For years, U.S. presidents, defense secretaries and national security officials have been telling their counterparts on the other side of the Atlantic that Europe must step up its commitments and action on European security and defense. While European national defense budgets have significantly increased since Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, recent remarks by former U.S. President Donald Trump—who claimed the U.S. would not come to the defense of a NATO ally that is not meeting the alliance’s spending targets should he return to the White House—seem to have served as a wake-up call, reinvigorating the debate over Europe’s ability to defend itself.
A second Trump term, with the questions it would raise about the U.S. security guarantee for Europe, would be a worst-case scenario for Europeans, and awareness is now growing that this scenario has to be taken seriously. But beyond Trump himself and the reluctance of the Trumpist wing of the Republican Party to greenlight further military aid to Ukraine, Washington’s strategic priorities are shifting to competition with China as a primary concern. Regardless of whether Trump returns as president, this prioritization will have concrete implications for European security. After having relied for decades on U.S. support while collectively free-riding on U.S. capabilities, Europeans will have to shoulder a much more significant burden in European security themselves in the foreseeable future.
Immediate Needs: Providing Support to Ukraine
The most pressing security challenge for Europe is undoubtedly Russia’s war against Ukraine and the direct threat to European states stemming from it. The Ukrainian military suffers from shortages of weapons and ammunition and the resulting asymmetries on the battlefield; already in December, Russia was estimated to have four to five times as much artillery as Ukraine, compared to both sides being almost on par just a few months ago. As Ukraine needs these capabilities urgently, the only way Europeans will be able to provide the necessary support quickly enough will be to draw on existing stocks or reallocate orders made with European defense contractors in the upcoming months.
That said, a more systematic approach to arms exports could allow Europeans to ramp up their support for Ukraine. Today, 40 percent of all European Union arms exports go to countries other than Ukraine, meaning that a lot of capacity exists in the member states which could be used to support Kyiv. Yet, there is a lot of money at stake for the European defense industry, and the decisions about arms exports are political—and in the hands of national governments. It will take political will from the member states hosting the defense industries, as well as financial incentives and political guarantees for the industry, to redirect those exports, especially as they are often part of bilateral deals with non-European states. However, EU governments could conceivably renegotiate the terms of those deals, for example to delay delivery, as suggested by the EU’s high representative for foreign and security policy, Josep Borrell, in early February. To compensate for the financial losses, a reform of the EU’s Peace Facility, which reimburses governments when they supply weapons to Ukraine, could offer a possible fix. Indeed, in the future, the Peace Facility could be repurposed from reimbursing to directly funding arms contracts.
Europeans must also learn from the failure of the EU’s Act in Support of Ammunition Production, or ASAP,to achieve its objective of delivering 1 million artillery shells to Ukraine by March. Doing so will mean better aligning political objectives and defense industry capabilities. The EU’s Defense Industrial Strategy, to be published in late February, is supposed to pave the way to a more coordinated European approach. More recently, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also invoked the possibility of using the EU budget to boost the defense industry and European production, similar to the EU’s joint acquisition of COVID-19 vaccines and gas. But without adequately ensuring that production can achieve the intended policy ends, and political and financial guarantees for the industry that their production will be bought by governments, Europe’s defense industrial efforts are likely to continue coming up short.
European Nuclear Deterrence: Not a Theoretical Debate Anymore
A debate that is particularly challenging for Europeans with regard to their own security regards nuclear deterrence. With more than 5,000 nuclear warheads, the U.S. nuclear arsenal constitutes a much stronger deterrent than that of France or the U.K., with 290 and 225 nuclear warheads respectively. Yet, for deterrence to be effective, a state must credibly affirm that it will use its capabilities if an aggressor steps over a red line. So the credibility of U.S. deterrence for Europe would suffer significantly in the event of a second Trump presidency.
While it would be delusional for Europeans to seek to replace the U.S. nuclear umbrella, it is only prudent to begin reflecting on the potential contribution the European nuclear powers, namely France and the U.K., can make to deterrence on the continent. These reflections would imply a shift in the logic of deterrence, from the massive reprisals of Mutually Assured Destruction to tactical strikes on critical targets. A form of European nuclear sharing—whereby French and British warheads would be stationed in other European countries, as is currently the case with U.S. warheads in six NATO countries—seems unrealistic for now, due to the lack of political will among the two European nuclear powers and their European allies. But a structured strategic dialogue about European nuclear deterrence would be a potential step toward confidence-building among Europeans on this matter.
Toward Co-Leadership and a Stronger EU
Most importantly, the necessary steps to strengthen European defense in both the short and long term require political will and leadership. The EU’s Common Security and Defense Policy, or CSDP, is an intergovernmental policy field, meaning that all decisions are taken by member states unanimously in the European Council. And decisions on national strategy and capabilities are generally taken on the national level. As a result, national capitals play a critical role in shaping strategy and action for European defense.
Due to their permanent membership in the United Nations Security Council, and as the only nuclear and most capable conventional powers in Europe, the U.K. and France can play a critical role in this regard. With regard to European support to Ukraine, the U.K. has played a “vanguard role” among Europeans. It equipped and trained the Ukrainian military earlier than others, was the first European country to sign a bilateral security agreement with Kyiv and provides Ukraine with the most sophisticated weapon systems. Nevertheless, even though London’s defense ties with EU member states have suffered less as a result of Brexit than other policy areas—not least due to the U.K.’s intense engagement in coalitions like the Joint Expeditionary Force—its withdrawal from the EU’s structures and mechanisms still constitutes a major impediment for potential leadership.
The opposite is true of Paris. While heavily invested in the EU’s structures and arguably the most influential power in shaping EU defense over the past years, France’s credibility suffered significantly from President Emmanuel Macron’s repeated attempts at dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine. That has been exacerbated by the French decision not to publicly share details about the weapons it sends to Kyiv.
Most importantly, the necessary steps to strengthen European defense in both the short and long term require political will and leadership.
As for Germany, besides the fact that it has traditionally not been a leader on European defense, its ability to adopt such a role now is even more unlikely due to the reputational damage incurred by Berlin’s slow decision-making and hesitation on the supply of heavy weapons to Ukraine.
With the change in government in Poland after its recent elections, however, there is a significant potential for Warsaw to play not only a constructive, but even a leading role in European security and defense. With a declared pro-European agenda and an excellent network of contacts in Brussels, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk is well-positioned to leverage Poland’s weight in shaping European security, not least because of its massively modernizing military. In particular, a format of co-leadership among the major European powers—either through the recently revived Weimar Triangle format comprising Poland, France and Germany, or through a Weimar plus U.K. configuration—could allow Europeans to move ahead by geographically rebalancing influence in European security and defense.
At the same time, the European Commission has played a bigger security role in the past few years, and that role can be expected to continue growing in the future—not least because strengthening European defense will require a lot of money, and EU mechanisms like the European Defense Fund and the European Peace Facility can provide it. The commission’s proposals for joint procurement and acquisition show that Brussels’ coordination and agenda-setting power should not be underestimated. In particular, aspects of defense industrial policy and strengthening resilience fall into policy areas where the commission has the right to initiate EU legislation for the European Council and Parliament to decide on jointly.
Leveling up European security and defense is not mission impossible, but will take political will and leadership, both for addressing the pressing short-term needs and for long-term structural changes. Given that Europe is running out of time in the face of the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine and the uncertainties around the U.S. elections, those efforts should get underway immediately.
Gesine Weber is a visiting researcher at the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute for War and Peace Studies at Columbia University and a doctoral candidate at the Defence Studies Department of King’s College London. Her work focuses on European security and defense and the EU’s role as a geopolitical actor.