Europe First.

AuthorMaitra, Sumantra

In a recent speech at the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (Konrad Adenauer Foundation), German chancellor Angela Merkel said that Europe has a special strategic interest in maintaining cooperation with China. Ahead of Germany's coming assumption of the rotating EU presidency, Merkel hinted at what might come as a surprise to a number of American policymakers, but really should not: "We Europeans will need to recognize the decisiveness with which China will claim a leading position in the existing structures of the international architecture." This was inevitable, and despite what the majority of Atlanticists in London and Washington might prefer, it followed a pattern, EU foreign policy, under the leadership of Germany and with the support of France, is showing signs of putting European interests first. This rift will only continue to grow, and sooner or later, it will force Washington and Berlin to make an uncomfortable choice.

Despite post-Cold War myth-making, Europe and the United States never saw eye to eye, and were always destined to have differences in interests. During the early Cold War, the United Kingdom and France pursued independent nuclear deterrence, with France having an independent grand strategy, even quitting NATO'S integrated command. The Vietnam War marked a decisive shift in relations between Europe and America. Suddenly, the nimbus of moral superiority that had surrounded America was brutally stripped away. A radical Left emerged that viewed America with deep antipathy, particularly in Germany where anti-Americanism provided a convenient way to assuage lingering guilt over the crimes of the Second World Wat. From Suez to Falklands, Grenada to Iraq, from German Ostpolitik to Soviet-funded anti-nuclear protests, there were severe ideological differences between the leading powers, and the only broad systemic unity among NATO members was due to the existence of two factors. The first was the enormous existential threat of a rival power bloc led by the Soviets. And second, although no less important, was the design of the alliance. American Atlantic hegemony was not a flaw, but by design. The reason European muscle atrophied was because Western European powers were in no position to unilaterally challenge either Soviet or American primacy, and they chose to exist under the relatively benevolent American order. It decreased even further after the primary threat subsided in 1989. Germany, which boasted one of the largest land armies even in 1991, now has problem fielding division level troops, a submarine armada, or a Typhoon squadron.

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