Thread by @APHClarkson

A healthy outcome of this mess would be Paris and every other European military player coming to terms with the fact that no European state has the reach to be a substantial security actor in the Indo-Pacific and focus finite resources on problems closer to the EU's borders

https://twitter.com/morcos_pierre/status/1439636091724783618

The EU has geoeconomic reach on a global scale but its institutions and states (along with UK) only have military resources to be primary actors in regions around Euro-Atlantic and Med areas. Compared to regional powers in the Indo-Pacific even France there is at best second rank

So much UK and France posturing over the Indo-Pacific that apes US strategic fashions reflects hankering to be seen as one of the big boys rather than hard-headed calculation over what European states can do outside their regions and whether a US approach is in European interests

Developing strategic autonomy i.e. ability to do much more with less US input in military terms is viable for Europeans in the Euro-Atlantic, Med and regions around both such as the Sahel. Focus on that and the US will be grateful that it can shift more assets to the Indo-Pacific

At the moment China faces strategic pressure from the US and most of the states surrounding it that Chinese diplomacy has succeeded in alienating further rather than drawing closer. Even China's relationship with Russia is one of convenience than any deep partnership

If China is hampered in its ability to project military power beyond its own immediate area because of the pressure from the US and states neighbouring it, then the problem it represents for the EU is primarily geoeconomic, and merits a primarily geoeconomic EU response

Just because the latest US strategic fashion (which on that note is not uncontested within US FP circles beyond the usual Quincyist suspects) deems the Indo-Pacific the central area of focus for the US, does not mean it has to be or should be the central area of focus for Europe

The US has strategic freedom of action to project immense military power far from its borders because it so dominates regions near its borders that it does not have to expend much effort to secure its own territory.

Neither EU and non-EU Europeans or China are in that position

Unless EU states and the UK are able to lock down the level of control over the regions around them that the US is able to do in the Western Hemisphere, they will never be able to act as substantial players in the Indo-Pacific and shouldn't waste resources trying