One of the most widely watched geopolitical events is how will Europe respond to Chinese aggression from the national security law in Hong Kong to the invasion of India as well as a range of other events. Given that many have built a counter Trump foreign policy contingent upon attracting European allies to confront China, the importance of Europe in the unfolding geopolitical tragedy becomes even more important. The only problem with the Old World obsession? Europe is almost entirely irrelevant to the China problem.

America has a European obsession. Coming out of a post World War II geopolitical environment there is good reason why that was the focus of resource allocation. This resulted in significant work that focused on the trans Atlantic relationship from bilateral and multilateral alliances and institutions to economic and security relationships that built the post war world. In a post war world, rebuilding Europe rapidly and building alliances to confront the Soviet Union was tantamount. This formed the foundation for the post war institutional and alliance order.

However, even beyond the broader institutional and alliance focus many in America looked to Europe as a natural ally that shared the same values but also behaved differently acting as a type of moderating influence on US foreign policy. They preferred to highlight different policy domains like the environment and human rights. They focused on institution building whether it was the European Union or whether it was NATO and post 1989 institutions. This endeared them to many foreign policy wonks in the United States who admired European sensibilities.

However, these threads of foreign policy and institutional alliances also overlooked key problems. First, much of this European cooperation flowed from the need to solve uniquely European centric problems. Whether the NATO security alliance facing the USSR to the United Nations Security Council with the two major victorious European powers as members or receiving financial benefits to rebuild Europe, enormous amounts of the cooperation involved European centric or adjacent needs, alliances, and institutions. In a post WWII world this is not a major problem. In a 2020 Asia focused threat theater, this is a problem.

Second, organizationally, Europe and the European are not really a political entity with delegated decision making, authority, and significant budgetary authority. Power for foreign policy within Europe continues to reside not with the European Union foreign minister but with the respective states foreign ministers. Each state has individual relationships with each other and with China and the issues that cause reaching and agreement to speak with a common voice on security issues half a world away a virtual non-starter. In reality, though we use the term Europe there is no European voice.
Third, Europe having received a security guarantee from the United States for most of the past half century has little interest in expending energy or capital on challenging China. Despite the criticisms of the Trump administration taking steps to make Europe take its own security more seriously and reduce American assets in Europe, this is a long standing problem faced by many Presidents dealing with a continent that is happy to free ride off of American security guarantee. While in European linked matters they may be able to muster at least some security assets to protect their own country, asking Europe to plausibly take interest in in security matters outside the Old World is simply a non-starter.

There are two separate issues to consider that are separate from Europe’s link with the creation of the international institution system. First, for a variety of reasons Europe broadly speaking does not see or refuses to address the potential Chinese threats. Despite the seemingly overwhelming list of reasons for Europe to consider China a threat, including many that fall directly into areas that Europe broadly prioritizes such as human rights and democracy, Europe almost without exception cannot even make strong statements about Hong Kong. There is a variety of reasons for this but fundamentally, Europe cannot be considered a reliable ally that prioritizes these values and policy issues willing to raise them with strongly authoritarian states. It bears worth noting that this pattern extends well beyond the China case.

Second, where as previous institutional arrangements prioritized Europe and European states played an important role in their creation and maintenance, the theater of engagement is now Asia. Even assuming the political willingness to challenge China, there is little to no ability by European state available to influence China other than scolding. They barely have a military to contribute to European defense much less projection into areas like the South China Sea nor can they even muster the ability to assist European telecom network firms like Nokia and Ericsson whom the US is trying to protect to help European cyber security. Think of it another way, after World War II, this would be like the United States proclaiming it was worried about the Russian marching into Europe and promptly flying to Asia to figure out what should be done. Europe can contribute minimally to the challenge ahead based simply on the theater of engagement.

So this turns us to the question of what is the framework for alliances and institutional building that lays before us?

First, rather than burning down the old institutions they are best dealt with by rotting under their own entropy. We do not need to dismantle NATO or the WTO for instance, nor would it be adviseable, we simply need not prioritize them. If other partners are unable or unwilling to invest in the maintenance or the reform of those institutions to make them valuable institutional resources, then the US should not waste valuable political and economic capital in attempting to make the impossible happen especially when those institutions cannot rise to meet the new challenges. However, this also argues against any destruction or withdrawal but rather a form of management into general irrelevance. If Germany does not wish to invest in its own security than neither will the US but we will maintain a security presence for our own needs in western Europe. Assuming no significant increase in military spending, this would require a reallocation of military assets away from western Europe and towards the Indo Pacific.
Second, this requires investing a new landscape of institutions and organizations designed to meet new challenges. As a simple example, the WTO language and ruling provide little hope for dealing with China in areas like state owned enterprises and separating enforcement from worthless technical alteration of legislation in an authoritarian government. Nor will the WTO be able to reform itself and the underlying agreements again. While newer agreements like CPTPP and the EU Vietnam FTA for instance, cover issues like SOEs in significantly greater detail with much broader language.

In reality we see the beginnings of system institutions that could form the basis of an actual Asian Pivot. President Obama first coined the term but had no follow through in accomplishing anything and President Trump has made targeting China a policy priority but worked little to institutionalize his approach outside the United States government. With the strategic approach document released recently which was a multi-agency collaboration document from across the US government and not a single office, there is a clear framework for moving forward. The US should join CPTPP and go further creating a directorate to coordinate and work with lesser developed Indo Pacific neighbors on standards, development, and investment. Recently, the Development Finance Corporation (DFC) was incorporated to finance development assistance though it currently has limited capital and borrowing capability to meet large broad needs across the Indo Pacific. While the US has ramped up security cooperation with partners in the Indo Pacific it needs to go further and begin to formalize a more institutional structure. This could take the form of military training and cooperation centers well short of anything that would replicate a NATO type control and mutual guarantee alliance structure it would lay the ground work for further institutionalization if needed by cooperating now.

Third, the reality that neither party really wants to acknowledge is that focusing on China will require both a significant reallocation or shift away from Europe and increase in current spending levels across policy domains. CNAS a left leaning security focused think tank in DC wrote a report entitled “Rising to the China Challenge” that came out in January about how the US should approach China by policy domains going forward. As much as a criticize Acela Corridor think tanks for their work on China, which is abysmally bad, the CNAS report was actually very good and got all the key points right. Where they stumble is they do not go far enough or lay out the realities of what they are implying: major increases in spending and major absorption of costs and refocusing of alliances and institutions. The fundamental framework and objectives they lay out is entirely correct. They stop short however of what the implication and the choices that will have to be made. This will require major increases in spending and a refocusing and redrawing of alliances to meet those goals and objectives.

Focusing on our example here, the United States does not need to kill NATO or the WTO but there is little clear reason for to invest or prioritize them if they are objectively failing or unable to address the new policy domains objectives. Furthermore, other than rubber rafts and unused vacation time, Europe can and will contribute nothing to Indo Pacific focused institutions, policies, and security strategies. The United States should not be bound by historical alliances to fight different security threats and economic objectives. Given the inability of Europe to project power and influence even within Europe what makes us think they could project influence to Asia?

There is broad interest in greater US involvement across a range of policy domains from greater security cooperation and training to economic development and trade. The US needs to prioritize working with other countries but not quiet in the way most people think.