Posted on 08/21/2022 9:06:49 PM PDT by robowombat
Europe Can Defend Itself The United States does not need to maintain a robust forward presence in the European theater to deter Russia or protect NATO allies.
Matthew Mai Aug 16, 2022 1:00 PM
For American proponents of European strategic autonomy, any hope that U.S. policymakers would draw long-overdue conclusions, and promote and encourage the development of independent and self-sufficient European defense capabilities, seems to have been quashed for now. Paradoxically, the Russo-Ukrainian War, which has revealed the severe limits of Russian conventional military power, has prompted U.S. officials to justify significant new forward deployments to Europe and raise the number of U.S. forces in the region from 80,000 to over 100,000.
U.S. military aid to Ukraine has likewise outpaced that of its European allies, particularly France and Germany. As a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), France and Germany have contributed far less than Estonia, Latvia, and Poland. Finland and Sweden’s impending accession to NATO will also burden the United States with new security obligations and strategic risks in a region of secondary importance.
However, the war in Ukraine has not revised three critical features of the European security environment that predate Russia’s invasion. First, the regional balance of power still favors European NATO countries. By every relevant metric—GDP, population size, and military strength—collectively, NATO-Europe can mobilize its latent power to defend itself against Russia.
Second, Russia’s military performance in Ukraine has demonstrated the inherent difficulties of waging conventional offensive war against a determined defender. Miscalculation of Ukrainians’ willingness to fight, disjointed coordination, supply-line challenges, inflexible command hierarchies, poor air-ground integration, and low morale among Russian forces have all handicapped Moscow’s pursuit of its territorial objectives.
Finally, Western nuclear capabilities have deterred Russia from striking NATO territory, even if Moscow perceives the United States and its European allies to be using Ukraine to wage a proxy war. While Russian officials have made it clear that they consider U.S. and NATO military aid transiting through Ukrainian territory to be legitimate targets, they have not extended their threat to cover facilitation points in Poland. A Russian tactical nuclear strike in Ukraine would place immense stress on strategic stability, but Moscow is still highly unlikely to risk a nuclear exchange directly with NATO.
Taken together, the conditions facing U.S. policymakers in Europe decisively prove countries such as France and Germany are more than capable of providing for their own defense and leading an independent and self-sufficient pan-European security bloc. The United States does not need to maintain a robust forward presence in the European theater to deter Russia or protect NATO allies. Indeed, greater intra-European security consolidation, cooperation, and coordination could fill any gaps that presently leave countries on the eastern flank unable to repel a Russian attack.
The opportunity costs of continuing to act as a regional hegemon in Europe are significant for the United States. Sustaining a robust forward presence in Europe embodies the “everything is a priority” approach that has dominated U.S. foreign policy for decades. China presents an economic and technological challenge of a kind the United States has not faced before. Its military build-up will likewise disrupt the status quo security order in East Asia, and along with its allies and partners, the United States must work to responsibly compete with China to maintain geopolitical stability. But if preparing to meet the challenge of a rising China calls for greater strategic focus and different resources, particularly agile and distributed naval and air assets, then a division of labor in Europe would allow the United States to properly reinvest in optimizing its force posture in East Asia.
A narrower conception of U.S. national interests would be conducive to promoting domestic fiscal health too. Crushing debt and gross domestic fiscal imbalances make massive increases in defense spending financially irresponsible and unsustainable. Historically high levels of inflation only reinforce the case for inaugurating a long-needed period of congressional budgetary discipline.
Shifting security responsibilities to European allies would also incentivize greater investments in under-funded national militaries and strengthen the integrity of NATO’s mutual-defense clause. U.S. treaty allies are obligated to maximize their contributions in a collective defense arrangement that is still too reliant on U.S. hardware and capabilities. There is no reason why wealthy European countries should be unable to defend their territorial integrity without significant support from an ally on the other side of the Atlantic.
Finally, it would be wrong to discount the effect U.S. primacy in Europe has had in the crisis in relations between Russia and the West. Although many Europeans were happy to save on defense costs under the U.S. security umbrella after the Cold War, the perception in Moscow was that NATO expansion represented a “neo-containment” policy aimed at reducing Russia to a second-tier power within its historical sphere of influence. While other issues and disputes also contributed to the present crisis, an alternative post-Cold War European-led security order that emerged after wholesale U.S. retrenchment would likely have sought a modus vivendi with Russia to assuage its security concerns. Promoting and encouraging strategic autonomy could eventually result in a more stable and balanced regional security architecture in Eurasia.
Structural realities within the international system make promoting and encouraging European strategic autonomy an essential plank of a more restrained and disciplined foreign policy. U.S. policymakers, however, have so far chosen to double-down on a grand strategy that treats the prospect of a costly and risky neo-Cold War stand-off in Europe as an inevitability.
Fortunately, there is no iron law of international relations requiring the United States to sustain an indefinite forward presence in Europe, or any other region for that matter. As two astute analysts wrote last year in a reflection on the lessons of the Pearl Harbor attack, “The United States has unequalled strategic depth and the ability to recover from enormous initial reverses.… The truly exceptional thing about America is where it physically sits in the world.” Unlike any of its great power rivals, geography gives the United States an unmatched and enduring geopolitical advantage.
