When the nations of Western Europe operate together they represent a quarter of the world’s gross domestic product and the world’s second-largest defense budget. But individually, none is remotely as important a U.S. partner as they are collectively.
He thinks the British exit from the EU will wreck the trans-Atlantic alliance.
With all due respect to the former NATO commander and retired admiral, his argument is--to use a technical term--bullshit.
The entity we have to get the Western European nations to operate together in defense of the trans-Atlantic region is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization--NATO. And NATO has done that for many decades now.
And excuse me for noting this, but Britain was a member of NATO before it joined the European Economic Community and Britain will be a member of NATO after it leaves the now-European Union.
Creating a stronger EU with defense roles will only weaken NATO, which the proponents of pan-European defenses see as an impediment because the hated or resented America is the dominant partner in NATO. An EU defense establishment--a union of European states--would of course not include America.
The author's belief that Britain's participation in the EU will prevent the EU from competing with NATO is nonsense. Although I should use the technical term, I suppose. The far larger continental EU will eventually absorb the British fraction of the EU. A mere province will not be able to defy the imperial core for long.
So while the EU might have a phone number for America to call "Europe," the person on the other end of that phone line will be less likely to answer or perhaps be rather unfriendly when they do pick up.
Given that the Russian threat is far less potent than the Soviet threat (because Russian power is far less than the USSR's power; and because Russia has been shoved far to the east from its past dangerous position on the Elbe River at the western end of East Germany), what the Hell is the urgency for uniting the states of Europe in what will be an imperial state?
It has long been American policy to prevent a hostile power from getting control of the vast resources of Europe, which could be directed against America. We fought a kaiser and Hitler in hot wars, and the Soviet Union in a cold war, to do exactly that.
Why would we support the EU take control of European defenses when we already have the time-tested NATO to defend Europe? It is decidedly not in America's geopolitical interest to support the proto-imperial EU as it strives for ever closer union to get rid of that prefix.
Honest to God, people think Trump is out to destroy NATO?
On the other hand, the author's call for America to reach out to post-Brexit Britain is good. In addition to their NATO role, Britain should be allowed more bilateral ties with America to undermine any lingering EU attempts to punish Britain for leaving the EU. If European defenses are weakened because of Brexit, it will because the EU decides to punish Britain for leaving--not because of Brexit itself.
