The Transatlantic Alliance is dead. And if it can be revived at all, it will be many years before we can rely on the protection of the USA again. If we still want it then at all. Two things have crystallized in the last few days. One is obvious, the other many have not yet recognized.
The obvious one: The USA under Trump is adopting Russia’s rhetoric (Zelenskyy is a dictator, Ukraine started the war, …), thereby opposing Ukraine and Europe, and thus also saying goodbye to common shared values. Their policy is now that of might makes right, of empires, no longer that of a rules-based world order.
Coup in the USA
Less obvious: a coup is currently underway in the USA. There will be no more free elections in four years’ time. Probably not even in two years, for the midterms. This has become increasingly apparent in the 30 days since Trump took office.
What has made it clear to me is this ArsTechnica article (it is very worthwhile to also look at the comments of the largely liberal readership): Trump has ended, by Executive Order, the independence of agencies created by Congress to be independent.
This is certainly not legal, but Trump is implementing the steps so quickly that the courts and the Democratic opposition can’t keep up. The Republicans have managed to consolidate all power: They provide the president, control the Supreme Court, Congress, Senate, and now the independent agencies as well. For example, the FEC, which is supposed to guarantee free and fair elections. All important positions in the executive branch are being filled with people whose most important characteristic is loyalty to Trump.
Trump and Vance have announced their intention to ignore court rulings they disagree with. And that is precisely the crucial point: in the end, the Constitution is nothing more than a piece of paper. If Trump ignores it and nobody stops him from ignoring it, then it simply no longer applies. No special proclamation, no visible coup is needed for that. After all, the Republicans are already at the levers of power. They are just never going to step away from them again.
Trump more or less stumbled into his first term of office. Thus, many other top officials and Republican politicians were beholden to the Constitution instead of being unconditionally loyal to Trump. He also didn’t really have a plan for how he wanted to rebuild the state. Quote from my book: “Even in the US, this danger is clearly present. From 2017 to 2021, this country only escaped the slide into autocracy, or alternatively civil war, because Trump was just stupid/demented instead of actively rebuilding the state.”
This time, Trump has obviously surrounded himself with enough yes-men and prepared himself sufficiently well to actually implement the restructuring of the state he wants.
I won’t go into any more detail about why I am convinced that what is currently happening in the US is a coup. In a few months it will be obvious enough that it will become a major news topic in Europe.
There are only two possible paths for the US from this point on: Either the coup succeeds and the US consolidates itself as an autocratic state. Or the citizens fight back, liberal states secede and the USA slides into civil war.
In neither of these two cases can we expect a return of the US in the foreseeable future as an ally on whose support we can count.
Just as with my book, I want this blog post to focus on something else: How do we deal with this? How can we, as countries of Europe, develop a vision for the future from this major challenge of no longer having the USA as an ally? A vision that will ultimately leave us all in a better position than before we recognized this new problem?
Invasion of Ukraine
The current major problem facing Europe is the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
To be honest, Europe has not really taken it seriously so far. Of course, there was the “Zeitenwende” speech in Germany, more was invested in the Bundeswehr (special funds), Ukraine was supported, sanctions were imposed, dependence on Russian gas was eliminated. These were important and difficult steps!
But the awareness of the problem, both in politics and among the population, was on the one hand moral indignation, and on the other hand concern that the rules-based world order would be threatened if Russia won the war. In response, this meant not only slightly higher arms spending but also significant support for Ukraine. In addition to the costs, concerns about the nuclear threat from Russia limited the strength of this support.
In contrast, we had no real concern for our own security so long as Russia did not escalate with nukes. And why should we? The USA stood by our side and an attack on the whole of NATO would be hopeless for Russia. So the European countries could try to keep their additional expenditure as low as possible, with a large part of the support for Ukraine coming from the USA and other non-European countries.
