Europe must rejoin history with military might and political will

President Trump’s continued online fulminations against NATO will not likely lead to American withdrawal from the alliance. Europeans should, however, note two important facts his behaviour has revealed: Trump views alliances as relationships, not treaties, and Europe remains much too militarily weak to defend its core interests.

Europe’s military weakness is well known, but it bears reiterating how massive the gap is between its might and its interests. America has sufficient oil and gas production to guarantee its economy can operate, albeit at a higher cost, while the Strait of Hormuz is closed. Europe does not yet it does not have the military might to ensure that the Strait can remain open to free navigation. 

Europeans do have some military power. France has a modern aircraft carrier that it theoretically could deploy to the Arabian Sea to use to open the Strait. Italy also has a smaller carrier while Great Britain has two. Other NATO nations have frigates and destroyers they could contribute to a multi-national force, while all NATO nations have aircraft that could be sent to supplement the forces of America and its allies.

The trouble with the scenario reveals the problem. Those forces could be deployed, but they lack the forward bases that America does to maintain and support them in the region. These forces, to the extent they are combat ready, are also needed in the event Russia should invade a NATO nation. There’s not enough to fulfil both duties simultaneously even though European security depends on fighting on both fronts at once.

Trump surely knows that, but it still galls him that European nations seem unwilling to make any significant effort to defend its energy lifeline. NATO’s core Article V commitment has not been invoked, nor can it be, given that the United States started the current war with Iran. But that doesn’t mean the war isn’t impacting the alliance’s structure, and the fact that only one nation seems capable of defending it reminds Trump of what’s he’s believed for decades regarding European dependency on American might.

His regular anti-European eruptions also reveals a key fact about how to deal with Trump: He views all international actions through the lens of dealmaking and relationships. That’s the result of his business career, where he built his real estate business and his media career on discrete deals based on personalities. 

Trump’s discussions of global affairs often revolve around assertions of his good relations with world leaders. His surprise and dismay over Vladimir Putin’s unwillingness to make peace in Ukraine stems in part from his belief that their purportedly good relationship would yield concrete benefits. His belief that he has a good relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping underlies his belief that the upcoming summit can help reduce tensions between the two nations.

There’s not much European leaders can do in the short term to improve relations with Trump. They’re not going to denude the continent’s defenses to reopen the Strait, and they have little else of substance to offer Trump. Their electorates wouldn’t support such a move even if they could make it, such is the distaste for Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

That means Europe’s leaders should prepare for Trump’s inevitable desire to punish them for, as he sees it, not being there for the United States when it needed them. They should do that in the only way that he respects, with both a carrot and a stick.

The stick involves the leverage Europe does possess, its economic might. Many American businesses depend on European trade, even though Europe would surely suffer more in any trade war. America’s upcoming midterm election, though, gives Europe political leverage America does not have against it. The short-term damage a trade war would do to America could be the difference between Republicans holding control of the Senate and giving Democrats full control of Congress. European leaders should be sending that message through private diplomacy to Senate Republican leaders now.

The carrots involve military and economic benefits to America. Europe could contribute some force to a multi-national contingent to keep the Strait open. It should do that, which means at the very least deployment of one of the carrier strike groups to the region. It could also contribute monetarily to any multi-national effort to rebuild some of the facilities damaged or destroyed by Iranian attacks during the war. Trump would surely grumble that this is too little too late, but he would also be happy to get something rather than nothing.

Ultimately, though, Europe has to be willing and able to rejoin history with the military might and political will that large powers need to survive. That will take a long-term plan that likely includes a revamping of the European Union that gives it more unity in foreign affairs and gives nations more autonomy in economic and social policy. Failure to make those hard choices means the relationship with the United States will remain rocky regardless of who occupies the White House.