Before heading for a special London summit earlier this year, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk noted “a paradox” involving the continent’s security relationship with America: “500 million Europeans [are asking] 300 million Americans to protect them from 140 million Russians.” His numbers were slightly off—it’s more like 600 million Europeans and 340 million Americans—but his conclusion, that Europe “must take greater responsibility for the continent’s security,” was sound.
The time is well past for burden-sharing, however. It is time for burden-shifting.
NATO was created 76 years ago. Yet the Europeans remain seemingly haplessly and helplessly dependent on the US for their defense. Of course, that was not Washington’s original plan. Multiple officials affirmed that the alliance was to provide a temporary shield behind which Europe could recover. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the first NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe before serving two terms as president, explained in 1951: “If in ten years, all American troops stationed in Europe for national defense purposes have not been returned to the United States, then this whole project will have failed.”
President Donald Trump was not the first US official to subsequently question why Americans were still expected to babysit a potential continental colossus. In his famous 2011 valedictory address Defense Secretary Robert Gates observed: “The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the US Congress—and in the American body politic writ large—to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense. Nations apparently willing and eager for American taxpayers to assume the growing security burden left by reductions in European defense budgets.” The continental response was nothing, not even the pretense of doing more. Europeans continued to treat Washington’s military guarantee as a birthright entitlement, which “allowed European governments to spend a certain amount on butter that might otherwise have gone on guns,” observed Financial Times columnist Janan Ganesh.
It is obvious that Europeans will never defend themselves unless they have to defend themselves—which means when Americans stop defending them. This is certainly evident from Donald Trump’s experience. Nearly a decade after he began hectoring NATO countries about their contributions, and even longer after Russia’s seizure of Crimea and intervention in the Donbass, Europe remains far short of defense self-sufficiency. According to a recent study from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, “The gaps in military hardware and software are considerable, and the IISS estimates that replacing key elements of the US conventional military capabilities assumed to be assigned to the Euro-Atlantic theatre could cost approximately USD1 trillion.” Such contingencies can be remedied, but where will the money come from? Warned the IISS experts: “European NATO members took just over ten years to increase spending from an average of 1.4% to 2.1% of GDP, so the new commitment will require even greater uplifts and difficult policy choices, raising doubts as to whether it is achievable for all allies.”
In his first term, Trump was effectively neutralized. At the 2018 Brussels NATO summit, averred Stoltenberg, “he was really afraid that President Trump would leave” and “that NATO would stop functioning that day.” In response, Stoltenberg turned to flattery: “I was quite deliberate on the wording I used: that the message from the president is having an impact.” Similar is how Mark Rutte, Stoltenberg’s successor, has handled Trump’s second term, even referring to the latter as “Daddy.” Politico described “Rutte’s broader approach to the president, leaning heavily into public and private flattery.”
Individual European leaders have helped by acting as imperial vassals of Trump. For instance, in September, the British government hosted its second state visit for the president, apparently pleasing him greatly. An embarrassed Ganesh endorsed the ostentatious humiliation: “The reason for courting Trump isn’t (just) to puff up Britain on the world stage or to secure AI investments. It is to keep him engaged in Ukrainian and European security. Just be glad that he does respond to flattery and obeisance. Imagine if he didn’t.”
An American-dominated NATO made sense when it was established in 1949. The transatlantic alliance, however, was always supposed to be about security, not charity.
In fact, this tactic has proved to be a great success. Although Poland and the Baltic states have chosen to greatly hike their outlays, few other European governments share their commitment. In June, a disunited alliance adopted a new guideline committing members to spend five percent of GDP on their defense. Members will be allowed, however, to count as 1.5 percent of “military expenditures” civilian projects, dubiously said to serve military ends, perhaps including Italy’s long-proposed bridge to Sicily. Even so, Europeans emphasized the many challenges to meeting the standard, while Spain brazenly rejected the new requirement. The formal mandate doesn’t take effect until 2035, six years after Trump leaves office, allowing the allies to revise the requirement once there is a new occupant of the White House. As for Europeans worried about the administration’s ongoing global posture review and rumors of troop redeployments to Asia, The Times offered reassurance: “Several sources briefed on the matter said Washington had signaled through back channels that the cuts in the Colby review would be nothing like so drastic as previously feared.”
