Florence Parly, French Minister For Armed Forces

WASHINGTON: French Minister of the Armed Forces Florence Parly delivered a stinging assessment of US European policy Monday, decrying the confusion sown by the yawning disconnect between presidential tweets and US actions. Parly also criticized along the Trump administration’s tying of military sales to alliance requirements.

Trying to capture the fundamental disconnect, Parly quipped, “it’s called Article 5, not Article F-35,” taking a swipe at the US-led push to get allies to buy American.

Article 5 is, of course, the pledge that all NATO members take to come to each other’s defense if the alliance declares it necessary. The only time Article 5 has been successfully invoked was after 911.

(As a reminder, here is the unequivocal statement issued by NATO on Sept. 11, 2001: At this critical moment, the United States can rely on its 18 Allies in North America and Europe for assistance and support. NATO solidarity remains the essence of our Alliance. Our message to the people of the United States is that we are with you. Our message to those who perpetrated these unspeakable crimes is equally clear: you will not get away with it.)

Parly made the point that, in an alliance that relies on collective defense, there is little room for bilateral requirements: “I’m concerned that the strength of European solidarity might be conditional on allies buying this or that equipment. The alliance should be unconditional, or else it’s not an alliance.”

Parly’s speech at the Atlantic Council in Washington, delivered hours before she was scheduled to visit the Pentagon to sit down with acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, laid bare European concerns over the direction of American policy under Trump. At the same time, she pledged France would remain Washington’s “most effective ally” around the globe.

Central to the minister’s talk was the befuddling gap between President Trump’s continued bashing of European allies and the very real increase in US defense spending aimed at defending Europe, positioning more US troops near the Russian frontier, and sending back some heavy armor and aircraft that were withdrawn over the past 20 years.

Bradleys of the 4th Infantry Division on a rail car in Poland.

Central to this effort is the European Deterrence Initiative, which the Trump administration grew from $789 million in 2016 to $6.5 billion in 2019. The fiscal 2020 budget request trimmed that number to $5.9 billion, with cuts coming from a variety of military construction accounts as the US asks allies to do more.

That comes as Trump routinely bashes European allies for not doing enough to defend their own countries, going so far as to threaten to walk away from the 70 year-old alliance during his meeting with heads of state last July in Brussels.

Despite President Trump’s threats, “as far as France is concerned, we believe in facts, and facts speak of the incredible US commitment to European security. Congress has appropriated billions of dollars for the European Deterrence Initiative,” Parly said.

Her comments reflect something that US military officials routinely bring up when speaking with reporters. Look at what we’re actually doing overseas, they warn, not what people in Washington say we might do one day.

The president’s derailing of the normally sedate annual NATO meet-and-greet last year sent shockwaves through the capitals of Europe, and followed the administration’s scuttling of a series of multilateral agreements in its first 18 months in power, leaving the international community frantically searching for clues as to which international norm might come crashing down next.

Parly, like most other European leaders, said that Europe has used Trump’s threats and Twitter bluster as an opportunity to take a hard look at themselves, and has spurred a push toward increasing self-reliance, rather than to depend on the United States to provide security.

But even when Europeans pledge to do more, Trump has ripped them. After French President  Emmanuel Macron suggested establishing a “true European army” in November, the US president shot back with a belittling tweet claiming doing so might empower Germany to threaten the continent. During World Warr II, people “were starting to learn German in Paris before the U.S. came along. Pay for NATO or not!” he wrote.

“The Europeans have a hell of a (lot of) homework in front of them if they want to stand on their own two feet and really share the burden with America,” Parly said. France “fully supports” the US insistence that allies spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense, but she warned that it will take time to get there. The European pledge, made at NATO’s Welsh Summit in 2014, comes due in 2024.

In a striking passage, Parly laid bare just how deep that dependence on US capabilities goes. She noted that the US provides the alliance with 100 percent of its strategic bombers and missile defense systems, 91 percent of its air tankers, 92 percent of its medium- and high-elevation drones, and 81 percent of its strategic transport capabilities.

If Europe finally got serious about developing its own capabilities in these critical areas, she argued, Europe could more fully stand on its own.

And there are discussions across the NATO alliance and within the European Union to do just that, though talks between NATO and the European Union about increasing multi-national defense programs are at such an early stage that any actual programs are years away.   

In an attempt to assuage the White House’s concern that Europe would go its own way, Parly added, “building an European autonomy should never been seen as a move against the US. It should not become a reason for the US to be less engaged.”

Still, Parly said bluntly, one lesson Europe has learned over the past two years is that “we should develop European solutions wherever possible” for European defense needs, rather than relying on the US defense industry to supply equipment and capability.