Editor's note: Bradley Blankenship is a Prague-based American journalist, political analyst and freelance reporter. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

French President Emmanuel Macron told journalists aboard his presidential plane on December 21 that Europe needs to take a more proactive role within the framework of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to maintain its own security and rely less on the United States. This has been met with some skepticism across the Atlantic, with some commentators seeing it as a betrayal of the Transatlantic relationship – but Macron's words are borne out of material necessity. 

For starters, Macron has been calling for Europe's "strategic autonomy" for quite some time and has been a staunch critic of the current Transatlantic status quo under the NATO umbrella. This was first and foremost in response to the rocky relationship between the two sides that were forged during the years of former U.S. President Donald Trump, where relations between Washington and Europe sunk to a new low. 

That was mainly because Trump pursued an "America First" strategy that America's European allies felt left them out in the cold, so to speak. Trump came into office immediately making demands for European countries, namely that they up their national defense spending and stop relying on security aid from Washington. Inevitably, the aggressivity of this policy – and the fact that it seemed to downplay the importance of Europe's alignment with Washington in the latter's overall global influence – was deeply insulting to European leaders.

But things have not seemed to change, which has resulted in Paris taking an even more proactive approach in strategic autonomy. The two most salient examples of this were the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and the cloak-and-dagger AUKUS security pact, both of which happened under current U.S. President Joe Biden. Paris used these events, particularly the latter, to push for a common European defense framework that it says would complement NATO – however, it had hitherto been firmly resisted by Washington. It was only after the AUKUS "scandal" broke that the Biden administration buckled.

And that essentially leads to where we are now. There is, first of all, no indication from Washington that the Republican Party and even Donald Trump himself will not control the country's foreign policy in four years, meaning even more frays in the Transatlantic relationship emanating from Washington. And, at the same time, there's also no indication that Democratic Party control of the White House even means a turn away from "America First" diplomacy considering the above actions by the Biden administration. 

It's also not only just confined to the realm of security, considering policies by Biden and Democrats, namely the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and efforts to contain China's high-tech sector, would and are already dealing heavy blows to the European economy. That's why Macron also mentioned greater autonomy on things like technology since it's clear that Europe needs to craft policy that keeps its own industries in mind lest the U.S. continues to take actions that hurt them. 

In this way, Macron's words and Paris' overall push for greater European strategic autonomy is in line with material necessity and is not some random knee-jerk reaction. We can surmise that European politicians most probably wanted to maintain the pre-Trump Transatlantic status quo, but a growing protectionist, "America First" sentiment spanning both major U.S. political parties changed the strategic calculus for Europeans to the point that this is no longer tenable. 

For instance, President Biden has made public statements since coming into office, saying that the U.S. is promoting its own industries to be more competitive, which appears at first glance to be directed squarely at China. Anyone remotely familiar with the two countries' ongoing trade spats probably feels that way. But these statements, in practice, are actually netting policies that mean heightened economic competition even among American allies – be that in the Asia-Pacific or Europe. That's why allies have been vocal about how Biden's economic legislation is impacting their economies and are coming to their senses that, indeed, competition also applies to them. 

The economic situation in Europe, however, is particularly dire. The ongoing energy crisis is threatening the bulk of European industry, putting at risk countless jobs and entire swaths of the continent's economy. European leaders have to do what they must to ensure the EU's global competitiveness and domestic prosperity, taking into account Washington's now-perennial "America First" way of thinking. This naturally means a more self-reliant European strategic framework, which obviously applies to the most important spheres like security and technology. 

Macron once famously remarked during the Trump administration that NATO is braindead. Well, for Europeans, developing a more self-reliant security architecture doesn't require a brain. It's what we would call a no-brainer. 

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