Europe’s military independence from America; From dream to reality

Mehr News; The international group: The war in Ukraine, which has entered its second year, revealed the complete dependence of Europe on the United States in defense-military affairs, and even at different times, the differences and inability of the Europeans to take the initiative in subduing The military crisis played out at home. For this reason, America, which brought itself closer to Europe in the heart of World War II, in the heart of another war (Ukraine), strengthened the foundations of Europe’s dependence on itself.

The New World Order and the Creation of Dependency Circles

The world order as we know it today was created in the wake of World War II and expanded after the collapse of the Soviet Union. By designing and planning this system, America has been trying to ensure its permanent military hegemony over Europe, Eurasia and the rest of the world in such a way that all regional or international powers also have political-economic activities around the axis of America.

America’s grand strategy is to prevent any power from dominating the region and to turn these regional powers to America and create a circle of ranked allies.

According to the theories that “Dean Acheson, George Marshall” and other American statesmen pursued; American hegemony also served to suppress regional competition because before that, this issue was almost unsolvable and caused two world wars.

The US Army plays an important role in the reconstruction of Europe

The US military was always an integral part of the plan to unify and rebuild Europe from the ruins of the two world wars, because during these two wars, Europe was almost completely It destroyed itself and the United States, which saw only the Soviet Union as its rival, revived Europe to destroy it.

The Europeans also used this opportunity to cooperate with the American plan, because it created the conditions in which both America and Europe could flourish, but prosperity in Europe with There was dependence. The United States helped Europe’s economic recovery after the war with 13 billion dollars in aid in the form of the Marshall Plan.

But with the NATO treaty, America hammered its nail in Europe and placed this continent completely under its security umbrella, so that the foundations of Europe’s dependence on America were formed. .

The fifth article of this treaty, as its most important element, declares that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all members. These policies were not only to confront the Soviet Union, but also to condition Europe to access the American facilities.

The founders of the American New Order believed in the theory that Europe’s deep economic-military dependence on America is a safety valve for the members of this continent to be America’s global tool and abroad. Do not play from this field.

New world order theorists considered “isolationism and the slogan of America first” as poisonous for this country and its global goals and believed that America is in another continent but not in another planet Therefore, in order to develop and protect its own interests, it must keep Europe as its first circle of global allies, and this strategy has been maintained and strengthened since the Second World War.

Why Europe is militarily dependent on America

Analysts of Western think tanks have repeatedly examined this issue and given why Europe is militarily dependent on America, in these analyzes it is stated: European armies are still afraid Two world wars are suffering and the US has not allowed Europe to develop a large military independently. For this reason, these armies have experienced decline in the last few decades.

In this approach, although Europe is present in NATO and pays for it, many of the European military hardware is still in a poor condition. Most of the European forces are not ready for a separate battle. Their fighter jets and helicopters are not ready for combat flights and their ships and submarines are not ready for rapid military movement. Most of their vehicles and tanks are not suitable for new wars.

Europe also lacks capabilities critical to modern warfare, including capabilities such as aerial refueling to support fighter jets, air transport to transport troops into battle, and aircraft Advanced reconnaissance and surveillance drones essential to modern warfare. The European forces with the equipment they have are not ready for a battle to achieve complete success, and the equipment they have has not provided them with enough assurance of victory.

Although this issue is actually considered an important military weakness and failure for the Europeans, it is actually necessary to point out the vital role of Washington in accelerating this weakness and this This issue has caused Europe to worry and to get closer to America to receive military equipment and ensure its security and defense.

The important point is that the US response to such weakness in Europe has been to force NATO member states to spend more on defense. As a result, defense spending has become the defining issue of transatlantic relations in the 21st century. For more than two decades, every Republican or Democratic administration of the United States has strongly pressured European capitals to strengthen their national forces in support of NATO.

Media reports of the meetings of the American and European military leaders show that no other issue has caused Washington to interact with Europe as much as the state of the European defense forces in recent decades. Is. According to Washington, the only way to solve Europe’s defense deficits is to spend more of these countries, although analysts say that despite the increase in the cost of most European countries; European defense is still significantly anemic in terms of military power.

