‘Since its formation 10 years ago, the idea of a common European defense has hardly made any progress. However, some important lessons can be learned from the decade of wasted opportunities,’ writes Nick Witney of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

 How gratifying for Europeans listening to Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin’s Tiergarten to hear him affirm that “America has no better partner than Europe,” and to talk of how allies must “listen to each other, learn from each other and, most of all, trust each other.”

And how unsettling to hear him talk also of the need for “shared sacrifice,” and to assert that “the Afghan people need our troops and your troops; our support and your support to defeat the Taliban, and al Qaeda.” The next American President, whether Democrat or Republican, will be politer to Europeans than the current incumbent; but he will also be more demanding — and harder to fob off.

For the EU’s new French Presidency, with their priority of boosting “l’Europe de la Defense,” these “noises off” can only be encouraging. And they will need all the encouragement they can get. For the European defence enterprise, launched at the famous Franco-British summit at St Malo nearly ten years ago, has in truth made depressingly little progress.

The main reasons for this are:

• Europeans are more concerned with welfare, and state ran programs, than anything else. Having a strong military costs money. You can only spend money once. When they have to choose, too many Europeans favor more programs or at least refuse to give up already existing ones
• Europe lives in a Kantian paradise. All is good and well within Europe. The mentality has taken hold that all problems can be resolved by purely diplomatic efforts. Talk, listen, talk. That’s the way to deal with problems, Europeans seem to believe

In this, the ‘old continent’ is quite different from America. Americans consider the world to be a Hobbesian place. America is quite peaceful, they think, but outside it, the law of the jungle operates. Power is strength. Strength is security.

When it comes to how to deal with countries in the Middle East, Europe can learn quite some from America. We seem to have forgotten that although we may be living in a Kantian paradise, this does not mean that the entire world lives in it. No, outside of Europe’s borders the law of the strongest rules.

Until that mentality changes, no plan to revamp Europe’s ‘defense’ will work.