Monday’s emergency talks on European security called by French president Emmanuel Macron in Paris were a necessary response to a genuine crisis in transatlantic relations as the Trump administration opened bilateral talks with Russia on the Ukraine war. The blunt message from Washington is that US troops will not be involved in a security guarantee for any peace agreement there. The implicit threat to impose a US-Russian deal on Europe raises profound questions about the future of Nato and whether European states must now organise their own defence.
These Trump positions – delivered so rapidly last week – have come as a deep shock to European centre-right and centre-left leaders accustomed to advance consultations by the US, notwithstanding Washington’s evident domination of the transatlantic security relationship. They represent a sea-change in US strategic geopolitics with Trump apparently determined to dominate the Americas, sympathise with Russia’s desire to control its near abroad and contain China’s determination to do the same in Asia. Trump’s hostile attitude to the European Union sees its integration as a threat, but demands European states finance their region’s defence.
These new US challenges to European interests have some continuity with previous US administrations as economic priorities shifted away from globalisation towards a more protective industrial policy and security concerns shifted from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They could and should have been seen coming by European leaders, who could have been better prepared for this sudden shock. Macron had anticipated the changes most clearly, but his political difficulties at home and inability to find firm allies elsewhere in Europe weakened his hand. Such troubles also confront other centrist leaders challenged by extreme right-wing movements now explicitly stoked by the Trump administration.
Macron deserves credit for this crisis initiative. The summit discussions on security, defence and Ukraine are the first of many to come on how European states and the European Union should protect their distinctive interests and values. These will be necessary and fateful decisions.
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Ireland is peculiarly ill-prepared for the major decisions now required at national and European levels. Revolutions in communications and globalised interdependence have broadened security and defence far beyond traditional frameworks, making this State a more important player geographically and economically in an era of cyber-security. Ireland needs to spend more on upgrading its security and defence in its own and Europe’s interests. Bigger decisions on how to fit into the transformed European security architecture now urgently required to resolve this transatlantic crisis then lie ahead.
