Trump’s remonstrations will fall on deaf ears. Why should Europeans spend money on arms, when they have no intention of using them?
A recent opinion poll found that small minorities in the core European members of NATO were willing to fight for their country under any circumstances.

At the bottom of the rankings were the Netherlands and Germany, at 16% and 18% respectively; at the top was Poland, with 48%. Outside of European NATO, 56% of Russians, 66% of Israelis, 44% of Americans and 74% of Finns said they were willing to fight. The Israeli number reflects the diffidence of Israeli Arabs, who comprise about one fifth of the population. One wonders what would happen if Finland were to invade the Netherlands.

If you don’t plan to fight, you don’t need weapons, and it is no surprise that Germany, with its budget surplus, can’t bring itself to vote for urgently-need funds for its military. Germany’s armed forces are in disrepair; a German brigade designated to lead a NATO rapid response force has only nine of the 44 tanks it requires and only four of the country’s military aircraft are combat ready.

If there’s nothing you’re willing to die for, there’s probably nothing you’re willing to live for, either, I argued in a 2014 essay on the hundredth anniversary of the First World War (see “Musil and Meta-Musil”). It should be no surprise that there is a reasonably close correspondence between the willingness of the Europeans to fight for their nations and their willingness to have children. If you care so little for your country that you will not defend it, you are likely to be too absorbed in hedonistic distraction to bother with children. Conversely, if there are to be no future generations, who will lay down his life to fight for them?

The chart below compares the total fertility for European countries (and adds Israel for good measure; that’s the lonely dot in the upper-right-hand quadrant). The r2 of regression is about 50%, with significance at the 99.9% confidence level.

Russia is indeed a potential threat to NATO, although the likelihood of a Russian attack on any NATO member is vanishingly small for the interim. The Russians are willing to fight, unlike the Western Europeans. Coincidentally, Russia’s total fertility rate has recovered remarkably and now stands about 1.7 children per female, close to that of the United States – and from the available Pew Survey data, that rate applies to European Russians as well as to Russian Muslims.

Russia remains below replacement fertility – about 2.1 children – and its population continues to decline, but far less quickly than the consensus believed it would only a few years ago. Vladimir Putin runs a nasty regime in which nosy journalists fall out of windows and regime opponents disappear, but Russia nonetheless has succeeded in reviving something of its national spirit where the Europeans have not.

The matter of dying for one’s country always has constituted a paradox in classical liberal thinking, by which I mean the viewpoint of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, the English philosophers who argued that governments are formed by individuals who feel insecure in a “state of nature” and cede some of their personal sovereignty to the state in return for protection of life and property.

The idea is preposterous, but sadly influential. If governments are formed by individuals solely to protect their sorry persons and filthy lucre, why would any of these individuals lay down his life to defend the government, allowing those who do not die to benefit as free riders? In Locke’s day, to be sure, the British Army hired starving Irishmen and dispossessed farmers to do its fighting. When Napoleon unleashed the full force of citizen armies upon his European neighbors, classical liberalism had nothing more to say.

Something more than Locke’s notion of a mutual protection society is required if we are to justify the state’s monopoly of violence, its right to imprison or kill criminals at home, and to demand of its young people that they shed blood in its defense. The state must be imbued with a sense of the sacred and must stand surety for the continuity of our lives with those of generations that follow. It must preserve a heritage and a culture that allows our words and deeds to speak to future generations just as those of our ancestors speak to us.

Today’s Europe is something of a Lockean dystopia: It is composed of individuals concerned mainly about their own hedonic enjoyments, who want the government to protect them from want and disease, but have no desire whatever to defend their nations, which are on a slow boat to extinction in any event.

It is refreshing to hear an American president call the Europeans out for the sybarites and deadbeats they are, rather than repeat the old cant about the glories of the Atlantic Alliance and the gallantry of America’s allies.

Taiwan is having trouble moving forward with its Indigenous Defense Submarine (IDS) program, which is aimed at building a fleet of eight diesel-electric submarines to replace four aging vessels, local military sources admitted to Asia Times.

