The European Threat

Classics Saturday

[Photo by Juan Pablo Melo on Unsplash]

Vice President Vance spoke in Munich on February 14, 2025 (link to video), and admonished our European allies that they should not censor their people or ignore their wishes (from this transcript):

[The] threat that I worry most about for Europe is not Russia. It’s not China. It’s not any other external actor. What I worry about is the threat from within—the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values that are shared with the United States of America. …

For years, we’ve been told that everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values.

Everything—from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship—is billed as a defense of democracy.

But when we see European courts canceling elections, and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we’re holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard.

And I say “ourselves” because I fundamentally believe that we are on the same team. We must do more than talk about democratic values. We must live them.

Within living memory of many of you in this room, the Cold War positioned defenders of democracy against tyrannical forces on this continent.

Consider the side in that fight that censored dissidents, closed churches, and canceled elections. Were they the good guys?

Certainly not. And thank God they lost the Cold War. They lost because they neither valued nor respected all of the extraordinary blessings of liberty—the freedom to surprise, to make mistakes, to invent, to build.

As it turns out, you can’t mandate innovation or creativity, just as you can’t force people what to think, what to feel, or what to believe.

We believe those things are certainly connected. Unfortunately, when I look at Europe today, it’s sometimes not so clear what happened to some of the Cold War’s winners. I look to Brussels, where EU commissars warn citizens that they intend to shut down social media during times of civil unrest, the moment they spot what they’ve judged to be “hateful content.” …

In Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat. …

Now again, we don’t have to agree with everything—or anything—that people say.

But when political leaders represent an important constituency, it is incumbent upon us to at least participate in dialogue with them.

To many of us on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks more and more like old, entrenched interests hiding behind ugly, Soviet-era words like misinformation and disinformation, who simply don’t like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion, or, God forbid, vote a different way—or even worse, win an election. …

I believe deeply that there is no security if you are afraid of the voices, the opinions, and the conscience that guide your very own people.

Europe faces many challenges, but the crisis this continent faces right now, the crisis I believe we all face together, is one of our own making.

If you are running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you. …

Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters. There’s no room for firewalls. You either uphold the principle, or you don’t. Europeans—the people—have a voice. European leaders have a choice. And my strong belief is that we do not need to be afraid of the future.

You can embrace what your people tell you, even when it’s surprising, even when you don’t agree. And if you do so, you can face the future with certainty and with confidence, knowing that the nation stands behind each of you.

And that, to me, is the great magic of democracy. It’s not in these stone buildings or beautiful hotels. It’s not even in the great institutions that we have built together as a shared society. To believe in democracy is to understand that each of our citizens has wisdom and has a voice.

And if we refuse to listen to that voice, even our most successful fights will secure very little. As Pope John Paul II, in my view, one of the most extraordinary champions of democracy on this continent or any other, once said:

“Do not be afraid.”

We shouldn’t be afraid of our people, even when they express views that disagree with their leadership.

Do read and listen to it all. I hope Europeans listened. And many Americans, for that matter. I truncated only to keep this introduction from being longer than it is.

For those who think this might be unwelcome American interference in European internal affairs, keep in mind that Europe would not be made up of free people choosing their own governments through elections if not for America’s power and influence during the Cold War.

But walking away from Europe is no way to bolster freedom there. Without America remaining a leader in NATO, much of Europe will retreat from individual freedom, rule-of-law democracy, and alliance with America. God forbid the proto-imperial European Union should exploit an American retreat from Europe to strip away that prefix to rule European subjects as God bureaucracy demands.

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Friday, August 9, 2019

Europe without American help has the economic, demographic, and scientific base to keep a weakened Russia out of Europe. But if left on its own, Europe's long history of autocracy will return and risk a Europe that again poses a threat to America.

The unofficial reason for NATO after World War II was to "keep American in (Europe--unlike after World War I), keep the Russians (Soviets) out (of Western Europe, after the Soviets advance to the Elbe River), and keep Germany down (after starting two world wars)."

