In 21 weeks European leaders will be packing their bags for the Nato summit in Ankara. Asbestos suits may come in handy. Most still show little progress in their promise, made at the Hague summit last year, to increase defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP by 2035 (Britain is a notable laggard). President Trump will be unamused. President Putin will be undaunted.
Bruised and dazed by the US president’s erratic behaviour, Europeans have never been more distrustful of their American hegemon. But they are still unwilling to accept the price of emancipation. Rhetoric abounds, with talk of a European army, or using the European Union to replace Nato. “Keep on dreaming,” the Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte told the defence and foreign affairs committees of the European parliament last month: Europe would need to spend 10 per cent of GDP to replace US nuclear and other capabilities. “So hey, good luck.”
In fact, notes Robert Pszczel, a former senior Nato official now at the OSW think tank in Warsaw, Europe already provides about two thirds of the forces needed for its own defence — “but the remaining third is pretty important”. European satellite communications and intelligence systems are inadequate and vulnerable to Russian attack. The 100,000 US troops based or visiting here include two vital armoured brigade combat teams, and the boring but important logistics of the 21st Theater Sustainment Command, based in Kaiserslautern, Germany. We lack the mass — 200,000 troops, weapons and munitions — the US could provide for reinforcement in the event of a crisis: the only really big army in Europe is Ukrainian. Europeans also have far too few long-range precision weapons, the last-ditch response before nuclear retaliation.
• Are we entering a new nuclear arms race?
Worse, the US may be not just an unreliable ally but an adversary. What happens if Trump demands that European allies put pressure on Ukraine to make it sign a bad ceasefire deal? Tries another outlandish land grab? Seeks to destroy the EU’s rule-setting power? Or if Maga ideologues crank up the pressure on what they see as pernicious, weak-kneed European wokery? The US can ruthlessly exploit Europe’s defence dependence.
Behind the scenes, decades-old assumptions are fraying. France, Germany and Britain are in high-level secret talks about intensifying defence co-operation to cope with a sudden US drawdown, a jolt that could come as soon as 2027, according to a report leaked to Reuters in December. Sweden, once a prissy ban-the-bomb campaigner, is talking about sharing nuclear weapons with Britain and France. Poland is mulling its own nuclear programme. (US officials speak benignly about “friendly proliferation”.) Alarmed by our dependence on US-made Trident missiles for our nuclear deterrent, defence chiefs are looking at restoring the RAF’s ability to drop nuclear bombs, abandoned in 1998 (just ten billion pounds or so: no worries there).
This shift to self-sufficiency involves not just huge costs but greater dangers and smaller ambitions. Europe would be downgrading from heavily subsidised, top-quality American defence to a patchier and riskier homegrown version. It would mean dumping dreams of global influence (in our case, goodbye to aircraft carriers, the Falklands, the Gulf, Australia) and focusing solely on the narrower task of countering Russian aggression.
For a European Nato with a £20 trillion GDP and population of more than 700 million, dealing with Russia (GDP £2.5 trillion, population 143 million) is — on paper, given time — quite feasible. After all, Ukraine, much smaller and poorer, has fought Putin’s war machine to a near-standstill. But we in Britain, like most of western Europe, are used to outsourcing defence, not accepting it as part of our daily lives. We would shudder at the inconvenience, cost and risk that countries such as Finland and the Baltic states accept uncomplainingly, let alone the colossal sacrifice of Ukraine, freezing, bleeding and grieving.
Restore conscription, join the reserves, learn civil defence skills, stay vigilant for spies and saboteurs — it is hard to imagine our timid, cosseted population signing up for that. Even less will we pay 5 per cent-plus of GDP for new nukes, and air defences (ours are terrifyingly flimsy), and to reconstitute our dock-bound navy and hollowed-out army. Shamingly, we struggle to field even a thousand combat-capable soldiers in Estonia. We complain with some justice about being squeezed out of EU-led defence arrangements. But our neighbours sideline us for a reason.
In terms of effective decision-making, the geopolitical centre of gravity in Europe has shifted north and east. As domestic politics make France and Germany too wobbly, we should learn from the resilient, cohesive countries around the Baltic sea. Our allies in that region are exasperated by our inattention to the supposedly UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force. It should be a priority, not an orphan.
We can do plenty more right now: bolstering Ukraine and pressuring Putin; seizing Russia’s tankers and its assets; and stepping up efforts to exacerbate the Kremlin’s economic, social and other headaches.
These are all elements of a credible Plan B. The more we do to defend ourselves, the less likely we are to need the old Plan A, relying on the US for muscle and leadership. But supplanting the Americans without annoying them will be tricky. They may froth at European weakness, but it gives them leverage they will be loath to lose. Plenty of work for the silver-tongued Rutte.