Abstract
Even though the US material commitment to European defence has been enhanced in recent years, President Trump's comments on NATO have cast doubt on the reliability of the Article V guarantee, and imply that American involvement in NATO peace-support or enforcement missions cannot be taken for granted. Junior partners confronted with the possibility of lowered commitment by the leading power have an incentive to ‘hedge’, and this paper examines three types of hedging behaviour pursued (or contemplated) by the European allies: incentivising the US to hold to its commitments through higher defence spending and an agenda oriented toward American priorities; strengthening bilateral ties to the US; and regionalisation, evident in accelerated EU security and defence initiatives. These strategies share the same logic — to prevent abandonment or deal with its consequences — and can introduce ‘horizontal’ tensions into relations between the European allies. The paper argues, however, that hedging remains limited in scope and ambition, a consequence of the allies' weak starting position in military capabilities, and is therefore not likely to undermine NATO; in fact it complements the Alliance, with even the EU's move toward greater ‘strategic autonomy’ calibrating well with the goals of NATO–EU partnership. While still nascent, hedging reflects a genuine European interest in responding to the ongoing shift of American strategic priorities away from Europe and towards China, and the paper concludes by considering options for strengthening NATO's European pillar.
Panel: Session I
Joint Policy Workshop 2019 programme
Cite this presentation
@inproceedings{eiss-JPW2019-european-allies-response-to-the-trump-presidency,
author = {Mark Webber and Jens Ringsmose},
title = {European Allies' response to the Trump Presidency},
booktitle = {European Security Studies Conference 2019},
year = {2019},
url = {https://eiss-europa.com/papers/JPW2019-european-allies-response-to-the-trump-presidency.html}
}