Hal Brands, Columnist

Europe Wants to Defend Itself? Good Luck With That.

Macron is the latest leader to call the U.S. an undependable military ally.

August 30, 2018 at 8:00 AM UTC

Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

Time to break out the siege towers?
Photographer: Oliver Lang/AFP/Getty Images

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In 1776, the New World declared independence from the old. Today, it is the Old World that is declaring independence from the new.

French president Emmanuel Macron has become the latest European leader to issue a declaration of strategic independence from Donald Trump’s America. Asserting that Europe can “no longer rely” on Washington for its security, he argued that “it is up to us today to take our responsibility and guarantee our own security, and thus have European sovereignty.”