Les Européens à la dérive – Le Jeune Indépendant

The mercantile pragmatism of American president Donald Trump and his particular relationship with Russia and its president Vladimir Putin are an essential marker of the future of American-Russian relations but above all the strategic future of the United States-European Union couple.

The latest developments on the Ukrainian front and the vassation of Europe by Washington thanks to the unequal agreement imposed by Trump do not end up throwing in the unknown Euro-American relations.

The Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS), one of the main French think tanks specializing in geopolitical and strategic issues, summarizes the posture taken by Trump since returning to the White House. In his article entitled “United States-Europe: our roads separate”, the deputy director of IRIS, Jean-Pierre Maulny writes “He was predictable and Europe was poorly prepared, Donald Trump’s telephone call to Vladimir Putin undoubtedly ended 75 years of transatlantic relations”.

For this analyst, history has demonstrated it, France’s security interests with the United States were not always aligned and that these differences could lead to serious disputes. “There was the Suez Canal in 1956, Iraq in 2003 and, more moderately, the Brain Dead (Brain Death of NATO, Editor’s note) of Macron”, writes Jean-Pierre Maulny.

Today, the risk is now clear: a form of bilateral agreement between the United States and Russia, benefiting the interests of the two countries, could seriously weaken Ukraine, thus weakening other European countries. The EU would be the largest loser of a Modus Vivendi between Washington and Moscow. Brussels which depended on the American umbrella launched a debate on the substitution of this strategic protection which dates from the end of the Second World War by a form of Franco-British hybrid deterrence, with the Ukrainian equation.

Still according to Jean-Pierre Maulny, “This situation will place Europeans in front of a terrible dilemma: either they do not wish to give security guarantees to Ukraine and will discredit themselves completely in the eyes of powers such as the United States, Russia and China, because Europeans have shown that they are unable to defend the continent, while creating a significant long-term risk for the security of Europe. Either they provide security guarantees to Ukraine, accepting the cost of a financial burden which will affect the competitiveness of the European Union in the long term ”.

Historical decoupling

Even pessimism in the Chinese researcher, Guo Bingyun. Associate professor at the University of International Studies in Sichuan, he mentions in one of his articles that relations between the United States and Europe are disintegrating. In addition, history has proven that “the separation of the United States and its allies is not new”. For example, the United States “abandoned the Kurds fighting the Islamic State (Daesh, Editor’s note) or withdrew its troops independently and allowed the Taliban to regain control of Afghanistan”, so that the United States could well set up Europe this time.

Historical references are important to understand the world of today, but above all the future of international relations. The end of the Second World War marked the conclusion of the illustrious historical period of Europe which began with the era of great discoveries. As Henry Kissinger wrote in his work “World Order”, “the material and psychological capacity of Europe to organize the world had practically disappeared”. Europe, which had just escaped the claws of Nazi tyranny, was now faced with the threat of a new hegemonic regime. The Soviet ideological and geopolitical threat forced Europe to support the United States in American-Soviet rivalry.

After the Cold War, the greatest rupture in relations between the United States and Europe occurred in 2003, when the United States launched war in Iraq. In 2004, the EU experienced its greatest expansion in terms of members, with the membership of 10 former Soviet socialist and republics countries such as Poland, Czech Republic and the three Baltic States. The sudden increase in the population and the economic size of the EU has once again threatened the hegemony of the dollar.

On March 20, 2003, after falsifying evidence, the United States alleged that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. They then circumvented the UN and joined the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland to attack Iraq. Qualifying its European supporters as “new Europe”, the Bush administration has also made fun of European countries like France and Germany which opposed the war in Iraq, describing them as “old Europe”. This purpose of the former defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld has entered the history of Euro-American quarrels.

For Guo Bingyun, the Franco-German engine of the EU fell back on itself to focus on domestic affairs, foreign affairs going into the background. With the current Russian war, it is unlikely that bilateral relations between Europe and Russia will improve in the short term. The Pragmatic Administration of Trump precisely targeted this window of opportunity to promote peace in order to maximize the American advantages. The big losers in this case are none other than Europeans.

A game of dupes?

However, the case does not seem as simple as that. As Shane Neagle writes to Fair Observing, US officials of the second administration of President Donald Trump made fun of European allies while promoting private a transatlantic strategy that promotes American domination. Leaves from internal discussions, associated with changes in European policy and media coordination, suggest that the gap collected between the EU and the United States could serve a calculated objective rather than reflecting a real break. The United States seems to use the illusion of a conflict to consolidate its global power while postponing costs to its European partners.

This change of rhetoric did not go unnoticed abroad. In early March, French President Emmanuel Macron said in a television address that the West entered “a new era”, in which the United States may no longer be an ally of trust. This warning strengthens speculation that Washington’s relations with Europe may experience a structural rupture.

For this author, the United States now has all the cards in hand. “Thanks to pricing tools, President Trump can start relocating the American industry. And even without being indebted to the federal government, Europe is faced with a massive problem of bureaucratic parasitic, which discourages taxation and compromises carbon neutrality policies ”.

The main thing according to Shane Neagle, after the Second World War, “Europe has established a relationship of vassalage with the United States. This relationship has only strengthened, thanks to American domination carefully maintained in the sectors of large technologies, large banks and large pharmaceutical companies. The current framework does not strengthen the EU, but consolidates American domination ”. Everything is said!