Should we now be all Gaullists? In the language of the most important European partner in France, the answer is “Iin ! “(Contraction in German of”JA“, yes, and”Nein“, No). Yes, Emmanuel Macron has been right to warn us, since 2017, that, due to the long-term trend to a disengagement from the United States, Europe should be ready to defend itself. Today, facing Donald Trump, a Chairman Chairman who calls into question the American engagement of eighty years to protect Europe against Russia, the Euro-Atlantistes, as I need not only From a stronger Europe- which for which I have always pleaded- but also of a possible European “strategic autonomy”.
However, “in the same time” (in homage to Macron’s favorite expression), we should answer “no”. Because General de Gaulle, a great man of his time, thought that the defense should be the exclusive domain of the nation state; that the emerging European community should be a Europe of States (a disunited version of the European Union to which the current nationalist and populist parties of the hard right dream of returning); that the United Kingdom was to be excluded from the European project (hence the famous veto of Gaulle to British support); And that Europe was to be built as a counterweight in the United States, by maintaining close relations with Russia like China.
Europeanize NATO
Above all, any realistic defense plan against Russia by Vladimir Putin must start with the only serious military organization in current Europe: NATO. It is this structure that brings together all the trained and interoperable forces of European countries members of the Atlantic Alliance, integrated command, complex and coordinated air operations, detailed plans to defend the eastern border and credible nuclear deterrence (mainly American). The EU is not comparable from a military point of view. History could have been different if the original idea of building a Europe around the defense had not been killed by the votes of the Gaullists (and the Communists) in the French National Assembly in 1954. Because, as Julian Jackson, De Gaulle’s biographer recalls, the latter “attacked any supranational organization with more ferocity than the aborted European Defense Community”.
So, whether you are initially Gaullist or Atlanticist, if you want to be serious about the defense of Europe, you have to start with NATO – and then see how you can Europeanize this organization as quickly as possible. But faced with Trump’s total lack of reliability, we must also think about extending French and British deterrence. The EU is becoming an important player in the field of defense, in particular by supporting Ukraine. And as the EU and NATO both have, within them, members favorable to Putin, like Hungarian Viktor Orbán, initiatives for a more advanced European defense will necessarily go through “coalitions of volunteers”, as that in favor of Ukraine on which British Prime Minister Keir Starmer worked in close collaboration with the French president.
Clément Beaune, former French minister in charge of Europe, tweeted a photo of the improvised meeting of European, Turkish and Canadian leaders that Starmer summoned to London with these three words: “The United States”. But there is a huge difference between “United States” and the United States-a unique country in its ability to deploy a lethal force on the basis of a simple decision by its president. The challenge for Europe therefore consists in making a rapid, consistent and credible transition in security matters from an alliance dominated by the United States to a Europe without hegemonic power, but which is nevertheless capable of defending itself against the most aggressive of the great powers. It is not an easy task. Being a great non -hegemonic power in the field of product regulation or commercial policy is one thing; Doing it in the military field, which asks young men and women to sacrifice their lives, is another.
Rationalize defense systems
Three major obstacles oppose this ambitious but now existential objective. The first is the enormous disparity of the historical conceptions of European countries in matters of national security. In the event of an international crisis, each British Prime Minister thinks that he must behave like Winston Churchill and each French president like de Gaulle. The national models of other leaders are less obvious: Chancellor Konrad Adenauer for Germany? Marshal Jozef Pilsudski for Poland? The Minister of Foreign Affairs Jacques Poos for Luxembourg? But, in all cases, the strategic instincts and the cultures of the leaders of European countries are very different. Europe therefore needs a Churchillo-Gaullism which combines the best of the two most influential traditions of our continent in the face of a world at war. It is a formula to which not only Macron and Starmer, but perhaps even a majority of European heads of state, could subscribe.
Second, the policies we need are European, but democracies remain national. Behind the displayed figure of the “800 billion euros” devoted by the EU to Defense are actually hiding 150 billion euros in European funding. The majority of this amount is only an authorization for the Member States to spend an additional 650 billion euros. All national leaders who announce an increase in defense spending explain that it will create jobs in their own country. But, in addition to increasing the production of weapons, Europe desperately needs rationalization and consolidation. The EU has some 170 major weapons systems against thirty for the United States. Consolidation would consist in accepting that such a type of fighting plane is produced, for example, in Italy and Sweden, thus closing a factory in France, while such type of air defense system would be produced in France and Great Britain, thus closing a factory in Germany. Imagine the ease with which it could be done on a political level …
This effort must be made while most European countries are heavily in debt and their aging populations demand increased expenses in terms of health, social assistance, pensions … which brings us to the last obstacle, perfectly illustrated by what Churchill told De Gaulle when the latter gave him the Cross of Liberation in 1958. Partnership during the Second World War, Churchill pointed out: “It is more difficult to find, even among friends and allies, the vital objective unit in the midst of the complexity of a world situation which is neither peace nor war”. This is exactly the situation in which we find ourselves today, somewhere between peace and war.
As we have seen in recent days, in the first sign of the possibility of a ceasefire in Ukraine, European public opinion is ready to believe that we can quickly return to our old habits of peacetime after 1989. It is now the duty of leaders not only to rekindle the combative spirit of Churchill and De Gaulle, but also to honestly explain the voters that we want to face Really peace, we have to prepare for war. This is why I say loud and clear: “Long live Europe! Long live the Churchillo-Gaullism!”
*Timothy Garton Ash is a historian and professor of European studies at the University of Oxford. He received the Charlemagne Prize for services rendered to European unit in 2017. His book Europes: a personal story This week appears at Stock editions.
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