James David Vance is the epitome of what so many Europeans loathe about America: brash, insular, moralising and imperious. And yet — even more annoyingly — like America itself, he combines this with intelligence, education, wealth and, ultimately, power. Vance is the Hillbilly Crown Prince countering the Old World’s scorn with a contempt of his own. In the unseemly battle between the two over the past few weeks, neither side has emerged with much credit. And yet, the most uncomfortable reality of all for Europe today — and Britain in particular — is that what we see in Vance we also see in our own future.
When Vance asks what America has to gain by risking a war with Russia, Britain, too, will soon begin to ask what is in it for us as part of the proposed peace keeping settlement. When Vance demands that Europe pay more for its own defence, Britain will also want to know why it should shoulder a disproportionate share of the burden for the continent’s defence without recompense. Germany, for all its current economic difficulties, remains far less indebted and much wealthier than Britain. Norway, meanwhile, has spent the past decade growing ever richer as a result of the spike in gas prices. Shouldn’t both of these countries, then, be contributing more in financial terms towards any future British deployment? Finally, when Trump himself complains that Europe is treating the US unfairly while asking for its support, surely it is reasonable to ask why British troops should be sent to defend the EU’s borders when the EU itself refuses to negotiate even the most basic defence “pact” with Britain until it hands over access to its fishing grounds?
At the heart of the Trump-Vance strategy is the pursuit of a new grand bargain in global affairs, in which the US acknowledges the emergence of a new multipolar world governed by great powers rather than international law. While Europe is not — yet — one of those powers, it too faces a moment of reckoning; when the old EU order is no longer enough to govern the continent’s security, new grand bargains will be demanded. It has not gone unnoticed in Downing Street that today, Europe’s security is increasingly dependent on four countries none of which is a member: Britain, Norway, Turkey and, of course, Ukraine. If America’s position in the world is no longer sustainable, then neither is the current concert of Europe. Whether any of Europe’s current leaders can rise to the challenge and create something new is far less clear, although Emmanuel Macron made an effort to do so last night.
In an address to the nation last night , the French President argued that “the future of Europe cannot be decided in Washington or Moscow”. He said that while he wanted to believe that “the US will stand by our side”, Europe had to be ready if that wasn’t the case. “We need to be able to recognise the Russian threat and better defend ourselves in order to deter such attacks. We need to provide ourselves with more arms. We need to do more than we have in the past to reinforce our security.”
In a sense, then, Vance, is both a harbinger of our upheaval — and an author of it. As such, he is a curious character to capture. He is not the Appalachian red-neck of general European disdain; he is far too Ivy League and Silicon Valley to be understood as such. But nor is he merely a tough-talking under-boss of the Dick Cheney variety: Vance is something sharper and more elusive; closer to Richard Nixon than most recent holders of the Vice Presidency. He’s a man of power and ambition who is offensive to European sensibilities not just because of the dishonesty of his casual asides, but the fragility they reveal about our own predicament.
“Vance, is both a harbinger of our upheaval — and an author of it.”
Over the course of the past month alone, Vance has outraged public sentiment across Europe by — in turn — claiming the continent’s attitude to free speech is a greater threat to its security than Russia; condemning the German “fire wall” against the AfD in the run up to its general election; berating Volodymyr Zelensky for daring to question him in the Oval Office; and, finally, claiming that the offer of “20,000 troops from some random country that has not fought a war in 30 or 40 years” was no guarantee of security to Ukraine. Vance’s latest remark, in an interview on Fox News, sparked particular condemnation in Britain and France — the only countries which have publicly offered troops. Britain has spent much of this century fighting — and dying — alongside America. “Have you said thank you once,” has become the meme response, Britain’s diplomatic esprit de l’escalier.
Vance insisted his remarks were not aimed at either country. Yet he quickly added another pointed criticism in its place: “Let’s be direct: there are many countries who are volunteering (privately or publicly) support who have neither the battlefield experience nor the military equipment to do anything meaningful.” This latest criticism is a reminder that the real reason Vance is so offensive is often because he reveals our own weakness. In Afghanistan and Iraq, the painful truth is that the US did not need our support, was not particularly impressed by our efforts, and has concluded subsequently that we have run down our militaries to such an extent it no longer even needs to be polite about the nakedness of our own position.
The interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan remain a trauma for the British body politic, but not for the reason they should — that we lost them both. In the years that have followed these invasions we have agonised over their legality and morality, wisdom and effect, but not so much over our own military failures. Addressing British troops in Iraq in 2003, Blair claimed that not only had they won the battle, but they had “gone on to make something of the country you had liberated”. This, he said, was “a lesson for armed forces everywhere the world over”. Britain was still Greece to America’s Rome. Yet the story was not true, if it ever was.
By the summer of 2007, the Americans had come to the conclusion that in Iraq “the British have basically been defeated in the South”, as the former reservist and diplomat Frank Ledwidge wrote in Losing Small Wars, his account of Britain’s military failures in Iraq and Afghanistan. By this point, Blair had ordered a draw down of British troops, leaving the army with a garrison of 500 in Basra under siege from the local militias. The Americans, by contrast, had begun “the surge” under David Patreus to restore order. Still, though, Britain continued to advise the Americans on the way to defeat an insurgency. “It’s insufferable for Christ’s sake,” one senior figure closely involved in US military planning is quoted in Ledwidge’s account. Britain had lost the war — and with it the right to offer advice. Still, we persisted.
After withdrawing from Iraq, vanquished and dejected, Afghanistan offered an opportunity for us to rebuild our reputation. Around 3,500 troops were deployed to Helmand to restore order and defeat the Taliban. Yet, as Ledwidge writes, such numbers were nowhere near enough. Once Britain’s forces were spread throughout the province — the size of Wales — Britain ended back in the same “self-licking lollipop” position it had found itself in Basra, capable only of defending itself and little more. The capital of Helmand, Lashkar Gah — a city of 200,000 people — ended up being patrolled by about 80 British soldiers, although there were never more than 20 on the ground at any one time. Outside the city, the entire Brigade could only muster 168 combat troops to conduct operations. The result, like Basra, was failure and, eventually, withdrawal.
Has Britain ever properly come to terms with its military defeats in these wars — or those that followed? In Libya, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy led an intervention dependent on the US which turned into another disaster. Is it any wonder that this American administration shows such disregard for the latest Anglo-French initiative?
At the heart of Vance’s complaint is not just a frustration with European capabilities — a long-standing source of annoyance — but a fundamental rejection of what is, at heart, an attempt to extend America’s security guarantee to Ukraine primarily to protect our own security. The US has made clear, repeatedly and explicitly under successive administrations, that it will not fight a war with Russia for Ukraine. Until now it has agreed to pay for Ukraine to fight the Russians, but it has consistently refused to go any further than this. Europe’s attempt to wrestle out of Trump a “backstop” commitment is, in effect, an attempt to change this policy as part of any future peace agreement. Trump has said no.
For Europe, this presents a fundamental dilemma: is it prepared to fight a war with Russia for Ukraine? Today, no one in Europe is prepared to answer that question. For all the talk of “strategic autonomy” or even “independence” from the US in recent weeks, Europe has sought to answer this most existential of questions with a sleight of hand, suggesting that it was willing to fight while seeking to draw the Americans in.
The central reality in European politics today is that there is a panicked scramble to protect the essential bargain of the transatlantic status quo and America’s supremacy in continental affairs, not to seize the moment for its own independence. For sure, the world is changing — more European spending on defence and a willingness to consider the previously unthinkable: that America might one day be a threat to European interests. But at the summit in London on Sunday, while Volodymyr Zelensky was comforted and embraced, he was ordered to make up with the Emperor over the water. Two days later he duly did so.
The paradox of JD Vance is that his insults only matter because we are too weak for them not to — yet if we choose to become strong, we will begin to sound more like him. We are dependent and so we are craven. If we become independent, we will surely ask more from Europe for the commitments we are making. Friedrich Nietzsche warned that when fighting monsters beware becoming a monster yourself. Perhaps, though, this destiny is unavoidable.
