An Assertive Europe is the Price of Strategic Rebalancing

Thoughts on Vice President Vance’s recent Munich speech on security

By Will Collins, lecturer at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest

Even those who agree with Vice President JD Vance should be clear-eyed about the likely effects of his speech at the recent Munich security conference. Despite the conference’s ostensible purpose, Vance spoke at length about Europe’s domestic problems, from mass migration to an overly censorious approach to political speech. 

 Vance wasn’t wrong in his assessment of European politics, but no country enjoys being lectured by outsiders about its own affairs. Whatever the merits of Vance’s complaints, his approach calls to mind hectoring Guardian op-eds on America’s racial sins or lack of enthusiasm for gun control. 

More important than style, however, is the issue of what the speech left out. Despite an array of pressing security concerns, the Vice President had surprisingly little to say about the future of US-European defense cooperation. His only comment on grand strategy was an exhortation for Europeans to “step up while America focuses on areas of the world that are in great danger.” 

It’s not hard to guess what areas of the world Vance is talking about. Key Trump cabinet members—Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz—are outspoken China hawks. Influential sub-cabinet appointees—like future Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby—have also warned of a future confrontation with China. Whatever the particulars of US-China policy, it’s clear that the new administration intends to shift its strategic focus from Europe to the Pacific. 

As the United States belatedly (but wisely) pivots to Asia, we should ask ourselves a simple question. Do we really want to admonish our prostate European allies on domestic policy? Or are we looking for meaningful burden-sharing to free up American resources for the Pacific theater? An administration that chooses the latter may have to grapple with a Europe that is more assertive on the world stage and less inclined to listen to American lectures, but this is a small price to pay for strategic rebalancing. 

From Obama to Trump, complaining about anemic European defense spending has been a bipartisan pastime. Europeans were reluctant to take these complaints seriously so long as they could count on a large American military presence in their backyard. A shift to Asia, however, would force European countries to rebuild their atrophied militaries and rethink their strategic priorities. 

This would have consequences for American foreign policy. If Europe’s support for Ukraine’s war effort had been less rhetorical and more substantive, the United States would not have been able to bypass NATO and open bilateral negotiations with Russia. A rearmed Europe would be able to insist on a seat at the negotiating table, among other prerogatives. 

Today, roughly 60% of European defense orders are placed with American companies. If European countries rearm, they will inevitably look to firms like BAE, Rheinmetall, Airbus, and Saab. The war in Ukraine has shown that quantity, not quality, is the biggest problem with European weapons systems. From India to Israel, a revived European defense industry would compete with the United States for arms sales and international influence. 

Despite these challenges, an assertive Europe is a reasonable price to pay for reorienting America’s strategic posture. The United States faces a potential conflict in the Pacific with an economically dynamic competitor whose military capabilities are quickly catching up to our own. America’s NATO allies are unlikely to get involved in a serious confrontation with China under any circumstances. As it stands, a weak Europe stretches American resources while offering only moral and rhetorical support in the event of a crisis in the South China Sea. 

Britain’s appeasement of Nazi Germany is the favorite historical reference point for critics of President Trump’s decision to open bilateral negotiations with Russia. This says more about the critics’ grasp of history than the new administration’s priorities. Germany’s total economic output—to say nothing of Europe’s as a whole—dwarfs Russia’s. A Russian army that couldn’t conquer Ukraine is unlikely to subdue Poland. Serious European rearmament would be more than sufficient to discourage further Russian adventurism. 

A better point of comparison is British naval policy on the eve of the First World War. At the turn of the 20^th century, Great Britain’s naval dominance was challenged by an aggressive German shipbuilding program. The Royal Navy responded by ruthlessly pruning its peripheral commitments and concentrating battleships in home waters. A key element of this approach was ceding strategic responsibility—and local naval superiority—to friendly powers like Japan, France, and the United States. 

There is a danger to this approach. Encouraged by Britain’s withdrawal from the Pacific, Japan quickly transformed from an ally to a rival. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Margaret Thatcher worried that a reunified Germany would start to throw its weight around. The prospect of a reduced American presence in Central and Eastern Europe has revived such concerns. 

Fortunately for the United States, Europe in 2025 is very different from Japan in 1925. Vance’s rhetoric aside, the United States and its European allies are still bound by shared institutions and, yes, shared values. An aging continent where nationalist passions have mostly cooled—or are restricted to football matches—is an unlikely tinderbox for future conflict. Europe’s war-torn 20th century brutally removed most national and ethnic fault lines from the continent’s map. Modern German nationalists are more likely to be upset about immigration or high energy prices than reclaiming Danzig or Alsace-Lorraine. Despite alarmist rhetoric about Russia’s imperial ambitions, no superpower competitor is poised to dominate the continent in our absence. 

As it stands, Europeans perversely insist on maximal Western security commitments without backing up their tough talk. This pattern dates back to the 2011 Libya intervention, when France and England led the charge to topple Gaddafi, only to draw the United States into the conflict after belatedly realizing that they needed American munitions, airpower, and logistical support to finish the job. Today, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is rhetorically hawkish on Russia but has walked back Germany’s rearmament program. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks of deploying peacekeepers to Ukraine despite years of severe British defense cutbacks. 

A more balanced American strategic posture would force European countries to tone down these rhetorical excesses while realistically assessing their own strategic priorities, a responsibility our allies have lately avoided thanks to the United States’ outsized military presence on the continent. Meanwhile, vital American resources would be freed up to confront China in the Pacific. Americans and Europeans will not see eye-to-eye on every foreign policy issue. Fortunately, we have decades of institutionalized military cooperation and an alliance with which to manage these disagreements. A rearmed Europe may present complications on the world stage, but a strong, if occasionally assertive, partner is preferable to a loud but toothless supplicant.