欧洲不再需要美国除非欧盟领导人接受欧洲大陆可以自立，并且美国人放弃全球警察的角色，否则对华盛顿的依赖将继续存在。作者：Rajan Menon，Defense Priorities 大战略项目主任，纽约城市学院名誉教授，哥伦比亚大学高级研究员。和 Daniel R. DePetris，Defense Priorities 研究员和芝加哥论坛报和新闻周刊的外交事务专栏作家。 1 月 20 日，法国总统埃马纽埃尔·马克龙 (Emmanuel Macron) 在法国陆军部长塞巴斯蒂安·勒科努 (Sebastien Lecornu)（右二）的带领下，在蒙德马桑空军基地走过一架达索阵风战斗机。1 月 20 日，法国总统埃马纽埃尔·马克龙 (Emmanuel Macron) 和法国陆军部长塞巴斯蒂安·勒科努 (Sebastien Lecornu)（右二）走过蒙德马桑空军基地的一架达索阵风战斗机。BOB EDME /POOL/AFP 来自 GETTY IMAGES 2023 年 1 月 30 日下午 2:02 自乌克兰战争初期以来，俄罗斯军队的弱点就很明显。军队和装备的惊人损失，莫斯科无法充分装备甚至补给其军队，以及指挥权的多次转变——总参谋长瓦列里·格拉西莫夫是俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京的最新选择——揭露了俄罗斯军队所谓的神话无敌。 Yevgeny Prigozhin的 Wagner 集团——一支活跃于 Soledar 和 Bakhmut 关键战役的私人军队——与俄罗斯国防部长谢尔盖绍伊古以及俄罗斯最高指挥部之间的争吵证明了普京所依赖的战争指挥官之间存在深刻而持续的摩擦并取得胜利。 热门文章 伊朗政权在俾路支斯坦玩火在该国最贫穷的省份激起教派紧张局势是一场危险的游戏。 供电 尽管如此，在入侵开始将近一年后，俄罗斯仍然被许多人视为强大的军事力量和可怕的威胁，不仅对乌克兰本身而且对整个欧洲都是如此。这仍然是从俄罗斯军方入侵的决定中吸取的主要教训——除了俄罗斯的欧洲部分——欧洲陆地面积最大的国家和人口最多的国家之一。 推动这一普遍假设的是一种误导性观念，即如果没有美国的帮助，欧洲根本无法自卫，而且在俄罗斯入侵乌克兰之后，美国的军事存在必须得到加强——事实确实如此。这种信念在华盛顿和欧洲的权力走廊中普遍存在，芬兰总理桑娜马林最近在 12 月重申了这一信念。 This assessment—of a Europe rich and technologically advanced but in effect defenseless—was compelling for much of the Cold War. Back then, the Soviet Union had a substantial conventional military advantage over Western Europe. Soviet troops were forward-deployed all across Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe (which formed part of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact), with more than 300,000 Soviet troops stationed in East Germany alone. European economic recovery was also a work in progress. Today, however, this view is flat-out wrong. Consider some of the standard metrics used to compare countries’ military potential: GDP, population, defense spending, and level of technological advancement. They all show that Russia is far weaker than the 27-member European Union and that the balance of potential power indisputably favors Europe. At no point since the end of the Cold War has Russia’s economy amounted to more than 15 percent of Europe’s GDP—in 2021, Russia’s $1.8 trillion GDP was a fraction of the European Union’s $17 trillion. When it comes to technology, Russia ranks 44th on the list of the world’s most technologically advanced countries, and as tech-savvy Russians leave the country to escape the military draft, it wouldn’t be surprising if its ranking has dropped further. Russia has one-third the population of the EU—and within that population, a sizable chunk of the working-age Russian men who haven’t fled are being conscripted and killed at the front. In January, Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated that Russia’s killed or wounded totaled “significantly over 100,000,” while Norway’s chief of defense, Eirik Kristoffersen, estimated that the count had neared 180,000. To be fair, one can’t fault U.S. officials for worrying about the threat to Europe once Putin’s war began. On paper, the Russian military looked like a large, competent force that could overrun Kyiv in days, and prominent commentators as well as the CIA predicted it would do just that. By some estimates, the Russian military spent at least $150 billion a year between 2014 and 2019 trying to refit, rebuild, and modernize its military and much more if one starts the tabulation from 2008, the year modernization efforts began. Given Europe’s massive advantage in resources, there is no reason why it cannot organize an effective defense against Russia. READ MORE Men dance at a festival in Munich.Europeans Have Weapons but Aren’t Warriors The U.S. Abrams tanks, the German Leopard and the AHS Krab, a 155 mm NATO-compatible self-propelled tracked gun-howitzer seen at a training ground in Poland on Sept. 21, 2022.Will Tanks Turn the Tide for Ukraine? For these reasons, once Russian troops crossed into Ukraine, the Biden administration vowed to defend every inch of NATO territory and deployed an additional 20,000 U.S. troops to Europe, bringing the total to around 100,000. More F-35 fighter jets were stationed in the United Kingdom, air defense systems were sent to Italy, and U.S. bases in Poland became permanent—the first such move on the alliance’s eastern flank. Yet Russian military power is becoming depleted after nearly a year of fighting a tenacious Ukraine, which has inflicted heavy equipment losses and casualties on Putin’s forces. Helped by more than $27 billion in military assistance from the United States, the largest security contributor to Ukraine by far, as well as billions of dollars more from the U.K. and Europe, Ukraine has inflicted more losses on Russian forces in 11 months than the Soviet Army suffered during its nearly decade-long war in Afghanistan. (Most of this military aid has come from Britain and the United States, though European countries have stepped up their commitments recently.) Russian equipment losses have been staggering: More than 1,600 tanks, 1,900 infantry fighting vehicles, and 