The U.S. is leaving Europe behind

This is just a quick post to share something that I’ve written for Australian Outlook about the new security deal between Australia, the UK and the U.S., known as AUKUS. While a lot of people focused on the implications of this specifically for France, for whom the deal as a humiliation, it struck me as much more of a story about U.S.-European relations as a whole.

Back in 2016, the guy who is now Biden’s top White House official for the Asia-Pacific (or, as they insist on calling it, the “Indo-Pacific”), wrote a book in which he promised that America’s “pivot to Asia” strategy, begun under Obama, would be a pivot to Asia with Europe rather than a pivot to Asia from Europe. But the details of AUKUS, and the way it has been rolled out, just makes that implausible today. Europe’s value to America as an international partner depends a lot on Europe’s ability to make itself relevant to the Asia-Pacific, the region that Washington now sees as the center of the world. And as I write in the piece, Europe just can’t do that:

Europe is really far away from the Asia-Pacific, and the continent’s small defense budgets don’t buy much in the way of power projection capabilities. France, with its overseas territories in the region and carrier strike group deployed there, is actually one of the European countries with the best claim to being a resident power – and still this didn’t stop it being treated roughly by the Biden administration in favor of Australia.

Anyway, you can read the rest here.