Donald Trump’s disturbing statements, in which he encourages Russia to do “whatever it wants” in other allied countries, only reaffirm the urgency for Europe to “take the reins of its destiny” and prepare for the abandonment of the United States, says Arancha González Laya, dean of the Paris School of International Affairs at Sciences Po university and former Foreign Minister. The objective, no matter what happens in November, is to build a “Trump-proof” Europe, as Laya (Donosti, 1969) and other European academics and analysts defend in a recent open letter that is a true call to action.
The Republican Party either shares Trump’s vision of NATO or does not take it seriously, can Europe do that?
From experience we know that Trump’s statements must be taken very seriously, especially when they erode NATO’s deterrence capacity, as in this case. But we must go further. The EU has to prepare to resist Trump’s attacks with more European integration. More Europe means more protection.
Don’t we already feel the power of Trump? Without even being a candidate, he has been preventing Congress from agreeing on aid to Kyiv for months.
The impact of Trump’s possible return to the White House is already being felt. We do not have to wait for the result of the elections, there are already a lot of areas in which it is noticeable and the war in Ukraine is one, the main actors are already aligning themselves with the possibility of it returning and that has to be something for us Europeans. give us a lot to think about and more to do, because the first time Donald Trump’s arrival could have caught us off guard but not the second time. We have to prepare now, starting today, without waiting for the new US president to take office. We must begin to prepare and the issue of Ukraine, which is closely linked to investments in security and defense in Europe, is an area of priority.
What can you do today?
In the short term, Europe has to invest in manufacturing more ammunition and more weapons. The European Union must promote its defense industry and it must do so with planning at the European level, because that is what will give the signal to the arms industry that it must increase not only its production, but its capacity to production. We already have some objectives that we have set, for example in ammunition, which are useful and necessary not only to help Ukraine, but to replenish the arsenals emptied to help them.
And in the medium term?
We must now begin to work in the direction of further Europeanizing NATO. Not abandon it, but assume more responsibilities in the Alliance in a way that allows us to build part of the solutions, for example in activities to support the troops such as intelligence services, interconnectivity, satellites, space… We have to understand that, to In the medium and long term, regardless of who is president, the United States is going to withdraw and invest less in foreign security, especially in the Atlantic, and that, therefore, we must assume more responsibility for our own security and defense.
Do you not contemplate a hypothetical victory for Joe Biden or would it simply not change anything, due to those underlying trends you talk about?
As the English saying goes, “hope for the best and prepare for the worst.”
Trump says that if he is re-elected president, he will resolve the Ukraine war within 24 hours. That can only mean one thing. What would it mean for Kyiv and for Europe if the war ended like this?
For us it is essential that this war does not end as a victory for the aggressor and invader, who is Vladimir Putin. Obviously all wars end in an agreement, the question is how that agreement is reached. Terms matter. Because if we give Putin the benefit of winning after having been the aggressor, the invader, who has broken international rules with respect to Ukraine, the message we would give him would be almost an invitation to do the same in other parts of the European continent. In addition, there are other international actors who are also watching what is happening in Ukraine. Let us not forget that today there is no conflict that is local. All major conflicts have a global dimension and therefore how each of these is dealt with matters.
If the war in Ukraine ends with major concessions and territorial cessions, could Putin dare to test NATO’s Article 5 on mutual defense? Should Europe fear for its territorial integrity?
Today we cannot exclude any hypothesis, nor that Putin puts NATO to the test. We cannot because all those that we have been excluding in the past have been occurring. Brexit, Trump’s election, the Russian invasion of Ukraine beyond Crimea, the return of a high-voltage conflict between Israel and Palestine… Let’s not exclude anything, let’s act and reduce the risks in case any aggression occurs.
More and more senior military commanders and European leaders are being heard warning the population about the possibility of war in the EU. In Eastern countries this is nothing new, but it is in more continental Europe, where public opinion is generally alien to the very idea of ??war and there are also governments reluctant to talk to the population about defense.
I think that perhaps we underestimated the population a little. When Russia invaded Ukraine, we all said and wrote that the European Union was going to be divided on this issue, that European public opinion was not going to support it, that the alignment with Ukraine was not going to last. And here we are two years later. European citizens have understood that this aggression against Ukraine is not just, they see that this is a breach of an international contract. And, when an international contract is broken in a country that is on the European continent, no one is safe. I believe that citizens must be treated with the maturity that they themselves are demonstrating. Obviously, security and defense must be debated and discussed. And it must be done with the maturity with which citizens are demonstrating with their support for European unity. Let us not forget that today, contrary to the most widely held opinion internationally, the main military and economic support for Ukraine today is Europe, not the United States. Then let’s have that debate. I think we are going to have an incredible opportunity to hold the European elections in June.
They are European but traditionally they are addressed nationally…
The 2024 European elections are about one issue and only one: whether Europe is going to have the ability to decide its destiny or whether it is going to put it in the hands of others and, in particular, the American voter. We need to answer the fundamental question in June and prepare to answer it as soon as the election is over: Unity or division and dithering? Does Europe want to be the master of its destiny or is it going to leave it in the hands of others, be it the US, Russia or China? That is the real question. That’s what these European elections are about.
