Welcome to EI Talks.I'm Alistair Benn, Deputy Editor of Engelsberg Ideas.
Today, you're joining us in Washington DC, a very sunny Washington DC at the Henry A. Kissinger and the Question of World Order Conference, hosted by the Axon Johnson Institute for Statecraft and Diplomacy.
and the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins.It's been a fantastic event with many wonderful speakers, including Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor.
I'm joined by Marina Henke, Professor of International Relations at the Hertie School in Berlin and the Director at the Hertie Center for International Security.She appears regularly on German and global media to talk about the future of
Western Security and the Western Alliance.And today we're going to talk about the future of Europe.Welcome.Marina, how might it be possible to reinvigorate European security?
So I think we have to back off a little bit here and kind of understand how Europe actually ended up in this pretty catastrophic situation that we're in right now.
And so, especially in the United States, there's this impression that Europe just wanted to free ride. So there's the guns versus butter debate.And in Europe, my country is probably the biggest culprit in the sense.
So they wanted to spend on social welfare.And so they cut, ever since the 1990s, their defense spending.But the truth is that the story is actually a little bit more complex than that.
So Germans, but also, I think, a significant segment of other Europeans, and certainly
technocrats or the Eurocrats in Brussels, they developed over the last 30 years their own kind of theory of how the world works or, you know, to paraphrase that, they had their own kind of grand strategic vision.
And this grand strategic vision kind of rested on two major points.So the first one was that globalization was the defining feature of this new century. And that it would kind of last forever and ever.And Europe was really good at it.
Certainly they were winners and losers of globalization, but in the big picture of things, Europe was good at trade.So in the trading field, it was really kind of like a peer with the United States and China.
Both of them have about, you know, like 15% of global trade.
And the flip side of being really good at trade was the notion that the real power that counted in this new century was actually economic power, if you want geopolitical power, but not military power.
So there was a real sense that you don't need to invest in military power because the big conflicts in the world, you can solve them using your economic power.And that's, of course, a different logic than saying we want to free ride.
It was actually thinking like we don't need the military. So another corollary of this vision of how the world works was that trade interdependencies or economic interdependencies you know, make war impossible.
And that's kind of like the European story, you know, like this is the story of the Germans finally finding peace with the French and overall in continental Europe having, you know, peaceful relations since 1945.
So also, you know, like this led to a conviction that especially Russia would never start a war because it was so dependent on the European energy market.
So long story short, there were like these big ideas of how the world works, and they did not require military force or at least military power.Military capabilities were much less useful than, for example, in the United States would suggest.
So, you talked about Germany, famously the Wandel durch Handel, change through trade idea.Was Germany kind of the big thought leader in that transformation?
And do you think there's something about German history that led European policymakers to embrace a really quite comforting vision of a European order?
So, as you know, Germany is the largest country in the European Union and continental Europe. And if Germany blocks something, it will not happen.And so, of course, there were initiatives.French were pushing for more of a military identity of the EU.
Saint-Malo under Blair, of course, there was also a British initiative for that.But Germany was never on board. And so I think, yes, it's probably like the reason why on the security and defense front, nothing ever of substance materialized.
And if Germany kind of sets a standard or like has a very strong narrative, then also smaller European countries kind of think that they can follow.
Europe looks even quite different now than it did 10, 15 years ago.It's less of a sense of a Franco-German motor at the heart of European affairs.It seems to be more diffuse power centers in the east, with Poland becoming a significant actor.
Italy having a kind of curious relationship with transatlantic politics as well.
Could you give a picture of how European politics is changing, how people are grappling with a world that is obviously much more contested than the one of the late 90s and 2000s?
So while this Europe as a trading power, as a geopolitical power, this grand strategy, and I think it was actually de facto grand strategy, is in shambles.Russia's invasion of Ukraine just completely destroyed it.And Europe knows it.
Also the Germans kind of know it. folks who reminisce of the good old days, but there is a realization that they were wrong.But now, of course, there's kind of this huge vacuum, because there is no evident new grand strategy that can take its place.
And so what you see, this is exactly what you kind of like pointed out, you have new centers where they develop their own kind of grand strategic posture and grand strategic outcomes.
And so you have one in the East, but that's also actually now very much shared with Scandinavian countries, where they very much say security trumps economics.
They're willing to kind of even pay the costs for, you know, having like very serious military capabilities.And Russia is the defining threat of the coming era.
And then you have Germany, but to a certain degree also France, that are still not fully convinced.They are not convinced that Russia is really such a big threat because they're also have a different vision of what China's role is in this world.
And of course, also what the United States and what the transatlantic relationship signifies for Europe.And so right now, you just see a lot of strategic cacophony and no consensus.
But what is certain is that there is, I mean, the Franco-German engine worked because they could always find agreement.Right now, what we see
France and Germany are very far apart on a lot of critical questions, not just security questions, but also economic questions.
