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CHAPTER 1

The Transatlantic Relationship in the Twenty-First Century

In times like this, when the security of the Euro-Atlantic area is challenged, the North Atlantic Alliance has not wavered. And it will not waver. For 65 years, we have been clear in our commitment to one another as Allies.

—NATO SECRETARY GENERAL ANDERS FOGH RASMUSSEN ¹

Today, the situation in Europe and America is grim. The transatlantic relationship, forged in the aftermath of World War II to resist Soviet expansion, has deteriorated to a breaking point. Russia has invaded Ukraine and is challenging American power around the world. Migrants from the Middle East and North Africa are streaming across the Mediterranean and up through Turkey, driving a crisis of identity and culture that threatens to end the European Union as we know it, and already appears to have driven Britain from the EU. Economically, the postrecession “new normal” of slow growth and declining labor force participation has left millions of working Americans and Europeans struggling to make ends meet. Politically, far-right nationalists and far-left socialists are gaining in Europe, while in America the Democratic and Republican parties are failing to inspire an increasingly dissatisfied electorate. The transatlantic community is in worse shape than at any point since the end of the Cold War, and we have almost certainly not seen the worst of it yet.

No one has taken a keener interest in the West’s weakness than Vladimir Putin. He has seized the opportunity that Western vulnerability presents, driving internal and external crises, leveraging Russian advantages, and rebuilding the Kremlin’s global power and importance. Putin has struck at the core of the transatlantic alliance, breeding Euro-skeptical parties that want to do away with the EU and encouraging anti-American politicians who advocate for the dissolution of NATO. Putin has fostered and fomented crises from Syria to Ukraine and beyond, starting fires faster than the West can put them out, while exhausting our resources and willpower. Putin has even gone after American and European allies, cutting arms deals with Washington-aligned Arab nations and rekindling old Soviet connections in Latin America and Africa. Putin and Russia have launched nothing less than a full frontal assault against the transatlantic alliance.

Of course, Russia faces many challenges of its own, not least of which are the demographic implications of a shrinking, graying population and the persistent challenges of an economy that depends almost entirely on oil and gas exports. In many ways, Russia remains, per German chancellor Helmut Schmidt’s famous formulation, “Upper Volta with missiles.”² Putin is a strongman dictator who has short-circuited Russia’s democratic system, ruling over a deeply troubled and divided society that has used petrodollars to paper over the unresolved political, economic, and psychological scars of the Soviet collapse. At a fundamental level, America and Europe are far-stronger societies with considerably greater resources, stability, and potential than Russia. But far from being a comfort, this disparity should make us even more concerned that we have been unable to confront Putin’s propaganda, warmongering, and aggression. It raises troubling questions about the consequences of Western peace and prosperity and whether we have become so complacent in our success that we no longer understand the need to defend it—let alone possess the nerve or courage to do so.

THE WESTERN INHERITANCE

The situation was not always so dire. At the turn of the millennium, the transatlantic community seemed reinvigorated and poised for a century of success. The shocking events of September 11, 2001, shattered the post–Cold War peace but gave new purpose and a sense of mission to institutions that had floundered in the 1990s, bereft of the Soviet foe that they were built to oppose. Victory over the Soviet Union had seemingly enshrined the West as the unchallenged political and economic leader of the world community; now the threat of violent Islamic extremism represented a new opportunity for NATO to flex its muscles against an enemy that only understood force, while leaders in Europe and America banded together in defense of human rights and universal values. When America invoked Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty on October 4, 2001, obliging other NATO members to join in its response against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, no one was eager to go to war. But the Western allies understood the seriousness of the threat and stood shoulder to shoulder in support of common values.

Indeed, in the early 2000s, we possessed so much clarity of purpose that the very definitions of “the West” and “the transatlantic community” expanded to include historically Western countries that had been trapped behind the Iron Curtain but earned their way into our community through hard-fought political reform, tough economic sacrifices, and unwavering dedication to replacing Communism with liberal democracies. Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic became NATO members in 1999 and were joined by Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia in 2004. All these countries went on to join the European Union, with integration efforts ongoing today.

