The EU can no longer rely on the US. “We lived in an illusion, now we are paying the price”

The new National Security Strategy confirms the US retreat from its current foreign policy, and Europe can no longer rely on American security guarantees to the same extent as before, said Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, an expert from the Brussels think tank Bruegel, in an interview with PAP.

According to the interlocutor, the document prepared by the administration of President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance contains elements that have already appeared in the public statements of these politicians, so in this sense it is not a surprise.

Kirkegaard emphasized that there are several trends in US policy seeking to limit foreign involvement – from isolationists, through critics of the European Union, to supporters of focusing on competition with China or limiting defense spending due to the deficit.

From a European perspective, it does not matter much who rules in Washington. The reality is that Europe can no longer rely on American security guarantees to the same extent as before, the expert said.

In his opinion, this process is not new, and in Europe, Poland was one of the first countries to recognize the need to independently strengthen its defense.

– Poland began serious armament several years ago because it realized that the US would not necessarily be able to fully protect it against Russia. Today this thinking has spread throughout Europe – said Kirkegaard.

In this context, the expert mentioned, among others: about changes in German defense policy: changes to the Conscription Act and a huge increase in defense spending. – Today, Europe is arming itself, preparing for a world in which the US is not the main guarantor of security, he said.

In his opinion, the key question concerns the future of transatlantic relations and the functioning of NATO, and it will be necessary to decide whether we want a violent “divorce” with the US or cooperation within an alliance that will be a different NATO – a more “balanced” one between Europe and the US.

Kirkegaard believes that in the long term, the share of the American arms industry in European purchases will decline. As he said, The United States will sell weapons to Europe, but the overall level of exports will certainly decreasebecause more and more will be produced in Europe.

The expert also assessed that Europe is paying today for years of wrong assumptions about both Russia and the US. In his opinion, the West was naive towards Russia and allowed it to become dependent on Russian energy. “It was a historic strategic mistake,” he said.

Europe also underestimated the political evolution in the United States.

No one predicted that Trump would become president, and certainly no one realistically assumed he could be re-elected. We have lived for 30 years in the illusion of a peace dividend and today we are paying a financial price for it, but the real price is paid by Ukraine, in blood, he concluded.

The American authorities have published a new US National Security Strategy, a document setting out the country's foreign and security policy priorities. It emphasized, for example, that US policy regarding Europe should treat, among others, as a priority: returning to strategic stability in relations with Russia, enabling Europe to take responsibility for its own defense and preventing further NATO expansion.

The strategy calls for a break with current foreign policy in many fundamental aspects and changes the main focus of foreign policy from competition with China to internal security and designating the Western Hemisphere as the American sphere of influence. He refers to the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine, the update of which is to “supplement Trump.”

From Brussels Łukasz Osiński (PAP)

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