What will relations between the EU and the US look like in Biden’s time?
What will be the strategic compass of the European Union. The analysis of General Carlo Jean
At the recent European Summit, the problems of security and defense were discussed at length. In it, the term "strategic compass" was used to define what "strategic autonomy" the EU should and can propose. A clarification, in this regard, is also essential to redesign relations with NATO, modified by the election of Joe Biden and by the changes that have taken place in the geopolitics of the world and in that of Europe and its eastern and southern peripheries. At least implicitly, both the possibility of a global EU, committed alongside the US also in the Indo-Pacific – where their strategic pivot has shifted – and that of the EU's strategic independence, imaginatively hoped for, have been excluded. by the French Gaullists.
The debate in the Summit was stimulated not so much by the EU's ambitions to "weigh" in the definition of the new world order, as to face the creeping US disengagement from the Middle East and North Africa, to obviate the progressive marginalization of Europe and , more contingently, to take advantage of Biden's "openings", an "old warrior of the cold war", to Europe. They could be reduced to just a few chats about America is back, if the EU has nothing to offer the US. It is difficult for Biden to make concessions to Europe, given the internal problems he faces and the fact that much of his public opinion is convinced that Europeans take advantage of US protection to do business with China and Russia.
Everyone agrees that the defense of the EU – or, rather, that of its member states, given that the Union does not have a common army, much less nuclear weapons – after the failure of the Italian "bomb" project – Franco-German provoked by both de Gaulle and the US – must be cooperative, not competitive with NATO. However, no one has ever been able to define exactly how it can be and, much less, whether it should be useful above all to the US to induce them to strengthen transatlantic ties, or whether to tend to reduce European dependence on American protection, which in the Central Region of ' Alliance moved with Trump to the East, on the Pontic-Baltic Intermarium.
Of course, the Summit did not solve this basic problem. A choice will perhaps be made in the Summit of Democracies or G10 (G7 plus India, Australia and South Korea), which Biden will organize in the coming months with an anti-Chinese and perhaps even anti-Russian function. Aside from human rights, it will focus on economics and technology. For the first, a decrease in dependence on Chinese supply chains and strategic raw materials (especially rare earths) will be agreed . For the second, a system of strategic technology embargoes will be envisaged, similar to that envisaged by the CoCom in the Cold War. Perhaps, we will also talk about the support of the Western Marines for those of the Quad (USA, India, Japan and Australia) in the Indian Ocean and in the South China Sea (which India and the USA are increasingly calling the Eastern Indian Ocean).
Despite the uncertainty about the future, three things were certain in the Summit. First, the changes that have taken place prevent a simple "return" to the past. Second, the EU must use Biden's America is Back to restore a certain unity of the West. Third, while Trump's "intemperance" compacted the EU, Biden's "good manners" risk fragmenting it, not only as regards relations with Russia and China, but also for the aforementioned control of critical technologies and for the "crusades" on human rights and related economic sanctions (including secondary extraterritorial ones) to which the US will resort. Saying no to Biden will be much more difficult for Europeans than saying no to Trump.
In the Mario Draghi Summit, he confirmed that he has a very clear vision of Italy's geopolitical interests. It was somewhat muddled and nebulous (that's an understatement!) In the previous government, led to subordinate foreign policy to domestic policy and its communicative shows. This had caused suspicions and contributed to marginalizing our country in Europe and the Mediterranean. In particular, it had penalized us in Libya and in the Levantine Basin, leaving the door open to the influence of Turkey and Russia. Draghi approached the topic of "strategic autonomy" in realistic terms. He has shown that he is aware of the complexity of the problem and of the political and military limits of the EU and of the fact that any alliance or coalition presupposes precise missions and well-defined operational theaters. Not vice versa. Then, that it must take into account not only material but also political capabilities. He therefore insisted on extending the content of "strategic autonomy" to the non-military aspects of security. For them, the EU – which does not have an integrated army (its cost was estimated by the IISS between 290 and 360 billion euros, to be increased by over 20% for Brexit, compared to 7.9 billion allocated to EDF in the current seven-year budget). He spoke of development aid, fighting crime and illegal immigration, neighborhood, climate, pandemic, cyber security and hybrid warfare, a term certainly used as a synonym for reinforced peacekeeping (as would be possible in Libya or in the Sahel, where the contractors of private military companies, such as the Russian Wagner and the American Blackwater , also operate). This is a realistic proposal, also taking into account that the existing agreement, that of the European Intervention Initiative, is weakened by the lack of political will of the various states to participate in substantial operations in the peripheries of Europe. Probably Draghi, speaking of preparation for hybrid war, also referred to the Baltic countries, where large Russian minorities live, whose insurrection could be supported by the "little green men", as happened in the Crimea.
For now, the EU and the US have each gone their separate ways. Economic competition dominated strategic cooperation. Proof of this is the continuation of Nord Stream 2, the investment agreement between the EU and China and, recently, the visit to Moscow by the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, just when Biden strongly condemned the attack on Navalny and declared Russia's annexation of Crimea illegal. For their part, Europeans were surprised by Biden's Buy American, which takes up the sanctions imposed by Trump on their exports to the US, and by the appointment of Victoria Nuland – that of "Fuck the EU" – as number two of the State Department .
The Europeans are then divided internally. Brexit has made cooperation between the US and the EU and Italy's participation in a European directory with France and Germany more difficult. Paris's aspiration for strategic semi-independence of the EU is opposed by Berlin and also by Italy, which however needs France in Africa and the Mediterranean and which continues to hope for an American commitment to "take the chestnuts out of the fire" in Libya and in the Eastern Mediterranean.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/come-saranno-le-relazioni-fra-ue-e-usa-al-tempo-di-biden/ on Thu, 04 Mar 2021 07:14:26 +0000.