One indicator of decline is when you invent something but others become better than you at using it. Europeans invented modern diplomacy, including the version of which it is said: “Diplomacy is when you send someone to hell and make them look forward to the journey.” We no longer know how to do that — but others do.
The greatest diplomats of all time were a Frenchman and an Austrian. Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord was a master of political opportunism, rivalled only by his Habsburg counterpart, Klemens von Metternich. Talleyrand and Metternich were the chief diplomats of global powers. After Napoleon’s defeat, France was a much-diminished country with no military leverage. Talleyrand’s masterstroke consisted of carving out a niche for France by playing everyone off against each other — the British against the Prussians, and the Austrians against the Russians. He did not exactly invent the notion of a balance of power, but he exploited it with unrivalled genius.
Today, the one thing that the Iranian government and the Trump administration agree on is that Europeans have no useful role to play in Middle Eastern diplomacy. A German newspaper complained recently that nobody informs the Europeans anymore. Decline is when you see newspaper headlines along those lines.
So what would a modern-day Talleyrand think about China and Donald Trump? I am speculating, of course, but we are in a classic Talleyrand-type situation. The difficulty for him would have been to unite 27 EU member states, plus the UK and Norway, around a common position — as opposed to playing them off against each other, which is what we used to do. It is harder, by an order of magnitude, to unite than to split. When the US threatened tariffs on Europe, Talleyrand probably would have advised the European Council to issue a statement to welcome the new age of transactional economic relations and then take some concrete steps that would have infuriated Trump.
Looking back, we can see a missed opportunity for assertiveness. The Biden administration previously banned the sale of high-performance semiconductors to China, and leaned heavily on the Dutch government to stop the export of machines to China that could produce them. The company in question is ASML, a global monopolist of high-performance lithography machines, which etch tiny three-dimensional pathways into silicon wafers. ASML is to Europe what rare earths are to China. President Xi Jinping leveraged his country’s rare earths monopoly to great effect when he banned their export after Trump imposed his tariffs on China. The Europeans could have done the same with ASML — banning the company from exporting. But they would have needed the lost spirit of a Talleyrand or a Metternich to make such a daring move.
Europe’s decline is dramatic when looked at over a long period. But it has sped up over the past decade. Ten years ago, almost exactly to the day, European diplomats spearheaded the Iran nuclear deal. Iran agreed to reduce the number of centrifuges by about two thirds. Iran also agreed to keep its stockpile of enriched uranium. The deal came with the usual supervisory and enforcement procedures.
Trump exited the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 — and that was the end of it. Today, the Europeans have no independent role in Middle Eastern diplomacy. After Trump dropped his bombs on Iran, the European leaders called on Iran to return to the negotiating table, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the deal they negotiated constituted the negotiating table — and that it was Trump who tipped it over.
Nor would a modern-day Talleyrand and Metternich have advised their masters to break off all communication channels with Vladimir Putin. They, too, would have been on the side of Ukraine, but they would not have told European leaders to define their strategic goals in terms of an open-ended commitment. They would have advocated strategic ambiguity and, especially, to set down no red lines. Red lines are what people have when they don’t have a strategy. The Talleyrand and Metternich strategy would have been to achieve a position where the war would end without either side being defeated. In terms of their diplomatic approach, theirs would have been closer to Trump’s than that of Europe’s current leaders. When Trump is a better diplomat than you, you are in trouble.
Like Trump, Xi and Putin, they would have understood the importance of natural resources in the 21st century. Europeans have few resources of their own, except for those they banned, like coal or nuclear power, or refused to develop, like gas from fracking or deep-sea extraction. Trump, Putin and Xi are strategic operators in the sense that they have an economic vision that extends beyond their lifetimes. You can criticise their economic policies as much as you like — and I do too — but they differ from every single European leader in that they have an economic strategy in the first place.
