America and Europe as adversaries?

Although Trump denied the possibility of using force to occupy the world's largest island at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, he declared on his return flight that the United States "can do whatever it wants." The strategic ambiguity that superpowers usually use against their opponents thus continues on the part of the US.

European Commissioner for Defense and Space Andrius Kubilius stated at the Swedish defense forum Folk och Försvar [People and Defense, ed. note] in Stockholm that "the uncertainty of the future of the transatlantic partnership" requires the unification of the command of European armies.

Recalling the words of former EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell about "bonsai armies," the Lithuanian commissioner argued for the need to unite the armed forces of member states into a "European armed force" with 100,000 members.

He also referred to the words of French President Emmanuel Macron and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who proposed the establishment of a joint security council and the takeover of the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), which is currently a NATO body.

"Macron and Merkel proposed and discussed the idea of creating a European Security Council as early as 2017 to 2019," Kubilius recalled, noting that in 2018, the former German chancellor proposed rotating membership of representatives of member states for this council. "This is exactly what is needed now," he added.

In his speech to the Swedish Defense Forum, he went on to say that this Security Council "could be composed of key permanent members and several rotating members, including the member state presiding over the EU Council," and the presidents of the Commission and the European Council. In exceptional cases, the United Kingdom would also be a member of the council, the commissioner noted.

"In total, there would be roughly ten to twelve members whose task would be to discuss the most important issues in the field of defense," Kubilius continued, adding that the first task of the European Security Council "would be Ukraine," whose membership, however, would need to be discussed.

Madrid wants a common army

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez also joined in the statements on a European army on January 18. Although Madrid is a chronic "non-payer" of defense expenditures—and at the recent NATO summit in The Hague, it made a conditional commitment to contribute five percent of GDP—it was the socialist prime minister who indicated his government's willingness to join a common military framework.

"Europe must advance in its integration process and equip itself with a truly common defense. And we don't need the unanimous consent of all 27 member states to do that," he said in an interview with the Spanish daily La Vanguardia, quoted by the Brussels-based portal Euractiv.

Sánchez recalled Trump's statements about Greenland, saying that if the US has legitimate concerns about Arctic security, it should raise them with its NATO allies. He warned that occupying the island by force would be a "death certificate" for the Alliance, which would make Russian President Vladimir Putin "twice as happy."

Spain is at the bottom of the list of NATO member states in terms of defense spending, which Sánchez confirmed, saying that he rejects the five percent threshold due to cuts in the social sector.

Borrell's successor at the head of the European External Action Service, Kaja Kallas, rejected the idea of a unified European army in January last year, saying that the 27 member states' armies were sufficient to meet European security challenges.

De Gaulle and his successors

The most famous French president and founder of the Fifth Republic, Charles de Gaulle, is usually considered the first "disruptor" of NATO unity. Already in his first year in office, the World War II hero rejected cooperation with the United States against the backdrop of the Cold War. He advocated for France to have its own nuclear arsenal, making France the only nuclear-armed state in Europe besides Britain.

De Gaulle twice vetoed the United Kingdom's entry into the European Economic Community, due to historical enmity, but also because the president considered the British to be "agents of the US" on the old continent.

As president, he did not oppose the establishment of a common European armed force, but his own parliament prevented him from doing so. In addition to the Economic Community (EEC) – the direct predecessor of the European Union – there were also serious debates in the 1950s about a defense community (EDC).

In 1954, the French National Assembly postponed ratification of the EDC agreement "indefinitely," with the result that the defense union never actually came into being.

In 1966, de Gaulle even suspended French membership in the military wing of the Alliance, although he did not formally withdraw from the military community.

His successor at the Élysée Palace issued a now-famous warning in 2019 that NATO was "brain dead." However, in an interview with the British weekly The Economist, Macron called on the EU to transform itself from a purely economic community into a "strategic power" and to seek ways to re-engage with Russia.

Seven years later, Macron declared at the WEF that humanity is "moving towards a world without rules" and that Europe is in danger of "being left alone." It is therefore unclear whether Paris really wants an independent European defense.