De Gaulle, who led the French opposition movement against the Nazis during planet War II and was president from 1959 to 1969, “loved the United States of America”, said Vance in an interview with the British news and opinion-making portal UnHerd. "But he was aware of what I am certain I am not in the interests of Europe and is not in the interests of America to make Europe a permanent vassal of the United States in terms of security," he added.
Vance's comments appear at a time erstwhile president Donald Trump's administration repeatedly hits European capitals due to their excessive reliance on the American military power in terms of its own defence. At the same time, the White home has repeatedly suggested that the US will not come to the aid of NATO allies who do not invest in their own security. United States Secretary of defence Pete Hegseth besides warned that the American military presence in Europe is not "eternal".
“To be honest, the British and the French were right”
Trump wants NATO countries to spend 5 percent of their GDP on defence — a sharp increase compared to the current 2 percent alliance goal to be increased at the Hague summit this summer.
“I do not think that Europe’s greater independency is bad for the United States — it is good for them,” Vance said. "Back to history, I think, frankly, the British and French were surely right in their disagreements with Eisenhower on the Suez Canal".
In the 1950s, U.S. leader Dwight Eisenhower forced London and Paris, before de Gaulle became president, to retreat from military intervention to take control of the Suez Canal from Egypt, which was crucial for the economical and colonial interests of these countries.
With the exception of the United Kingdom, France and Poland, “most European countries have no army to supply them with reasonable defence,” argued Vance. "The reality is this — it must be said without a doubt, but it is besides actual — that the full European safety infrastructure, all my life, has been subsidised by the United States of America."
De Gaulle, whose reasoning was shaped by Suez, frequently warned that Europeans should be more independent of the United States and worked to make the French military more autonomous, including through the improvement of atomic weapons and a powerful defence industry. It inspired decades-long pursuit of what the current French president Emmanuel Macron calls "strategic autonomy".
Is this all for love?
Vance besides had thoughts on the European consequence to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which he believed had turned into a "strategic disaster". While the United States was preparing to invade Iraq in 2003, many European countries, including France and Germany, opposed the attack, while Britain supported the US. The vice president said that sceptical Europeans could, however, talk more decisively.
He said that “many European nations were right”, having doubts about the Iraq War and He argued that Europe could halt it if it "was a small more independent and a small more inclined to argue it."
Vice president — Who He had previously begun severe attacks on the old continent over migration and freedom of speech — he tried to soften any of his criticism, emphasizing his “love” to Europe.
But, Vance added, "European leaders have radically underinvested in safety and that must change".
He besides hit the president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenski, which was the last volley in the war on words between the 2 politicians that began with their sensitive exchange in the Oval Office at the end of FebruaryWhen Vance yelled at Zelenski for "no respect."
In an interview with the US news program 60 Minutes on Sunday, Zelenski accused the vice president of “justifying” Russia's invasion and being a victim of Moscow's misinformation. Vance replied that it was “absorbable for Zelenski to tell the government, who is presently maintaining his full government and war effort, that we are someway on the Russian side.”