So this is the capital union question, this is the energy union question, this is Mercosur, this is the tariffs on China, just being debated in Brussels today.
What would it mean for Europe to have a grand strategy?What are the models available? In the big picture, they have- Macron often talks about strategic autonomy.These words seem a bit almost eccentric, abstract, perhaps.
What does it actually look like for Europe to be a geopolitical actor? rather than a kind of passive sort of surfing on the wave of world events, which I feel is what's happening at the moment.
Well, I wrote an essay for Engelsberg Ideas that you, of course, published where I described the three strategic options that Europe has.And I think it has to be one of them.
Everything else that is kind of like in the gray zone or like a mixture of two or all three of them, they don't really work out.It doesn't make any kind of strategic logical sense.So the first option is, that Europe goes transatlantic, right?
And that is, of course, the building blocks for that are there.You know, like this is NATO, this would be like a reinforcement of NATO Europe with a very strong reinforcement, especially of the transatlantic relationship.
And here, you know, like Europe needs to work with a much more volatile America, because the idea that Europe no longer really matters and that they need to step up and the free riding needs to stop.
The rhetoric that you hear from Trump, but it's not just Trump.You have white segments of American society that believes that they need to be countered.So Europe really needs to step up.And I think one of the other big trade-offs is that
in US strategic posture, China is the peer competitor in whether Europe likes this or not.And again, I'm particularly looking at Germany, they have to adopt that posture.So
going forward, the United States, I don't think can tolerate like really close relations between German businesses and Chinese businesses and also close political ties.And at the same time, Germany and Europe relying on the US security umbrella.
I think this is an impossibility.So basically, Europe needs to take US position more or less, you know, and say, we are with you against China globally.And so that's why it's not just about
raising defence budgets and, you know, being kind of more inclined to work with the United States, but it's also being willing to incur these costs because Europe and its critical member state, Germany, are massively exposed to the Chinese economy right now.
So they need to reduce that.
How can the US make that proposition a more attractive one to European policymakers?
Well, by letting Europeans determine the pace of this de-entangling, and also, of course, by making what Jake Sullivan yesterday said here at SAIS a better value proposition to Europe.
And that, for example, includes the IRA that European companies can either participate or that there's like some kind of other measure.
So, but basically, including Europe in these massive programs, massive subsidy programs in the United States that are kind of underway.And of course, what is not helping is remarks that Trump made at his rally in Georgia that, you know, like,
German car companies will be in no time, American car companies and so forth.
At this conference, I've been really struck by some of the discussions, particularly around American power, which to, I'm British, but to many of our European participants, I think it's hard not to feel slightly worried because America, although the rest of the world has turned up in the last 30, 40 years, and a lot of the arguments I think we have about
the kind of direction of the Western alliance, we have to admit that a lot of the new prosperity in the world that has brought us challenges is not something we would never want to have rolled that back.You know, you look at the American century
Huge swathes of the world lived in absolute poverty and had virtually no ability to influence anything.We are now living in a much more competitive international environment because of that increased prosperity.
And we look at America from Europe as a country with enormous economic dynamism that has charged ahead in the last 15 years, even if its politics seemed incredibly dysfunctional, it remains a dynamic force.It's almost stronger than it has ever been.
even as the rest of the world has caught up.Europe feels weaker than it has for a long time in relative terms.
Do you think wealth creation, and Emmanuel Macron made several comments in the week we're recording about investment and how Europe is falling behind, do you think a lot of these debates become a lot easier for us if we get the wealth creation side right?
Because, I mean, what is creating right now the discontent in European populations, and I think this is the case in the UK, it's certainly the case in Germany, it's certainly also the case in France, that, you know, European societies feel that they're economically stuck.
And when you look at the data, they are stuck, right?So 20 years ago, the difference in GDP between Europe and the United States was 15%.Now, it doubled to 30%. So Europe is not growing.And as you rightly said, the United States is growing.
And you see this dynamism here.You see the innovation.And so I think we really need to ask ourselves, why is that the case?Have we gotten lazy?Or is it really a question of we don't have the capital?So how can you get the capital?
But the problem is, and again, I'm taking a German perspective here, folks in Germany are aware that we are in a crisis.So it's not that they're oblivious and they think everything is fine.
But the instincts in this crisis is not necessarily to rely on further European integration.The instinct right now is to actually rely on ourselves.But that's exactly what doesn't necessarily lead to growth and greater prosperity.
So it's kind of like a fear and knee-jerk reaction.
I think COVID was a great example of that.In a crisis, Europe kind of took a beggar-than-neighbor approach even between the nation states.
You saw that also in the race for vaccines, how in the negotiation process was not done in a kind of unified way.These kind of global challenges for Europe are really hard if you don't have the right institutions.
Do you think there's potentially a kind of virtuous cycle that could take place with more investment in defense and wealth creation in general? Because you see that often in America.