The process of including former Communist countries in Western institutions has frequently been contentious, but debate and indeed profound disagreement are all hallmarks of open, democratic decision making. When NATO and the EU opened their doors to the countries of the former Eastern Bloc, no one expected a painless integration process. But the United States and its European allies put in the work to get it right, confident that Western values were worth defending and promoting. Today, this commitment is no longer evident. Putin has noticed our wavering devotion to Western values and our lackadaisical defense of core Western ideals.

America and Western Europe share many political and cultural values and a deep generational bond forged in the fires of twentieth-century history. Even today, any American or European crossing the Atlantic for business or pleasure senses the closeness between our societies. It is a remarkable outcome of history that a Wisconsinite can travel thousands of miles to Germany and find values, churches, and even beers that are familiar. Similarly, a culturally minded resident of London, Paris, or Milan feels at home in the chic cafes and arthouse cinemas of Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. This common cultural expanse of the West, internally diverse but profoundly united, underpins the transatlantic project. As important as the political and economic institutions of the West are, we must remember that they are not ends in themselves: they exist to preserve and protect our civilizational values. It is worth reminding ourselves what these values are and what they mean.

First and foremost, these values transcend the Left-Right political divide, excepting the radical fringes on both sides. Western values are the arena within which our political discourse occurs. Indeed, the values themselves make democratic politics possible.

Human rights are the foundation of all the other rights. The most succinct, direct explication of these rights is found in America’s Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal, . . . endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Jefferson’s words, over two centuries old, were revolutionary not only for their assertion of these rights but also for their contention that they were God given, not government created; governments could not give or take them away. What governments could do, and what they continue to do today, is fail to observe these rights. Recent years have seen Vladimir Putin’s contempt for human rights and liberties, whether through shooting down a plane full of civilians, jailing journalists and activists, or outlawing free speech for homosexuals. A similar disregard for human dignity is shown by the North Korean, Chinese, and Iranian governments, as well as by ISIS, al-Qaeda, and Boko Haram, among other flagrant violators of human rights around the world. The West must remain committed to promoting these rights and defending vulnerable people and populations, from imprisoned journalists to persecuted minorities.

Free economies—allowing individuals to trade, contract, and create with one another on their own terms, for their own benefit, and in whatever role or capacity they choose—are another cornerstone of Western societies. In Europe, the many varieties of a free economy have yielded democratic-socialist societies in Scandinavia, entrepreneurial capitalism in Poland and the Baltics, and resilient industrial societies in Western Europe. In America, we have built the wealthiest society in history through a spirit of restless invention and innovation. But in corrupt petrostates like Russia, government elites and Kremlin-dependent oligarchs control the nation’s hydrocarbon-dependent wealth, while entrepreneurs and the highly educated flee to the West, where their talents can be rewarded.

Liberal democracy ensures popular control of government, holds public officials accountable to the citizenry through free and fair elections, and sets clear limits on the power of the state to interfere in the lives of private citizens. The forms liberal democracies take vary, from two-party republics like America’s to multiparty parliamentary monarchies like the United Kingdom’s. In these societies, governments exist for the sake of the population they represent, not for the sake of preserving and perpetuating their own rule. The ultimate good is considered the good of the people, rather than the preservation of a royal family, the enrichment of oligarchs, or the creation of an ideological utopia. Churchill famously said that democracy was the worst form of government except for all the others, and this remains the case. To be sure, democracy rarely produces results quickly or resolves disputes decisively or neatly—and over the last decade or so, political discontent in the West, including in the United States, has led many to doubt the integrity of governing institutions and even the future of democracy itself. Clearly, Western citizens and political leaders must work to improve the political institutions that ensure representative government and open societies. But one need only contrast admittedly imperfect American and European democracies with Putin’s authoritarianism, Iran’s theocracy, or China’s communist totalitarianism to understand what the other choices are.

