Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has a brusque op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. In the op-ed he challenges Europe’s leaders to literally put their money where their mouths are, i.e. to back up their speeches. Here’s his peroration:
The last time I looked, the U.S. supplies 70% of NATO spending and almost all of its nuclear deterrence (depending on what you believe about the French force de frappe), as well as 95% of heavy-lift capacity.
European leaders need to be serious. They either need to show that they mean it—that they are willing to do something big, risky and strategically autonomous to help Ukraine, which they show no sign of doing—or else they need to put a sock in it.
I think his earlier prediction is also just about correct:
Unless these European leaders are prepared to do something brave and perhaps very expensive to make good their rhetoric, the best hope for this economically stagnant, welfare-addicted Continent is to maintain the strategy that has worked for the past 100 years and more. That is to do everything we can to persuade Americans of the truth that their security is bound up with ours, and that in return for that commitment we are willing to spend more on defense, and glad to accept the continued reality of American military hegemony in Europe.
The additional food for thought I would offer them is that American military hegemony requires American economic hegemony. We cannot afford the former without the latter. The implications of that are extremely broad, extending beyond military spending to their trade within the European Union, their trade with China, and the inexpensive consumer goods that accompany that.
Mr. Johnson is right about the dependency. But he understates the cost structure. American military primacy in Europe is not merely a function of defense budgets. It is a function of dollar dominance, trade flows, and industrial capacity as well. If Europe wishes to preserve American security guarantees, it must consider not only its defense spending but also its economic alignment. Military hegemony without economic hegemony is unsustainable.
