To Whom It May Concern: America and Europe Need Each Other

Wolfgang Ischinger

The funny thing about being a European during American presidential elections is the belief that you, too, should be allowed to vote. And can you blame us? Who gets to occupy the Oval Office is correctly seen by many in Europe as a decision of existential significance for the well-being and security of the continent.

No surprise, then, that even with a war raging in Europe involving repeated nuclear threats by the Kremlin, the developments in the U.S. campaigns have received even greater attention in the European press than usual. Given the war in Ukraine, the risks of a larger war in the Middle East and China’s accelerating challenge to American primacy, Europe needs the United States more than it has since the end of the Cold War. And America still has a unique and valuable asset that its growing list of rivals and adversaries don’t: reliable allies and partners in Europe.

Over the years, the Munich Security Conference, the international security forum that I led for 14 years, has tallied a long list of trans-Atlantic to-dos. At its core are three strategic challenges that America and Europe will need to face, regardless of who wins the U.S. election in November. How we deal with them will decide whether the trans-Atlantic alliance will continue as the tight-knit partnership we have known for the past 75 years or unravel.

First: We need to talk about China. Unlike the European Union, which defines China as a partner, competitor and systemic rival, America appears to have concluded, in a rare show of bipartisan agreement, that China is now not only its key rival but also its main long-term adversary in terms of global political and military power and influence. Trans-Atlantic discord about how best to deal with China is already visible, and it seems bound to get worse.

When it comes to handling Russia, Europe and the United States have had an elaborate consultation and coordination mechanism for the past seven decades: NATO. With China, there is nothing comparable. Why wasn’t Europe consulted when the United States decided to deny certain semiconductor chips from being exported to China? Is there any agreed strategy on Taiwan? As seen from Europe, the increasingly popular idea in Washington that America should focus on China and leave Ukraine for the Europeans to deal with is outright dangerous. Many Europeans feel that China may very well interpret declining U.S. support for Ukraine as a sign of weakness. (Remember Afghanistan?)

The creation of a fully staffed body focused on coordinating on China and the Asia Pacific region should be high on our common agenda. An enlarged Group of 7 that includes Australia, South Korea and potentially other regional powers could be one option, though maybe not a sufficient one.

Next, we need to start talking like grown-ups about paying our defense bills. The biggest long-term irritant in NATO has all but disappeared: Europeans are no longer refusing to carry a fair share of the common defense burden. Defense budgets everywhere have grown; alliance members’ 2014 pledge to spend 2 percent of national G.D.P. has been fulfilled by most. So what’s the problem? In short, we in Europe spend our defense euros incredibly inefficiently because we cannot agree on where and how to produce our weapons or what to buy. As of 2016, the United States used about 30 major military systems, from aircraft to frigates, compared with approximately 180 systems among the European allies.

Worse still, Europeans do more than two-thirds of their military procurement in the United States, starving European companies of much-needed investment. This is great news for the American defense industry, but it is politically unsustainable in Europe in the longer term. Senators in Washington are happy when lots of defense production employment happens in their state. European politicians are no different.

If America truly wants Europe to be more responsible for the security of its continent, Washington should encourage European partners to develop and buy more arms in Europe and do it in a coordinated manner. If we got our act together and did more pooling and sharing among E.U. and European NATO partners, we could save around 15 billion euros or more each year and spend it on more and better systems, as well as on more ammunition.

Finally, we need to talk about our common Western values. Isn’t the one major difference between us and authoritarian or dictatorial regimes our commitment to human rights, to the rule of law, to decency in this age of impunity, as David Miliband, the former British foreign secretary, once called the current global disorder? We can and we should be proud of this commitment. The problem is that the Western world — and in particular the United States — is being accused of applying double standards in dealing with wars, conflicts, and human rights abuses.

This is, of course, not a new point of contention. (During the recent pandemic, many developing countries thought they had been promised vaccines as soon as vaccines became available. In reality, many had to wait until everybody in Brussels or Miami had been vaccinated.) But the simultaneous wars in Ukraine and Gaza have made the problem a lot worse — and practically unmanageable. Western nations expect the world to support our resolutions condemning Russian behavior in Ukraine, but we find it difficult to reciprocate regarding the conduct of the war in Gaza.

As a result, our collective credibility has suffered a blow. It is a blow to our identity, but it also reduces our collective ability to counter the growing advances of authoritarianism and the open and growing disregard of international law. Is there an easy recipe for eliminating this credibility gap? No, but collectively and solemnly recommitting ourselves to the rule of law and to the United Nations Charter in our approach to international conflicts and crises could be a first step.

All of these challenges are complex and not easily solved. Europe should have no illusions: Neither one of the two U.S. presidential candidates can be expected to produce miracles. Many Europeans nevertheless hope that a Kamala Harris presidency would, following in Joe Biden’s footsteps, be more inclined to listen to European worries about Russia and China, and about trans-Atlantic security, than Donald Trump, whose trans-Atlantic track record was not one of continued harmony. The doubts he expressed about NATO during and after his presidency are still very much on the minds of many European leaders. Still, the trans-Atlantic discussion with a Harris White House might be just as tough as it would be with a second Trump administration when it comes to the economy, trade, investment and tech.

No matter who wins the White House in November, the new American president and European leaders should remind themselves of the very real benefits of this centrally important relationship — and keep the conversation going.

Ischinger is the president of the Foundation Council of the Munich Security Conference Foundation