Europe once dominated the world. Even nominally democratic, Christian states ruled brutally to enforce their rule over distant lands and peoples. Today the roles have flipped. The grand European powers, or Old Europe, as some dismissively call them, are now little more than decrepit satrapies of the U.S., submissively accepting Washington’s political direction and economic demands.
At least the grandest states remain proficient in one area: pageantry. None is better than the United Kingdom, for thousands of years adorned with a (now superannuated) monarchy featuring descendants of the last bandit gang to win control of the nation. Despite aggrieved critics, the Labour Party government last week lavished attention on President Donald Trump, which he enthusiastically consumed as his due. Critics debated whether the trip generated enough benefits to justify such shameless sycophancy.
In contrast is the European Union, located in Brussels, its imperialistic bureaucracy filling sterile office buildings rather than grandiose palaces. Supposedly created to represent Europeans’ collective interest, the EU simply surrendered to the Trump administration, accepting his destructive trade agenda. This obviously was not in the interests of Europeans. Nor, frankly, of the American people, who are the chief victims in Trump’s tariff war. European politicians and Republican congressmen are equally cowed, unwilling to defend the rule of law or benefits of a free economy.
Europe once spawned great if controversial leaders—think Thatcher and Churchill, Clemenceau and De Gaulle, Adenauer and Bismarck. Why has the continent today elevated spineless mediocrities like Starmer, Macron, and Merz, along with the EU’s von der Leyen, to chart its destiny? Especially in the face of an aggressive Washington, today at best a frenemy, determined to aggressively extort economic favors and other benefits.
In contrast, European NATO members spent the entire Cold War refusing to make good on promises to spend and invest more on their defense. Typical was the continent’s response to Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ 2011 valedictory address, in which he warned: “Future U.S. political leaders—those for whom the Cold War was not the formative experience that it was for me—may not consider the return on America’s investment in NATO worth the cost.” Nothing. Nada. Not even the pretense of preparing to take over more responsibility for their own defense. They had simply come to view America’s military as a sacred defense entitlement, which “allowed European governments to spend a certain amount on butter that might otherwise have gone on guns,” explained Financial Times columnist Janan Ganesh.
Military outlays by NATO’s European members plus Canada fell 3 percent in 2009, 2.1 percent in 2010, 2.4 percent in 2011, another 2.4 percent in 2012, 1.6 percent in 2013, and 1.0 percent in 2014. It was Russia’s aggressive response to U.S. and European support for the 2014 street putsch against Ukraine’s corrupt but democratically elected president, not years of feckless American whining, that finally sparked a modest turnaround in European military outlays—a 1.9 percent increase in 2015 and more in subsequent years. Nevertheless, in 2022, when Moscow invaded Ukraine, only six European nations met the two percent defense spending guideline issued in 2014—three of them barely, while Greece directed most of its efforts against Turkey, not Russia. Months afterwards, Nathalie Tocci of the Istituto Affari Internazionali observed with vast understatement: “in light of the dramatic deterioration of the Continent’s security environment, these recent defense efforts remain underwhelming.”
Since then, fear of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump has driven more countries to up outlays, but still only reluctantly. Under pressure from Washington, the disunited transatlantic alliance recently agreed to a new guideline of 5 percent, but practical barriers to rearmament remain substantial and the requirement doesn’t take effect until 2035, long after you-know-who, even if he managed to secure an unconstitutional third term, will be out of office. Moreover, 1.5 percent of “military expenditures” can be for civilian projects dubiously alleged to serve military ends, like a long desired Italian bridge to Sicily.
Years after modern Russia first flexed its military muscles against Ukraine, the Europeans still are not spending nearly enough to defend against an invasion. At least, that is the conclusion of a recent study from the International Institute for Strategic Studies: “the challenges for European NATO allies to develop military capabilities quickly are significant. The gaps in military hardware and software are considerable, and the IISS estimates that replacing key elements of the U.S. conventional military capabilities assumed to be assigned to the Euro-Atlantic theatre could cost approximately USD1 trillion. Moreover, Europe’s defense industries continue to face challenges in increasing production fast enough, while many European armies cannot meet their recruitment and retention targets.” Other serious problems include:
- “Low numbers of European intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft and limited geospatial ISR collection”
- Lack of “sovereign hyperscale cloud-computing capacity and its armed forces remain dependent on the major U.S. commercial vendors for these services. Moreover, the approach to delivering this capability across Europe and within NATO has been uncoordinated so far”
- Inadequate integrated air and missile defense “across almost the entire threat spectrum. While some point defense and short-, medium- and long range air defense systems are in service, most are not available in the required volumes.”
