Photo: FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images
With the return of Donald Trump and a war raging in Europe, Europeans are on edge.
President Trump’s antipathy toward NATO and the appointment of “prioritizers,” such as Elbridge Colby and Alex Velez Green, to the Pentagon’s policy office, will likely mean a dramatic change is coming in NATO and European security. They have argued that the United States military is overstretched and must prioritize the China threat, meaning the United States should shift military assets and spending from Europe to Asia. A major reduction in U.S. forces in Europe is likely. The responsibility for European security will increasingly be Europe’s.
But Europe is presently at a loss for what to do. Speeches and meetings abound along with ad nauseam calls for additional funding. However, the calls for the deep structural changes needed for Europe to truly take charge of its security are missing. The United States has been so foundational to European security that Europe lacks direction without the United States pointing the way.
Incoming Trump officials may think a shock to the European defense system is what Europe needs to get their “act together.” It might be. Europe is already spending more. But European defense is so utterly dependent on the United States (which was by design) that an abrupt and uncoordinated shift could also just leave Europe dangerously exposed. There is no guarantee that Europe will make the necessary deep structural changes.
What both Europeans and the Trump administration need to understand is that there is no way Europe can just spend its way out of dependence on the United States. If the goal of the Trump administration is for Europe to largely replace the U.S. military in Europe, that will not be achieved by Europe’s many militaries getting a tad bit stronger with each spending a bit more. Instead, such a dramatic transformation also requires a dramatic political, cultural, and organizational transformation in how Europe approaches defense.
Instead of just cutting Europe loose, the Trump administration should lay out a detailed and structured plan for transitioning the responsibility of European security to Europeans. This should then be the major focus of the NATO summit in The Hague this summer.
Europe, presently, is not structured to fight as Europe, for Europe. This is as much a bureaucratic problem as it is a spending problem. In the aggregate, Europeans spend enough to deter Russia. But European defense spending is inefficient across more than 25 bespoke militaries, all with their own military defense industrial complexes, all buying different equipment, and focused principally on their own parochial national defense instead of on Europe’s. NATO provides some structure to the madness but does so premised on the United States serving as the backbone and vital organs, with Europe’s small bonsai militaries serving as the appendages.
Thus, for Europe to take responsibility for its own security would entail deep organizational, bureaucratic, corporate, cultural, and fiscal changes. It would require breaking and integrating the national defense industrial complexes, integrating much of the defense planning and procurement, and utilizing the fiscal, regulatory, and organizational capacities of the European Union.
While European publics overwhelmingly support “Europeanizing” defense and bold reforms, there are deeply entrenched interests standing in the way. Officials across Europe, from NATO headquarters to national ministries of defense to prime ministers’ offices to corporate headquarters of defense companies, are resistant to change, and many are deeply vested in the status quo. It is much easier to talk about funding than what it would take to build a true “European Pillar” of NATO.
The process of building a European Pillar should have begun under President Biden, given the ongoing U.S. focus on China. But the Biden administration chose to chart a familiar course. Instead of seeking to transform the alliance, it sought to restore the alliance. President Biden insisted that “America was back,” and his administration continuously reaffirmed the United States’ supposed “rock-solid” commitment to the alliance. As such, it failed to press for transformative change, effectively ensuring Europe’s continued dependence.
The Biden administration would challenge that contention. They, of course, called on the Europeans to spend and contribute more, which they now are. NATO is far stronger now than four years ago, with two new members, new regional plans, and new spending commitments. But ultimately, the administration also deliberately sought to preserve the United States’ role as the indispensable security provider to Europe. NATO was to remain as it was, a firmly U.S.-led alliance. There are of course sound strategic reasons for taking that approach. The United States has more influence in Europe than in any other region in the world. The alliance has unified Europe, enabled European economic integration, and provided the United States with a ready-made coalition of backers that will follow us into far-away wars and take the United States’ side on geopolitical issues, such as export controls against China.
But the problem with the Biden administration’s assurances is that they created a sense of complacency, leaving Europe badly unprepared if the United States steps back from Europe. When Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives in 2022 and were clearly divided in their support for Ukraine assistance, the administration offered reassurance that aid would pass and never pushed Europe to create its own “European supplemental” for Ukraine in 2023 or 2024. When the European Union’s European Council debated an Estonian proposal to borrow hundreds of billions of euros for defense last June, just as it did in response to Covid-19, the Biden administration said nothing, as the president’s close ally and confident, Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, blocked its passage. As a result, Europe’s defense industry has not adequately ramped up, its aid to Ukraine (while extensive) lacks the coherence of U.S. assistance, and Europe remains unable to replace U.S. aid to Ukraine if the Trump administration stops its support.
