Najboljši komentar, ki sem ga videl doslej na temo evropske vojaške histerije, je komentar Wolfganga Münchaua, ki pravi, da se EU ne more hkrati obrambno pripraviti na Rusijo in se vojaško osamosvojiti od ZDA. Prvič zato, ker med članicami ni poenotenih preferenc glede tega, kaj je večja nevarnost. Nekatere države bližje Rusiji se bolj bojijo Rusije, druge bi se vojaško osamosvojile od Amerike (Francija), tretje države pa ne vidijo nevarnosti (Italija, Španija). Drugič zato, ker EU preprosto nima niti sredstev, niti časa, niti tehnološkega znanja za učinkovito vojaško industrijo. Morda bi se z nakupi ameriškega orožja lahko v 15 letih obrambno pripravila na Rusijo, toda za vojaško osamosvojitev od Amerike bi potrebovala dolga desetletja. Kajti države EU so tehnološko zaostale za ZDA in preprosto nimajo znanja za razvoj sodobnega orožja. In tretji dejavnik je, da Evropa nima mehanizma za skupno in poenoteno oboroževanje. Nima skupnega fiskalnega instrumenta, s katerim bi lahko načrtovano vlagala v potrebne vojaške sisteme, zato je oboroževanje prepustila iniciativi in fiskalnemu prostoru posameznih članic.

Torej pozabimo, da bo Evropa postala vojaški faktor, ki se ga bo bala Rusija in ki bo vojaško neodvisen od Amerike.

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Imagine a world in which western Europe was actually able to stick it to Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump simultaneously. As if. Back in the real world, there’s a remote possibility the Europeans might get their act together sufficiently to stand up to one, or the other. But not both. They will, in classic fashion, be split. Some of the eastern European countries, the Baltic States, for example, will prioritise a push-back against Russia. Others, like France, are more concerned with driving their independence from the US. Then there is a third group that wants neither.

The extent of Europe’s current defence vulnerability is perfectly illustrated by the F-35 fighter jet. Sold to us by the American defence company Lockheed Martin, eight countries are involved in its manufacture and 14 Nato member states use it. They all co-operate on matters like training, and maintenance.

But according to the magazine Stern, the contract with the Germans stipulates that the Americans have the right to withdraw support for delivery of the aircraft, and maintenance at any time if the President decides to invoke national security interests. There is talk among European security officials that the Americans might even use something called the “kill switch” to immediately deactivate the planes, should their erratic President see fit to do so. While there is no credible evidence that such a thing even exists, the US certainly has many other ways to frustrate its use in the field — including refusing to service them or supply parts. Meanwhile, European defence ministries are committed to the jet as it allows them to remain under the US nuclear umbrella. France, the only nuclear power in the EU, doesn’t have sufficient capacity to provide the scale of defence services to other members of the EU that the US has been willing to do until now.

So, where does that leave Europe? What they are agreed on is the plan is to increase military spending. The EU will follow Germany’s example and partially exempt the defence budget from the fiscal rules. But the truth is, no amount of investment will wean the EU off its American dependency any time soon. It will take decades to close the immense defence technology gap.

To build entire industries from scratch takes time. You need defence companies, supply chains, and know-how. Europe is far from the cutting edge of 21st century defence technology and its expertise in that sector has been diminished since the end of the Cold War.

A graphic example of what happens when you lose industrial know-how can be seen in the civilian nuclear sector. Germany used to build the best nuclear power stations in the world but had changed by 2023 when it closed the last of its own plants. That same year, the country only had eight professors active in nuclear research — there were, by way of comparison, 173 professors in gender studies. This is what happens when you drive down industries. They can’t just be switched back on.

The same applies for defence. The US is miles ahead of us thanks to decades of investment into digital-era technologies. From the Manhattan Project onwards, American military investment and innovation has pioneered civilian spin-offs: the transistor in 1947, the integrated circuit a decade later, and the communication technologies in the Sixties that morphed into the technology behind the internet. When the US was investing in AI, the Europeans were fussing over the Green Deal. We spent our peace dividend on social transfers. As a result, the German military still uses the fax machine and we are similarly in the dark ages when it comes to building ballistic missiles, AI-powered satellites, and electronic warfare.

It is laughable, then, to think we could possibly match Russia’s defence capabilities in the next five years. Even with investment in place, given the weakness of our industry, we would have to spend it on defence imports from the US. At which point, action is thwarted by Europe’s age-old problem. Politics. There are no indications that political majorities in Berlin or Paris are willing to trade off welfare spending to pay for US arms imports. Italy and Spain are already recusing themselves from re-militarisation because they are far away from Russia, and because they have much less fiscal scope.

Even the more realistic goal of a gradual Europeanisation of defence spending over a period of 10-15 years would go beyond anything Europe has done in living memory. Key to their current position is the fact that the EU is not a military alliance. Defence is explicitly excluded from the single market. The UK is not in the EU, and yet it is indispensable in the construction of any functioning European security architecture. But Europe, obdurate as ever, launched a €150bn defence fund with the participation of Japan and South Korea, and without the UK. This tells us that they are still in business-as-usual mode.

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It was only this year, 11 years after Putin’s annexation of Crimea, and three after his invasion of Ukraine, that the EU started to panic. With the return of Trump, EU leaders finally realised that the combination of their under-investment in defence and their over-reliance on the US had left them dangerously exposed to global shocks.

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The EU has not drowned quite yet. It is at a point where it can choose between stepping into a US-made helicopter, or a European-made boat. My guess is that some Europeans will choose the boat. Others will choose the helicopter. And some will make no choice at all.

Vir: Wolfgang Münchau, UnHerd