Has the Time Come to Stop Doing Europe's Laundry?

A conversation about Trump and Vance, the UK and the EU, and Ukraine

Trying something a little bit different today: bringing you an abridged excerpt from Friday’s conversation on the American Compass podcast with UK conservative leader Michael Gove, about the troubles in the Transatlantic alliance and, especially, the widening disagreement over Ukraine.

Gove is, in my humble opinion, the UK’s leading conservative thinker, having served as a member of parliament for nearly 20 years and a cabinet minister almost continuously for 14 years under four different prime ministers. He is now the editor of The Spectator. And he was my teammate for our epic debate on protectionism last month in London, where we swung an audience of thousands in favor of protectionism.

I found this podcast conversation especially valuable in identifying points of agreement and disagreement with someone from the other side of the pond who is deeply conservative, sympathetic to the JD Vance worldview, and also ardently pro-Ukraine. I landed on this metaphor for Europe:

You have the perhaps grown child who has been mooching for so long and has promised to reform so many times and has not, that at some point you do in fact have to kick them out of the house.

And at the moment when you are kicking them out of the house, it might be perfectly rational to say, well, wait a minute, what good is that going to do? How is that going to help him get on his feet? Wouldn't it be better to support him and do this and that for him? But if you say, well, we have tried all of those things already, at some point, this is the only step left.

Here’s more, both abridged and edited for clarity. If the topic is of interest, definitely check out the full episode where we go into further depth on this and many other topics. While you’re there, subscribe for another great conversation every week.

Oren Cass: One strain of thought in the U.S. right now is, oh, JD Vance just went to Munich to stick his finger in the eye of the Europeans and insult them, and everyone is now furious with him. And we can get into other elements of what the Trump administration is doing as well. But what did you make of the message Vance was delivering, and then also how do you think it was received? Did it hit the mark and is it constructive in that respect?

Michael Gove: I think JD Vance's speech in Munich provoked very sharp divisions and soul searching in Europe and in the UK. … So many of those who convened there thought that the American vice president, or any American representative, was going to be talking about diplomacy, military deployment, traditional security concerns. He struck to them a discordant note, but to me a very powerful note, in saying, hold on a moment, guns are one thing, diplomacy and the niceties of the cocktail circuit are another thing, but what is it that you are seeking to defend?

The ultimate strength of a society depends on its culture and its values. And if we do believe in democracy, then why is it that we've seen people in the European Commission rejoice in the fact that elections have been suspended in Romania, that they've said that there should be a firewall to prevent popular political parties joining coalitions? And in particular, if you believe in free speech, why is it that you should have, for example, in the UK, silent prayer outside birth control clinics outlawed?

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However, more recently, particularly in the UK, the vice president's position on Ukraine, which is well understood in America, that went down very badly in the UK. And I think it's important to understand that in the United Kingdom, across the political spectrum from center-left to traditional right, there is a very strong identification with and support for Ukraine. And I think it's linked to Britain's idea of itself.

Historically, Britain went to war to safeguard Belgium's neutrality in the First World War. In the Second World War, we felt that we'd made a mistake retrospectively in not guaranteeing Czechoslovakia's security at Munich. We went to war to safeguard Poland when it was being carved up by Germany and the Soviet Union. … Now, I'm sure that there are people listening to this who will contest certain aspects of both my history and of the validity of Volodymyr Zelenskyy as an emblem or a worthy recipient of that respect and affection. But it's certainly the case that I and many other British conservatives strongly identify with Zelenskyy and his desire to ensure that his country can resist Russian aggression.

As I say, the vice president takes a different view. I respect that, but it doesn't go down well in the UK. And I think hopefully people are sophisticated enough to recognize that when you've got someone like JD Vance, who's a very thoughtful and very impressive guy, that you can accept the validity of some of his critiques while at the same time strongly pushing back on some of his other positions. And that doesn't mean that you are trying to disrespect him or those who agree with him. It's important, because he's a really thoughtful guy, to engage with each of his ideas on their own merits.

Oren Cass: Certainly something we're struggling with in the U.S. is a major shortage of people willing to do exactly that and recognize that people of good faith can disagree and that there are actually important debates to be had here. Even within the right-of-center, there is mostly just quite nasty mud-slinging. So I'm delighted to engage this at the level of the substantive debate because I think the points that you make about the UK's traditional orientation and values strike me as entirely correct and also as, aspirationally, ones I think most in the U.S. across the political spectrum, certainly within the right-of-center, share.

I think if I were to extend Vance's point one more step, it would be: that's all well and good, except that it’s not something that the UK or other European powers have actually made the investments necessary to back up. … It does seem that there has been a very serious problem of people saying, our values call on us to do X, but then when it comes to who actually has the resources or the political will to do it, there's a paper tiger problem. Do you think that's fair, first of all? And if so, or if not, how does that fit into the debate?

