Mark Twain's phrase is often quoted that “history never repeats itself, but it often rhymes.” He might have added that when history does, in fact, rhyme, the results are often disastrous.
Consider, for example, the very real possibility that former US President Donald Trump will return to the White House in 2025. Given his blatant disregard for Europe's security, it is understandable why European countries, which have depended on the United States for their security since the end of the Second World War, they must be worried.
But it's not just about Trump. Given China's growing influence and the subsequent rebalancing of US strategic priorities, Even a second term for Joe Biden could lead to a reduced American commitment to NATO in favor of Aukus: the military alliance he created with Australia and Great Britain to confront the threat from China in the Indo-Pacific region. The United States' waning interest in Ukraine underscores this shift, which leaves Europe facing the need to fill the resulting security vacuum.
eloquent phrases
For his part, French President Emmanuel Macron has not ruled out the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine, while the Chief of the United Kingdom General Staff, General Patrick Sanders, has called for “a national mobilization” and said that British citizens must be ready to fight against Russia.
While Russia represents a distant threat to countries such as Spain and Italy, most EU Member States fear that Russian President Vladimir Putin is on their doorstep, highlighting the country's lack of strategic autonomy. Europe.
Putin's determination to reverse the outcome of the Cold War has escalated into an almost religious obsession with restoring Russian imperial power.
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Furthermore, since Europe's defense industry lags behind Russia's, and even more so behind that of the United States, building military capabilities in Europe will likely take years. Just to give you an idea, the entire ammunition stock of the German armed forces (Bundeswehr) would be barely enough for two days of combat against an adversary like Russia.
While Russia is not as strong as it once was, Europe has good reason to be worried. Putin's determination to reverse the outcome of the Cold War has escalated into an almost religious obsession with restoring Russian imperial power. Its war of aggression in Georgia in 2008, annexation of Crimea in 2014, and full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 illustrate its relentless ambition. Under Putin's command, Russian spy ships and planes regularly monitor the borders of countries such as Sweden, Finland, the Baltic States and even the United Kingdom.
Putin's aggression has forced Europe to abandon its post-historical mentality and think seriously about rearming. Military spending by European Union member states hit a record €240 billion ($260 billion) in 2022, a 6 percent increase from the previous year, and McKinsey projects that Europe's annual defense spending could increase to 500 billion euros in 2028.
The organizational and material degradation that the Russian military has suffered during two years of intense fighting in Ukraine, together with the risk that a full-scale mobilization in favor of a war with NATO could destabilize its regime, will likely deter Putin from embark on additional military campaigns in the foreseeable future.
If Russia's gains in Ukraine are limited to its current defensive lines without a decisive victory – an outcome tied to Western support for Ukraine – Putin's appetite for further adventures in the Baltic would be markedly reduced. In any case, this would not prevent it from trying to destabilize Moldova, Georgia, the South Caucasus, the Western Balkans and even France and the United Kingdom, nor would it limit the operations of its private military forces in Africa.
But Putin's nuclear threats reflect Russia's inability to compete with NATO in a conventional arms race of the kind that crippled the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Even though European countries still spend less on defense than the 2 percent goal of NATO's GDP, Russia cannot match the combined defense budget of NATO member states, even without the United States.
Not everything is money
Europe also needs to reduce its dependence on the US nuclear umbrella. Establishing an independent European nuclear deterrent, which only France and the United Kingdom can provide, is crucial to countering Putin's aggression. Without that deterrent, as The Economist recently noted, The same reasoning that led France to develop its Force de Frappe (the French nuclear deterrent force) – the notion that the United States would not sacrifice New York for Paris – could now be extended to the rest of Europe: Would France be willing to risk to Toulouse via Tallinn?
That said, even if Europe were to improve its deterrence capabilities, it would be unwise to assume that leaders necessarily make rational decisions. In her 1984 book The March of Madness, historian Barbara Tuchman observes that political leaders often act against their own interests.
America's disastrous wars in the Middle East, the Soviet Union's failed campaign in Afghanistan, and the ongoing war of blinded hatred between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, with their potential to escalate into a major regional conflict, are prime examples. of this type of missteps. As Tuchman observes, the march of madness is endless. That is precisely why Europe must prepare for an era of heightened surveillance.
SHLOMO BEN-AMI
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TEL AVIV
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