Despite the strength of their record, the great European diplomats of the 19th century operated from a position of weakness. They would not have had a problem with Mark Rutte’s flattery of Donald Trump, though their flattery would have been wittier. Flattery was part of the diplomatic toolkit. Talleyrand flattered the British; Metternich flattered the Russians. The purpose of the flattery was to achieve a stable political equilibrium on the European continent. In the end, and with some notable interruptions, the equilibrium lasted for the next 100 years. Rutte’s flattery was designed to keep Trump engaged in European security for a little while longer — but without addressing the underlying problem of European dependence. And that is the ultimate difference between then and now. The policy horizon today rarely extends beyond the next day’s newspaper.
Talleyrand and Metternich were old-fashioned in their diplomacy and their beliefs. Metternich was a reactionary. He detested democracy. Talleyrand started off as a supporter of the French Revolution, but then grew increasingly sceptical. If I had to wager a controversial guess, it would be that they would both have been Eurosceptic, at least in relationship to the great affairs of state, and yet unideologically supportive of institutions useful to the interests of the EU, like the World Trade Organisation or the International Criminal Court. They would probably support free-trade coalitions amongst willing multilateralists.
“If I had to wager a controversial guess, it would be that Metternich and Talleyrand would both have been Eurosceptic”
Soft power was not their thing, but they would probably understand its role in modern diplomacy. By cutting the foreign aid budget, the US left strategic opportunities that clever Europeans could have exploited to their advantage. But this is not what happened. The UK followed the US in cutting its aid budget too so that it could meet US-imposed defence spending targets. I never thought that soft power could replace hard power, and I never bought into the naïve soft-power romanticism that underlines the discourse of European integration. But I see a lack of strategic thinking when European governments cut their international radio services, their foreign language programmes, and bursaries. Or if they restrict access by foreign students to Western universities.
What modern-day Europeans and their ancestors have in common is a sense of moral and intellectual superiority. But today that case is harder to make. Europeans love huffing and puffing about Trump. Some economists, who should know better, called on the EU to retaliate against Trump’s tariffs: really bad advice, which the European Commission is mercifully ignoring. Reality caught up last week when a panicked Friedrich Merz told the European Commission that they should hurry up and sign whatever trade deal Trump is offering. He did not put it quite like this. He said the EU should not seek the perfect trade deal when a less perfect one will do. But what he was really saying is: we have no other choice. German industry is bleeding. The tariffs are threatening to prolong Germany’s two-year recession. When you don’t have a strategy, you lose against the people who do.
If Europeans were clever, they could have exploited Trump’s assault on the US university system to their advantage. He is not only at war with the liberal arts colleges of the East Coast. His administration is cutting a lot of high-tech research programmes. The reasons why tech people prefer to work in the US is the higher pay, and a more liberal environment for the tech industry. Why can’t Europeans offer attractive pay to disgruntled US scientists, and make them feel welcome?
I am going to stop here with suggestions of what Europe could have or should have done just in those last few months. Don’t even get me started on bigger things like a fiscal union, or capital markets union, or even just a programme to remove the barriers from the European single market. The reality is that when Trump acts, Europe reacts. That, too, is an indicator of decline. Decline is when you settle for second-best. You no longer want to lead the work in technology, but you are overjoyed when Google builds a data centre in your country, or if Tesla builds a gigafactory.
Europeans invented the motor car. But the world of electric cars is going to be an American and Chinese playing field. The car industry is perhaps the most spectacular example of Europe’s industrial decline, but it is happening in other industries too, such as batteries, solar panels, high-speed railways, and telecommunications equipment. Europe’s industries are falling like dominoes, and will continue to fall unless they are protected. But subsidies and tariffs, via which that protection would take place, are also a sign of decline.
What I am describing here is long-term structural decline. Decline could, in theory, be reversed, but that would require a political will that is totally absent in every single European country I know. I don’t know of a single politician, or a single political party, in any European country, with a clear focus on these issues. Does anybody seriously believe that less immigration would solve the problem? Or higher government spending? Or a debt-financed increase in military spending? Or whatever else people in Europe are discussing right now?
Denial and wishful thinking are another important metric of decline. All my indicators are flashing red.
Wolfgang Münchau will return in September.