Taipei needs to improve its asymmetric deterrent to counter a possible invasion from mainland China. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy routinely circles Taiwan, which Communist rulers in Beijing view as a rebel province. Just recently, two Chinese warships were spotted by the Taiwanese military southward off the island’s east coast.

“We are facing tough times in acquiring suitable and available components for submarines,” a senior Taiwanese defense official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. A senior navy officer echoed his words, highlighting the fact that his country had tried to get supplies from shipbuilders in the United States and Europe in the past four to five years, since Admiral Richard Chen Yeong-kang, Taipei’s chief of naval operation from 2013 to 2015, put the IDS project on the table.

Mixing systems problematic

The US Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2019 calls for Washington to support the purchase by Taiwan of defense weapons for asymmetric warfare and undersea warfare. In accordance with the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, which redefined US relations with Taipei after the administration of President Jimmy Carter had switched diplomatic recognition to Communist China, the US government must provide for the defense of the island.

The problem is that the US Navy uses only nuclear-powered submarines and the Pentagon does not support conventional platforms. As a result, Taiwan has had to focus on European and Japanese models. European navies can showcase a series of capable vessels such as Germany’s Type 214 and Type 218SG, France’s Barracuda-class and Scorpene-class, Sweden’s Gotland-class, Italy’s Todaro-class and the Netherlands’ Walrus-class. For its part, Japan can offer the advanced Soryu-class submarine.

Dutch contractor RH Marine recently agreed to help Taipei refit its two outdated Zwaardvis submarines, but it is a drop in the ocean. The matter is sensitive for European chanceries, which have so far refrained from supporting Taiwan’s defense programs because of fears it may damage relationships with China. Major shipbuilders and some component makers for submarines in Europe declined to comment on the issue.

The Taiwanese navy officer said Japan’s submarines were also a good option for the IDS project, as Tokyo’s arms-export policy “may give Taipei an opportunity to acquire design and ‘red-zone’ technology.” But he acknowledged the Japanese government would always take Beijing’s reaction into consideration, so “there will be no green light [from Tokyo] without the US government providing a stronger support.”

Aside from diesel-electric engines, Taiwan is also seeking air-independent propulsion (AIP) technology, which increases undersea autonomy of a conventional boat, and hull design to manufacture its new submarines. It was reported that Taipei could buy US combat systems for its future vessels. In April, the US State Department authorized the sale of submarine components to the island by American manufacturers.

According to Lyle Goldstein, a research professor at the US Naval War College: “Taiwan does not have really good options on this front, as mixing complex systems from multiple countries is a recipe for disaster.” Furthermore, he thinks most European countries “will not want to be associated with the project.” The same goes for Japan and South Korea.

Island’s defense may not be feasible

Admiral Chen, who is now a board member of the island’s top defense research institute, told Taiwan’s Central News Agency in May that his country had a “window of opportunity” between 2020 and 2035 to ramp up its military capabilities before China’s defense forces would be fully modernized. But for Goldstein, “Taiwan is hopelessly far behind in the undersea warfare realm and such forces as it could eventually deploy would most likely be destroyed at the pier or easily overmatched.”

As well, building a submarine force from scratch entails enormous cost. To resist a naval attack from the mainland, “Taipei would likely spend the same money in a wiser manner by investing in defensive mine warfare or land-based and mobile anti-ship missile launchers,” the US scholar said. 

The Taiwanese defense official is confident that the country’s navy will do its best to make the IDS project succeed. Goldstein was skeptical that Taiwan’s defense was even feasible. “Submarines present a ‘sexy’ solution, but would hardly make a dent in the actual problem, even if developed successfully,” he emphasized.

“During the [1962] Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviet Union came to see that it was just about impossible to defend a small island off the coast of an angry superpower, and the Kremlin was forced to back down. Now, Taiwan and the US confront the same strategic quandary.”

That’s why he believes Taipei would do well to pursue amicable relations with the mainland as it did between 2008 and 2016.