There was a familiar sinking feeling across Europe when Donald Trump lobbed his latest grenade at NATO.
Speaking at a campaign rally, the former US president said that when in office he’d told a European leader that he’d let Russia do “whatever the hell they want” to alliance members that didn’t meet their defense-spending pledges.
NATO has long been a Trump target, but this was a statement calculated to outrage further, calling into question the alliance’s central tenet that all will come to the aid of one if it’s attacked, and the commitment of its strongest member, the US.
The timing was doubly offensive, coming as Republicans stall President Joe Biden’s package to help Ukraine defend against Vladimir Putin’s aggression.
Even putting aside the veracity of his assertion, European leaders might take solace in the reality that the NATO of today is a different beast to the alliance of 2016, when Trump won the presidency.
Defense budgets across Europe and Canada have gone up for nine consecutive years, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said in November.
While it’s true that some of the impetus can be attributed to Trump’s hectoring, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and warnings that the Baltics could be next have cemented the shift.
Take Germany, the continent’s dominant economic power whose military capabilities were neglected after the Cold War — it’s on course to exceed NATO targets this year. That includes €35 billion ($38 billion) on armaments, more than Italy’s entire defense budget last year.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz is today opening a Rheinmetall munitions plant that will go some way to supplying Europe’s needs.
Many charge that’s still not enough. Other European nations still fall short.
Yet as Stoltenberg said, these are often unpopular decisions, and Europe is stepping up.
Whether or not Trump returns to the presidency, Europe knows it has no choice but to do more to defend itself in future. — Alan Crawford