{"id":86767,"date":"2024-05-03T10:38:08","date_gmt":"2024-05-03T00:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=86767"},"modified":"2024-05-03T10:38:08","modified_gmt":"2024-05-03T00:38:08","slug":"the-macron-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-macron-moment\/","title":{"rendered":"The Macron moment"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The days of Europe buying its energy from Russia, outsourcing its businesses to China, and relying on the United States for its security are over. The European Union is only mortal and could very well be vanquished at the hands of Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Donald Trump or its own populist parties.<\/p>\n

That was French President\u00a0Emmanuel Macron<\/a>\u2019s\u00a0warning<\/a>\u00a0at the Sorbonne University on 25 April. With great flair, and at great length, he issued a wake-up call to French citizens, and indeed to all Europeans. It is no exaggeration to say that Europe\u2019s security, prosperity and culture are under threat.<\/p>\n

With the zeal of a convert, Macron argues that the stakes in Ukraine include not only Ukrainians\u2019 future but also the future of Europe: \u2018The condition\u00a0sine qua non<\/em>\u00a0for our security is that Russia does not win the war of aggression it is waging against Ukraine. This is imperative.\u2019 Even though the US Congress has finally\u00a0passed<\/a>\u00a0a supplemental aid bill for Ukraine (as well as Israel and Taiwan), Europeans must recognise that the United States has only two priorities: \u201cAmerica first, which is legitimate, and China.\u201d<\/p>\n

Macron warns that Europeans have entered a new world where raw materials face harder supply constraints, critical minerals are governed by geopolitics, the green transition is growing more urgent, and neither China nor America respects the rules of free trade. And on the political front, he deplores Europeans increasingly succumbing to imported culture wars. The more their politics are shaped by narratives produced elsewhere, the less equipped they will be to shape their own future.<\/p>\n

True to form, Macron was not short on solutions. Europe\u2019s security risks can be mitigated through a missile-defence initiative, long-range weapons and improved cyber capabilities, all backed by a war economy running on higher military and high-tech production, with financing from the European Investment Bank and mutualised EU debt vehicles. Similarly, Europe\u2019s economic problems demand a new industrial policy, with production targets and buy-European preferences in strategic sectors such as defence, green tech, raw materials, semiconductors, digital technology and health care.<\/p>\n

Macron\u2019s political genius has always stemmed from his think-tank-like approach to big problems, and his analysis of what ails Europe is a trenchant one. But he suffers from a reverse-Midas curse: policies become more controversial by dint of him having embraced them. While the president\u2019s team proudly points out that several of the ideas mentioned in his\u00a02017 Sorbonne speech<\/a>\u00a0have since been implemented, Macron himself admits that Europe could have, and should have, gone much further. If he wants to look back in seven years and see a better conversion rate, he will have to adopt a new playbook.<\/p>\n

First, Macron must begin to show, not just tell. Though his language on the Ukraine war has been striking, French military aid\u00a0lags<\/a>\u00a0far behind Germany\u2019s. If Macron had really wanted to demonstrate strategic resolve against Russia, he would already have sent French military personnel to assist Ukraine in a non-combatant capacity, as the\u00a0United States<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Britain<\/a>\u00a0have done.<\/p>\n

Second, Macron must get over his Jupiterian tendency to see himself as the main character in Europe\u2019s drama. Ideally, he and German Chancellor\u00a0Olaf Scholz<\/a>\u00a0would get along well enough to launch ideas in tandem, thus bolstering the idea of a Franco-German motor. But in the absence of a constructive bilateral relationship (for which Germany is equally to blame), Macron should make a greater effort to build coalitions with other leaders, such as Polish Prime Minister\u00a0Donald Tusk<\/a>, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, Spanish Prime Minister\u00a0Pedro S\u00e1nchez<\/a> or Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.<\/p>\n

Underlying all the problems that Macron identified in his speech is a crisis in European leadership. As an American official recently pointed out to me, Macron is like a (young) King Lear. With just a few years left in his term, and with\u00a0no majority<\/a>\u00a0in parliament, he has come to a clear-eyed understanding of the world too late. Sometimes, Macron appears even to lean into the emptiness, crying into the void like Lear on the heath. It is always easier to be right than to do the hard work of bringing others along with you.<\/p>\n

That said, the timing for a Macron moment has never been better. Not so long ago, the EU was fundamentally divided between eastern member states that were worried about Russia and looking to the US for protection, and western ones that weren\u2019t. But since his damascene conversion on the road to Kyiv, Macron has proven to be a master at articulating eastern members\u2019 anxieties. If there is anyone who can bridge the EU\u2019s east-west divide, it is him.<\/p>\n

Moreover, France\u2019s own nuclear deterrent could be critical for providing reassurances to those countries spooked by the threat of an American withdrawal from Europe if Trump returns to the White House in January. While Macron\u2019s right-wing opponent, Marine Le Pen, has been doing very well in the\u00a0polls<\/a>, her antagonistic relationship with the EU and her\u00a0closeness<\/a>\u00a0to Russia have become more glaring weaknesses. If Macron can find a less imperious approach and put his money where his mouth is, he could create a truly durable political base for his ideas. The Macron of seven years ago scarcely could have dreamed of that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The days of Europe buying its energy from Russia, outsourcing its businesses to China, and relying on the United States for its security are over. The European Union is only mortal and could very well …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":529,"featured_media":86769,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1905,1025,163,714],"class_list":["post-86767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-european-union","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","dinkus-russia-ukraine-war"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Macron moment | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-macron-moment\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Macron moment | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The days of Europe buying its energy from Russia, outsourcing its businesses to China, and relying on the United States for its security are over. 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