Such contingencies can be remedied, but not easily and not without money. Hiking outlays has been politically painful for many nations. Facing an even bigger leap in the coming decade, Spain openly rejected the new requirement. Others are expected to push to revise it once there is a new occupant of the White House. IISS offered a skeptical, though measured judgment:
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. The European Commission’s (EC) ReArm Europe Plan/Readiness 2030 aims to support countries increasing their defense investments, not least through enabling countries to apply for the National Escape Clause (NEC) exemption of up to 1.5% of GDP on defense. Further initiatives are being examined and pursued at the country level but their success hinges on political and public support, effective coordination and radical procurement reform to ensure effective and targeted spending at a time of considerable fiscal constraints.
Alas, there ain’t no free lunch. Warned Ganesh: “How, if not through a smaller welfare state, is a better-armed continent to be funded?” For many Europeans a much better course would be to keep Washington involved, covering most of the bill.
Which is the most obvious explanation for Europe’s recent economic surrender to the Trump administration. Indeed, European Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič admitted as much last month: “It’s not only about … trade: It’s about security, it is about Ukraine, it is about current geopolitical volatility.” The only thing worse for Europe’s leaders than accepting the EU’s humiliating accord would be having to field substantially larger and more expensive militaries in their own defense. Accepting Trump’s openly dirigiste and exploitative economic agenda is likely to be cheaper—in both blood and money—for Europe.
Indeed, hiding security costs in complicated, contested economic terms amounting to national servitude might be the only way to force the European public to pay more for military defense. NATO envisions hundreds of billions of dollars in additional spending by its European members, perhaps even a trillion dollars to remedy the defects detailed by IISS. However, European publics have never shown much enthusiasm for defending one another.
In 2020, years after Russia’s seizure of Crimea from Ukraine and intervention in the latter’s Donbas region, the Pew Research Center asked Europeans if they favored coming to their neighbors’ defense. Continentwide, the result was 50 to 38 percent against. In only three of the 13 countries polled—Britain, Lithuania, and the Netherlands—did more people support fighting for their supposed allies than not. In two nations pluralities opposed doing so. In the other eight a majority were opposed. Opposition ran 66 percent in Greece and 69 percent in Bulgaria. Yet with no evident shame most Europeans believed that America would intervene to save them.
Skepticism toward NATO’s grandiose plans appears to be growing as the populist right rises across the continent. For instance, reported NBC last month: “For the first time in modern history, far-right and populist parties are simultaneously topping the polls in Europe’s three main economies of Germany, France and Britain.” The latter’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, enjoys a large parliamentary majority, but faces charges of being clueless, challenges to his leadership, and intra-party revolts to block cuts in social welfare—proposed to finance increased military outlays. A Labour split with the formation of a new left-wing party appears likely. Populist Brexiteer Nigel Farage’s new Reform Party would win an election today.
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The hard-right Alternative for Germany is now that country’s most popular party, transcending the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union, which leads today’s seemingly permanent coalition with the left-ish Social Democratic Party. French President Emmanuel Macron’s prime minister was toppled by a recent legislative vote of no confidence by a right-left majority. If allowed to run in the 2027 election, the National Rally’s Marine Le Pen could win the presidency. And there’s more. A populist prime minister may soon return to power in Chechia. Romania’s political establishment resorted to legal legerdemain to overturn the first-round electoral victory of a populist presidential candidate. In refusing to trade butter for guns, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez forthrightly explained that Moscow posed no current security threat, and many other Europeans share his sentiment. Continued efforts to sacrifice Europe’s welfare state could trigger political explosions elsewhere.
Unfortunately, President Trump has proved to be easy prey for Europe’s campaign to preserve American security guarantees. He has largely abandoned his commitment to America First and instead is attempting to impose his personal as well as policy preferences on a multitude of other nations. The result of this meddling, in which squeezing allied states economically is based on maintaining needless military ties, could be involvement in a future catastrophic conflict. Alas, security guarantees, in which Washington promises to go to war for other nations, could be triggered. Europe remains what Mao Zedong famously called “a paper tiger.” Yet influential hawks push for confrontation with Russia. Most recently, commentators have been discussing “criticism from some quarters that Nato did not engage the MiG-31 jets that spent 12 minutes inside Estonian airspace on Friday,” as if the incursion was worth risking escalation in a world in which America’s security commitments come with nuclear guarantees.
Instead, the president should put America truly first and end Europe’s defense cheap-riding, even if he loses economic leverage as a result. Europeans would gain more control over their destiny and enjoy greater self-respect. Americans would stop wasting money on well-heeled dependents and enjoy greater safety. That’s about as close to win-win as it gets in international relations.
