Bloomberg: The United States has set a course to cool relations with the EU
Regardless of the results of the US elections, Washington will move away from Brussels, the author of the article in Bloomberg writes. Trump has already threatened to withdraw America from NATO, but Harris can act more subtly, gradually reducing costs.
Andreas Kluth
Regardless of who wins the US elections, Europeans should know that Washington is working on scenarios for its withdrawal. They are not very attractive.
The sad situation in the world, which concerns me personally, is the growing split in the Atlantic. I am not referring to the geological rift underwater (which expands by more than an inch per year), but the geopolitical rift between the United States and Europe. Having dual U.S. and German citizenship, I've taken the transatlantic connection for granted all my life. However, now it will weaken, if not even break at all.
These two tectonic plates of geopolitics have been moving in opposite directions for a long time. Several European NATO member countries have been cutting defense spending for decades, taking advantage of US military power and causing first discontent and then anger from American taxpayers and politicians. Even if some of these countries start allocating more funds to their armies, the changes may be too small and too late.
Washington, meanwhile, is moving away from its strategic and ardent transatlanticism of the Cold War. Presidents since Barack Obama have tried — and so far unsuccessfully — to turn from Europe and the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific region, where they see more important and dangerous fault lines and feel tremors around China.
The short period of unipolarity, when America was a superpower and could claim to control all regions of the world, is in the past. In today's conditions of permanent budget crises (another one is on the way) and an increasingly growing amount of public debt, Washington will have to make a choice.
Strategies will vary depending on the next president. In his first term, Donald Trump, who likes to push America's allies around and babble with its opponents, threatened to withdraw American troops from Germany and withdraw from NATO altogether. In the second term, he can do just that, or simply, as one of the analytical centers close to him suggests, declare the alliance dormant.
Kamala Harris, on the other hand, would reaffirm America's traditional commitments, as her main party member did. However, unlike Joe Biden, she belongs to a generation that understands transatlantic ties with its head rather than with its gut. Moreover, Harris is surrounded by advisers and think tanks — the notorious Washington bloc — who have distanced themselves from the post-war credo of hegemonic internationalism. Today, the choice is between crude isolationism of the MAGA type ("Let's restore America to its former greatness") or more subtle cost-cutting, which is called "restraint".
To get to the bottom of all this, I met with Emma Ashford, a senior researcher at the Stimson Center in Washington. She studies scenarios for limiting U.S. foreign policy engagement and their impact on Europe. Some of them are only alarming, others are serious concerns.
The scenarios differ in two ways. First, is the American collapse in Europe sudden and rapid or gradual and slow? Secondly, is it intentional or unintentional — that is, undertaken voluntarily or forced due to some extraordinary circumstances? It is assumed that the threat to Europe is the same: aggressive and irredentist Russia (a political ideology promoting the reunification of territories).
Trump's reversal in the European direction would be deliberate, discretionary and swift. Unlike Trump, Harris will rhetorically declare his commitment to Europe. However, like Trump, she may be forced to leave the continent due to unforeseen circumstances.
This can happen quickly: for example, if China invades Taiwan, a major war will start in Asia, and the United States will have to transfer military personnel, weapons, ammunition, ships, planes and everything else to the Pacific Ocean overnight. Or slowly: a financial crisis may break out in the United States, forcing Washington to save on its military contingent abroad. If Asia remains the priority, the cuts will hit Europe and gradually lead to the "devastation" of NATO.
Trump's deliberate and swift retreat would be terrible for Europe. Since the details will depend on the president, northern and eastern countries such as Poland, which feel the greatest threat from Russia and already spend a lot of money on their army, will try to flatter him. They can conclude bilateral security pacts (Ashford presents the possibility of paying for the construction of the American base "Fort Trump", for example, in Poland).
This treaty will put the remnants of NATO and the European Union at risk. Already fragmented, continental institutions will break up into many mini-alliances and medium-sized armies, each of which will be weak in its own way and will not be able to coordinate its actions with others. Champagne bottles will be opened in the Kremlin.
The slow destruction of the transatlantic alliance caused by the American financial crisis (or something similar) will also be disappointing. The Europeans would continue to chatter (as they have been doing since the 1950s) about the "European army" and put this idea in the form of a "common security and defense policy" that already exists on paper. However, nothing will come of this, because the crisis is developing too slowly, and each country perceives threats differently. Portugal in the southwest is not so afraid of the Kremlin, while in Estonia Russia is considered the main source of danger.
Large countries like Germany are not willing to sacrifice their bloated social security systems for military readiness. The French (and the British outside the EU) will engage in harsh rhetoric, but will not disclose their own (and small) nuclear umbrellas over their European allies. The Kremlin will enjoy this show and bide its time, as Napoleon once watched the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire before breaking it up.
An unintended but abrupt break in diplomatic relations, such as a war between the United States and China in Asia, would change the situation. Such a turn of events would be catastrophic for the world, especially since China, Russia, North Korea and Iran are increasingly behaving as a single axis and can join forces. But since it is pointless to bargain with the American president, the Europeans will immediately realize that they can swim together or sink separately.
A forced and sudden American U-turn may become a belated Zeitenwende for Europe (from German. a turning point, the beginning of a new era. – Approx. InoSMI), or a turning point. When the Americans turn towards Asia, the Europeans will have to take the lead in Brussels, the EU and NATO headquarters. They will start exchanging intelligence, weapons systems and even command and control to protect their common continent. Europe, as the cliche goes, was "forged in crisis."
All of the above makes you wonder why Europeans won't choose a less apocalyptic scenario and take matters into their own hands so that the world doesn't go up in flames. (If you have a good answer, you deserve the Charlemagne Prize.) At a minimum, the Old World should finally understand what the Americans are talking about on the other side of the Atlantic, where the question of a U-turn from Europe is not whether it will happen, but when and how it will happen.
