The current war situation in Europe, with the constant threats from Russia and the repeated warnings from Ukraine, and Trump’s announcement to abandon the continent to its fate if he wins the elections, which is not improbable seeing some of the vice presidential candidates, returns the game board to Treaty of Dunkirk, in 1947.
Just two years after the Yalta Conference, in which the winning allies of the Second World War created a new world order, from which both the Cold War and the United Nations ended up emerging, the United Kingdom and France signed a Treaty of Alliance and Mutual Assistance against a possible foreign attack. It was March 4th. The choice of the city for the signing of the treaty was not coincidental. There the Allied troops suffered a great defeat when trying to stop the advance of the Nazi troops, finding themselves overwhelmed by the strategy of their enemies. Seventeen years later, the population would become the symbol that the protection of Europe could not be entrusted to temporary structures.
Exactly one month later, on April 4, 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created, whose 75th anniversary we celebrate this weekend. The dance of dates is not casual. With Dunkirk, rather than entrusting their defense to an outside power, the European military powers, which were still European powers at the time (especially the United Kingdom), preferred to entrust it to collaboration among themselves. That was the reason why in 1948, with the signing of the Treaty of Brussels, the Netherlands and Luxembourg joined, giving rise to the Western Union. Once again, it was automatic assistance in the event of aggression against one of the member countries.
The result was the creation in 1954, with the incorporation of Germany (almost economically recovered) and Italy, of the Western European Union, an organization of mutual defense, especially in the face of the intensification of geopolitical tension between the USA and the USSR that They led to the wars in Indochina (1946-1954) and Korea (1950-1953), with the consequent escalation of war. Without a doubt, the discerning reader will not miss that at no time was there talk of offensive organizations but rather defensive ones, to guarantee sovereignty while continuing to promote peace.
At that time the European Union had just been created, with the Treaty of Paris of 1951, with the aim of France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg not only beginning to cooperate economically and strengthening their cultural ties but also controlling Germany’s coal and steel production, systemic elements not only economically but also militarily. However, the military was clearly assigned to the Western European Union.
Nowadays almost no one remembers the UEO, which once had Javier Solana as general secretary and the late Lluís Maria de Puig as president of its parliamentary assembly. Its existence ended up taking a discreet second place, eclipsed by NATO and the EU, which ended up absorbing it in 2011, after the Treaty of Lisbon decided to promote a defense policy in the European Union a year earlier. It had some relevance in the Balkans, controlling the borders and attempting pacification. However, his Eurofor was not only larger than the current Eurocorps, but had greater personnel stability and a joint military strategy.
At this point in history it is not about creating a specialized organization in Europe, but about creating a military structure of the European Union, something that is not just a liaison organization between the armies of the member states. Nor a mere aggregation of them. It is good that there is a Common Security and Defense Policy of the European Union, but its instrument of Permanent Structured Cooperation is clearly outdated. There are surplus military coordination structures, which often overlap and act only reactively. The alternative to asking for help from a NATO without the United States in Europe is to have its own force, despite the unpopularity of the measure. If Ukraine falls, the next step will be neighboring member states that have culturally Russian minorities.
It is necessary to have a specialized instrument that, with autonomy but supervision, has a proactive attitude and identifies resources, recruits talent, plans research, designs scenarios, plans training, buys material, and executes actions. We currently do not have an autonomous European body that assumes intelligence, security and defense. We need to overcome jealousy over the sovereignty of states to recover the European spirit of mutual defense, which involves the development of specific or coordinating structures. We cannot depend on NATO or, even in reflection, on the OSCE. The United Kingdom has understood this well by creating AUKUS in 2021.
We need to be aware that our problems, even at the cost of a reduction in the level of the welfare state, will not be solved at this time by a foreign power, such as the United States, but that Europe must be an autonomous military power in itself. Guaranteeing the stability and security of the largest space of democracy, well-being and peace in the world is not free. We cannot take for granted that nothing can change. We must finally believe that the European Union is not just the sum of states but an interdependent community.
In the sands of Dunkirk, Europeans learned that they would not win against totalitarianism as long as their Armed Forces were a mere aggregation of armies. The same mentality with which Charlemagne overcame the fragmentation after the fall of the Roman Empire and that ultimately allowed the Holy Empire to be created. We must overcome the idea that, in defense, the parts are more important than the whole. And only with our own united force will the true union of Europe be sealed.