Accordingly, U.S. policymakers can rectify their misalignment of means and ends by narrowly defining core national interests, allocating resources based on their direct relevance to improving U.S. security and prosperity, restraining the application of military power, and revising or avoiding commitments that risk overstretching. Publicly and privately, the United States should also encourage its European allies to develop independent and self-sufficient defense capabilities. To that end, a more autonomous European defense bloc will expand the strategic choices available to U.S. policymakers and reduce the risk of great-power confrontation.
Conditions in Europe are ripe for the United States to begin an orderly process of shifting the burden for regional security to its allies. To be sure, the Russo-Ukrainian War has made Europe less stable and secure than it was before. Yet it has not fundamentally altered the balance of power between Russia and Europe, empowered Russian forces to pursue expanded territorial aims outside of Ukraine, or diminished the West’s collective nuclear deterrent. The United States does not need to compromise on core national interests to pursue a new strategy in Europe that will free up resources for other regions of greater concern, accommodate impending budgetary constraints, strengthen the military capabilities of treaty allies who are principally responsible for their national defense, and lay the groundwork for a more balanced and stable European security architecture.
And if it can’t, so what? We should have left NATO thirty years ago.
Someone should tell Matthew here that the Russians are attacking superior numbers of defending Ukrainian forces.
And what that means.
Of that I fully agree with. The Euros have some sort of European Defense Organization. They are more numerous than we are and all together richer so let them take care of themselves. The Euros have for a good while been contemptous of the USA and very fond ridiculing us and spewing hatred of Americans (note Amanda Knox) so they should be allowed to show how sophisticated and worldly wise they are all by there self important selves.
*MAGA First/Anti-War/Anti-Globalist Ping*
If you want on or off this list, please let me know.
the Russo-Ukrainian War, which has revealed the severe limits of Russian conventional military power, has prompted U.S. officials to justify significant new forward deployments to Europe and raise the number of U.S. forces in the region from 80,000 to over 100,000.
If the Russian forces are exhibiting such severe limits, why the need for more forces in the area? Why not withdraw a bunch?
That is an interesting paradox. An answer might be that whatever the shortfalls of the Russian ground forces are after the Uke war comes to an end they are going to grow much larger and more heavily armed with the Chinese practically giving their new BF’s masses of almost new equipment and the Russians will be looking for revanche on the Euro weinnes.
“If the Russian forces are exhibiting such severe limits, why the need for more forces in the area? Why not withdraw a bunch”?
Excellent point.
Yup, this is correct. Let them fight their own wars and get their own mothers' sons killed.
US should bring all European troops home. If EU wants us, let them pay in future, time to stop subsidizing them.
Russia isn’t interested in invading Europe, they just want to sell them gas and other commodities. It’s the US that doesn’t want that, because it would ultimately lead to a Eurasian economic block disadvantaging the US in international trade. We purposely started this crap with Ukraine/Russia to prevent that from happening.
It means Russia is not a conventional military threat to Europe, which is far bigger than Ukraine in every way.
Not sure what you are smoking, but Russia went into Ukraine outnumbered 3:1........
At least one European country is taking their responsibility for self defense. They are devoting 3% of their GNP to defense, while others may not even be meeting their 2% commitment. The information below was commented at another site, and describes the weapons Poland is buying, including several $billions worth from us.
“Poland: Europe’s Newest Military Superpower?
https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/poland-europes-newest-military-superpower/
Some highlights
Poland has embarked on the largest procurement of conventional American weapon shipments in history. In March, Warsaw signed off on $4.75 billion worth of Patriot missiles, bolstering the nation’s anti-missile defense system.
Poland also requested an additional six Patriot systems in late May. This was not the first major purchase by the country, which prepared for the worst in February and laid the groundwork for its largest ever tank purchase, ordering 250 M1 Abrams tanks from the U.S.
Poland continued to strengthen its defensive capabilities. This includes a major weapons purchase from military tech giant South Korea, including 180 K2 tanks to be delivered by 2024 and another 400 by 2030. Additionally, Poland purchased 48 FA50 light attack aircraft, 1,400 IFVs, and 670 plus K9 self-propelled howitzers. Defense Minister Blaszczak also stated Poland will increase its active-duty forces to 400,000 with an increase in defense allocations to 3% of the nation’s GDP.
Arguably the top defense investment Poland made was the procurement of 500 HIMARS from the U.S.
It should also be noted Russia has ramped up militaristic rhetoric with regard to Poland; for example, by disrespecting the victims of the Katyn Massacre and suggesting that the country should be next in line to be “denazified.””
That would seem to be a damning commentary on either their intel agencies or Russian decision making processes.
3% and that amount is a fraction of what we spend on their defense for them. No, let them defend themselves, else pay us, or cede their soveriegnty to us. Why not? If they can’t or won’t defend themselves, why respect them as a country?
For some time NATO members have been supposed to pay 2% of GDP for military readiness. This has changed somewhat recently, but Poland’s commitment to 3% is a positive move. Any change in the 2% rule would have to be renegotiated, and probably should be.
Having served in Europe/NATO three tours I always felt that, just like Korea, we had just enough troops and dependents there to insure enough outrage that the American people would support all out war in case of attack.
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