Insight
After Afghanistan and AUKUS: What next for European defence? by Sophia Besch and Luigi Scazzieri, 7 October 2021
The US retreat from Afghanistan and the AUKUS deal have strengthened calls for greater ‘European strategic autonomy’. Many member-states remain sceptical, but Europeans should prepare themselves for a world where the US is less involved. This summer’s US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the subsequent announcement of the AUKUS submarine deal should show Europeans three things. First, the US is re-orienting its foreign policy away from Europe and focusing on the Indo-Pacific region and China. Second, European military operations remain painfully dependent on US military capabilities and decisions. And third, the Biden administration is not interested in the views of its European allies: it informs them of its decisions, but it does not consult them in advance. The question is what lessons Europe should draw from these events. The European presence in Afghanistan always depended on the US military’s logistical and intelligence support. After the Afghan government collapsed, Europeans lacked the capabilities to secure Kabul Airport by themselves. Few would have wanted to stay much longer. But the Biden administration advanced the date of the American withdrawal and started moving out troops with short notice, forcing the Europeans to end their own evacuations. The Afghanistan withdrawal was followed by the announcement of a deal between the US, UK and Australia to launch a strategic partnership, known as AUKUS, implicitly intended to counter China and underpinned by a deal for Australia to acquire nuclear submarines. AUKUS meant that Canberra tore up a previous €56 billion deal to buy French submarines. Paris was furious, partly because its agreement collapsed, but mainly because it had been left in the dark about the negotiation of the AUKUS deal. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian called the agreement a ‘stab in the back’ and France recalled its ambassadors to the US and Australia for consultations, while postponing a planned Franco-British defence summit. The EU was also embarrassed: the AUKUS deal was announced one day before the Union was scheduled to launch a new strategy for the Indo-Pacific, in which the EU said it wanted to deepen engagement with countries with interests in the region – including Australia, the UK and the US. Even before the AUKUS announcement, Europe’s impotence in Afghanistan had led some European politicians and officials to call for the EU to develop ‘strategic autonomy’ – a phrase used in European foreign and security policy debates to refer to the Union’s ability to carry out military operations CER INSIGHT: After Afghanistan and AUKUS: what next for European defence? 7 October 2021
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