By Sumantra Maitra
Friday, March 29, 2019
Bob Gates, perhaps the most farsighted post-Cold War
defense secretary, presciently predicted in 2011 “that there will be dwindling
appetite and patience in the U.S. Congress—and in the American body politic
writ large—to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are
apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary
changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense.”
Gates, who once rightly understood that the Saudis would
fight Iranians to the last American, also essentially hinted the same with
regards to Germany and Russia, “nations apparently willing and eager for
American taxpayers to assume the growing security burden left by reductions in
European defense budgets.”
Put simply, he was saying the Germans would talk about an
international liberal order for as long as Americans would pay to defend it.
The day they are caught not tangibly supporting this order, they would throw a
tantrum and blame Washington. “Future U.S. political leaders– those for whom
the Cold War was not the formative experience that it was for me—may not
consider the return on America’s investment in NATO worth the cost,” he said.
The last two weeks have brought back this long-time
question, as Germany yet again reneged on its pledge to increase its defense
budget, which was already far short of the required 2 percent of gross domestic
product to uphold North Atlantic Treaty Organization commitments. Under a
nominally conservative leader in Angela Merkel, the German government is
apparently struggling to have a defense budget of 1.3 percent of GDP, and
reports show it is set to decrease to 1.2 percent by 2023.
In short, Germany is not even trying to increase NATO
funding, but actually planning to decrease it, in a rub to the American and
British taxpayers who subsidize European
security. Adding insult to injury, some German politicians accused the
American ambassador to Germany, Richard Grennell, of acting like a colonial
viceroy or high commissioner of an occupying force, and wished he would leave
Germany immediately.
Yes, you read that right. Germany refused to pay for its
share in NATO, and when the American ambassador pointed that out, the German
leaders wanted to make him a “persona non grata” and take away his position. In
a similar timeframe, which I am sure is “purely coincidental,” the EU fined
Google for the third time, and Germany signaled it would continue to be
protectionist in trade.
Grennell has been one of the most effective President
Trump picks. He managed to align European sanctions against Iran, deport
Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh, and get East European countries to agree to
increase their defense budgets after 15 years of the Clinton, Bush, and Obama
administrations failing to move the needle.
But as reality bites, former Cold War rivals like China
and Russia return to Cold War form, and the EU turns into a liberal empire, the
question before Americans (and the British, while we are at that) is what to do
with Germany. Berlin is not behaving like an ally, and not even behaving like a
partner with whom Washington can have a tactical alignment. Germany is openly
hostile to America while, in perhaps the most insufferable development,
sanctimoniously lecturing America.
Ever since Trump won, partly as a reaction from American
taxpayers opposed to foreign interventionism and permanent sacrosanct
alliances, there has been a conventional wisdom of sorts that the Great Grand
Mutti, Merkel, is the next leader of the liberal world order. Sometimes this
position is laid at the feet of French President Emmanuel Macron or Canadian
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but Merkel is worshipped by the Max Boots and
the Anne Applebaums of the world.
Oddly, however, I have yet to see a single op-ed on how
Merkel is wrecking
the very foundation of Euro-Atlantic peace by importing Russian gas to
Europe and calling for a European army to replicate NATO, while simultaneously
ruling out spending on NATO. So, what should the Brits and the Americans do?
NATO was formed in the mid-20th century, in the words of
Lord Ismay, to keep the Germans down, the Americans in, and the Russians out.
It was primarily a geopolitical alliance. Everything else was secondary.
NATO meant to ensure that no single hegemon dominates the
European continent ever again, and American hegemony in the Western hemisphere
was by design, not a flaw. It was needed, as the Western European states were
weak and subject to Soviet threats—which vanished as early as in the
mid-sixties.
John Kennedy, for example, as early as in the
mid-sixties, said, “We cannot continue to pay for the military protection of
Europe while the NATO states are not paying their fair share and living off the
fat of the land. We have been very generous to Europe and it is now time for us
to look out for ourselves.”
The new reality, however, is that NATO is bloated and the
German strategy of buckpassing is evident. Contrary to popular opinion, the
first NATO expansion idea in the early 1990s was from Germany, under the
cynical and crafty Volker Rühe, who was clear about German frontiers shifting
towards Russia. It was not the East Europeans, who even though were rightfully
feeling threatened by Russia, driving the enlargement.
Alongside Madeline Albright, Rühe convinced the Clinton
administration to push east, spreading the liberal institutions that now form
the backbone of the new EU imperium. Germany, which could field at least five
divisions of troops within days in 1991, cannot fly even four Tornado jets now.
The country that pioneered undersea warfare has no active submarine fleet,
because it has completely buckpassed the security burden on the United Kingdom
and the United States, while bloating its social welfare state.
It was Germany that has consistently opposed American
concerns about Huawei and Chinese infiltration. Germany has stifled Euro
growth, increasing its own competitive advantage, leaned towards Russia even at
the cost of European security, and consistently opposed further European
self-sufficiency in defense, while duplicating NATO bureaucracy and calling for
an ineffectual EU army. Not to mention, again, Germany’s mindless sanctimony
and holier-than-thou posturing.
It is a curious twist of irony that some Americans are so
opposed to their own president, and arguably their own national interest, that
they cannot even unify behind this simple bipartisan issue that has vexed
American leaders since 1960s. If Grennell were genuinely acting as a viceroy,
then he would not push the supposedly colonized states to arm up, but that
truth is lost on liberal ideologues, who are determined to blame America first
for this growing trans-Atlantic rift.
The reality is this: You cannot lecture the people who
provide security to you, and definitely cannot subvert their interests, without
expecting an eventual pushback. It goes against prudence, it goes against
realism, and it goes against basic sense of justice and fairness.
It is said that the cure starts from the moment the
problem is diagnosed. The problem here is a great power, the biggest right in
the heart of Europe, actively ignoring common sense, and acting in a hostile
manner.
German leaders want to “decolonize” Europe from the
United States. So be it. Let them take care of their own business, and see how
safe and united the European Union remains when all the American troops move
out from anywhere east of the Thames.
The return of geopolitics and great power rivalry also
means sterner words instead of wishy-washy signaling. At the minimum, East and
Central Europeans should be given a choice: to be under the dictates of Berlin,
or to follow Washington. After all, that’s what Germany wants, isn’t it?
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