Unfortunately, the goal of the US under Biden was to prevent escalation by giving Ukraine just enough material not to lose the war, but not enough to regain its lost territory and force Russia to the negotiating table. This was not a strategy, it was just delaying the decision. But it was the cheapest solution for the European countries at that moment.
Which brings us to the present. The USA is no longer an ally, is ending its support for Ukraine, and its security guarantees for Europe (NATO’s duty of assistance) can no longer be relied upon. It is quite possible that sanctions against Russia will be lifted, and we will be lucky if they don’t start selling weapons to Russia.
What happens if Europe accepts this? The price for the morally correct decision is too high and would strengthen the right-wing parties in Europe too much, so we regretfully accept that Ukraine will have to bow to a dictated peace. Without foreseeably stronger support, the morale of the Ukrainian soldiers will not hold, and Ukraine will soon have no choice but to submit.
End of the problems, with a morally damaged Europe, but without other consequences?
Not by a long shot! If Putin agrees to a ceasefire or peace in Ukraine, it will be with the aim of breaking it again shortly (a few years at most). Or to look for another target (Moldova, for example). After all, the war of aggression was successful, the rules-based world order no longer applies, Russia wants more land and influence and needs wars to maintain internal peace.
One part of the country that Russia wants to incorporate is the Baltic states. If the NATO alliance does not work here - because the USA is too distracted by civil war or China/Taiwan, or is simply not prepared to pay the price of going to war - then NATO is history.
No matter how amorally Europe wants to act, it cannot be prepared to sacrifice the Baltic states to Russia - they are EU members and part of the eurozone! Even if the rest of Europe wanted to give up these countries too - at that point all foreign policy would be at Putin’s mercy, always with the paralyzing fear that Russia could attack if too much obstinacy is shown. Only France and Great Britain could still feel reasonably safe thanks to their own nuclear forces.
On the other hand, without US support, Europe will be weaker than Russia a few years after the end of the fighting in Ukraine, if they do not spend more on defense than they currently do. Because Russia spends such a high proportion of its economic power on armaments, and Europe has spent so little for many years (peace dividend). And because Europe consists of many individual countries, each with its own army, its own procurement system, its own weapons systems, … And because in Russia every dollar achieves far more because wages are so much lower (PPP = purchasing power parity)
Quote https://www.swp.de/panorama/top-10-diese-laender-geben-am-meisten-fuer-ihr-militaer-aus-77852890.html: “Russia increased its military spending by 41.9% compared to the previous year, to USD 145.9 billion (RUB 13.1 trillion). In purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, Russia’s military budget of USD 462 billion even exceeded the entire European defense budget. Russia’s spending reached 6.7% of GDP and could rise to 7.5% in 2025.”
This future in the shadow of Russia CANNOT be the goal! Not for anyone living in a democracy in Europe so far!
The role of Europe
Being strong enough to prevent Russia from attacking a Europe without US backing is one thing. The other is what future we in Europe actually want to achieve for ourselves. In a world that will be determined by great powers as they see fit, do we really just want to keep isolating ourselves? The rules-based levers of the old world order are being lost, and the future lever will be military strength.
But for this strength to influence the world, Europe would have to speak with a single voice. The USA has rejected EU participation in peace negotiations with Russia, arguing that it is completely unclear which EU leader should actually be at the table. And they are right! Our influence on crises in the world is so small because it takes far too long for Europe to agree on anything. And this agreement is then only ever a minimum consensus, as all foreign policy decisions have to be unanimous. So the deciding voice is always the one from the country that wants to do the least. If their opinion is contrary enough, for example Hungary in relation to Russia, then often nothing happens at all. This can be currently seen very clearly at the crisis meetings following the Munich Security Conference.
Europe has the economic power to produce so much military equipment that Ukraine can push Russia out of its country! Europe, with its 500 million inhabitants, has an economic power on par with that of the USA. It spends very little of it on its military, and ineffectively at that (since each country spends on its own, instead of together).