290 armored personnel carriers have been destroyed, damaged, captured, or lost. Those losses will increase substantially now that Germany, after persistent pressure from the United States and several of its European allies, approved the transfer of an initial batch of 14 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. Berlin’s decision paves the way for other countries such as Poland, Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, or Spain to send the Ukrainians some of their own Leopards, which are far superior to Russia’s T-90 or T-14 Armata models. (The latter, problem-ridden, has not even been deployed to battlefields in Ukraine.) Russian forces that are dug into defensive positions in the east and south will soon face Ukrainian forces that have a substantially greater strength in mobile armored warfare, given the Leopard’s capabilities, which include thermal imaging and precision targeting. The Leopard, which comes in different versions and of which there are more than 2,000 in service across Europe, provides just one example of Europe’s advanced defense industry, which could, backed by political will, become much larger. Given Europe’s massive advantage in resources, there is no reason why it cannot organize an effective defense against Russia. What, then, is stopping Europe from doing so? Part of the answer has to do with U.S. policy and Washington’s view of its role in the world. Since the end of World War II, U.S. leaders have sought to lead their European allies and, as a corollary, frowned on any steps by Europe toward greater self-sufficiency in defense. U.S. officials opposed efforts, including a 1998 British-French initiative, to increase the EU’s military effectiveness and a bid, two decades later, to promote the joint development of European armaments. As a recent analysis by the Brookings Institution noted aptly, “Europe has wanted autonomy without providing adequate defense resources, while the United States has wanted greater European defense contributions without diminishing NATO and U.S. political influence.” 报名参加编辑精选 精选的FP必读故事。报名 The U.S. government isn’t being disingenuous when it says it favors a strong Europe; it just fails to add that it also wants Europeans to remain dependent on U.S. protection and even compliant when it comes to U.S. preferences on matters of security. The idea of Europe developing a self-sufficient military capability outside U.S.-dominated NATO has long been disliked in Washington. In his last address to NATO defense ministers in December 2000, U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen warned that NATO “could become a relic” if the EU built up what he labeled as a competing, redundant defense organization. Nearly two decades later, after the EU formed a joint fund for collaborative defense projects in 2017, a top U.S. defense official at the time commented that the plans must not distract from NATO’s current activities. “We don’t want to see EU efforts pulling requirements or forces away from NATO and into the EU,” said Katie Wheelbarger, the then-principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. Multiple generations of European leaders have internalized the belief that U.S. leadership is irreplaceable and that their continent cannot survive without it. European governments don’t automatically follow Washington’s script—though they follow its lead more often than not—but have heeded the warnings, happy to oblige and play the role of dependent. After all, if you can count on a superpower to be your external protector and spend less on defense than you otherwise would, why not take the deal? This arrangement has deep roots and won’t be easy to change. The U.S. security guarantee to Europe has been in place since NATO was established in 1949. Multiple generations of European leaders have internalized the belief that U.S. leadership is irreplaceable and that their continent cannot survive without it, never mind that Europe has long since become an economic and technological powerhouse itself, one that produces an array of advanced weaponry. This same orthodoxy—Europe would be imperiled absent U.S. protection—has also long been gospel within the U.S. foreign-policy establishment. Moreover, it aligns with the ubiquitous narrative that the world would descend into chaos were there not a constellation of U.S. military bases overseas to maintain order. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s quip in 1998 about the United States being the “indispensable nation” continues to be repeated or paraphrased by foreign-policy luminaries today, and the underlying worldview long preceded her. In light of all this, no one should be surprised that Putin’s war in Ukraine has reinforced the conventional wisdom: Russia’s imperial ambitions, coupled with Europe’s frailties, necessitate an open-ended, even increased, U.S. commitment to protect the continent. But the facts suggest precisely the opposite. The U.S.