Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv’s pressing problems on the battlefield and President Donald Trump’s brazen unpredictability have done what no other combination has done before: shocked Europe out of its peace dividend slumber. An increasing number of European leaders are now asking themselves whether the Continent can afford to do business like it did in the three decades since the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. As French President Emmanuel Macron observed with trademark dramatic flair weeks ago, “It’s quarter to the midnight.”
There is an emerging acknowledgment among Europeans that they’ve been sitting on their behinds for too long assuming the U.S. will be perfectly willing to keep the barbarians from breaching the walls. Americans have tried to disabuse them of this notion for decades — in 2011, then-U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned NATO allies that it would be difficult to maintain U.S. support for the alliance if the burden continued to fall on America’s shoulders. But the Europeans didn’t really take the issue seriously until a revanchist Russian leader by the name of Vladimir Putin brought war back to the region.
So it’s only fair to ask: Is Europe casting old assumptions aside and stepping up to the plate? The answer is muddled.
On the positive side of the ledger, European policymakers are moving at a relatively fast pace, which is quite impressive given the typically slow churning of Europe’s arcane bureaucracy. Germany, a country that traditionally favors social spending over national defense and is almost immovable out of its comfort zone, now resembles a country in a hurry. Last week, incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz, working with the very political party he defeated in February elections, managed to change Germany’s constitution to loosen the country’s debt break, which constrains discretionary spending. The next German government will now be able to increase its defense budget and rebuild the dilapidated Bundeswehr without having to worry about strict deficit laws.
The European Union is doing something similar. Last week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen laid out a series of new initiatives to bolster the Continent’s military capability. A big part of this involves joint purchasing, allowing the EU bureaucracy to negotiate weapons contracts on behalf of its members in order to get the best price and minimize duplication. But by far the most innovative is a provision exempting defense spending up to 1.5% of gross domestic product from the EU’s strict fiscal rules. If taken advantage of, this could add an additional 650 billion euros to the EU’s total defense spending.
But it’s not all good news. For starters, there is still some division on Ukraine. Europe generally speaking is on Ukraine’s side, wants a settlement to the war to be as close to Kyiv’s preferences as possible and isn’t wiling to explore a detente with Moscow until the war is over. But not all European countries are singing from the same song sheet. Disagreements persist on how much support Ukraine should receive. This was illustrated during an EU summit last week, when the bloc’s foreign affairs chief was unable to get consensus on a 40 billion-euro military aid package to replenish the Ukrainian army’s stockpile of artillery ammunition. A slimmed down version of the same proposal was tabled for another day. At the end of the meeting, EU officials walked away with nothing to show for their efforts.
Although this is no doubt discouraging to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, it’s not surprising. Indeed, just because countries have a similar understanding of a problem doesn’t necessarily mean they will have a similar set of beliefs on what to do about it. Different European states also have different interests and opinions about what is most pressing or important. Those such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which hug the long Russian border and were once subject to Soviet Union rule, view the Russian threat as the most immediate. Italy and Spain, however, don’t share this history and are much farther away geographically, which means their perception of Moscow as a threat is less acute. Even in Germany, the second biggest supplier of military aid to Ukraine, the war is just one concern among many. Immigration and the economy, for instance, were the leading issues for German voters during the last elections.
There is also a limit to what Europe is willing to do without Uncle Sam looking over its shoulder.
Working with Macron, United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer has spent the last several weeks cobbling together a “coalition of the willing” to increase the odds of any peace deal with Russia holding. According to the plan, thousands of European troops would be placed near critical infrastructure sites in Ukraine, accompanied by air and sea assets, to defend these areas and potentially respond if Putin violates any deal. Starmer is prepared to host a meeting of European military chiefs this week to dive deeper into the operational details of the plan, up to and including which European country will contribute forces, who will command the mission and where air support will be based.
The problem, however, is that Starmer has repeatedly emphasized that his brainchild will only work if the mighty U.S. is backing up the European reassurance force. The British have made the argument that unless Washington is part of the mission, Putin simply won’t take it seriously and may press his luck with another invasion of Ukraine in the future. The Trump administration isn’t sympathetic to the pitch. Others, such as Germany and Italy, are either lukewarm to the concept entirely or don’t envision participating unless Washington is involved.
Yes, Europe is changing. But old habits die hard.
Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune.
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