But of course it is still attractive for each individual country to make all other countries pay as much support as possible, so that it has to spend as little as possible itself. To spend within the framework of the EU, on the other hand, everyone would have to agree. A coalition of the willing just to spend money (military aid for Ukraine) is not very attractive, and would largely be concerned with burden-sharing.
United States of Europe
How to cut this Gordian knot seems very obvious to me in principle: Let us come together as those countries of Europe willing to integrate more strongly! Germany, France, Poland, the Nordic and Baltic countries. Perhaps Great Britain, if they have now heard the wake-up call that cooperation with their European neighbors is a good idea after all. Any country that is willing to walk this path with us. We simply ignore those countries that don’t want to.
The core, the impetus for the development, must of course be a common foreign and security policy. But at least as important: A European Parliament that really has something to say, and no unanimity reqierement in sight! No country should be in a position to block the decisions of the entire group of states or to gain the greatest possible advantage for itself by horse-trading!
There has never been a better impetus to tackle the United States of Europe (USE) project than the current foreign policy of the USA¹.
If enough countries participate in this project to represent the majority of European economic power, the political guidelines that the USE government and parliament will pursue appear to be extremely obvious:
- Establishment of a common arms industry, with standardization of the weapons systems used, factories in their own country, joint development projects.
- Massive military support for Ukraine so that the USE does not have to stand up to Russia later without Ukraine’s help.
- Agreement on Ukraine’s future joining of the USE, so that all of Ukraine’s military and economic support belongs to the USE again, including all of its natural resources - instead of selling them off to the Americans for less than they are worth.
- Establishment of a joint army so that each member no longer has to try to maintain all capabilities itself. A far more efficient use of funding.
- Economic consolidation within the USE, leveraging the huge efficiency potential that still exists there (despite the EU’s efforts).
- Better promotion of start-ups and digital companies, which will find a more uniform market. The USE will find it much easier than the EU to adapt and simplify its laws, as such decisions only need to be passed by a common parliament, instead of being passed by the EU Parliament and EU Council, and then transposed into national laws. The world is changing faster and faster. The USE’s faster pace of decision-making would be a huge advantage for its economy as well!
- A common budget and common debt. So that the USE receives more favorable interest rates without the members squabbling over who is irresponsibly squandering this money on election gifts.
The United States of Europe do not have to be fully established to increase support to Ukraine. This must happen quickly now: Europe’s support must increase significantly within months if we are to wrest the reins from the US and its dictatorial peace proposal.
But once there is a common intention to achieve this goal, if a memorandum has been signed, then it can be agreed that the future members will start to increase their support for Ukraine and their own arms production now, keep a record of this, and in the end (after the USE is founded) it will be offset against a fair burden-sharing, and no one will be at a disadvantage. Just as fiancées might each contribute something to a suddenly necessary expense: As soon as they are married, they have a joint account anyway, and can compensate for any imbalance that has arisen.
I think that in order to simplify the founding process, existing European institutions could take on a dual role for the USE in many places in the beginning. Until new, separate structures have been created (as would happen if the EU were transformed into the USE, which is not possible due to a lack of unanimity).
Once the foundation has been completed and the new structures are capable of acting, the USE can act independently in the game of the great powers instead of just being a pawn of the others. In this way, there will be at least one great power in the world that continues to stand up for liberal values. Over time, it will become extremely attractive for other European countries to apply to join the USE.
In this way a challenge has been turned into a positive future for us in Europe.
A party already exists which is seriously advocating for the goal of a United States of Europe: Volt. So this blog post is not the only voice with this idea. :-)
If the English translation of my book was already done, and if its ideas were already well known, or if there were other credibly elaborated, positive visions of the future in the political and social debates, then I could go further here. See which ideas of my state concept could be adapted for the United States of Europe. Since they are not, such a discussion would of course be complete megalomania. But it shows impressively why it is so important to think about the future we want to achieve as a society before crises like this one force us to make quick decisions.
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