Putin’s attempts to subvert the progress of liberal democracy in Europe and co-opt European political parties to serve Russian strategic ends, which we detail in later chapters, should alarm anyone who believes in democratic values. (His efforts are unwittingly aided by many well-meaning Europeans at the top echelons of the EU, who have lost their taste for liberal democracy, preferring bureaucratic top-down control.) The West’s key values of human rights, a free economy, and liberal democracy have made our societies the envy of the world in living standards, education, political liberty, and personal happiness. But since the Soviet Union’s collapse, many have taken Western values for granted. At the outset of the 1990s, political scientist Francis Fukuyama went as far as to predict the “end of history” and the global triumph of Western values.³ But history itself intervened, spoiling this hopeful forecast.

UNDER ATTACK

A quick scan of the headlines demonstrates the precarious state of our world: Putin’s neo-Tsarist Russia is establishing imperial zones of influence in Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East; radical Islamic extremists are attempting to rebuild the caliphate in Iraq and Syria; China’s totalitarian communist regime remains globally ascendant; Bolivarian Socialists are in power in nearly a dozen Latin American countries; the ayatollah’s theocracy in Iran is on track to become a nuclear state; the Taliban retains control of large areas in Afghanistan and Pakistan; the countries of West and Central Africa are beset by intercommunal violence and public health nightmares. Outside of the West itself, human rights, free economies, and liberal democracy appear to be in retreat. And even in Western Europe and the United States, political correctness is undermining our commitment to these values.

Vladimir Putin certainly does not believe in human rights, at least not according to any recognizable Western conception of them. Nor do many among the Russian elite and the majority of the general populace. Putin does not preside over a free economy, and he has proven himself a committed enemy of liberal democracy. He understands, perhaps better than we do, that the West’s military power, economic strength, and political will are dependent on our core values. If we allow our commitment to these values to waver, and Russian aggression to undermine our confidence in the West’s ability to overcome challenges while remaining true to its core principles, then Russia will gain at our expense. If we fail to defend human rights, Russia will continue to disregard them. If we don’t promote free economies, then Putin and his obedient oligarchs will continue to direct the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people. If we don’t stand up for liberal democracy, then Putin will continue to govern Russia with an iron fist until the day a handpicked successor inherits his authoritarian regime.

Western values matter. They have made us happy, prosperous, and free. The transatlantic alliance can and must do more to protect and promote them, both internally and around the world.

Together, the two sides of the North Atlantic—the United States on one side and Western Europe on the other—constitute the greatest political, military, economic, and cultural force in human history. While exact definitions of “the West” vary, and no single institution or organization should be taken to represent the full breadth and depth of the transatlantic relationship, there is doubtless a common civilizational space spanning Alaska to the borders of Eastern Europe, with outposts in places like Australia and Japan. This area accounts for just under one-seventh of the world’s population but about half of its global economic output⁴ and the overwhelming preponderance of the world’s military strength, and it is where many globally influential centers of culture reside, including New York, London, Los Angeles, and Paris. What happens in the West reverberates across the world. This can be a problem, as it was when the bursting of the American housing bubble precipitated a global economic recession. But it is also a key strength that the West can leverage to the betterment of humanity, as it does when the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to someone like Malala Yousafzai, or when Western economies produce world-changing technologies like the Internet.

Cultural and economic advantages have limits, however, when posed against a determined adversary like Putin, along with his anti-Western allies in Beijing, Tehran, Pyongyang, and elsewhere. They’re not especially useful in the effort to combat Putin’s power grab in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The Nobel Peace Prize is influential precisely because it is largely apolitical (at least in principle), and inventions like the Internet come about when brilliant minds are free to innovate without political interference. So it is difficult to bring Western culture or economics to bear in a systematic way against authoritarians like Putin without compromising our own values and handing him a moral victory. Economic sanctions against Russia have had some effect, but Putin has been adept at evading them and finding other less scrupulous trading partners in Asia and the Middle East. Our European partners can still do considerably more to abide by the sanctions they have agreed to. Russians may like Western culture, but there is plenty of Russian-language media to keep them happy. It seems unlikely that we would ever go so far as to restrict Russian tourism to the West altogether.

