Europe will have no credibility until Cyprus is resolved
President Donald Trump has long considered European states freeloaders on defense and diplomacy. He was not wrong.
A major first-term achievement was naming, shaming, and forcing countries to meet their NATO budget commitments. In Iraq and Afghanistan, most European states — the United Kingdom and Denmark excepted — would avoid combat but then demand equal diplomatic influence. Germany has historically been the most egregious, seeking to profit from both Russia and Iran by breaking the solidarity of the United States and the rest of the European Union.
The traditional reticence to engage military, often couched in the rhetoric of law, dedication to diplomacy or deference to the United Nations, hides a dirty secret: Most European states cannot fight. They excel at military law but not at combat maneuver warfare. While European navies once ruled the ocean, only France has a formidable blue-water navy. Even when the British Navy can get its carriers to sea, it does not have sufficient planes to deploy with them.
While Norwegians can ski and Estonians lead the pack in cyber defense, the only European countries with significant and capable infantry are Poland and Ukraine.
European diplomats are also arrogant. They assume they represent the right side of history. They elide their mercantilism and shroud cynical policies in the language of human rights.
Berlin, for example, has never seen a revisionist state it could not appease or a terrorist sponsor with which it could not do business. While the Dutch lecture Americans on international law and take pride in hosting the International Criminal Court, it was the Netherlands and not the U.S. that provided the chemical precursors to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to use against the Kurds, and the Americans who cleaned up the Dutch mess by ridding the world of the Iraqi dictator. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez castigates the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran, yet quietly sells the dual-use military equipment to Tehran that made the Islamic Republic’s indiscriminate strikes on civilians possible.
While hypocrisy erodes European diplomacy, the broader problem is European impotence. Here, the problem is not only military weakness but also diplomatic and political ineffectiveness. Take the EU’s refusal to meaningfully address Turkey’s six-decade-long occupation of sovereign Cyprus, which is EU territory. Every day Cypriots are forced to look at the giant Turkish occupation flag on Mount Pentadaktylos is a day every European should feel humiliated.
Turkey occupied Cyprus in 1974 not to protect that country’s Muslim minority, but as a naked land grab. After all, the major invasion came after the Greek junta fell, and Turkey and Greece were in peace talks. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hopes time will launder Turkish sins, and European diplomats affirm this strategy. Certainly, the Cyprus problem is difficult, but sidestepping it simply shows European states are not up to the challenge and are always willing to put subordinate ease to principle.
If Europe were serious, there should not be a single visa issued to a Turk, a Turkish Airlines flight overflying, let alone landing in Europe, and sanctions on every member of the Turkish armed forces. Brussels would react to Turkish threats to unleash refugees into Europe with threats to return every Turkish migrant and an end to the remittances they provide Turkey.
Trump is right not to take European officials seriously. As the Europeans allow this occupation to continue, it is clear Europeans officials do not take themselves seriously either.
Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential. He is director of analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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