From Khaled Abou Zahr
Sometimes in life, your enemies know you better than your friends. We tend to take our friends for granted while we know we must stay alert to our enemies.
I remember a speech by former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, at the high point of the confrontation with the March 14 Alliance when it was pleading for Western support and assistance. His message was that the US respects the strong. This was, and is still, correct. Yet, it was in my view an incomplete analysis; the US respects the strong-willed.
This is something we need to remember now, as it is undeniable that the transatlantic relationship is going through a transitional phase. And it was, in essence, the message delivered during an interview this week by Vice President JD Vance as he urged Europe to be more independent and not act as a “vassal” of the US.
He went so far as to praise the European nations that opposed the US-led Iraq War. One must remember the stand Jacques Chirac, the French president at the time, took on this issue and how he threw all of his country’s weight behind efforts to try to prevent the conflict. Yet, it was an impossible mission. The Iraq War was not about weapons of mass destruction or oil, it was about America’s response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on its soil. I do not think there was any possibility it could have been stopped, even with all of Europe’s efforts.
It is a positive sign that Vance mentioned this, because it is undeniable that this was the first breach of the trust between the US and its allies. I do think that not only did some European countries not oppose the war in Iraq, they encouraged it. It was, as Vance stated, a strategic disaster.
Yet it was not a stronger European opposition that might have prevented it, but a stronger Europe. A stronger European military capacity and a stronger will might have provided support to its US ally in answering the attack on its soil in an adapted and more efficient manner. In any case, we cannot have a history redone.
Whether at the national level or on a personal level, it is difficult to maintain a friendship with a much more powerful or wealthy friend. It demands discipline and a strong will, simply because without independence you will quickly become a vassal or freeloader. This is what happened to Europe in its relationship with the US. It succumbed to the easy life and US generosity. The result is now an unprepared Europe and a weakened relationship.
I believe that France, starting with Gen. de Gaulle, exemplified how to keep your fate in your own hands while remaining friends with the US. It is this spirit that Europeans need to revive in their relationship with Washington.
Vance is right to criticize European dependence on the US for security and economic matters. This is something the Europeans should have woken up to a long time ago. But what is important now is not to allow the current situation to move toward a breakdown of transatlantic relations when what is needed is a readjustment.
It is a two-way street, and both the US and the Europeans must want and commit to a “transatlantic 2.0” because a reboot of the alliance that can answer the new challenges of the world is a necessity.
But what does a stronger Europe actually mean? Europeans have started to map this out. In recent months Europe, and France in particular, have been increasing their efforts and pushing new initiatives with the aim of boosting their sovereignty.
France assembled the Weimar+, a new security alliance with EU strategic autonomy in mind, and has been advocating that EU defense industries receive funding from the upcoming European Sovereignty Fund.
Moreover, this sovereign push includes new technologies. France hosted the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in February, for example, during which €110 billion ($125 billion) of investments were announced. Paris also backed the EU’s €200 billion InvestAI program, which aims to reduce dependence on foreign tech. Given the present reliance on microchips for both commerce and defense use, France has pushed for an EU-wide plan to secure critical technologies such as semiconductors.
There are nevertheless lessons from history that France, and Europe in general, should not forget, such as the Maginot Line. It was a line of fortifications built by France along its eastern border in the 1930s to deter a German military invasion. Its construction assumed it was protecting the only possible passage for invading troops. During the Second World War, however, German forces bypassed it by invading the Ardennes Forest in 1940, rendering the line ineffective.
So we should be wary of potentially strong but misguided defense strategies. This means understanding that, even more so in the world of today, there is no single-solution approach to challenges and there is a need for a diversified approach to resilience. Therefore, Europe can no longer rely solely on the US, or a single technology, but must keep innovating. –FP
