Dan Michaels
Appearances
WSJ What’s News
Powerful Earthquakes Rock Myanmar, Thailand
There is the risk that what Vance is saying rubs Europeans the wrong way to such a degree that Vance brings about a higher level of antagonism across the Atlantic.
WSJ What’s News
Powerful Earthquakes Rock Myanmar, Thailand
All indications are that this visit did not follow standard international diplomatic protocol. And that seems to be Vance's approach to kind of toss out the standard traditional niceties of diplomacy and just be very blunt about what he thinks and what he believes other countries should do and how the United States should approach them.
WSJ What’s News
Powerful Earthquakes Rock Myanmar, Thailand
I spoke to several people who've known him for a while and are close to him, and they say that it's essentially tough love. He actually likes Europe and thinks that Europeans are US allies, but that the Europeans haven't been pulling their weight within the Western alliance. And that's on essentially the NATO front, where there's a lot of discussion about spending on militaries.
WSJ What’s News
Powerful Earthquakes Rock Myanmar, Thailand
But then there's this whole other area of cultural issues, freedom of speech, migration, that are hot button issues within the MAGA community. And some people in Europe align with those views, but a lot of people don't and feel that In what Vance is saying and in his actions, like coming to Europe essentially uninvited, there's a degree of hostility, aggression in it.
WSJ What’s News
Powerful Earthquakes Rock Myanmar, Thailand
Very much so. And some of the actions by the administration, like cutting USAID, are seen in Europe as undermining the Western alliance. The ending of what some might call propaganda, others might call messaging, like Voice of America, have sparked a feeling across Europe that the U.S. is stepping away from its role as the leader of the West, supporting liberal democracy, supporting democracy
WSJ What’s News
Powerful Earthquakes Rock Myanmar, Thailand
those who want to fight for causes that traditionally the West stood up for. So there's, on one level, just a degree of confusion in Europe, what the administration is trying to achieve, in part because Europeans have found Vance quite charming and cooperative in private, willing to discuss issues, but in public find him much more abrasive.
WSJ What’s News
Does Europe Have What it Would Take to Fight Russia?
Europe relies on the US for the backbone of fighting, communications, intelligence, reconnaissance, surveillance, things that it's still possible to fight without them, but it's kind of like fighting blind.
WSJ What’s News
Does Europe Have What it Would Take to Fight Russia?
Europe together is a formidable fighting force. Individually, the countries are not so strong and they do lack certain capabilities that the U.S. has, but they constitute a really powerful quite large army, air force, and navy.
WSJ What’s News
Does Europe Have What it Would Take to Fight Russia?
And the verdict of the Americans and Europeans who I've spoken to about this is that in a fight directly with Russia, the Europeans are formidable and would give the Russians a pretty serious black eye. Hold them off. Europe, for example, has an enormous air force combined and are buying more new advanced, especially American F-35 fighter planes. Europe together has more than 2,000 combat planes.
WSJ What’s News
Does Europe Have What it Would Take to Fight Russia?
Russia has slightly more than 1,000. So Europe is almost double the size and the performance of the Europeans preemptively. probably is much better. By some estimates, one in five fighter planes that the Russians have sent into Ukraine has been lost, shot down, had some kind of accident. And that's against a much less well-prepared military, the Ukrainians. than the Europeans.
WSJ What’s News
Does Europe Have What it Would Take to Fight Russia?
The Europeans, even though they've provided a lot of equipment to Ukraine, still have quite vast armories of even more advanced equipment waiting precisely because of fear of Russia.
WSJ What’s News
Does Europe Have What it Would Take to Fight Russia?
Two reasons. One is Europe for decades has assumed it would always fight against Russia with the U.S. So going back to the start of the Cold War, there's been the alliance of NATO. And so the thought that it might not be there is upsetting and prompting Europeans to retreat. reassess their fundamental understanding of the alliance. The more perhaps tangible element is the U.S.
WSJ What’s News
Does Europe Have What it Would Take to Fight Russia?
has military capabilities and equipment that Europe simply doesn't have. The US has the world's largest and most advanced military, also the most experienced at the moment because the US has been fighting in places like Iraq and Afghanistan for years. And so if there were a fight between Europe and Russia, the Europeans would not have
WSJ What’s News
Does Europe Have What it Would Take to Fight Russia?
air defenses, for example, against long-range Russian rockets, missiles, and some kinds of artillery, which would put, for example, European cities at risk. Europe relies on the U.S. for sort of the backbone of fighting communications, intelligence, reconnaissance, surveillance, things that it's still possible to fight without them, but it's kind of like fighting blind.
WSJ What’s News
Does Europe Have What it Would Take to Fight Russia?
To fill the gap of U.S. capabilities would take years and cost hundreds of billions of dollars, if not more. So there's not a lot the Europeans can do immediately. But it has become fairly clear over recent weeks that Europe is going to be spending a lot more money on defense.
WSJ What’s News
Does Europe Have What it Would Take to Fight Russia?
And so Europe in the not too distant future will have bigger militaries, it will have more weapons, and it will have bigger military industries. This, on one level, will make Europe potentially more independent of the U.S. It will also mean that Russia would have a harder time launching an attack on Europe, which might have a deterrent effect.
WSJ What’s News
Does Europe Have What it Would Take to Fight Russia?
But it might also, conversely, just generally increase the level of tension in Europe, because having standing armies and lots of weapons in the past has not always been a recipe for peace.
WSJ What’s News
Does Europe Have What it Would Take to Fight Russia?
Thanks. Always good to talk with you.