Oddly, the president appears to be encouraging this sustained subterfuge. Far from insisting that the Europeans take over their own defense, he appears to be using America’s defense dominance to force continental concessions on economics. Apparently, many of the Europeans have decided this is a good deal if they can avoid bearing the costs and risks of defending themselves. Explained Ganesh: “How, if not through a smaller welfare state, is a better-armed continent to be funded?” Better to pay off Washington than make politically painful social welfare cuts!
In its recent trade negotiation with Washington, Europe’s Eurocratic elite essentially did the full monte. Observed Carnegie Europe’s Stefan Lehne: “Faced with the double threat of a trade war and of the United States abandoning Ukraine, European leaders decided to bow to the wishes of the Trump administration. But this pragmatism came at a high price. They accepted a deeply unequal trade deal, betraying their commitment to WTO rules. They made promises on military expenditures and on investments in the United States that will be almost impossible to keep. They showered Donald Trump with praise and flattery, which will hurt their image back home and probably also their self-esteem.” European Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič admitted the obvious: “It’s not only about … trade: It’s about security, it is about Ukraine, it is about current geopolitical volatility.” Ganesh wrote more concisely and crudely that Europe must sacrifice the “ultimately not existential matter of trade” and “assume the position.”
For Europe, including nations once ruled by avid nationalists such as Otto von Bismarck, Winston Churchill, and Charles de Gaulle, submission and humiliation are now preferred to sacrificing cash and risking blood. There are some dissenting voices. Federica Mangiameli of the international think tank GLOBSEC complained that “what’s unfolding is not pragmatism, but appeasement.” European governments, however, appear to believe that paying America tribute is the most effective way to force increasingly reluctant publics to underwrite their defense. After all, a Pew Research Center survey found that most Europeans did not support fighting on their neighbors’ behalf, even as they expected Americans to go to war on their behalf.
The continent’s capitulation, with Americans continuing to pay so Europeans don’t have to, is not to America’s advantage. The United States would be better off with competent, committed allies capable of defending themselves than whiny cheapskates desperate to stay on the Yankee defense dole. Then Washington and Brussels could cooperate as equals on issues of common concern, without Americans being dragged into conflicts—think Yugoslavia, Libya, or Ukraine—of minimal security interest to the United States. Europeans could defend themselves. They will never do so, it seems, unless left with no choice but to do so.
With neither the Trump administration nor the Europeans currently serious about transferring defense responsibility, it is especially important not to further expand the alliance. Every new member is a military burden, not an asset, for the United States. Washington has always provided the practical combat power necessary to defend NATO members. At least recent additions Montenegro and North Macedonia, while irrelevant to American security, are unlikely military targets. Ukraine would bring war into NATO. The burden of protecting Kyiv, with nuclear weapons if necessary, would fall almost entirely on Washington. If it wasn’t in America’s interest to defend Ukraine before the Russian invasion or intervene after the Russian invasion, it won’t be in America’s interest to defend Ukraine when the invasion ends. Washington’s principal responsibility is to protect the American people, not the rest of the world, no matter how warm the former’s feelings toward the latter.
An American-dominated NATO made sense when it was established in 1949. The transatlantic alliance, however, was always supposed to be about security, not charity. The justification for a US-dominated transatlantic alliance expired decades ago. If Europeans fear aggression by Russia, they should spend the money, raise the manpower, and provide the materiel necessary for its defense. The United States shouldn’t expect the transformation to be immediate, but should insist that the transformation be certain. The time for treating the continent as a helpless child is long past.