That leaves one Western strength that can be brought unambiguously into the fray against Putin’s aggression, and that stands explicitly at the command of our political leaders: military power. NATO countries account for slightly more than half of global military spending,⁵ or about $893 billion in 2015.⁶ Our militaries are not as strong as they should be, and the Russian military is making gains, but there is little doubt that NATO possesses the most powerful military in history. It is especially remarkable that this unequaled force was created not by a conquest-mad dictator or power-hungry warlord but by largely peaceful, democratic countries whose primary interest was self-defense. Imagine what Vladimir Putin would do with just one of America’s ten Nimitz-class aircraft carriers. Imagine what the Iranian Revolutionary Guards would do if they had a tank as good as the M1 Abrams. Imagine what the People’s Liberation Army of China would do if it had special operations forces as well trained as Delta Force or Seal Team Six. America and its allies maintain these forces with the hope that we will never have to use them.

But Putin has put the West in a position where we must make it clear that all options are on the table. Putin has been unafraid to kill civilians and invade his neighbors. He represents the antithesis of Western values. Western leaders may be able to stop him through the effective application of coercive diplomacy and economic pressure, though up to now, our efforts in these areas have been mostly unavailing. Undergirding any successful approach must be a credible threat of Western military action—particularly united NATO military action—should Putin threaten a NATO country like Estonia or Poland or pursue open war against the citizens of Ukraine, Georgia, or any other sovereign nation that resists Russian pressure. The West spends billions on its armed forces, and we should make it clear that we maintain them precisely to protect Western countries from aggression.

Unfortunately, our political leaders have been caught flatfooted. They have failed to formulate a coherent response to Putin’s aggression. They have yet to define the scenarios where the use of force would be justified. For years, we have conceded the initiative to Putin, who controls the outcome of conflicts in Ukraine and Syria since he is the only one willing to back up his words with the threat or application of military force. He knows that the West’s feckless leaders are so worried about being blamed for starting a war that they will not do what it takes to prevent one.

PUTIN’S CHALLENGE

Although the transatlantic relationship has been tested many times before, it now faces its gravest threat from a Russia determined to sever the ties that bind the West together. And the West’s internal social tumults are providing plenty of fodder for Putin to draw upon. Putin has been explicit in his condemnation of contemporary Western values, claiming that “many of the Euro-Atlantic countries are actually rejecting their roots, including the Christian values that constitute the basis of Western civilization. They are denying moral principles and all traditional identities: national, cultural, religious and even sexual.”⁷

Indeed, statistics show that in Western Europe and the United States, religious practice has been on the decline for decades, and it is dropping off more sharply among the young. At the same time, movements for gay rights, especially gay marriage, have redefined Western social arrangements—and for some in the West, this is not to their liking. Thus, Putin’s themes find a sympathetic audience even among a portion of Westerners. Putin also appeals to nationalist identity politics, undermining the European integration project, when he says that “one must respect every minority’s right to be different, but the rights of the majority must not be put into question.”⁸ These words resonate with many in Europe today, especially in light of the migrant crisis. Thus in multiple areas, Putin positions himself as the champion of what he portrays as traditional values. The West, Putin insists, has lost its way, and he is here to save it.

Of course, Putin has no intention of saving the West. Rather, Putin aims to shatter the internal European consensus that has brought about the longest period of peace and prosperity since the Roman Empire. The European Union has many flaws, but its fundamental purpose of better relations, free trade and travel, and coordinated solutions to shared challenges is admirable and worthy. But a successful, prosperous, and broadly cooperative Europe is Putin’s worst nightmare, since it provides him with no window to pursue his own political or territorial ambitions on the continent. A Europe united in its commitment to Western values will not find Putin’s brand of neo-Tsarist authoritarianism appealing, and European countries that coordinate their defense policies through NATO or the EU will not fall to Russian military pressure. The more division and discord Putin can spread within Europe, and the more doubt he can plant in the minds of Europeans when it comes to Western values, the more opportunities he will have to achieve his goals.

