If the EU thinks it can create a grand “European army,” which presumably would make NATO irrelevant, then we’re all for it. In fact, we question why, if they can create such a thing, they’ve been so persistent in trying to preserve NATO at all, given that it renders them effectively subservient to the United States as a dominant military power. Or at least, we would question that, were it not for the obvious fact that Europe has not regarded the United States as “dominant” for quite some time: that, in fact, during every previous administration, they believed they could censure and dismiss the United States’ concerns and values with impunity. Nevertheless, if they prefer to defend themselves and—in so doing—make NATO irrelevant, we won’t argue. We’ll just stop funding a security guarantee they apparently don’t need and aren’t willing to pay their share to maintain. Maybe we have to pretend to be frightened of their doing this to actually make them do it. But, in all honesty, any such protestations will have the same genuine urgency as Uncle Remus’ Bre’r Rabbit pleading against being flung into the briar patch.
Of course, we say this knowing full well that Europe’s threats to create their own army are almost certainly idle. Individual European nations could probably easily martial troops which could defend their homelands successfully, but to create such an army specifically for use by the European Union? The idea is only slightly less ridiculous than asking the Pentagon to study the military impact of deploying airborne swine.
No, we all know what this is actually about, and it has nothing to do with actual European military readiness. Europe is basically acting like the equivalent of a sulky teenager stomping her feet and threatening to run away to the circus before slamming her door and blasting Linkin Park (or whatever Gen Alpha listens to these days). Why? Well, there are two obvious reasons. Firstly, they’re upset because the United States is actually trying to end the Ukraine war without consulting them. Secondly, they’re really mad because Vice President Vance just told them, to their faces, that if they’re going to censor and quash opposition like the Soviets (which they are), then there’s little actual common ground between our nations when it comes to values. Don’t take our word for it, both things are clearly animating the freakouts of the various high-level European officials quoted recently in the Washington Post. As Zelenskyy himself put it, “The old days are over when America supported Europe just because it always had.” It’s rare for us to say this about Zelenskyy, but we couldn’t have put it better ourselves.
Let’s put this in blunt terms. There are three superpowers on earth right now – China, Russia, and the United States (though frankly, Russia is only hanging onto that status by a thread). Which of those states is most likely to give European nations the widest latitude to govern their own affairs as an ally? Here’s a hint: even if the United States only offered them the barest latitude, we’d still win that contest, in that we offered it to them at all. Russia and China are imperial down to their bones; they might not even allow such allies to retain sovereignty. The Europeans know this, which is why they fear Russia’s being on their doorstep sufficiently to remain in NATO. Fair enough, but what interest does that serve for the United States?
Again, speaking bluntly, NATO was created to defend against Russia, not because it was Russia, but because it was a communist superstate whose ambitions were self-evidently global, precisely because those ambitions are baked into the nature of communism itself. However, today, the role of communist superpower has been taken by China, while Russia has become nothing but a revanchist gas station with an internet connection, desperately pining for its old Soviet-era empire. They’re still dangerous, make no mistake, but they’re no longer the primary ideological threat to the United States. Nor are they the largest military or economic threat. All of those roles have been usurped by China. So, the question becomes, why should we continue paying to maintain a military alliance built to protect against an enemy who no longer exists?
The answer to this, historically, has been that Europe is both geographically the closest region to the United States (short of our immediate sphere of influence) and also culturally, the region whose political systems most resemble ours, in that European countries are democracies. The problem is, as Vice President Vance’s speech laid out, we’re far from certain that this is still the case. Rather, Europe – and the European Union especially – looks more and more like an authoritarian, technocratic empire run for the benefit of the Germans and (secondarily) the French, with the restrictions on free speech, limited opposition rights, and ability to overrule elections to match. In other words, the idea that the European nations are still meaningfully democratic rather than simply adjuncts held captive by an unelected imperial center in Brussels is looking harder and harder to justify.
Worse still, that imperial center appears determined to flood their own nations with a virtually unchecked supply of unassimilated Islamist immigrants, whose worldview would make the Nazis green with envy, and who are already engaged in soft ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population of Europe.The Germans, particularly, should remember what happened —and who we allied with—the last time they tried to take over Europe and ethnically cleanse people in the name of a globalist vision; perhaps that’s why their defense minister was so visibly uncomfortable at Vice President Vance’s speech.
And they should be uncomfortable, because the fact is, they need the United States more than we need them. The only reason Europe has autonomy at all is because we allow it to them, and we are the only nation that would. If they want to free us from the burden of providing that autonomy by raising their own army, we say let them try. But if not, then they should not only spare us the crocodile tears about Vice President Vance or our stance vis-à-vis Ukraine, but also remember this the next time they think of spitting on the norms of actual democracy, as they have in Germany and Romania, or of trying to sabotage peace talks for the sake of lining their own pockets, as they have in Ukraine. Because the next time, we might be forced to remind them who’s in charge with more than speeches. “America First” means more than vibes and essays; it’s about time they learned that.
