President Trump deserves some credit for President Emmanuel Macron’s increase in French defense spending.
Announced last month, Macron’s decision moves France toward the 2 percent of GDP defense spending target for NATO member states.
Writing at RealClearDefense on Tuesday, David Ritchie offered a very good rundown on where France will allocate the new funds. Fortunately, it seems that capability development will be the first priority rather than simply throwing tens of thousands more personnel into the ranks. This suggests France will build its ability to fight and win alongside the U.S. in any future war.
Even though Macron has consistently said he would push toward this increase, it was no certain thing. French government deficits remain high, domestic problems abound, and the economy, though improving, remains on uncertain ground. Moreover, as I noted last year, military cuts in 2017-2018 suggested that Macron might back off from prior commitments to increase defense appropriations.
Still, all’s well that ends well. And in this good ending, President Trump deserves some credit.
After all, Trump has long made clear his outrage at European freeloading on defense spending. And in the odd but close relationship that Macron and Trump seem to have sparked up, it seems likely that Macron sees this defense increase as a way to woo his American counterpart.
In that sense, Macron’s new defense plan is a clear repudiation to those who criticized Trump for challenging NATO members to spend more. Recall that some of these critics endorsed truly ridiculous arguments.
Professor Andrew Moravcsik, for example, claimed that Trump was wrong to challenge European states for their low defense spending because they spend a lot on humanitarian aid. Unfortunately, Russian tanks will probably not be defeated by water wells in Africa.
Similarly, Abraham Newman and Daniel Nexon peaked Vox.com by insinuating that Trump’s call for increased European defense spending might risk a new war between the U.S. and allies like Britain.
All these arguments were and are absurd.
The truth is that, with the exception of Germany, Trump’s hard-edged approach towards European defense free-riding is working. European governments are finally acting because they are finally beginning to fear that their failure to act will result in a U.S. pullback from their common defense. Matched with his tougher action against Russia in Ukraine and Syria, Trump’s tough love is making NATO more effective in its standing mission: to credibly deter against aggression.
Yes, Europe’s evolution on defense remains too slow and too inconsistent (the European Union, for example, continues to pursue misguided plans for a outside-of-NATO defense force). And yes, Canada continues to resist the investments necessary to preserve the liberal order Justin Trudeau claims to cherish.
But at least with Macron and Europe, Trump’s approach is paying dividends. We should be grateful to Trump and our French allies for the new approach.
