Next June 6, Europe will celebrate the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the landing that began the liberation of Western Europe in 1944. But this summer there is also another round anniversary that will not be celebrated, because it was a great failure.
On August 30, 1954, the French National Assembly voted to reject the project of a European Defense Community (CED).
Instead, European integration was launched around the economic community that remains the basis of the EU today, and Europe's security was organized around NATO led by the United States.
With Russian President Vladimir Putin advancing in the east and U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump threatening to retreat in the west, it's time to think again that perhaps Europe should defend itself.
The historical circumstances, of course, were very different 70 years ago, but there are some interesting similarities.
Then, as now, one of the main factors driving the European defense initiative was Russia's aggressiveness.
Then, as now, another factor was the United States' desire to pay more attention to the dangers China posed in Asia;
In those years, the Korean War was being fought, which began in 1950 (the CED treaty was signed in 1952, while the war was still going on).
Then, as now, one of the crucial issues was the
Zeitenwende
(turning point) which meant the rearmament of the Federal Republic of Germany.
French Prime Minister Pierre Mendès-France summed up the reasons why his Parliament had rejected the CED with perfect French clarity: “Too much integration and too little England.”
Perhaps another lesson can be learned from this?
Today, that community is not going to be a single, clear and united institution of the European Union.
That is the direction that was not taken 70 years ago.
It will be a lower-case European defense community, which will link European, bilateral and individual State capabilities with NATO's military operational base.
What structures does European security have today?
The answer is amazingly complicated and at the same time very simple.
The numerous initiatives to strengthen European defense have produced an impenetrable jungle of acronyms and nicknames.
How will SHAPE work with CJEF and JEF, taking into account Saint-Malo, “Berlin Plus”, PESCO, EDF, EPF, ASAP and EDIRPA?
Do we really want to know?
On the other hand, it is very simple: 80 years later, Europe still needs the United States to defend itself.
To explain a little further: Europe needs NATO to defend itself, and NATO needs the credibility that the United States provides for Article 5 guarantees. Credibility is crucial for deterrence, just as trust is crucial for financial markets.
Strictly speaking, Article 5 only requires a NATO member to take “such measures as it considers necessary, including the use of armed force,” if an ally is attacked.
That is why it is worth asking what would happen to Europe if Donald Trump, Republican candidate for the White House in this year's elections, did not “consider it necessary” to defend Estonia.
Or simply if Putin believed—perhaps without reason, as he did with Ukraine—that Washington is not going to defend it.
The most likely shock is that Trump leaves Ukraine in the lurch.
Therefore, it is urgent for Europe to increase the supply of ammunition and weapons and the training of the Ukrainian army, so that Kiev can not only defend the territory it currently controls but also turn the war around in 2025. This should be Europe's goal , even if Trump suddenly stops US aid and tries to negotiate an agreement with Putin without taking into account Ukraine.
Secondly, Europe must strengthen its conventional defense.
Unlike Trump's first presidency, the potential second term is being carefully prepared, with detailed plans being drawn up by groups of sympathetic think tanks.
The project of the conservative
think tank
Heritage Foundation for the transfer of powers in 2025 defines the objective that interests us as follows: “Transform NATO so that the allies of the United States can deploy the vast majority of the conventional forces necessary to deter Russia and resort to to the United States fundamentally for our nuclear deterrent capacity and other weapons, while the presence of US forces in Europe is reduced.
To be honest, isn't that a reasonable request?
Eighty years after D-Day, why does a continent with an economy similar in size to the United States still need it so much in terms of security?
In a market economy, arms manufacturers need large, defined orders before ramping up production, and the European defense sector is not receiving enough or fast enough.
Furthermore, as the Ukrainian soldiers have discovered to their chagrin, there is real weapons chaos.
In 2016, a study by the Munich Security Conference identified 178 types of weapons systems in European armies, compared to 30 in the United States.
In practice, increased European defense spending would mean more market for the United States.
As NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg noted in a recent speech to the Heritage Foundation, American arms manufacturers have received $120 billion worth of European orders in the past two years, an argument that should appeal to a businessman as fond of the “art of the negotiation” (the title of his book) as Trump.
What if we find ourselves with a
force 9
attack from Trump, that is, the American president reducing the credibility of the nuclear deterrent when defending the Baltic States?
Although there is little chance of that happening, we need to start thinking more about Europe's nuclear deterrent capability.
Under the 1962 Nassau agreement, the United Kingdom has its old nuclear deterrent weapons at the disposal of NATO;
that is, in theory, also to defend the Baltic States, although the final decision rests with the British Prime Minister.
French doctrine does not specify who the president must protect with his nuclear umbrella.
“
Mourir pour Dantzig
?” read a famous French newspaper headline from 1939, arguing that French soldiers should not be asked to give their lives for the Free City of Danzig (modern-day Gdansk).
Today the question would be “
Mourir pour Narva
?”, an Estonian city located on the border with Russia.
No other European power has nuclear deterrent forces.
I list these three degrees of shock that Trump can cause from least to most serious, but also from most to least likely.
Europe's priorities must be: first, Ukraine;
second, spend more and better on conventional defense;
third, reflect on the phases of nuclear deterrence.
To achieve any of these things, all countries, institutions and sectors involved must stop fooling around and be bold.
No matter how many political difficulties it entails, European public procurement in defense matters must forget the narcissism of national differences.
The UK and its continental European partners need to work more closely.
The two Brussels-based giants, NATO and the EU, must have a better relationship.
Gaullists and Atlanticists must seek a margin of agreement and understand that a more European NATO is today the only credible military basis for an effective European defense community to exist.
Is anyone willing to call a conference to debate all these issues, on the 70th anniversary of a historic failure?
The motto would be: don't be afraid, be prepared.
Timothy Garton Ash
is Professor of European Studies at the University of Oxford and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
His latest book is
Europa: A Personal History
(Taurus).
Translation by
María Luisa Rodríguez Tapia.
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