“Robert Gates”, the US Secretary of Defense at the time, said at the meeting of NATO members in 2011: Non-American members of NATO spend a total of more than 300 billion US dollars annually on defense. which if allocated wisely and strategically. However, according to Gates and US policy makers, there is no other option but more extensive spending for European countries.

Of course, since 1999, the European Union has worked to create a common security and defense policy within the bloc, formerly known as the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP). It was.

From a military point of view, this continent has defined missions in crises related to the Balkans and the Caucasus, from Africa and the Middle East. However, it has been very difficult to improve Europe’s military capabilities, especially considering many of them, in these fields because, after years of stagnant or declining European defense budgets after the end of the Cold War, effective and needed facilities for Success in this field was denied to Europe.

Wide gaps in strategic air and naval forces, command and control systems, intelligence and other European forces, the possibility of independent action from the US in various fields for the continent Green, not provided, and for this reason, Finland and Sweden also demanded to join NATO.

Summary

Although the United States considers it impossible in the current situation and according to the theories of the American founders of the new order, to allow the independence of arms to Europe, but Claire Berlinski US opposition to EU defense efforts since the 1990s has been a strategic mistake that has weakened both the EU and NATO. It is time for a new US approach that encourages the EU’s ambitious defense strategies.

The war in Ukraine has made the reality of how much Europe depends on America for its security and guidance And the leadership in this field has been entrusted to Washington.

According to media reports, the US and its allies sent more than 100 billion dollars in military aid to Ukraine in the past year. And they are going to add billions of dollars to this amount in the new year, but the important point is that Europe, with various requests for American support for Ukraine, has strengthened the message that the members of this union are united in facing the military challenges related to them. or that they have accepted their weakness in this field.

According to “Margarte Vestager In the first 16 months after the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, member states spent more than 100 billion euros on defense purchases, said Margrethe Vestager, Vice-President of the EU Commission. Almost 80% of these costs were spent outside the European Union, and the United States alone accounted for more than 60% of these costs.

The noteworthy point is that the European Union did not increase its military budget much in the last two decades because it always It had benefited from its relations with Washington in military relations, but the war in Ukraine and the consequences related to energy and fuel threats for this continent caused the share of the military budget of many European countries to increase in 2023 in such a way that some of them, according to NATO’s request 2% of their gross production was allocated to military budgets.

The important point is that Europe’s extensive military spending in NATO shows the degree of dependence and companionship of these countries with America. has the In this context, although the United States has allocated the largest budget in NATO, the European members of this organization have also provided large budgets.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is a political and military alliance consisting of 32 countries. It has declared its main goal to facilitate cooperation between member states to ensure mutual defense and security.

According to NATO statistics, the US is still the largest contributor to the NATO budget. In 2023, the country spent $860 billion on the organization, which accounted for 68 percent of total spending. This amount is more than 10 times more than the second country, Germany.

In 2018, then US President Donald Trump sent letters to NATO allies asking them He wanted them to spend more on defense to meet the minimum 2 percent target. However, in recent years, Washington has increased its spending, with a 6 percent jump by 2021.

The chart below shows the defense spending of NATO members in 2023.

Analysts say that Russia’s attack on Ukraine is the biggest military-security challenge in Europe after World War II, but the differences Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Schultz, the leaders of France and Germany, in solving the problem of Ukraine and the European Union’s delay in helping Kiev, shows how weak the European concert is to face the most important challenge at home, and this at least led to the increase of the US military presence in Europe. will be and this event fully revealed America’s military dependence on Europe.

Of course, this does not end there, because Europe’s dependence on the United States for its security and military needs means that the United States is in practice the right weapon. Veto is equipped to defend Europe. Some European analysts while criticizing Europe’s military dependence on the US say: the total economy of the EU member states is very large and wide, so that its total economy is estimated to be almost the same as the economy of the United States and China, making it a global commercial and regulatory superpower. has become, but the lack of hard power of the European Union and the general weakness of its military power have reduced the independence and global influence of this bloc, which is why today Europe is highly dependent on the US military to ensure its security.

Therefore, if the European Union has the desire to become a stronger, more capable and independent global player in the field of the international system, it should increase its military capacity with develop less dependence on Washington, a process that the current situation and developments in Europe, especially the war in Ukraine, has postponed this necessity.