Putin is also doing his best to spread anti-American sentiment in Europe, hoping that he can precipitate the internal collapse of the American-European partnership while also dividing the Europeans. However, since our own leaders have often proved so inept, it’s not always easy to distinguish between what Putin is responsible for and what damage we have done to ourselves. It was American military strength that held the line against the Soviets and prevented a land war in Europe during the Cold War, but today there are fewer American forces in Europe than there are cops in the NYPD.⁹ Our military officers commanding forces stationed on the Continent are “forced to rely on weapons shipped back temporarily or hardware borrowed from allies in the expanding effort to deter the latest threats from Russia.”¹⁰

Putin can afford some uncertainty about the outcomes of his aggressive push into Europe and the Middle East. He does not need to predict exactly how every move will play out, because chaos and confusion are as much to his benefit and the West’s detriment as more predictable outcomes. It seems unlikely that when Putin began supporting Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria in 2011,¹¹ he knew or hoped that the Syrian civil war would produce a large-scale migrant crisis in Europe. But it did, in no small part because of Assad’s brutality and the Russian military support that enabled it. The migrant crisis benefits Putin by fostering division among Western allies and showing Europe’s inability to deal with a major challenge to its political and economic systems. By precipitating the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU, the migrant crisis struck a blow to European unity that may even be fatal. Putin didn’t plan for it, but he didn’t have to—unintended consequences and unforeseen crises damage the status quo that he seeks to overturn. Similarly, the accidental downing of Malaysian Air flight 17 by Russian-backed rebels in Ukraine was unintentional but demonstrated the impotence of NATO, even after hundreds of European civilians were killed with Kremlin-supplied weapons. The pattern is clear: Putin acts, a series of chaotic and unpredictable events ensue, innocent civilians suffer—and the West dithers.

Because Putin is driving events, he has the opportunity to shape the narrative and the outcome. Western leaders continually fail to appreciate this simple logic. When Obama claimed that Putin’s intervention in Syria will “get them stuck in a quagmire,”¹² the president was trying to draw parallels between Putin’s Syrian campaign and American misadventures in Vietnam and more recently in Iraq, but the comparison is fundamentally flawed. Vietnam became a quagmire for America because the Soviet Union and China gave the North Vietnamese the funding and military equipment they needed to drag out the conflict.¹³ In Iraq, Iranian aid to Shi’a militias¹⁴ and a global network of Islamic terror funding achieved the same effect. Quagmires don’t just happen; they arise as the result of concerted actions from multiple players. Syria will not become a quagmire for Russia just because Obama wishes it to happen. If Obama wants to see Putin bogged down in a Syrian commitment that imposes real costs on Russia, then the president must take substantive action to accomplish that goal. Unfortunately, the American opportunity to shape a favorable outcome in Syria has already passed. Putin got there first.

STANDING UP

It is no exaggeration to say that Putin’s ambitions pose a threat to the lives of tens of millions of innocent people in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. At least eight thousand dead Ukrainians,¹⁵ 250,000 dead Syrians,¹⁶ and more than four million Syrian refugees¹⁷ are a testament to that. Add to that the diplomatic, military, and economic assistance that Putin provides to China, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and Hezbollah, and the scope of his pernicious influence becomes clear.

There is no inherent reason why Russia should have to play the role of global villain. The dream of Russia and the West sharing a “common European home,” as Mikhail Gorbachev puts it,¹⁸ may seem far off, but it is not impossible. But if the West is to have any chance at halting and reversing Putin’s gains in Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere, the first step is to redouble our commitment to the transatlantic partnership and to defend a political consensus that keeps America and Europe united behind a set of common values and strategic goals. Preserving and strengthening the alliance should be the paramount foreign policy goal for both the United States and Europe. Our partnership does not only provide far-reaching mutual benefits; it is also the foundation to confront and address global crises, from those in the Middle East to those in Asia. For all our faults, the countries of the transatlantic alliance remain the most powerful political, economic, cultural, and military force for good in the world—but only if we act accordingly.