President Emmanuel Macron of France has persistently called for Europe to act decisively to defend itself and its own interests in a world where Russia is on the march, China is economically aggressive and the United States is turning away.
Mr. Macron first talked of the need for European strategic “autonomy” in 2017. In the last year, with trans-Atlantic relations spinning downward, Europeans seem to have heard the message: They need to do more and spend more in their own defense.
But there is a built-in political problem. Germany is already spending much more money than its European partners, according to military spending trackers, like that of the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based research organization. After years of aversion to war because of its history and a hope that the collapse of the Soviet Union would bring about a more peaceful world, the German military had shrunk badly.
