The EU must replace the US as a security provider in Europe

NATO’s first secretary-general, Lord Hastings Lionel Ismay, famously said that NATO was created to “keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”

Ismay’s British wit captured splendidly the fundamentals of post-war security order in the continent – which included from the beginning both NATO and the process of European integration, from the European Coal and Steel Community to the European Union.

For more than 70 years, a strong transatlantic alliance deterred totalitarian expansion from the east, while the gradual unification of Europe made war materially impossible in the continent.

American military presence and NATO guaranteed European security, contained Russia, and allowed Germany to remain a military dwarf although it was a major economic and industrial powerhouse. The political context of this security arrangement changed often, but the fundamentals of European security remained the same.

Lately, however, Europe has been waking up to a new reality.

From Obama to Trump to Biden, US foreign policy has been steadily looking for a way out of Europe. With the Russo-Ukrainian conflict dating from 2014, Russia has been looking for a way back in.

Finally, the EU has been talking for years about becoming an autonomous security provider, which requires Germany to rise above its self-absorbing pacifism. After a period of gradual transformation, Russia’s war on Ukraine is a tipping point that makes Lord Ismay’s one-liner seem genuinely outdated.

When a threshold is reached, expect the system to change rapidly. This is exactly what seems to be happening in Europe after Putin invaded Ukraine. Judging from a common, united, and firm response to the war, the Versailles Declaration, and the EU’s Strategic