Macron wants ‘Euro army’ to combat China, Russia and US

French president says the Continent cannot rely on protection from America with Trump as its leader

EMMANUEL MACRON, the French president, has called for a “real European army” to defend the continent against Russia, China and even the US.

Mr Macron, who has pushed for a joint EU military force since his election last year, issued the call in northern France in the run-up to the centenary of the end of the First World War.

“We will not protect the Europeans unless we decide to have a true European army,” Mr Macron said in the interview at Verdun, the scene of France’s most bloody battle.

His call came as he was due to welcome Donald Trump, the US president, and other world leaders, including Theresa May and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, to France to commemorate the Armistice centenary this weekend.

Mr Macron said the continent could no longer rely on protection from America, citing the recent decision of Mr Trump to withdraw from a Cold War-era nuclear treaty, and he even suggested its old ally posed a potential threat.

“We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America,” Mr Macron told broadcaster Europe 1 in his first radio interview since taking power.

“When I see President Trump announcing that he’s quitting a major disarmament treaty which was formed after the 1980s euro-missile crisis that hit Europe, who is the main victim? Europe and its security,” he said.

Faced with “a Russia which is at our borders and has shown that it can be a threat”, Mr Macron added: “We need a Europe which defends itself better alone, without just depending on the United States.”

Mr Trump had previously said that Europe could not bank on America’s protection if it failed to meet its annual defence spending commitment to Nato, prompting Mr Macron to declare last month: “Europe can no longer rely solely on the US for its security.”

While he enjoys good working relations with Mr Trump, Mr Macron has called the US president’s isolationism “worrying”. Last month, he criticised Mr Trump’s policies in a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York.

He said: “Nationalism always leads to defeat. If courage is lacking in the defence of fundamental principles, international order becomes fragile and this can lead, as we have already seen twice, to global war.”

The EU launched a multibillion-euro defence fund last year to develop Europe’s military capacities. France has also led the creation of a military crisis force of nine countries, including Britain, operating outside the framework of the EU after Brexit. The European Intervention Initiative (EII) holds its first meeting today in Paris. But Britain has always argued against the idea of a European army as a competitor to Nato.

Defence analysts yesterday expressed scepticism over the concept of a European army. Bruno Alomar, professor at the School of War in Paris, said the idea of creating a “common strategic culture” was interesting.

“But there exists a fantastic gap between European defence dreams of Emmanuel Macron and the reality of very powerful disagreements between European partners on defence issues,” he told AFP.

Our foes will be emboldened to strike if they think that we are too bitter to assist

The Indo-pacific region will come to matter more to the UK than Europe

The dilemmas facing Britain during the First World War continue to divide leaders, experts and the public. With the UK preparing to leave the European Union, and with rising uncertainty about the future of Nato, we must reassess our role on the Continent. As we mark the centenary of the Armistice, every day this week we will examine an aspect of modern warfare. Here, we ask: should Britain defend Europe today, with author RT Howard and James

Rogers, an expert in British foreign policy and military strategy, arguing their cases Yes

Roger Howard Author of ‘Power and Glory: France’s Secret Wars with Britain and America 1945-2016’

The centenary of the Armistice is a fitting moment to reflect upon the state of Britain’s strategic relationship with its European neighbours. Should we still defend our Western allies as we did in August 1914, or take a more detached position, perhaps even retreating, like Britain in the decades that followed the Crimean War, into a state of “splendid isolation”?

There is one compelling reason why our strategic ties with Western Europe now deserve to be closer than ever before, and we need to reaffirm our commitment, laid down in the 1949 Nato treaty, to “assist” other signatories in the event of an “armed attack”.

The reason is not that Western Europe is today confronted by threats any greater than before. True, the challenges of a resurgent Russia, a rapidly growing China, Islamic terrorism, migrant invasions and cyber warfare are formidable. But these cannot compare to the Cold War period, when the threat of armed, and nuclear, confrontation was very real and protracted.

Nor is it because Britain’s military clout is more powerful, allowing us to more readily make meaningful defence commitments. While our Armed Forces – particularly our Special Forces and the RAF – continue to enjoy a very high reputation the world over, they remain cashstrapped and understaffed.

