Recent statements by Trump's regime in the USA concerning territorial claims on Greenland, backed now with threats of tariffs on all states that object to his plan that this country, which is the sovereign territory of another NATO member, become a part of the USA, represent a significant shift in the history of international relations in the post-War era, and most especially in relationships between Europe and its supposed NATO ally. There is, then, an obvious question to ask, which is what can Europe do to manage the very clear physical threat it now faces from US forces, which all European NATO members have undertaken to defend Greenland against?
The US threat is an unprecedented challenge to its European allies to seize territory legally recognised as European by force, not least when NATO was built on the assumption of mutual respect for territorial integrity. The challenge to this assumption creates massive uncertainty in strategic planning and diplomatic relations, at least in the modern era. That, in itself, does, however, indicate what the appropriate response to this challenge is. It is not that a direct military response is required, not least because US military strength might make that look futile. Instead, the reaction must be at a strategic and diplomatic level and requires a total reassessment of the relationship with the USA.
Even this, however, poses real challenges. European security planning has developed around the practical assumption of there being deep integration with the US system. These integrations come from:
- Sharing military bases, or simply letting US forces have sole access to bases in European sovereign territory, as happens in the UK.
- Intelligence sharing partnerships.
- Defence procurement relationships, and
- Diplomatic coordination.
This integration has, within the neoliberal power framework that has sought to defend globalisation and its interests, broadly worked to date, but has now created very clear asymmetric dependencies, with the apparent balance of power almost always resting with the USA.
That being said, the relationship has not been unidirectional. The US has always benefited from European cooperation over US bases (most especially when they have been used for US operational purposes unrelated to NATO), intelligence gathering, the creation of defence markets for US armaments and the provision of political legitimacy for US military action. These US dependencies do, in fact, create potential leverage that Europe has historically been reluctant to acknowledge or utilise. The time to reappraise this dimension of the relationship would appear to have arrived. Doing so suggests that Europe is not nearly as powerless as it might appear.
As usual, there are several required actions.
Firstly, a broader range of European leaders should issue a coordinated statement clarifying that the territorial sovereignty of European states is non-negotiable and that any coercive actions or credible threats would necessitate a fundamental review of security cooperation frameworks. The statements issued to date have been too limited in scope, embracing too few states. Unity matters here. Differences will be exploited.
Secondly, the European NATO states need to undertake assessments of their dependencies across defence, intelligence, economic, and technological domains, with the urgent goal of determining how to address them. The need here is to address realities, not politics: the situation requires that.
Thirdly, the obvious necessity is to expand European defence cooperation to reduce dependency on US defence procurement. This must establish European alternatives for critical capabilities and ensure that European defence industries can sustain operations independently if necessary.
Fourthly, Europe must enhance its own intelligence-sharing mechanisms. Such a move is vital. Sharing intelligence with a hostile power, as the US now is, cannot be considered wise.
Fifth, amongst all this analysis, the political will to create appropriate responses should the US resort to aggression has to be developed. Such responses must include:
- Potential adjustments to the right to access US bases.
- Changing intelligence cooperation levels.
- Revising procurement decisions, and
- Reconsidering trade relationships, not least in the light of current tariff threats.
Once decided, the resulting decisions will need to be communicated, and time might well be of the essence here.
Sixth, European defence spending needs to be re-orientated toward capabilities that enhance European autonomy when too much to date has been undertaken to support US-dictated goals. The detail will take time to work out; creating the strategy does not need to do so.
Taken together, these suggestions do not, at least as yet, imply complete abandonment of cooperation with the USA, but they do reflect prudent risk management in response to current uncertainty. If defence alliances require mutual respect and shared interests, the failure of those conditions demands a reasoned response, and that is what is vital now, not least to ensure that the remaining partnership (which might be called the East Atlantic Treaty Organisation, or EATO) rests on solid foundations.
The goal in all this is not European isolation, but European agency with the aim of producing a Europe capable of independent action, when necessary, if that proves to be the case. This principle should have always applied, and its absence is, in retrospect, a clear policy failure that needs to be addressed now.
