V-E Day Thoughts

Why Europe Still Matters

Happy V-E Day to everyone. May 8, 1945, ended the European Theater of Operations in World War II. In April, the Soviet Army smashed its way into Berlin, and Hitler committed suicide ten days after his final birthday. His successor, Admiral Karl Donitz, signed the definitive instrument of surrender in Berlin 79 years ago. Across the Allied powers, celebrations erupted in the streets. While Imperial Japan remained unsubdued, Europeans and Americans hoped this would end the nearly continuous conflict in Europe.

While Europe hadn’t seen a large-scale conventional war until the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine, the subsequent years were not entirely peaceful. Tensions between the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact saw the world come close to World War 3, with numerous pro-democracy protests and revolts put down violently by Soviet troops and their puppet governments.

Fast forward to the Global War on Terrorism, the United States slowly focused less and less on European security. This policy change was advisable and preferable for many years, as US troop levels weren’t as necessary to preserve European peace. Over the years, America’s Cold Warriors retired or passed, and the military embraced coyote-brown over forest green. Two schools of thought began to emerge surrounding the question of European affairs: defer to the Franco-German policy consensus or leave Europe to the Europeans. Both options would leave the more vulnerable Eastern Europe to the whims of larger states.

Reality bit the United States in the rear end in 2014. The Russian incursions in Ukraine showed that Russia was still militarily relevant in Europe and still willing to use military force to accomplish its national objectives despite the domestic problems faced in that country. The 1990s-era peacetime mentality of the United States security establishment was proven wrong.

While many in Europe, mainly in Slavic Europe and the United Kingdom, warned that Germany was an unreliable partner in European security, and American conservatives were keenly aware of the energy security question, many of the left-of-center national security world still ignored the problems in Europe. It wasn’t until Brexit that US policymakers looked at Europe seriously. Even so, they still lived in denial of the quietly deteriorating European security issue.

The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine changed the world radically. In the months leading up to the conventional war, many pundits were still in denial that the invasion would occur, but we at Muzzle Velocity nailed that the tanks were coming. The conflict has gone on for more than two years now, claiming hundreds of thousands of lives.

While Europe has contributed significant amounts of funds and weapons to Ukraine, the United States must remember the lesson learned from World War II – the US must lead in a multinational alliance. Europe is too divided, comprised of countries with sometimes competing interests, which does not work as well in concert militarily compared with the many states of the United States. We must remember this: politicians in Europe, like Angela Merkel, were happily willing to sell European security for cheap energy from Russia. Many are still willing to do so today.

There is no NATO no peace in Europe without American engagement. The necessity of American leadership is a practical matter. While not always beloved by our European allies, the United States represents a security partner with the resources and competence to rise above the internecine European affairs.

European economic and political security matters a lot to the United States. The European Union is the largest bilateral trade and investment partner of the United States. To make a fine point finer, much of the modern American quality of life is because of the excellent relationship with Europe.

Europe is a critical target of Chinese influence as well. With Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Belgrade and investment in the Budapest-Belgrade rail project, amongst others, China's economic security interests have taken it to the European continent. Notably, one of Ukraine’s major export partners is China. Astonishingly, few ask and answer the question of how China benefits from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. If Russia dominates the Ukrainian market, it opens new options for China. Russia becomes an East-West corridor for cereals and other products, thereby reducing the threat of a general blockade in a hypothetical China-US conflict. Belt and Road Initiative is trying to run through the Eurasian steppe.

Europe is too slow, too encumbered by domestic burden, and just not wealthy enough of a political union to challenge Russian aggression and to reject Chinese capital absent the United States’s economic and military presence. Just because you abandon Europe doesn’t mean that European issues abandon you. In the effort to deter and prevent conflict with China, we cannot leave the places of the world that provide the means for China to wage war.

In future articles, I will make a case for military aid to Ukraine from a realistic, sensible, American-centric, America-first worldview. I will also analyze the history of the Asia-First movement, discuss industrial policy, and other contemporary and historical issues.