-European security relationship has therefore become progressively divorced from reality. If it is to change, what Europe needs is not more resources but greater political will and self-confidence. Washington, for its part, must jettison the axiom that it has no choice but to serve as Europe’s perpetual protector par excellence. Such a shift is nowhere on the horizon. It will happen only when foreign-policy experts in the United States and Europe rework their assumptions and have an honest, fact-based strategic discussion about the obsolescence of the current trans-Atlantic security relationship. The move toward a new arrangement, one appropriate to the times, could include alternating the position of NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe between an American and a European; having Europe assume sole responsibility for deployments on NATO’s eastern flank; sustained increases in European defense spending; and substantially greater pan-European cooperation in armaments production to avoid duplication and leverage comparative advantages. These changes will take time—but they can begin now. 拉詹·梅农 ( Rajan Menon ) 是 Defense Priorities 的大战略项目主任，纽约市立大学科林鲍威尔公民与全球领导力学院的名誉教授，以及哥伦比亚大学萨尔茨曼战争与和平研究所的高级研究员。他的著作包括《乌克兰的冲突：冷战后秩序的解除》 （与尤金·鲁默合着）以及最近的《人道主义干预的自负》。 Daniel R. DePetris是 Defense Priorities 的研究员，也是芝加哥论坛报和新闻周刊的外交事务专栏作家。 Join the ConversationCommenting on this and other recent articles is just one benefit of a Foreign Policy subscription. Already a subscriber? Log In. SUBSCRIBE View 3个 Comments 标签： 欧盟， 欧洲， 军事， 北约， 美国， 武器 新的电子邮件 提醒 FP 订阅者现在可以在发布有关这些主题和地区的新故事时收到提醒。现在订阅| 登入 最新的 在缅甸，抵抗力量追求自治2023 年 1 月 31 日下午 2:43 挪威正计划从气候变化中获利2023 年 1 月 31 日上午 11:55 帮助阿富汗，与其政治反对派接触2023 年 1 月 31 日上午 9:33 随着利率上升迫在眉睫，德国经济衰退担忧2023 年 1 月 31 日早上 6:51 伊朗政权在俾路支斯坦玩火JANUARY 30, 2023, 4:40 PM SEE ALL STORIES EDITORS’ PICKS 1 To Help Afghanistan, Engage Its Political Opposition 2 In Myanmar, Resistance Forces Pursue Home Rule 3 Iran’s Regime Plays with Fire in Baluchistan 4 Europe Doesn’t Need the United States Anymore 5 South Korea Could Sweep Up Europe’s Tank Market 6 Norway Is Planning to Profit From Climate Change latest Myanmar: Anti-Coup Resistance Forces Pursue Home RuleJANUARY 31, 2023, 2:43 PM Norway Is Planning to Profit From Climate Change by Exporting Renewable EnergyJANUARY 31, 2023, 11:55 AM Helping Afghans Needs Engagement With Opposition, TalibanJANUARY 31, 2023, 9:33 AM Unexpected Fourth-Quarter Economy in Germany Renews Recession FearsJANUARY 31, 2023, 6:51 AM Iran's Regime Stokes Sectarian Tensions in Baluchistan ProvinceJANUARY 30, 2023, 4:40 PM SEE ALL STORIES MORE FROM FOREIGN POLICYA Panzerhaubitze 2000 tank howitzer fires during a mission in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.Lessons for the Next War An illustration showing a torn Russian flag and Russian President Vladimir Putin.It’s High Time to Prepare for Russia’s Collapse An unexploded tail section of a cluster bomb is seen in Ukraine.Turkey Is Sending Cold War-Era Cluster Bombs to Ukraine A joint session of Congress meets to count the Electoral College vote from the 2008 presidential election the House Chamber in the U.S. Capitol January 8, 2009 in Washington.Congrats, You’re a Member of Congress. 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Analyze the world’s biggest events.Join in-depth conversations and interact with foreign-policy experts with Join in-depth conversations and interact with foreign-policy experts with An illustration shows US President Joe Biden surrounded by the foreign-policy issues he has faced in his first two years in office.Biden’s Foreign-Policy Report CardFEBRUARY 1, 2023 | 12:00PM ETREGISTER NOW问一个问题 A Russian flag at the Embassy of Russia is seen through a bus stop post in Washington, DC on April 15, 2021. - The US announced sanctions against Russia on April 15, 2021, and the expulsion of 10 diplomats in retaliation for what Washington says is the Kremlin's US election interference, a massive cyber attack and other hostile activity. 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Most popular articles on FP right now.French President Emmanuel Macron, followed by French Armies Minister Sebastien Lecornu (2nd R), walks past a Dassault Rafale fighter aircraft at the Mont-de-Marsan air base, on Jan. 20.Europe Doesn’t Need the United States AnymoreUntil EU leaders accept that the continent can stand on its own feet and Americans give up the role of global police, dependency on Washington will continue. Polish army soldiers stand in front of South Korean tanks at the Baltic Container Terminal in Poland.South Korea Could Sweep Up Europe’s Tank MarketGermany’s self-inflicted wound has left defense partners looking for alternatives. 在喀布尔的一个体育馆里，阿富汗劳工推着一辆满载食品援助的手推车。帮助阿富汗，与其政治反对派接触塔利班的统治并非不可避免或永远存在。 在德黑兰郊外举行的“妇女、生命、自由”抗议活动中，一辆摩托车着火了。伊朗政权在俾路支斯坦玩火在该国最贫穷的省份激起教派紧张局势是一场危险的游戏。 稍后提醒我稍后提醒我下一篇：时事通讯