The modern purpose of NATO is to keep America in Europe, keep Russia out, and keep European autocratic impulses down. The third reason is a real threat that is easy to forget in the post-World War II time frame that we remember as the normal state of European affairs. And the first reason is the means to achieve the third.

We forget the role that America played in creating the free and democratic Europe that we wrongly assume is the natural state of now-free Europe:

And that distance [between America and Europe] is allowing Europeans to revert to their pre-World War II nature of being a mix of autocracy, monarchy, and democracy. I had to be reminded by this author that our long period of influence in Europe during the Cold War had a role in making Europe truly democratic:

It is easy to forget--and this was a useful reminder to me--that Europe with its autocracies and monarchies was not fully part of a free West (although obviously part of the Western tradition) until we rebuilt Western Europe in that template after World War II. And NATO expansion after defeating the Soviet Union was more explicit in demanding democracy and rule of law for new members.

If left alone without the benefit of American influence, Europe as a political entity will evolve in ways hostile to America, as the proto-imperial body already exhibits:

The EU wants to help Iran despite Iran's record of terrorism and support for mayhem--on top of a nuclear program. And the EU wants to shield Russia from British anger over Russia's use of poison gas on British territory to kill people.

So yeah, basically I do want the EU to die with festering boils.

Europe and America are drifting apart. This is caused by the end of the major threat that the USSR posed to the heart of Western Europe from its advanced military position on the Elbe River. And it is caused by a European elite that wants to push American power out of Europe and reclaim their autonomy that NATO with the outsized influence of America denies them.

Even a revived Russian threat is limited to eastern Europe because of the limits of Russian military power. So the counter to the drift that has taken place after 1989 is only partial.

The Euro elites wrongly claim that the European Union itself has given Europe its long peace since World War II. They despise NATO and America so much that they actually believe their own BS.

The sad fact is that without America, the USSR would have conquered Western Europe.

And without America's continued influence Europe will revert to its norm of autocracies and intra-European violence. Which will weaken Europe to the point that even a weaker Russia can exploit:

And when the EU collapses as the Persian Empire did, the weakened nation-states that once made up Europe will be unable to stand on their own. The empire might not be able to govern, but it can kill the habits and structure of state governance. And then Russia will have the opportunity to move west again. It has always been ludicrous to argue that Russia would fear the supposed might of a united EU as if that would be more dangerous to Russian ambitions for conquest than the American-led NATO.

And even if the EU does not collapse or if the Russian empire remains weaker than even a shaky European Union empire--which is what the Euro elites want--that new European empire run from Brussels is a threat to America. So NATO is still our bulwark against a Europe controlled by a hostile autocratic power:

Europe is fully part of the free West because America helped make Europe fully part of the free West. The EU is a force working against that positive American influence to go back to the Europe of autocracies and strongmen whose legitimacy came from blood and soil rather than individual liberty.

It has long been in America's interest to prevent a hostile power from taking Europe and mobilizing its scientific, military, economic, and demographic potential to be used against America. We stopped the Kaiser, we stopped Hitler, and we stopped the USSR.

The EU will so obviously be a threat given time that I am astounded that any American--or any European who values freedom and liberty--can support the EU.

Obama recognized and Trump has emphasized that European NATO states don't pull their weight. As we debate burden-sharing for the defense of Europe, let's not forget that the Europe of sometimes shaky and weak allies is also an objective worth fighting for:

This survey of European power and resentment is a valuable reminder of just how much broad power Europe has despite its long decline in hard power and global influence[.] ...

All this is why it has been American policy for a century to prevent any potentially hostile power from gaining control of that concentration of potential power.

And yes, I include the European Union as a a potential power America should absolutely oppose in controlling geographic Europe.

Defending Europe is not a favor America grants Europe. Although the Europeans obviously benefit from that. Defending Europe is a core American national interest. And we need to defend free Europe from Europeans themselves.

UPDATE: Trump should not pull American troops from Germany to put them in Poland. Our troops there are not a gift to Germany. They are an insurance policy for America.

And they maintain a power projection platform (see article starting at page 15), among other reasons to keep significant numbers of troops in Germany and Europe.

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