Instead, we should commit ourselves, with renewed emphasis, to defending our Continental allies because of the increasingly fragile, fractious state of the European

Union. An artificial, federal creation that has deliberately tried to repress and ignore such national sentiments, the EU is now under immense, existential pressure from separatism in Catalonia, budget stand-offs in Italy, the defiance of anti-migrant member states in Eastern Europe and the prospect of British national independence.

Our every enemy invariably searches for weaknesses to exploit. Our most dangerous foes will be emboldened to strike if they think that we are too deafened by political discord to hear their “dreadful note of preparation”, or too bitter to assist rival protagonists.

We need to be aware, in this context, how readily any foreign power can misapprehend those they despise or fear. Such misunderstandings underwrote, for example, the Cold War, as both East and West watched each other warily: in 1983, during “Operation Ryan”, they so nearly led to nuclear war. They also helped to cause the First World War, as German planners searched for signs of dissension within the Triple Entente that would undermine French willingness to support Russia, and Britain’s willingness to defend France.

One tragedy of the EU is that, by the very artificiality of its nature, it is apt to provoke such national disagreements whose strategic significance outside observers can misunderstand.

Post-brexit, a reaffirmation of our determination to the defence of Europe would, in a single stroke, dispel these delusions. It would act as a reminder that Brexit has no necessary bearing on our shared security framework and interests. Besides the obvious fact that the Nato alliance exists independently of the EU, so too can an independent Britain still work closely with its neighbours. Such a reaffirmation would also act as a reminder that Brexit will enhance our security, and that of our allies.

No

James Rogers Director of the Global Britain Programme at the Henry Jackson Society

The UK has long played a key role in the defence of Europe. Britain’s central geostrategic objective – in Sir Winston Churchill’s words – “has been to oppose the strongest, most aggressive, most domineering power on the continent, and particularly preventing the Low Countries from falling into the hands of such a power”.

Traditionally, this was achieved indirectly: the UK would support a coalition. From the late 19th century, however, the threat from Germany and Russia became so profound that Britain was forced to take a more direct approach by focusing the mainstay of its strategic resources in Europe. No other European power had the military and industrial strength to resist the kind of onslaught that Germany – under the Kaiser or Hitler – or the Soviet Union could mount against their weaker neighbours, France included.

The Soviet threat compelled the UK to establish a permanent “continental commitment” after 1945. This large armoured force remained in place at great cost throughout the Cold War, only being reduced after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Even into the late 2000s, more than 10,000 British forces remained in Germany. With Europe apparently secure, and with cost-saving in view, the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review began the withdrawal.

The resurgence of the Russian threat after the invasion of Ukraine in 2014 forced the UK to change tack. With Nato’s eastern flank on the line, Britain sent 800 troops to Estonia and 150 to Poland. The UK now has more forces deployed as part of the Enhanced Forward Presence than any other country. It also intends to maintain a residual military presence in Germany to facilitate movement further east.

In addition, the UK has sent RAF Typhoons to help police the skies over the Baltic and Black seas, with additional fighters to be sent to Iceland next year to guard the “Wider North”. Indeed, as part of its new Defence Arctic Strategy, Britain has recently decided to deploy marines to underscore the security of Norway.

Simultaneously, as China has grown in power, and the US has started to refocus on the Indo-pacific, the UK has also moved to bolster its toehold “East of Suez”. As around 90per cent of global economic growth will occur in the Indo-pacific, this region will gradually come to matter more to the UK than Europe. So should Britain remain committed to the defence of Europe?

Self-evidently, the UK cannot neglect Russia’s aggression. However, with a few notable exceptions, its Nato allies should do more to assist by pulling their weight. It is particularly intolerable that wealthy Germany, with its large trade surplus, continues to hold its defence spending down. It is even more astonishing that Germany continues to question UK-US resolve, while investing the money it should have otherwise spent on defence – Us$30billion annually – into boosting its domestic productivity and social wellbeing.

Rather than wasting time on developing “European sovereignty”, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain would do better to provide more combat-ready forces to deter threats along Nato’s eastern and southern flanks.

The UK and US cannot withdraw from mainland Europe completely, because only they can actively “extend” the Trident nuclear deterrent with conventional forces. But the days when the UK and US can underpin the defence of Europe are coming to an end. James Rogers’s most recent report is ‘Defending Europe: Global Britain and the Future of European Geopolitics’