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64 Opinion
bne October 2018
Brussels was incensed by the decision and called on EU businesses to defy the US threat of retaliatory sanctions for any firm that does business with Iran.
“We are encouraging small and medium enterprises in particular to increase business with and in Iran as part of something [that] for us is a security priority,” EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said on August 7, insisting the member states of the 28-nation European bloc would not let the Iran nuclear deal die. SMEs are less likely to have business in the US and so should be immune to US threats.
Running battles
These two fights have been dramatic, but Washington and Brussels are now fighting a whole series of low key wars –
or in other cases Europe is simply getting hurt by the shrapnel Trump is throwing off. The chaos on the metal markets caused the ill conceived April 6 round of sanctions that targeted Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska’s aluminium firm Rusal hit the London Metals Market hardest and cost everyone a lot of money. The US energy sanctions proposed before that would have meant sanctions on European companies with business in Russia as well as the Russian targets.
European efforts to mediate in a broad range of situations including Russia, Palestine, Syria and the war in Yemen
have all become unpredictable, as Washington increasingly acts without coordinating with its allies. The difference
boils down to the US “might makes right” attitude to foreign policy that comic pianist Tom Lehrer sang about in the 40s and epitomised by the giagantic scale of US military might compared to its allies, versus the EU sticking to its core values as the guiding principles of policy making. The US and the EU have fundamentally different approaches to military strategy that could be characterised as "shock & awe" versus "jaw jaw."
“In recent days and weeks in particular, we are finding that where the US Administration overtly calls our values and interests into question, we will certainly need to take a more robust stance in the future” Maas said in his “Courage to Stand Up for Europe” speech to his foreign ministry colleagues in June. “The first test of this approach will be the nuclear agree- ment with Iran. We Europeans want to defend this agreement and we are united on that. Our aim is not to support Tehran, but rather to prevent a nuclear arms race in the Middle East
– something that would also have devastating consequences for our own security here. This can only be achieved if we join forces with France on a very wide range of issues.”
Arms fuel fights
One of the biggest differences in approach between the two camps is the attitude to military support. The US default for- eign policy is pouring arms into a disputed region as a way of obtaining control over a government and making some money in the process.
The US has swamped the Middle East with arms, as was
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highlighted by an infographic that was widely shared on social media in June showing US arms exports over the last 67 years.
There is little Europe can do to curb US arms exports, but what unsettles Brussels is now the US is starting to supply arms to Ukraine. President Barack Obama resisted sending lethal weapons to Kyiv out of fear of escalating the showdown with Russia, but the Trump administration has been less shy, supplying sought-after US sniper rifles and the tank-busting Javelin missiles, which were deployed in May. The latest US budget drafts include $250mn of military aid to Ukraine, including $50mn for lethal military supplies.
Germany prefers to negotiate and engage. Merkel came
under fire for meeting Putin in Sochi in May and then again
in Germany at the Meseberg schloss on August 17. Merkel
was accused of “warming” to Russia, but her forte is finding workable compromises amongst groups of arguing nations and she talks to Putin more than any other foreign leader does.
The Meseberg summit was a nuts and bolts meeting where the two leaders tried to find common ground on a range of hot button issues, but also covered more pragmatic subjects like the new Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and joint investment projects that are still going on.
Another item on the agenda was the meltdown on the Turkish lira, which is another good example of where Europe and Washington clash.
With a large Turkish expat population and Merkel under fire for her liberal refugee policy, Germany fears a mass exodus from Turkey if the Turkish economy collapses, so Merkel is doing what she can to shore up Ankara’s position. Trump, on the other hand, poured oil on the fire by imposing painful sanctions on Turkish metal exports in the midst of the crisis. Merkel has turned to Putin, as an increasingly close ally of Ankara, to help ease the pressure and try and talk some sense into the increas- ingly unhinged Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Merkel has already started to dial down the anti-Russian rhetoric. In the week following Meseberg she toured the Caucasus to show solidarity with the small republics that are all in Russia’s shadow. However, she disappointed Georgians, who were commemorating their war with Russia exactly
ten years ago, by failing to affirm Tbilisi’s Nato accession aspirations or even use the word “occupied” in reference to the territories Georgia lost to Russia in the 2008 war.
“I don’t see Georgia becoming a Nato member any time soon,” the chancellor told an audience of students at Tbilisi State University on August 24. “Given the situation with [breakaway] Abkhazia and South Ossetia, we can’t talk about the swift inte- gration of Georgia into Nato,” she said as cited by Eurasianet.org. “At least this is Germany’s position and it will remain as such.”
Nato will change in the new order. Maas has explicitly called