You might find this post at Euro Intelligence by Wolfgang Münchau informative. It forms a sort of counterpoint to what you may have been reading in the U. S. media. Here’s the part that caught by attention:
The UK’s strategic realignment was not inevitable. It is to a large extent the result of how the EU conducted the Brexit talks. The EU leadership never missed an opportunity to criticise Brexit. Donald Tusk, former president of the European Council, aligned himself to the second referendum campaign in the UK. The EU could have, but did not, support MPs in the UK who sought compromise, like Kenneth Clarke or Stephen Kinnock.
The second mistake, even worse than the first, was the intent to force the EU’s regulatory system on the UK as a price for a free trade deal. At no point did the EU even consider what kind of strategic relationship it wanted with the UK after Brexit. The EU let anger over Brexit get in the way over rational decision-making.
The enormous cost of this stupidity is slowly becoming apparent. The UK will not flood the EU with cheap goods, as France had feared. The UK’s strategy is more subtle. It will gradually cut off from European security policy. It will also cut off from the GDPR data protection regime and financial regulation. The UK has invested more into artificial intelligence than any EU member states. It is a permanent member of the UN security council and the G7. What on earth was the EU thinking?
And no, Biden is not going intervene on the EU’s behalf in the current standoff over Northern Ireland. EU leaders have always underestimated Boris Johnson. And they always overestimated Joe Biden. A bad combination.
The EU’s diplomacy is driven by emotion and a superficial understanding of US politics, and UK politics for that matter. Why did the EU place so much hope, so publicly, into regime change in Washington last year? Donald Trump was loud and crass, but all he ever did to the EU, other than insult them, was impose tariffs. Europe never experienced anything nearly as hostile as Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan or the Aukus deal. But all of this was perfectly foreseeable.
Things he anticipates:
- A change in the nuclear defense policy
- Further decline of NATO
- Increasing pressures on European defense spending
I have two questions and one observation. In the post Mr. Münchau alludes to Germany’s substantial trade surplus with China. I read conflicting reports on that, something between $1 billion and $26 billion, and I don’t know how to reconcile those estimates. Germany does run a trade surplus with China (not as large as Australia’s) but even $26 billion is not a particularly big component of a $4 trillion economy. That’s the source of my question: how much should Germany be willing to sacrifice to preserve its relationship with China?
My other question is about France. Was France really worried that the UK would “flood the EU with cheap goods”? That sounds like a miscalculation to me. I would think the French would be more worried about agricultural imports and about that they should be more concerned about Romania and the Ukraine.
And here’s my observation. I’ve never had myself referred to as an Anglo-Saxon before and I’m guessing that Joe Biden hasn’t, either. As the Anglosphere draws tighter I probably should get used to it.
But you are an anglophone, and the underlying linkage is the Anglophone Zone: UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. Nigeria, Kenya, Republic of South Africa, India, and some others might be honorary members.
The core Anglophone Zone does stick together, mostly because of early domination by Anglo Saxons during the colonial era.
The flip side is that France, Germany, Japan et al. are not and cannot be BFF’s with the Anglophone Zone. AUKUS and Afghanistan were notices of this. The EU has to quit NATO and put together its own security alliance. Otherwise Russia (with help from China) will come to seduce and dominate the European peninsular one country at a time. Germany first.
I think there’s more to it than that and I’ve written about it before. One of the things that the countries of the Anglosphere proper have in common is a social pattern called the “absolute nuclear family” with broad societal implications. IMO that is under attack not the least reason for which being there are now so many people here who do not come societies in which the absolute nuclear family prevails.
I think the linked piece tends to group Europe as one entity, which it is not, or at least recognize the different foreign policy priorities within the EU. As I once heard it said, European countries reacted to Trump’s election differently: the French said it confirmed the unreliability of America, the German’s called for strategic patience (this too shall pass), and Poland proposed to name an airforce base after Trump.
Eastern Europe is very committed to NATO as security against Russia. Germany, at least under Merkel, does not fear Russia, but will do the minimum to keep Eastern European countries from making it an issue. France, at least under Macron, is more concerned about establishing European strategic autonomy, which it does not appear the “Europeans” want, most of all Germany.
It seems to me that NATO will remain as it is, albeit with more of a minimal role that the non-Gaulish faction desire it to possess. And it is French aspirations that aren’t met, and were ignored during Brexit, as the military industrial partnership that it was starting to form with the UK might be dead now.
(And I kind of think France was mostly concerned about continued access to UK fisheries.)
I liked this piece from Balding on French outrage:
“On a strategic level, though France is talking of multilateralism, it needs to be emphasized that they are using that word very differently. They have pointedly refused to join the US and other countries in seeking to challenge China preferring almost a more go it alone strategy that has hall marks of the US, UK, and Australia but pointedly not joining with those countries over China. They have actively sought to increase trading links with China through among other initiatives as the CAI to the consternation of the US and even the Parliament. Now France is a sovereign state and pursue whatever policies it feels are in its interest but when your entire foreign policy is labeled “strategic autonomy†it is difficult to take seriously calls for a return to multilateralism.”
https://www.baldingsworld.com/2021/09/20/laffaire-francais-and-evergrande/