Last week I got a request, one of many I have received over the years. Two scholars asked me to do a chapter in a book they were going to edit. The topic? Security challenges facing European states. That includes strategic and doctrinal responses, technological and industrial capabilities, European armed forces in action, the web of alliances, etc, etc. The book was going to be published by Oxford University Press. My role was to do the chapter on land forces.
I told my father, who is 96 years old. He responded with one word: nebbish (Yiddish for “poor bastards”). I on my part turned down the offer. Why? Because there was no challenge in it. Starting in 1571, when the Turks were defeated at Lepanto, no other non-European navy has ever dared challenge the Europeans at sea. Starting in 1683, when they tried to capture Vienna and failed, the same was true on land.
European navies and armies together ruled the world for several centuries. What were often almost ridiculously small expeditionary forces easily swept away any opposition they encountered. The point was reached where, in 1914, five European states—plus one that was an offspring or Europe, plus one that had successfully started to imitate the Europeans’ methods—dominated practically the entire earth. By 1939, owing to the rise of the USA, the USSR and Japan, that domination was no longer as complete as it had been at the beginning of the twentieth-century. Still it was strong enough.
Depending on how things are calculated and whom one believes, World War II is said to have caused the deaths of anything between 50 and 80 million people. Perhaps as many as two thirds of them were Europeans. Especially in 1944-45, when the Allies were closing on Berlin from east and west, the Continent was hell on earth. Entire armies were being destroyed or captured. Entire cities were being pulverized from the air; until, in Germany, hardly two stones were kept standing on each other. No wonder the survivors turned towards pacifism. The Continent which for several centuries had produced the world’s best sailors and soldiers wanted nothing more to do with war.
To be sure, some European States still tried to behave as if nothing had changed. Many of them sent their troops to fight in the colonies. “Over there,” as the phrase went, they tried to put down rebellions, uprisings, brushfire wars—a term frequently used during the 1950s—guerrilla, terrorism, or whatever. In all cases their opponents were puny (sometimes literally so, like the Viet Minh). Often the attempts involved massive bloodshed and even more massive cruelty; one need only think of the interesting methods the French “paras” used to “win” the battle of Algiers.
In the end, all of them failed. In my view that even applies to the British “victory” in Malaysia which has so often been held up as an example of what could be achieved. In reality it was a triumph of propaganda, not arms. It was orchestrated by none other than Winston Churchill. Returning to office in 1951, Churchill had the good sense to announce that “we shall win this war, then we shall get out.” He did “win,” and he did get out.
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The end of the Algerian War in 1962 marked the last time when any European power seriously tried to hold on to its overseas possession. True, in Europe itself the Soviet Union continued to pose a formidable challenge. However, those who carried the main burden of dealing with that challenge were not the Europeans but their American Allies. The latter spent about twice as much on defense as all European states combined.
To be sure, things developed differently in different countries. By and large, though, all kept cutting their defense budgets and, with them, their armed forces’ size and capabilities. Starting in 1967, almost all of them also did away with conscription. So strong did pacifist sentiment become that many forces found it almost impossible to attract high-quality manpower. That, incidentally, was one reason why they increasingly turned to women; who, as everybody knows but nobody dares say, for many purposes, are no more than half soldiers.
As the Cold War came to an end the process accelerated. Take the Bundeswehr, which during the first few days at any rate would have to bear the brunt of an eventual Soviet attack. In 1989 it had 500,000 soldiers in twelve superbly armed divisions. Now it has 186,000 and three respectively. Much of its equipment is out of date, inoperable, or both. The armed forces of NATO’s remaining members are no better off. Most of the countries in question only spend between 1 and 2 percent of GDP on their militaries. In late 2014 it was decided to raise the figure to 2 percent. No sooner did this happen, though, than the resolution was declared to be “non-binding.”
The Europeans’ miserable failure to deal with the challenges facing them over the last quarter century speaks for itself. Had it not been the US, no doubt Saddam Hussein would still have been in power. In 1992-95 it was the US and not the Europeans which put an end to the war in the former Yugoslavia. In 1999 it was the US and not the Europeans who did what had to be done, if it had to be done, in Kosovo. In both 2002—the war in Afghanistan—and 2003—the invasion of Iraq—so limited was the role most Europeans played as to be barely visible. But for the US, the Persian Gulf would long ago have become a Persian Lake. And so it goes.
There used to be a time when the French prided themselves on their furor Gallicus and the Germans on their furor Teutonicus. Others had similar beliefs—I vividly remember the British officer who, long ago, looked at me down his nose as he said that they, the British, were rather good at “the smacking business.” They may have been. But by now they have become pussycats like all the rest.
In view of this total lack of the will to fight—in the face of a growing challenge from Moscow, what is more—of what value and interest are strategic and doctrinal responses, technological and industrial capabilities, the web of alliances, and all the rest?
As so often, the answer is blowing in the wind.