Lax Europe Leaves World Order to US and China

The trans-Atlantic relationship is the cornerstone of our foreign and security policy. That is what politicians across Europe want us to believe. This principle is more and more a theory.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates gave an unbelievably harsh farewell speech in Brussels at the beginning of last year. He wondered whether Congress is still willing to invest in NATO and Europe if the Europeans continue to cut ongoing funds in their own defense. The secretary expected a shock to run through the alliance. But nothing happened. No debate, hardly any reporting.

The U.S. secretary of defense had to explain up to three times to Congress how he was going to respond to the non-response of the allies. When I was in Washington a couple of weeks ago, they were still angry.

General Dempsey, the highest-ranking U.S. serviceman and the right hand of President Obama, spoke in worrisome terms about Europe. Would the old continent be able to survive the political and financial crisis? If not, that would also jeopardize the safety of the United States. The reason? The U.S. desperately needs Europe as a counterweight to the rise of Asia.

Dempsey also addressed the forthcoming defense directive. This would, besides causing a reduction of the budget, require the concentration of U.S. defense efforts in the Pacific. America looks at the West now, no longer at the East.

That change of policy was already expected. Minister of Foreign Affairs Clinton spoke in a recent article in Foreign Policy about “America’s Pacific century.” Asia would become the new focus of her policy.

Since a week ago, there is that new defense directive. Obama and Gates’ successor, Panetta, postulate that Europe is still an important partner but that the U.S. presence will be adapted to the new reality. In short, the Americans want a re-balancing, a re-orientation. The rise of Asia is dictating the future welfare and safety of the entire Western world. If Europe wants to join the U.S., then that is good, but America is no longer going to plead.

I am convinced that the majority of European citizens and politicians think “whatever.” But it is completely logical that the United States and Europe work together to protect their welfare, as well as their social and political stability that are being threatened by that new world order.

The European allies are, however, in a deep political crisis. For now, they are unable to save the euro and the European Union. The absence of any debate on the consequences of the European decay in that new world order is significant.

One day, Europe will wake from its lethargy and be asked the question of how things have gotten this far. The U.S. and China will then determine the world order without Europe. The ties with the U.S. are so weak that being able to act together with the Americans is impossible. European armed forces are empty shells.

Raw materials and energy go primarily to rising economies that are becoming powerful. Europe will then have deliberately and knowingly wasted its welfare and safety.