The question then becomes, is this achievable? There are conditions for this to happen.
First, there is a need for a genuine political consensus across major European states, and most particularly France, Germany, the UK, Poland, and Italy, whose combined capabilities and political weight are necessary for meaningful action.
Second, this requires a commitment to sustained expenditure over the course of decades.
Third, there would need to be a willingness to accept near-term costs before these arrangements can be put in place, but there is no reason to think those costs might be worse than the costs of current US aggression.
Fourthly, there remains the question to answer, which I posted here recently, which is just what is Europe defending by acting in this way? With fracturing politics across Europe, most especially because of the rise of the far-right, this might be the hardest goal of all to achieve.
That said, unity will be essential, and there will be strong resistance to any of these measures. That will come from:
- The USA.
- Defence contractors who benefit from current arrangements.
- Security establishments that might be quite comfortable with existing structures, and
- Political leaders who are reluctant to accept near-term costs.
The question to ask is, what is the alternative? The answer is that these options provide Europe with negotiating tools that are otherwise absent, especially when the only other option might be unmanaged vulnerability.
In that case, unlikely as it might once have seemed, threats to Greenland create an opportunity for necessary strategic reassessment and redefinition of the reasons for any defence strategy. Will the opportunity be taken? That is an entirely different question that can only be answered if common grounds for sharing defence systems and costs can be established, which is why I ask, yet again, what we are defending.
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[…] to a threat from the USA over Greenland in the latter part of last week, which is reflected in a blog post published this morning. That was because, over a couple of days, I was in discussion with the BBC about whether I would […]
I can only hope that deeply rooted in the EU is the fact that it was always a peace project – the European continent is a mass historical graveyard really. The EU was formed to make that happen – something the UK – being a victor of two more recent cataclysms – never really understood?
Therefore, to maintain the peace, there has to be better vigilance and more in- zone cooperation, more inbuilt resilience.
So to me, that is what the EU is defending: the peace.
One of my biggest concerns about the current US belligerence is the deep integration of US systems in European infrastructure.
Europe has to urgently and seriously look at replacing US software with the equivalent Open Source software to ensure the security of our infrastructure and, indeed, our society.
A genuine question.
Would a mass sell off of US Treasuries by EU and others put pressure back on Trump and his Congress?
Yes — it could, but the chain of effects is indirect and politically messy.
A mass sell-off of US Treasuries by foreign holders would, all else equal, push Treasury prices down and yields up. That would tend to:
– increase US government interest costs (especially on new issuance),
– tighten US financial conditions (higher rates across mortgages/corporate debt), and
– unsettle risk markets.
All of that would create political pressure on any administration, including Trump’s.
However, there are big caveats.
First, Treasuries are the world’s core safe asset. In a true panic, many investors often run towards Treasuries, not away from them. So coordinated foreign selling could be partly offset by domestic and global private buying.
Second, the Federal Reserve can stabilise yields through purchases (QE / yield management) if it chooses. The US, as the issuer of the dollar, cannot be funding constrained in the way some (not all) states can be.
Third, foreign holders selling Treasuries are also harming themselves: they either crystallise losses or they must find an alternative reserve asset of comparable scale and liquidity, and there really isn’t one at the same depth.
So, foreign selling could signal diplomatic and financial disapproval and cause disruption, but it is not a reliable weapon that would force Congress to change course. It would create pressure mostly via higher rates, market volatility and a weaker dollar, but the US has unusually strong tools to absorb that pressure.
I do not buy this argument as a result.
In the case of defense procurement, the EU’s SAFE programme is underway and US weapons suppliers are deeply unhappy. With the exception of fighters, the EU has weapon systems that equal or surpass those of the US e.g. the air defense system that defends the White(Trump?) House is from Kongsberg – Norwegian. Drones (miles ahead), artillery (miles ahead), tanks (parity), troop transport (parity). Aircraft? The Swedish Gripen (with recent upgrades) is close to parity with the vastly expensive F35. Europe does not need US weapon suppliers. Submarines? The Swedes have a conventional sub that the US hates, becuase it can’t detect it. & so on & so forth.
