What Would Jean Monnet Tell Us About The European Defence?
When we are talking about defence, usually we are talking in a very practical language about the defence industry specificities, joint procurement technicalities, NATO standards, and billions of euros for defence finances.
But, in order not to be lost in those complicated technical details, it is very important to keep the bigger picture in sight. It helps to define the most rational path through all the technical challenges. And it helps to consolidate the needed collective political will.
Bigger picture thinking you can see if you, first of all, are learning from history, if you can compare the situation and challenges of today with similar experiences in the past.
That was my conceptual message to NATO ambassadors, when, after the invitation of Secretary General Mark Rutte, I had a possibility to address NAC members (informal North Atlantic Council meeting, 20 January, 2025).
Here is part of my message, devoted to this bigger picture and to our common historical experience:
“Despite the fact that I had studied physics, I often find my inspiration in the past, in the lessons of recent European history.
Over Christmas, I read the memoires – memoires of someone who also lived in dangerous times.
Jean Monnet.
We all know Jean Monnet as one of the founding fathers of the European Union. But Jean Monnet was also one of the founding fathers of victory in the Second World War. It was Jean Monnet who first described the United States as the “Arsenal of Democracy”.
Jean Monnet worked with Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt. He helped the Roosevelt administration to prepare the so called “Victory Plan”, which was crucial for the victory of the allies. The goal of the Victory Plan: all out production to achieve victory.
And as I read Monnet’s memoirs, especially about the situation in the United States at the beginning of the war, a lot sounded familiar:
The lacking American sense of urgency of the war, which had started in Europe. American people treating the war as a new normal. The very low American reserves of manpower and weapons. The low levels of productive capacity. The unease with the industry about making big investments without clear orders. The unease with the military to say what they need, because everything is secret. Also familiar: the concerns about budgets and the lack of financial resources in Britain.
In short, everything we see and feel today in our European Union.
But also, positive things are familiar: a clear understanding of what needs to be done, shared by Monnet and expressed by Roosevelt, and very much needed now, when we are discussing our support for Ukraine. Roosevelt’s quote: “There is absolutely no doubt in the mind of a very overwhelming number of Americans that the best immediate defence of the United States is the success of Great Britain defending itself.”
Monnet understood how important it is to know the real truth about the gap in US readiness: “The first step was to calculate the deficit./…/We presented it in the starkest terms, knowing that the American Administration needed a shock and that Roosevelt was only waiting to be spurred by big demands”.
And at the end – when the nation is facing an existential threat, money cannot become an obstacle for defence. Monnet was delighted to hear Roosevelt condemn out of hand taboos that Monnet had been attacking for years. Roosevel’s quote “In all history, no major war has been lost through a lack of money…”
We too now face a potential existential challenge. And we need our “Victory Plan”. Together with Ukraine.”
That is why Jean Monnet’s lessons are so important for us.
This was my message to NATO ambassadors about the importance of our historical experience and about the bigger picture which we are facing now.
We need to remember, that this is not the first time the democratic world is facing the threat of totalitarian aggression, as we are facing now. Eighty years ago, there was enough political prudence and political will to define and to implement the “Victory Plan” against totalitarian aggression. Today, we have the same responsibility – to define and to implement our “Victory Plan”. If our grandparents succeeded for their victory, we will succeed also. This is our moral task. For our grandkids to live also in peace.
I was so impressed by the practical wisdom of the idealist Jean Monnet and by the fact of how useful his clear structural thoughts, simple ideas, and practical solutions would be for us today, when we are facing the threat of war aggression, that I decided to put the most impressive quotations from Jean Monnet’s “Memoirs” onto one page. Read them, and then you will wish to read all the “Memoirs”!
Jean Monnet. “Memoirs”. Selected quotes
(Headlines are mine)
Essence of Monnet practical idealism
Robert Emmet Sherwood, assistant to Harry Hopkins: “Monnet was the great, single minded apostle of all-out production, preaching the doctrine that ten thousand tanks too many are far preferable to one tank too few”.
