Charles C. Milliken: Why won’t the Europeans defend themselves?

Eleven years ago I taught a course called International Economics to seniors at LCC International University in Klaipeda, Lithuania. It was a hodge-podge of institutional economic matters mixed with comparative political systems and related matters. Of course, it concerned itself with contemporary events, and it was there that I learned the answer to the question today’s headline asks.

My students came from Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Russia, Moldova and a scattering of a few other countries. Their collective opinion was there was nothing to defend against. The bad old days of Naziism and communism were dead and buried, never to rise again. We are all getting along now, so why would their various countries spend much on defense? Sure, a modicum of armed forces was always necessary, just like police forces, but not much more. I pointed out to them there had been other times in history when people thought modern war was nearly impossible — say, right before World War I — because it was bad for business, not to mention the crowned heads of England, Germany and Russia were all grandsons of Queen Victoria and thus family. Unfortunately, ever since Cain slew Abel, family feelings of peace and good will have not always been conspicuous.

No matter. It was then 2012, and nobody was rattling sabers. (Putin had been in charge of Russia for a bit over a decade, but so far his aggression had been mostly aimed at domestic control of Russia, plus some messy business in the Caucasus. President George W. Bush had looked into Putin’s eyes, the window into his soul, and pronounced his soul a fine trustworthy thing indeed.)

Then they arrived at the crux of the matter. They resented the U.S. arrogating to itself the role of policeman to the world, but in practically the same breath admitted that since the U.S. was guaranteeing peace and stability, why should their countries waste a bunch of money on defense when the defense was already provided. Europe was awash with U.S. troops, and had been since the end of World War II. Their presence guaranteed that practically nothing could go wrong. The nastiness in the Balkans showed how the U.S., and NATO, would stop ethnic cleansing and hyper-nationalism from spreading.

What we have here is the old economic problem of the free rider. Why spend on something when someone else will provide it for free? An argument used by the critics of our involvement in defending Ukraine is that it should be purely a European affair. After all, the European Union has a population 50% larger than the U.S., and a collective economy nearly as large as ours. Let them pay the bills! We have no “strategic interest” in Ukraine.

President Donald Trump, attempting the art of the deal, threatened U.S. disengagement if the rest of the NATO countries didn’t live up to their end of the NATO treaties. Nobody was spending 2% of their GDP on defense, to which all had agreed. Even Trump can’t win all deals. He was sniped at for wanting to weaken NATO. He also found out that the Europeans had us over a barrel. They knew that we knew we could not abandon Europe to its just desserts, because we would wind up with a much nastier world order. Better to have somewhat feckless partners than no partners at all.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine put paid to my former students’ rosy vision of the world order. Too bad they haven’t stayed in touch, especially my Ukrainian students — but then they all intended to leave Ukraine anyway, which is one of the reasons they were attending an international university with instruction in English: a passport to the West.

At least Putin has succeeded where Trump failed. Nothing like a bloody slaughter and massive destruction taking place a few miles away to get attention. Europe is a small place. I may trust the police, but if my neighbor is robbed and killed, I may think carefully about spending more on my own security.

Charles Milliken is a professor emeritus after 22 years of teaching economics and related subjects at Siena Heights University. He can be reached at milliken.charles@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Charles C. Milliken: Why won’t the Europeans defend themselves?