Innovations in the military sphere down the line, you saw in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, created enormous economic potential for America, created enormous new sectors in the economy.
Do you think that the way in which investment happens in Europe with things like ESG, with the way in which just people think about risk, military, do you think there needs to be a change of attitude?
Well, I think first and foremost, you need also an integration of the European defence industrial base, right?And this is also not what we're seeing right now.
You see the same tendencies that you see when it comes to energy union, and as I mentioned before, the capital union.
The Germans want to rely on German defense companies and the logic here is extremely short-sighted, but very kind of German self-centered.Push comes to shove.
I in Germany want to make sure that I have access to German tanks and munitions and so forth.
And I do not want to rely on, God forbid, an Italian CEO or a British or a French or some other CEO that could then deny the rightful portion of the production to my country.
And that's also the case when it comes to energy, when it comes to the control of national banks.In case of a crisis,
Chancellor Schultz or German people want to talk to other German people because they feel that like they get a better deal than if they talk to another Italian.And so like for me, it just shows you that there's kind of like the
European identity or, you know, like some kind of trust in other European nationals has never fully arisen.
So, yeah, when the chips are down, you need to be able to be self-reliant.But what role do you see Brussels being able to play here?You know, in theory, Brussels has enormous economic clouds, financial power at its disposal.
How do the institutions there get serious about these kinds of questions?Or is it just something that, as you say, there's a philosophical mindset that makes that hard?And actually, yeah, that's built up over quite a few decades now.
So I actually think that Brussels has the right mindset.The Commission and Ursula von der Leyen are way ahead of the member states.But, you know, like, I mean, all the big decisions
regarding the defense industrial base, regarding the banking union, regarding just in general integrating the single market.They still need to be made in the capitals.They need to be made in Paris.They need to be made in Rome.
They need to be made in Berlin.And the Commission, they can provide all sorts of reports, what they do.The Mario Draghi report is fantastic.I think it beautifully explains everything that's wrong and what could be done.
But the decisions need to be taken somewhere else, right?And in this sense, even we see it now with the Chinese tariffs, right?The Germans vetoed it.And so like, and whatever Brussels does, it's not enough, right?So it creates like these fissures.
So right now, you know, truth to be told, I'm quite pessimistic about these developments.And you asked me about kind of these possible grand strategic postures.And I mentioned The first one, which is the transatlantic posture.
The second one that you alluded to, which is strategic autonomy, you know, kind of that's often what Macron wants.
So it's kind of like that Europe becomes independent, so to speak, from the United States, defense industrially, but also strategically so that it develops its own grand strategy and can take on, you know, like whatever challenge.
it wants and threats on its own, it would require a massive European investment.And I really don't see it.But this is why there's the third one.And the third one is kind of like the smallest common denominator.
And it's kind of like just a minimal defense for Europe.So it would be almost kind of like a quasi-neutral entity.So like here, it's not necessarily that Brussels would take this position, but individual states could take it.
And I think that this is a real possibility, you know, like that Germany and maybe with Austria and, you know, who knows, maybe with some other countries.
Italy just like says, we actually want to be like a big Switzerland, maybe even with a nuclear weapon.But the idea is really that we don't want to belong to an alliance.We don't want to actually also build anything up at the European level.
Do you think Britain can play a productive role in terms of the clout of the City of London, in terms of the expertise there is there, in terms of financing, in terms of insurance, all these kind of basic financial mechanisms Britain has huge expertise in?
I mean, it's the one thing where you look at our economy and our services sector is world class.
But it feels, even with a new government in the UK, which makes various positive noises about being closer to the regulatory block, the European regulations, there do seem to be fundamental political issues that we're not able to resolve.
Which, if we were able to resolve, the prize would be quite significant, being able to draw on the strengths of a big, big financial player. and also Europe's industrial, it still has a big, big industrial base.
Even in decline, Europe has a massive consumption, it still makes up a huge proportion of world GDP.There's also potentially a positive story if we get that right.
Absolutely, because the money is there.It's just a question of who has the deep pockets.And not a single institution, not even, you know, the London banks have the amount of money that is just flowing around here in the United States, right?
If you really have these deep, deep pockets, you're willing to take risks, right?You're willing to have a venture capital sponsor kind of crazy, but potentially really innovative projects. And all this kind of thing is just lacking, right?
So like London alone, despite its cloud, cannot do it on its own.And I think you see this also in the UK, because the UK also has these problems.Alone, it's not enough, right?
You're competing with a banking system in the United States that is just so much larger.And so if London doesn't cooperate with other European banks, I think on its own, it can't do it.
And when it comes to this cooperation, we see a lot of talk, but we don't actually see a real action.
Yeah, so it might take a moonshot kind of event.Well, thanks Marina.That was really illuminating.And yeah, thanks so much for coming on.
Thank you so much for having me.It's a pleasure.
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