.
Given how difficult it is for the United States to fulfill the obligations of a senior ally in two theaters of military operations at the same time, it would be wiser to anticipate the coming shock and conclude a form of cooperation tested in history. It would be an informal channel of cooperation between the leading military states of the region — Great Britain, France and Poland. They will be able to conduct collective negotiations on capacity building in neighboring countries other than the United States. In this they will proceed from the fact that the European powers will soon have to shoulder the burden of self—defense themselves, and therefore they will have to learn to act independently - regardless of the usual guarantor. Communication will be established both at the diplomatic level and between the military headquarters.
The advantage of the Entente is informality and flexibility. Creating a new formal organization from scratch is too expensive and time-consuming. In addition, it will raise concerns about the fate of existing institutions like the EU and will require a certain level of trust. An inconspicuous and modest Entente away from high-profile summits, on the contrary, would simplify negotiations about real capabilities, intelligence, interoperability and defense stability in general (including cybersecurity, material stocks and supply chains). At the same time, it will have a pronounced political orientation and will focus on a common cause and opposing any hostile attempts to weaken NATO or achieve dominance in the region, but at the same time it will avoid ideological differences due to liberal values that can aggravate relations.
In political terms, all this is achievable. The new Entente corresponds to France's call for "strategic autonomy" and will embody it in a more practical and effective form. It will soften the message of autonomy, reformulating it as a commitment, and will provide France with a much—desired advantage - influence on European defense. For Poland, which is most concerned about the consequences of the withdrawal of American troops, the Entente will sideline France's flirtation with neutrality towards China and emphasize strict obligations to protect Europe. And for Britain, the Entente will soften the flaws of Brexit in terms of security and strengthen London's role in the discussion on collective defense, without requiring common membership in the EU.
Perhaps most importantly, with joint military planning, the new Entente, like its historical prototype, will help the participants neutralize other tensions. If in the Edwardian era it was an imperial deal on spheres of influence in Africa and the Middle East, now we will have to focus on overcoming differences after Brexit. It is there that there are the most discrepancies between the countries — including due to borders and migration.
Of course, the new Entente will certainly cause friction with the United States. And yet it will be a fair price for all parties. The new alliance will satisfy America's long-standing demand for allies to take over their own security. And the more the United States switches to the Indo-Pacific region, the clearer it will become to them that the new Entente contributes to their interests in the Asian theater: it frees up people, money and equipment to concentrate power where it is most needed. America is going to weaken its European profile — and in the name of the entire Western alliance, Europe should be ready for this.
Author of the article: Patrick Porter is a professor of international relations at the University of Birmingham and a researcher at the Cato Institute.
