Two hundred years years ago, President Monroe asked the European powers of the time to stop interfering in the affairs of their former colonies, in the Americas. It is now time Europeans ask the US to reciprocate, in order for the EU to be able to build its own security architecture on the continent.
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In his speech before the US Congress on the 2nd of December 1823, US President Monroe outlined what has since become known the "America for Americans" doctrine:
"It is impossible that the allied powers should extend their political system to any portion of either continent without endangering our peace and happiness; nor can anyone believe that our southern brethren, if left to themselves, would adopt it of their own accord. It is equally impossible, therefore, that we should behold such interposition in any form with indifference. If we look to the comparative strength and resources of Spain and those new Governments, and their distance from each other, it must be obvious that she can never subdue them. It is still the true policy of the United States to leave the parties to themselves, in hope that other powers will pursue the same course..."
By and large, European powers heeded Monroe's call. Now it is European leaders who need to call on the Americans to reciprocate and to dissolve the NATO alliance, thus enabling European countries to make their own security arrangements.
At the end of the Cold War, German Foreign Minister Genscher, French President Mitterrand and Soviet leader Gorbachev fully expected NATO to be dismantled, as the Warsaw Pact was. They intended to create a new European security architecture, which would have included Russia, but excluded NATO and the United States. The project was rejected out of hand by American leaders, who decided to not only keep NATO going, but opted for its eastward expansion after the implosion of the USSR.
Since 1999, NATO ceased to be a guarantor of peace on the European continent. It started a series of wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and now, by proxy, in Ukraine.
As of two years ago, NATO even intends to drag European nations into military confrontations in the Indo-Pacific with China, a drive which leading European nations oppose.
Although most leading IR specialists believe that the current war in Ukraine is a result of NATO's expansion, the fact remains that this is but a consequence of not dismantling NATO in 1991.
Accordingly, today's European leaders should collectively push for the dissolution of the Alliance and for its replacement by a collective security arrangement, not only autonomous but independent of the United States.
In truth, stopping NATO's expansion and the neutrality of Ukraine will not address the root cause of Europe's security woes and will not guarantee that Europe can become again a peaceful continent.
As matters now stand, European nations are captive to a military alliance emulating Athens' ancient Delian League, which has become toxic to most of its members. It is therefore not in the interest of Europeans to continue to be part of an alliance that has been redefined after 2000 as an instrument of American global hegemonism.
