Evropska izpostava medija Politico je objavila zanimiv pogled njenega urednika Nicka Vinocura na Evropo – njeno relevantnost za ZDA in njeno strateško izpostavljenost ZDA. Ključna poanta članka je, da je vseeno, kdo bo zmagal na ameriških volitvah, saj je Evropa za ZDA postala nerelevantna. Evropa Ameriki ni konkurenčna, ne ogroža je v nobeni gospodarski dejavnosti, tehnoogiji, kulturi ali športu. Če nisi vojaško suveren in močan in če nisi gospodarsko in tehnološko konkurenčen, si temu primerno nepomemben.

V resnici na ljubo, je Evropa za Ameriko pomembna zgolj kot lokacija za njene vojaške baze z jedrskimi raketami, s čimer ZDA vzdržujejo strateško ravnovesje moči z Rusijo. Izven te funkcije je Evropa nerelevantna. Evropa je mrtva. Ne glede na to ali zmaga Harrisova ali Trump, se bo zveza Evrope z ZDA razvodenela, ker se je ameriški strateški interes preusmeril v Azijo, na pravega tekmeca Amerike. Članice EU pa se bodo dezintegrirale, vsaka zase bo iskala svoje strateške interese in zase zagotavljala svojo strateško varnost.

No, Trump lahko da temu le še dodatni pospešek.

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That’s not to say this election won’t affect Europe. One candidate is an admirer of Vladimir Putin who wants to impose 100 percent tariffs on European goods and vows to end the Ukraine war the day after his election. His reported threats to pull Washington out of NATO should be taken seriously because, this time around, Trump probably wouldn’t be surrounded by “Deep State” restrainers. Harris, by contrast, pledges continuity in the U.S. global leadership role and has a Europhile adviser, Phil Gordon, in whom Europe places high hopes.

But if you take a step back, the bigger picture is this: Europe just isn’t as important to Washington as it once was. Aging and shrinking, allergic to power politics, fractious and risk-averse, Europe increasingly elicits not fondness in many Americans but sneering disdain — a place good for holidays and not much more (see this characteristic tweet from a San Francisco influencer). It doesn’t help that the performance gap between the American and European economies is widening inexorably, to America’s advantage.

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The uncomfortable truth is that American interest in Europe has been dwindling for the past 30 years. And neither candidate is likely to bring back the transatlantic heyday of the early 1990s.

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Europe just isn’t as important to Washington as it once was. Aging and shrinking, allergic to power politics, fractious and risk-averse, Europe increasingly elicits not fondness in many Americans but sneering disdain — a place good for holidays and not much more (see this characteristic tweet from a San Francisco influencer). It doesn’t help that the performance gap between the American and European economies is widening inexorably, to America’s advantage.

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Behind the scenes, the French are typically clear-eyed about how Europe is seen by Washington. “It’s not hostility,” quipped one diplomat. “It’s indifference. Sometimes that’s worse.”

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Culturally speaking, it was also a different era. The Dream Team, featuring NBA stars Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley and Larry Bird, had leaped and dribbled their way, effortlessly, into a gold medal at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games. EuroDisney — a sort of American colony, smack on the outskirts of Paris — had just opened, imposing Mickey-mania on a groaning French public. American media outlets, from the swashbuckling Herald Tribune to the Wall Street Journal Europe, were still big, brassy presences in European life, richly staffed and highly regarded.

Compare and contrast with the state of affairs today. The U.S. has withdrawn or downsized its European footprint in just about every department except one — the digital sphere, where U.S. tech companies like Facebook and X reign more or less supreme on our screens, but bring no glamor.

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U.S. diplomats on the continent are, with the exceptions of David Pressman in Hungary or Bridget Brink in Ukraine, timid creatures who walk softly and carry no stick. The Herald Tribune is long gone, rolled back up into the body of its parent, The New York Times, while the Wall Street Journal has retreated back to its moorings in Lower Manhattan. Of the buzzy, digital-first media outlets that have popped up in recent years (POLITICO, Semafor, Axios), only POLITICO has put down roots in continental Europe. Even the tech giants are having second thoughts. Having developed next-generation artificial intelligence tools for consumers, they’ve largely decided against rolling them out for European users. The risk of falling afoul Europe’s AI Act is too great. Or maybe they just can’t be bothered.

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For Jérémie Gallon, a Frenchman who worked in Washington and authored a biography of Henry Kissinger, the waning of U.S. interest in Europe isn’t a bad thing, per se. But it is, in his view, an incontrovertible fact linked to a turnover in Washington’s foreign policy elite. “There was an entire generation of senior officials who had organic links to Europe, either because their parents emigrated, or because they were refugees from Europe. Kissinger, [former national security adviser Zbigniew] Brzezinski, [former Secretary of State Madeleine] Albright. They were all European on some level,” said Gallon.

The formal shift away from Europe started under former President Barack Obama, who drove the Pivot to Asia agenda, said Gallon. But Obama merely pushed along a process already in motion, which may well now accelerate. “Now we have a new generation rising which reflects American demographics,” he said. “They [U.S. government officials or diplomats] are either linked to the Spanish-speaking world, or they look toward Asia. Those with links to Europe are simply less present.”

The downgrading of Europe in the psyche of American elites is reflected in educational and career choices. Mastering Mandarin shows more ambition for an aspiring diplomat than, say, French or even Russian. Studying Europe as a geopolitical entity, by contrast, is a niche pursuit. Gallon took note: “At Harvard, the South Asian studies building is big, bright and modern, clearly a prestigious department. The Center for European Studies is just what you would imagine: small, kind of decrepit.”

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The big irony of America’s yawn away from Europe is that it’s hard to pinpoint one specific reason why it’s happening.

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What’s more, even now, the economic relationship between the U.S. and the European Union is bigger than it’s ever been in history. Volumes in transatlantic trade of goods and services are huge, and going up year after year.

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Far more challenging is planning for a future in which the U.S. will be significantly and permanently less engaged in protecting Europe.

On this front, France plays the role of Europe’s Cassandra, warning that the bloc needs to get its act together on defense no matter who is elected president. “We cannot leave the security of Europe in the hands of voters in Wisconsin every four years,” French Europe Minister Benjamin Haddad said on LCI television last week. “Let’s get out of collective denial. Europeans must take their destiny into their own hands, regardless of who is elected U.S. president.”

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The tune has been taken up by the European Commission in Brussels, which wants Europe to be more independent on tech, defense and raw materials. But the truth is that when it comes to envisioning a future with less America, the bloc is deeply divided. As enthusiastic as the proponents of European “strategic autonomy” may be, there is no momentum behind the creation of a European army or a European nuclear umbrella.

Some countries — namely the Nordics and some Central and Eastern nations — see the push from Paris as a ploy to bolster France’s companies. They regard proposals for a stronger Europe with unified strategic and military goals as a Trojan horse that would only deliver submission to the larger states, i.e. France and Germany. For others, Putin’s Russia is simply an existential threat. Losing America’s protective umbrella is simply unimaginable. It would expose them to the brunt of Russia’s nuclear and conventional arsenal, with no credible counterweight.

Some believe these attitudes would have to change in the event of a Trump victory. But the alternative is just as likely — that faced with further U.S. disengagement, EU countries will retreat into an “every nation for itself” mentality, regarding one another with greater suspicion and seeking an edge via deals with other superpowers, namely Russia and China.

“Without the United States, Europe is lost,” wrote French analyst Nicolas Tenzer last year. Far more dangerous is the risk that Europe won’t acknowledge that it’s already lost, and that it remains motionless and paralyzed as a result.

Vir: Nick Vinocur, Politico