Europe aspires to lead so long as others pay for it

The Continent’s feckless attitude to security shows how minor a role it will play in the new geopolitics

The retired Chinese general considered carefully and then divulged this sage advice: “Don’t put yourself in a pitiful position.”

It’s not quite Sun Tzu, but then, her audience wasn’t at that level. She had been asked, in light of the US pulling out of an arms control treaty with Russia, what message she had for the unhappy child in the middle, Europe. The former US diplomat Richard Burt, chairing the panel, couldn’t believe his ears. “‘Pitiful’ position?” he spluttered. “Pitiful. Is that the right word?” asked General Yao Yunzhu. “It’s the right word!” said Mr Burt. “I wouldn’t use it too much in public.”

General Yao wasn’t embarrassed, though. It’s an age for saying things that were, until recently, deemed true but impolite. At the Munich Security Conference, a big, diplomatic shindig held in Germany last week, one of those truths was that Europe is an increasingly passive player in the great geopolitical game. As a Bloomberg write-up put it: “If China and the US are in the midst of a divorce, Europeans look increasingly like the children.”

Nowhere is that truer than in defence. Europe relies for its defence on the US, but rather than generating any gratitude, this seems to give EU leaders an endless sense of superiority. They denounce American militarism, critique the US social spending model and moan about its “unilateral” decision-making, all while free-riding on its $730 billion defence budget.

Of course, those European countries for whom defence really means something behave differently. The Baltic States, with an eye on Russia, all meet their Nato spending obligations and support Donald Trump when he demands that others do so. This is because Nato troops are deployed on Baltic soil and, according to Latvia’s foreign minister Edgars Rinkevics, they have made his country feel safer from invasion than it did five years ago.

Eastern European states therefore take the US more seriously than Brussels. When a US government changes, they flood Washington DC with officials on the off-chance of collaring some new member of the administration. And when the US complains about a Chinese-eastern bloc infrastructure investment forum, known as “16+1”, undermining the Western alliance, a country like Poland listens, as it does not when Brussels says the same thing.

Brussels might think that regulating the world’s largest single market makes it a superpower. Instead, the EU struggles to enforce even basic political standards among its members. Trade is one thing, but there is simply no substitute for feeling safe.

Germany, however, clings to pacifism, hoping that Mr Trump’s demand for Berlin to pay its way is a temporary aberration. Angela Merkel is moving defence spending “in the direction of ” Nato targets and says Germany’s deployment of troops to join France in Mali was “a gigantic step”. A “gigantic step” for Germany, though, is a pigeon step for Europe.

Nor will that change while much of the Continent persists in thinking that defence is irrelevant or something that external benefactors are obligated to supply. In the Brexit negotiations, EU states have threatened us, called Gibraltar a “colony”, eyed our fishing grounds and our financial industry, yet somehow expect UK voters to support the unconditional deployment of our troops on Europe’s borders.

Britain is one of Europe’s bigger military contributors, but even here, defence has been endlessly deprioritised. Retiring officers repeatedly warn that we are operating below minimum safe levels, our frigates can’t put to sea for lack of sailors and spending has halved relative to GDP in 25 years. Yet in the great austerity debate, despite an increasingly unstable world order, defence doesn’t even get a look-in.

But it is Europe’s most dominant economy that really personifies its fecklessness. Racked by war guilt, a wide spectrum of German society does not believe in military spending. Business types think it wasteful. Others, like thousands of protesters outside the Munich conference last week, campaign against nuclear weapons. These marchers should be grateful that the US nuclear shield even deigns to cover them. Instead, they protest like spoilt children.

This is the state of public opinion during a time of plenty, with Germany’s budget surplus at a record high. Now a recession is on its way. On defence, as one official put it: “We have wasted the last five years.”

What’s more, Germany’s pacifist Green Party is enjoying a surge in support. If and when they enter government, they will find their pro-eu instincts conflict sharply with their anti-war tradition. Any renewal of a pact between France and Germany, essential to keeping the EU together, won’t just be about the euro, but must involve military cooperation. France is tired of shouldering so much more of the burden than its bigger neighbour.

Europe is far from stepping up to its responsibilities. Despite hyperbolic talk of an “EU army”, all Brussels has done so far is establish joint training and procurement programmes to make the Continent’s patchwork of underfunded militaries marginally more functional. In Eastern Europe, they know better than to rely on such a prospect. As Mr Rinkevics put it, given the fuss over basic Nato spending targets: “Who on earth is going to pay for a European army?”

Underlying Europe’s helplessness is a stubborn belief that militaries just aren’t relevant any more. Desperately behind the times, too many of Europe’s voters and politicians seem to believe we are living in a post-cold War “end of history”, in which all the world democratises peacefully. In fact, we long ago entered an era of competitive military spending between the US, Asia and Russia, mass migration (fuelled by conflict and environmental degradation), terrorism, hybrid warfare and existential challenges to global forums such as the EU. Europeans have failed to realise that historically low levels of military spending are now a dangerous luxury.

In the old days, historians had a name for this sort of lethargic complacency. They called it decadence. Declining empires used to spend their cash on monuments and extravagant public festivals. Now, we splurge on much worthier, but also more expensive, projects, like welfare, while ignoring the world around us.

In Munich, Merkel made a grand pitch to defend international governance structures. Europe still has pretensions towards shaping the future geopolitical map. Yet it’s also happy to be a free-riding supplicant to the US for that most fundamental of all state functions: security.

The day after Merkel’s speech, the sound of the city was that of old church bells punctuated by the roar of supercar engines. Europe is a lovely place to hold a summit. The question is whether, in 10 or 20 years, its nations can live up to their aspiration to be guardians of the global order, rather than just its hapless dependents.