No ally will turn from China

The policy consequences of American weakness. Most Europeans’ view of America as politically broken and likely to soon be overtaken by China as a global power appears to affect public perceptions of the value of the transatlantic alliance in ways that could have a significant impact on the Biden team. We noticed four profound changes. Firstly, the move towards greater self-reliance. One of the most striking findings of ECFR’s survey is that at least 60 per cent of respondents in every surveyed country – and an average of 67 per across all these countries – believe that they cannot always rely on the US to defend them and, therefore, need to invest in European defence. Interestingly, 74 per cent of British respondents hold this view – a higher share than in any other national group. ECFR’s opinion poll also reveals a change in threat perceptions across Europe, most dramatically in Germany. During the cold war, Germany felt threatened by invasion and was, therefore, wedded to the Atlantic alliance. But, nowadays, Germans seem to have caught up with the French (whose country has the strongest military in the EU and is a long-time proponent of European defence integration) in feeling less of a need than other Europeans for the US security guarantee. Currently, only 10 per cent of respondents in France and Germany say that their country needs the American security guarantee “a great deal” to be safe from military invasion. Only in Poland do a substantial number of respondents (44 per cent) believe that they need this guarantee “a great deal”. Therefore, it seems that Germany’s – and Europe’s – transatlantic policy in the years to come could be influenced not only by the country’s increasing economic ties with China but also by the fact that over half of the German public does not now see US military power as an existential guarantee of its security. The second big surprise is around the question of geopolitical alignment. Biden has called for the US and Europe to form a united front against China and thereby shape its rise. But ECFR’s poll shows that, in today’s Europe, there is no dream of a return to a bipolar world in which the West would face off against China and its allies as it once did against the Soviet Union. Troubled by doubts about America and influenced by Trump’s focus on narrowly defined national interests, European voters have started to think differently about the nature of the transatlantic alliance. In 2019 ECFR conducted a that indicated that a large majority of respondents in all surveyed countries wanted to remain neutral (rather than align with Washington) in a conflict between the US and China or Russia. Many people around Biden may have hoped that his victory in the November election would have changed that dynamic. They may have assumed that Europeans’ shift towards neutrality could be explained by their mistrust of, and disgust with, Trump. However, ECFR’s latest poll shows that political change in Washington does not appear to have fundamentally altered respondents’ calculus about geopolitical alignment. At least half of the electorate in every surveyed country would like their government to remain neutral in a conflict between the US and China. This even applies in Denmark and Poland, the two countries with the highest proportions of people who would like to take the United States’ side – 35 per cent and 30 per cent respectively. This may reflect the fact that, although both Europeans and Americans are toughening up their approaches to China, their long-term goals are somewhat different. While Americans want to do so to decouple from and contain China, Europeans (above all Germans) still hope to bring China back into the rules-based system. Europe’s unwillingness to side with the US also comes out in respondents’ views on a conflict between the US and Russia: in no surveyed country would a majority want to take Washington’s side. Amazingly, only 36 per cent of respondents in Poland and 40 per cent in Denmark say that their country should side with the US in such a scenario. Across the 11 surveyed countries, just 23 per cent of respondents hold this view – while 59 per cent want their country to remain neutral. In Denmark and Poland, neutrality is the preferred option of 47 per cent and 45 per cent of voters respectively. This shift in perceptions might have as much to do with power as anything else. What Europeans love about the memory of cold war 1.0 is that they were on the winning side; the fear in many European countries is that cold war 2.0 might have a different outcome. The growing mistrust about Washington’s reliability and power is changing the nature of the transatlantic alliance. America’s cold war coalitions took the form of a Catholic marriage. They were meant to be monogamous, with no possibility of divorce. After four years of Trump, the alliance looks like a more casual arrangement – an open marriage in which bringing in other players is the key to not being exploited. Europeans no longer trust America to defend Europe and would express little solidarity with the US if it became involved in a conflict with other great powers. Reading ECFR’s survey, Washington will also have no reasons to trust European publics’ readiness to conduct a joint transatlantic foreign policy. The third consequence of changing perceptions of power is a desire to be less sentimental in dealings with the US. A perverse effect of Trump’s term in power is that, by ruthlessly focusing on the national interest, he has encouraged other players – including Europeans – to concentrate more on protecting their own interests at the expense of focusing on the broader common interests of the democratic West. This is reflected in many Europeans’ desire to invest in defending themselves. There has also been a marked change in how people regard the transatlantic economic relationship. Among the eight countries in which ECFR asked voters about this issue, pluralities in Germany (37 per cent), France (48 per cent), Great Britain (37 per cent), and Italy (42 per cent) think that their country should be tougher with the US on economic issues such as international trade, the taxation of multinational companies, and the regulation of digital platforms. Poland is the predictable outlier on this point, with just one in ten voters saying that their country should become tougher with the US on economic issues.