The current arrangement is clearly not working. As I wrote earlier, “a Euro-Atlantic pivot to Asia with NATO patrolling the Pacific; and second, a relatively self-sufficient Europe and burden shifting so that America, along with its Pacific allies such as Japan and Australia, can focus on balancing the rise of China. The first will not happen. An occasional lone German frigate in the Indo-Pacific as a solidarity gesture notwithstanding, it is foolish to divide resources in such a way.” A better option then is to leave European security to Europeans and let independent European great powers seek and conduct their own security arrangements and mini-ententes, under a broad, detached American nuclear umbrella, instead of perpetuating an unnatural institutionalized peace at the cost of American overstretch and decline.

If Europe needs independent foreign policy, it must come from independent nation-states and great powers. The tragedy of France, the land of Richelieu and Talleyrand, of iron hands in velvet gloves, is that France is uniquely capable of taking an overnight leading position on European security but is often led by bantamweight Bonapartes, who know what to do but lack the will of a great man.