Michael Gove: I think that's totally fair. I think there is a fair point that European countries have willed the end—Ukraine sovereignty protected—but not the means; that they themselves haven't invested in their own defense, that they've relied on the American security umbrella. I think the broad critique, which indeed JD Vance has put forward, that America has stationed troops and spent money in order to allow the Europeans to invest in their own welfare states and to reduce defense spending, that is absolutely right. We're seeing now in the UK and in Europe a recognition that our own defense spending and our own responsibility for our own defense needs to increase. And I think it's right to chide the UK and Europeans for not having done that in the past.

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[Another] thing is that in Britain, the Baltic states, Poland, Norway, I think there's pretty strong support across the political spectrum for Zelenskyy and Ukraine. But if you move to Germany, within France, and also in some other central European countries, there's a much greater divide. So it is not just Victor Orban that is less than enthusiastic about full-throated support for Ukraine. It’s also the case that Slovakia takes that position. It's also the case that in Germany, the parties of the far left and the hard right that did well in their recent elections take that position. … So I think the nuances and the divergence within Europe is a factor as well as the historic underinvestment in defense, which the administration understandably draw attention to.

Oren Cass: Another element of, certainly in my perception, what has been motivating some of the Trump administration's moves and the rhetoric from folks like Vance is a point of view that is somewhat skeptical of Europe—even putting the specifics of the Ukraine conflict aside, skeptical of Europe's civilizational will in the cultural sense, or economic vitality and plausible military performance, seeing Europe as just sort of declining in relevance. Do you think is that fair? Is there a hope of a turnaround?

Michael Gove: I think it is a fair challenge because I think that the revealed preference of the European Union in recent years has been to invest not in a focus on modernizing our economies, but in luxury beliefs. … Some of what Europe has said in terms of energy policy in the past has been hypocritical virtue signaling. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, in her first term in office, made extravagant promises and sunk taxpayers’ money into moving towards an energy transition, while at the same time, of course, her own home country, Germany, was reliant on Russian gas for its manufacturing base. And so it's entirely understandable that Americans—indeed, many Britons—looked at some of these decisions and said, on the one hand you appear to be rhetorically embracing the politics of Greta Thunberg, but on the other hand, you are actually reliant (in Germany's case) for your economic success on imports of Russian gas and exports or manufacturing alliances with communist China. Come on here.

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Oren Cass: It's funny, it feels like a somewhat familial relationship, and I think from the U.S. perspective, at least those who are most frustrated, the argument would essentially be, to extend the metaphor, that you have the perhaps grown child who has been mooching for so long and has promised to reform so many times and has not, that at some point you do in fact have to kick them out of the house.

And at the moment when you are kicking them out of the house, it might be perfectly rational to say, well, wait a minute, what good is that going to do? How is that going to help him get on his feet? Wouldn't it be better to support him and do this and that for him? But if you say, well, we have tried all of those things already, at some point, this is the only step left.

I think certainly for the Trump administration, going all the way back to the increasingly iconic laughter directed at him for suggesting that maybe Germany should not be reliant on Russian gas, all the way through what is now a conflict with Russia that one can date its start as far back as one wants—certainly 2014, certainly then the actual invasion of 2022, and to now be in spring of 2025—and the Germans say, okay, no, no, seriously, we really get it and this time look at what we're going to spend. I think at some point it is fair to say, well, you're going to just have to go spend it. The era of forbearance has come to an end. You now have to climb your way back into the picture, in a sense.

Michael Gove: I think that's fair, and I think that the commitment that our own prime minister has made, it may not seem an enormous commitment, but it is for him, coming from a labor tradition, coming from a left-of-center tradition, quite something to say, I'm definitely going to increase defense spending and to cut international development spending in order to facilitate it, and I may well have to cut welfare entitlements in order to sustain that. That's not easy for him.

So as I say, I didn't vote for him, wouldn't vote for his party. But I think one's got to, in politics, acknowledge that when someone from a different political tradition does the right thing at some cost to their reputation internally with their tribe, that should be recognized and applauded. Not necessarily three cheers, but two. Similarly, I would hope that, and it's too soon of course from their point of view to do it, but I would hope that the Trump administration, if it sees Europe moving in the right direction, would be in a position to acknowledge that and say trust has been earned.

So to go back to the example you gave of the students, the perpetual students who never get a job and always rely on mom and pop to do the laundry and to sweep up after them, if there is a stepping up, then hopefully the ties which are strong and which may have been strained can become healthier again. Because my own view is that a greater degree of American assertiveness after the last couple of decades is entirely understandable. And if Europeans feel uncomfortable about that, then we need to ask ourselves about why that's arisen.

But I also think that while I can understand the tradition of isolationism in America—after all, America as a republic was founded by people who wanted to get away from continental entanglements and wanted to move away from all of our ancestral quarrels, totally understand it—my own reading of the 20th century is that when you can have broadly the West working together and aligned, that is good for all parties. But as I say, European countries can't simply rely on the warm glow of past cooperation to be sustained without a present and future commitment to shouldering more of the burden.

If you’ve read this far, be sure to give the full episode a listen.

- Oren