At the Washington summit last summer, the Administration had an opportunity to chart a new course for the alliance that would have focused on Europeanizing European defense. They did not. And now Europe finds itself in a new world, unprepared. As NATO adopted new plans, those plans remained as dependent as ever on the United States. Little emphasis or urgency has been placed on building redundant European capacity.
In the end, this is Europe’s fault. But the Biden administration was reluctant to see European defense transformed in part because that would inevitably mean a loss of U.S. influence.
The transition to European responsibility for European security should ideally take place gradually and over decades. The capabilities and capacities needed to effectively replace the United States are extensive and cannot be generated in the short term. As such, the nightmare scenario for the alliance is that instead of an orderly transition, there is a shock and awe abrupt shift, either due to geopolitical circumstances or a sudden decision from the new president. That could essentially leave Europe militarily broken and prompt some countries to hedge toward Russia and China or prompt others to take more drastic and panicked steps, such as eying nuclear weapons.
To avoid chaos, Trump administration officials should create a detailed plan and should put Europe on a timetable to get its act together. Europe has some time. Russia’s military has been ground down in Ukraine and will likely remain focused in Ukraine in the near term. Yet Europe cannot procrastinate any longer. Russia’s shift to a wartime economy and its ramp-up of defense industrial production means Russian reconstitution could happen within five years. This should create an extreme sense of urgency for Europe to take aggressive action and reforms now to match Russia’s reconstitution.
The Trump administration should convey to Europe the specific capabilities that could be shifted to Asia, such as air defense, air enablers, and naval vessels. It should then work with Europe on creating a timeline for Europe to replace these capabilities. This timeline can be aggressive. But it should not be negligent, leaving unfillable gaps or gaping holes so big that it makes European defense inoperable. This will also provide some clarity to Europeans who are still clinging to hopes that nothing will change.
For instance, should the Trump administration decide to cut funding for the U.S. Army or the U.S. European Command, it should do so by working with NATO on outlining a plan for how Europe can invest to backfill those capabilities in the short, medium, and long term. The pullback of U.S. ground forces could prompt European countries, individually or collectively to form replacement brigades. When Europeans were cutting spending last decade, European countries often combined forces to save costs and salvage capacity. After the Dutch decided to retire its tank forces in 2011, the Dutch formed a joint tank battalion with Germany. Something similar could be done in scaling up, possibly with smaller countries docking into larger countries, spreading the costs and accelerating timelines. This does not mean forming a European army but Europeanizing Europe’s armies, with forces increasingly operating the same kit and having common capabilities.
The Trump administration should also demand that the European Union finally step up as a major funder of European defense efforts, as it did in response to Covid-19. Should the United States pull out key enabling capabilities, such as air tankers, the European Union could borrow funding to help finance the acquisition of additional planes as Europe already has a collective mechanism to pool and share these assets. Trump may not be fond of the European Union but the idea that Europe will effectively integrate its defense efforts without the historic driver of European integration is almost impossible to imagine. European nations will squirm, and their government officials and defense industries will want to maintain their fiefdoms and resist ceding influence on Brussels. Yet while European officials are loath to lose power to Brussels, whether at NATO or in national capitals, the European publics overwhelmingly support the Europeanization of European defense. To 80 percent of Europeans, it’s obvious that more EU-level defense cooperation is needed.
The Trump administration can help break this European bureaucratic log jam, not by dictating what precise role the European Union plays on defense. But simply putting the same pressure on the European Union as it does Europe’s member states. They should spend more on defense; it should break up and integrate national defense industrial complexes, and harmonize regulations as well as reduce barriers to production.
Another bureaucratic barrier the Trump administration can break through is getting NATO and the European Union to work in an integrated manner. For that to happen, the administration should pressure Turkey to stop blocking NATO-EU cooperation. It should also want the United Kingdom to lead on European defense. Despite being supportive of Brexit, Trump should push the United Kingdom and European Union to come to terms on defense, as the new Labour government has set out to do.
If the Trump administration does not want a stronger European Union, then it should stay engaged in NATO and not reduce its force presence in Europe. Since that appears unlikely, the Trump administration just needs to accept that the cost of pulling back is potentially a much stronger European Union. And instead of fighting it, encourage it. A European Union that is involved in defense will also be a better partner and will be taken more seriously by China and others, making Europe a better partner.
With a war raging in Europe, a reduction of U.S. forces in Europe will be seen as a knife in the back of NATO. However, such a shift, if done in a transparent and coordinated way could serve to revolutionize and transform European security, making Europeans stronger and better allies. But this will require Trump administration officials to stay engaged, press Europeans to make hard decisions, and be clear-eyed about what is achievable.
Max Bergmann is director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program and Stuart Center in Euro-Atlantic and Northern European Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
