Mr. Trump’s Threat to Europe’s Security

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/09/opinion/mr-trumps-threat-to-europes-security.html

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Faced with an American president who has shown higher regard for President Vladimir Putin of Russia than for NATO or the European Union, European leaders are drawing up defense plans that rely more on themselves, in case they can’t rely on the United States.

President François Hollande of France warned on Sunday that Mr. Trump’s ignorance of Europe “means we must prove to him the E.U.’s political cohesion, its economic weight and its strategic autonomy.” Mr. Hollande invited Britain, despite its departure from the bloc, to join Europe’s defense.

On Monday, European Union ministers agreed that military training operations underway in Africa should have a headquarters in Brussels, a cost-saving move that is also a step toward the permanent European command structure called for in the union’s 2009 Lisbon Treaty.

More troubling, though, is talk of nuclear expansion.

After Mr. Trump’s election in November, Roderich Kiesewetter, a foreign policy spokesman in Germany’s ruling party, warned that, in the absence of nuclear protection by the United States, “Europe still needs nuclear protection for deterrent purposes,” and that he would look to nuclear powers France and Britain to provide it. And Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the chairman of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party, said in interview published last month that strategic autonomy means Europe “would have to be able to keep up with Russia” on the nuclear front, raising the prospect of a nuclear arms race between Europe and Russia.

As long as NATO’s tactical nuclear weapons remain in Europe, there is little possibility of Europe creating another nuclear deterrent. Yet, despite recent assurances from Vice President Mike Pence and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis that the Trump administration remains committed to a strong NATO, Mr. Trump’s alarming statements questioning America’s commitment to the alliance and his ignorance of the treaties that underpin nuclear security have unnerved Europe’s leaders.

“Europe cannot be naïve and has to take care of its own security,” states a paper released by the European Commission this month, in laying out scenarios for Europe’s future. “Being a ‘soft power’ is no longer powerful enough when force can prevail over rules.”

Europe seems to see Mr. Trump as a threat to stability forged through rules. For the sake of Europe, the United States, and our collective security, Mr. Trump must show that he understands the limits of unilateral action.