Translated locally on PC using Ministral 3 14b
Munich Security Conference: It Was Never About Charity | DIE ZEIT
Dr. Moritz Weiss
Europe suffers from a misunderstanding. Every time Donald Trump threatens to end American protection, the continent falls into an odd, almost subservient self-criticism: “We were too complacent; we did too little; we freeloaded on the US.” As Chancellor Friedrich Merz put it, we were “free riders”. Those who accept this narrative—one pushed by Trump but factually false—have already lost the fight for their own independence before it even began. Strategic autonomy is not just about defence budgets; it starts with intellectual emancipation from a story that is simply wrong: the myth of transatlantic charity.
The US presence in Europe was never an act of neighbourly love, but a strategic investment in global hegemony. Washington did not bestow gifts upon Europeans. With its military umbrella over Europe, the White House bought political compliance and a geopolitical foothold to shape world affairs as it saw fit. America wasn’t exploited; it was a functional symbiosis: Europe received—admittedly cheap—stability, while the US secured unchallenged leadership of the “free world.”
The Architecture of Dependence
That Europe often finds itself militarily exposed today is not a historical oversight but the result of an arrangement actively demanded by Washington. One need only recall Madeleine Albright’s famous “Three Ds” from 1998: “no decoupling, no duplication, and no discrimination”. European armed forces could exist—but they must remain tied to NATO, avoid duplicating its capabilities, and show no favouritism among allies. This effectively describes the current status quo. The US made it clear that it would not tolerate independent European leadership threatening NATO’s monopoly. And whenever Europeans met without Washington, Britain—acting as an extension of US interests—ensured they stayed in line.
At the same time, the US secured a vast and stable market through its Foreign Military Sales programme. Buying American weapons isn’t just about hardware; it means committing to decades of software updates and spare parts. Washington didn’t want an autonomous Europe—it wanted, and got, a reliable junior partner.
The Myth of High Costs
Nowhere is the imbalance in Trump’s narrative clearer than with so-called strategic enablers, such as satellite reconnaissance. Yes, Europe relies on US satellites—but their existence has nothing to do with Europe. Washington maintains them for its own global military reach, not out of generosity.
Intelligence and satellite data are, economically speaking, non-consumable goods. Sharing them with allies costs the US nothing extra—it’s a zero-sum transaction for Washington. While Europe becomes dependent, the American taxpayer bears no financial burden. Framing these as “charity” that Europe must now repay through some historical debt is a deliberate distortion of reality.
If the deal ends, so does the loyalty
Trump claims the US is the world’s “cash cow”, but he overlooks this: if he severs the current partnership with Europe, he also removes America’s right to demand compliance. Whoever stops offering protection forfeits their claim to automatic deference. If the US no longer wants to bear the costs of hegemony, it must accept that its near-automatic European approval is gone too. Europe isn’t a “naughty pupil” forced to do extra homework—it must recognise that the underlying agreement has simply collapsed.
The biggest obstacle to a sovereign Europe isn’t a lack of tanks—it’s clinging to an unfounded guilt complex. Accepting the narrative of European culpability puts Brussels on the back foot, whether in NATO negotiations, countering Russia’s war, or even Trump’s pet project: tariffs.
In the end, it’s like a failing long-term relationship. If one partner leaves claiming they’ve been exploited all along, the worst response is to sob and apologise. No one comes back for that. The breakup can only be mastered when both sides acknowledge why they were together—and that both benefited. And if independence is the goal after separation, no one should shrink themselves to fit someone else’s expectations.
The US gave European countries the false impression that they would never need to invest significantly in defense for a couple decades.
It was easy enough to laugh about “The US spends how much on its military?” until facing the possibility of that military breaking its promises and betraying you.
Accepting the narrative of European culpability puts Brussels on the back foot, whether in NATO negotiations, countering Russia’s war, or even Trump’s pet project: tariffs.
Seems correct. Obviously Washington wasn’t doing this out of the goodness of its heart. Come on.
But as a European I find it pretty embarrassing and humiliating that we couldn’t fix the Balkans in the 90s and now we can’t fix Ukraine without the help of Daddy USA. This has got to end.