Arctic warfare? The EU & the UK have that capability, the USA does not. As already noted, all US bases in Europe need to be closed, ALL. NATO, closed. SHAPE, closed – with the buildings re-purposed for the EDO – European Defense Organisation.
The USA has never been a “friend” of Europe, it has seen it as a competitor that needed reducing down to size and it timed its involvement in various world wars to maximise its advantage (other blogs have noted how the US used its post-WW2 position to position the $ as the worlds reserve currency) . It also preyed on various European assets, the 1890s provides a good example when it took over Cuba and the Philippines from (a weak) Spain. I could go on at length.
Much to agree with and this lot very much in mind when I was writing the first post on this theme this morning.
[…] I wrote a reasoned response to this situation this morning, but the more I think about it, the more I realise that the power is actually with Europe. In that case, we need simple-to-explain and very obvious strategies that challenge what the US is doing, which do need to be discussed by European leaders publicly, so that the US knows that a response is in mind. […]
I read that Canada is successfully diversifying its international relations, increasing exports to countries other than the US, and negotiating agreements with Japan, eg. If this is right, it seems like a good model to take note of, and perhaps follow. The US under Trump is behaving like an enemy, and a fascist one at that.
One day we will be in the post-Trump era. While it is difficult to imagine a return to the status quo ante, I imagine European leaders are fervently hoping that will be the case, so they don’t have to make really difficult decisions. Especially the UK with our special poodle relationship that makes the UK uniquely vulnerable to this supposed ally that could be turning out to be an enemy. But if, as is perhaps more likely, Trump’s successors maintain their bellicose orientation to the point that it is clear that the USA can not be relied upon to defend Europe in the event of Russian aggression, then the British establishment will have to admit that a radical weaning of the UK state from the US is required. Many difficult truths would have to be recognised, including: a) the ‘special relationship’ is over b) NATO is over c) the UK can no longer be Airstrip One d) the military occupation of the UK by the US and all military and defence cooperation with the US will have to end e) defence procurement from the US will have to cease – no F35s, no Trident etc f) all intelligence sharing will stop. Will any of this happen? Personally I find it hard to imagine. I think the UK political and military establishment would rather the UK turn into a fascist colony of the US than risk undergoing any sort of brave and radical rupture with Big Brother across the ocean.
Before anything else, British politicians need to get out of the ‘Special Relationship’ mindset.
There never has been one, and there never will.
As you would say … A huge amount to agree with…..
But I think the coalition should be more than just Europe. The 5 Eyes for US intelligence are US, UK, NZ, Canada and Oz. These 4 are all countries that would contribute to a coalition. I suspect that removing US access from this global asset base / security / intelligence would be extremely effective.
Agreed
You are right
Trump’s tariffs on Europe over Greenland are a perfect opportunity for us to revisit our trade agreements with the US, all designed to put American business first. Opt out of copyright laws, enable third party tech on Google and iPhones, right to repair, allow third party parts in vehicles. We create opportunities for domestic industry and decimate American big tech. We also stop wealth extraction from our economy by American tech firms. Book a holiday cottage? American company gets 15%. Sell online? American company extract as much as 49%. This is our chance. They aren’t honouring their trade agreements, so all bets are off. There will be pushback, Blair is in bed with Oracle, but desperate times.
It’s not quite that easy though.
We do not have the tech and infrastructure in place to replace what you refer to. Hence, my alternatives.
Understood, but right to repair and allowing third party software and parts would be the easiest point to start from. Making it no longer illegal to install software that stops Google spying on you would be appreciated, and I’m sure farmers would like to be able to repair their own tractors rather than wait for John Deere to get to them.
OK? But how do we do that?
Of course Donald may simply be angling for a deeper NATO presence in Greenland which we will pay for even though it will be a cover for a much greater US presence there, effectively making it impossible to remove them. He can be canny like that.
You are an optimist, Tim.