How Ukraine is Impacting the Transatlantic Relationship by GILES MERRITT As spring turned to summer this year, Europe’s leaders In the face of irresistible energy market forces, it is were undergoing a significant mind shift. Their longstanding hard to see how this will occur. As Europeans shiver and concerns over internal wrangling in the European Union were see their industries collapse, the reality will be that they replaced by fears over Europeans’ increased vulnerability to will also be treated to the spectacle of near-normality across external threats. the pond in America. The fact that Europeans’ otherwise Europeans are worried, of course, about Russia’s admirable environmental policies have compounded their ability to do them harm. But they energy problems won’t diminish their are also unsure of America. Decades resentment. of unquestioning reliance on U.S. The widening transatlantic cooperation and support are giving way “energy gap” will need delicate to doubt and suspicion. handling in Washington and Brussels. Transatlantic relations are nothing Relatively cosseted societies in the if not resilient, but they now require EU and U.S. have scarcely given a careful nursing. Russia’s war in Ukraine thought to energy other than over is transforming Europe’s neglect of climate change, But that’s about energy and defense policies into a to change. It is going to vex EU dangerous wedge dividing the United cohesion, but also Europe’s links with States from the European Union. the U.S. Europe has — understandably, but There will, though, be the also unforgivably — been sleepwalking countervailing force of mutual towards disaster in both of these areas. security in response to Putin’s Its priorities have been the complex aggression. It may be that the need to economic and political integration of show strength through unity within Giles Merritt so many different cultures. “A horse NATO will compensate for tensions and rabbit stew” is how the EU was over energy and other economic Russia’s war sometimes described, even before the issues dividing the U.S. and EU. But in Ukraine is Berlin Wall fell and its ‘Big Bang’ it is a hugely unbalanced relationship, enlargement to almost 30 members transforming Europe’s with Europe’s defense shortcomings a made it more heterogeneous still. constant U.S. irritation. neglect of energy and Europe’s awakening has been “Ukraine fatigue” could, defense policies into shocking and sudden. “How could meanwhile, spread in Europe if we,” ask politicians and business Putin were to unblock grain exports a dangerous wedge leaders,”have allowed ourselves to and slow his army’s advance in the dividing the United depend for energy on an unreliable Donbas region. The arrival of millions Russia led by a hostile Vladimir Putin?” of fleeing Ukrainians is already States from the As they scramble to design emergency giving rise to discontent. Germany, European Union. oil and gas strategies, Europeans also threatened by recession and its first cast envious looks across the Atlantic. trade deficit in living memory, has “Could America’s commitment to NATO’s collective identified the arrival of 700,000 refugees from Ukraine as a security extend to energy?” ask some politicians. With factor in its rising unemployment levels. major U.S. oil and gas companies like ExxonMobil “making Eight million newcomers whose length of stay cannot more money than God,” as President Joe Biden reportedly be determined are weighing heavily on social security and put it, and with winter looming, these politicians wonder if housing arrangements across Europe, and in Poland most transatlantic solidarity might somehow come to Europe’s of all. Warm-hearted initial responses are cooling now that rescue. the influx is twice that of initial estimates. Despite valiant 6
RIPON FORUM August 2022