Defence of England is the defence of America
Monnet: “The defence of England is for this people (Americans) the defence of America. They therefore will be willing to do whatever England requires them to do”…
Roosevelt, Congressional debate on Lend-Lease: “There is absolutely no doubt in the mind of a very overwhelming number of Americans that the best immediate defence of the United States is the success of Great Britain defending itself”.
The deficit numbers – for shocking impact on US Administration
“Purvis and I explained to London that the Americans would launch a big enough rearmament programme only if they were strongly pressed to do so, and that many people in Washington were waiting for this pressure to take the form of precise requirement. “
/…/ [UK Minister of Supply] Walter Layton “came to Washington at the beginning of October with the impressive list of orders – all the equipment needed for ten new British divisions and 9000 more aircraft in addition to the 14000 already on order.”…
“I knew that a further balance sheet comparing the combined strength of Germany, Italy, and Japan with that of Britain and the United States would show a considerable deficit. This, I was convinced, would strike the imagination of the American Government and people, and persuade them to accept the inevitable sacrifice of some civilian production.”…
“I suspected that this energetic nation was able to create new capacity: all it needed was the stimulus of a major challenge”…
“/…/[W]e had to set targets, based this time not on available resources but on needs, conceived in the broadest terms and on scale big enough to overwhelm the enemy/…/There [in the US], no one is ever afraid to think out what is needed before asking whether it be possible: what is needed must be possible, by definition. /…/ I had listed the following priorities: 1) Decide the scale of armaments needed; 2) Decide what form they must take; 3) Then, only then, work out how to produce them.”…
“The first step was to calculate the deficit/…/So we drew the balance-sheet ourselves , and presented it in the starkest terms, knowing that the American Administration needed a shock and that Roosevelt was only waiting to be spurred by big demands.”…
“Rarely has a balance-sheet come at so opportune a moment or been so effective as a revelation and a spur to action. When it was realized, that America was producing fewer arms than Britain and Canada, that she would not catch up with them until the end of 1942, and her weak points were in heavy bombers and tanks, the disappointment was very deep.”…
“Events were to show that this philosophy, which concentrates on what is necessary, is more realistic than one that takes account only of what is possible.”…
Britain had no money to pay. Money cannot become an obstacle for Victory
“But we had decided to turn on its head the argument advanced by the financial experts, who wanted needs to be adjusted to match resources. When the needs in question amounted to the survival of the free world, the argument was absurd. When so much is at stake, resources can always somehow be found. What mattered was to demonstrate our firm resolve and to fire men’s imagination with the magnitude of our requests. “…
Monnet: “I was delighted to hear him [Roosevelt] condemn out of hand taboos that I had been attacking for years: “In all history, no major war has been lost through lack of money…What I am trying to do is eliminate the dollar sign”…
“Roosevelt was deeply impressed [by W.Churchill’s letter]/…/ The question was not so much technical as one of psychological presentation: how to make acceptable to Congress and to American public opinion his firm decision to give Britain all possible aid without asking anything in return? The solution he came to was Lend Lease”…
“The first great obstacle was gone: the verbal problem had been solved. /…/ But when the words were the public expression of a President’s determination, they amounted to an international pledge, and they brought action in their train. Roosevelt used the magic of words with great skill.”…
The same problems how to get information – secrecy of militaries
“How to persuade the military authorities to answer our voluminous questionnaires, when the smallest item was top secret – that was our own secret/…/. It is so simple that most people overlook it: the trick is to ask the right questions, and to seek out the good will that can always be found somewhere”.
United States – Arsenal of Democracy
“The United States’ I said one evening to a group of friends, ‘must become a great arsenal, the arsenal of democracy’.”…
Quoted from: Jean Monnet. Memoirs. Third Millenium, 2015.
Picture: Jean Monnet. By Anonymous (Keystone France) – [1], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=95836352
