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...after last week we have to face the reality that we do not know — because even the U.S. State Department, the Pentagon and Trump’s own National Security Council do not know — what Trump would do in a security crisis with Russia. Perhaps he doesn’t know himself.
This does not mean the end of NATO. Our alliance should continue, and indeed European allies should spend more money on defense — as successive U.S. presidents have advised — and hope that no crisis materializes.
But it does mean that the European Union needs its own autonomous ability to defend itself. We need it for the southern strategic direction, where refugee flows have threatened our political stability. We need it in the east, where Russia has broken the post-World War II taboo on changing borders by force. And we need it because the president of the United States is unreliable.
While foreign minister, I advocated the launch of a European defense union. If it wasn’t for Brexit, Britain could now lead it. Instead, the initiative now falls to France, Germany and the leadership of the European Union itself.
Trump is confronting us with an unpleasant choice: become his personal vassals, or hang helplessly in the air. We should choose neither, writes Radosław Sikorski (Poland’s defense minister from 2005 to 2007 and foreign minister from 2007 to 2014).
Read More ›››
Anticipating Putin’s next war | The Washington Post
What Trump means for those of us on the Russian border.
↱www.washingtonpost.com
This does not mean the end of NATO. Our alliance should continue, and indeed European allies should spend more money on defense — as successive U.S. presidents have advised — and hope that no crisis materializes.
But it does mean that the European Union needs its own autonomous ability to defend itself. We need it for the southern strategic direction, where refugee flows have threatened our political stability. We need it in the east, where Russia has broken the post-World War II taboo on changing borders by force. And we need it because the president of the United States is unreliable.
While foreign minister, I advocated the launch of a European defense union. If it wasn’t for Brexit, Britain could now lead it. Instead, the initiative now falls to France, Germany and the leadership of the European Union itself.
Trump is confronting us with an unpleasant choice: become his personal vassals, or hang helplessly in the air. We should choose neither, writes Radosław Sikorski (Poland’s defense minister from 2005 to 2007 and foreign minister from 2007 to 2014).
Read More ›››
Anticipating Putin’s next war | The Washington Post
What Trump means for those of us on the Russian border.
↱www.washingtonpost.com
