Given these doubts, European political leaders have expressed a determination to increase their defense budgets and upgrade their armed forces and defense industrial bases. For example, European Community leaders met in early March to discuss the urgency of rearmament and the possible shift in American commitment to the defense of Ukraine and/or Europe altogether. The president of the European Commission noted that Europe faces a “clear and present danger” from the possibility of an asymmetrical peace agreement favorable to Russia followed by a more ambiguous American commitment to the defense of Europe.

European concerns are understandable, but the possibility that free Europe can establish a self-sufficient deterrent against further Russian political coercion or military aggression, apart from US security guarantees, is remote. An effort to bisect American national security from that of Europe would be politically unwise, weaken deterrence, and open the door to piecemeal disintegration of the transatlantic partnership that served leaders during the Cold War and thereafter. Four aspects of this issue merit specific consideration.

First, NATO is the strategic and military embodiment of shared security commitment and risk among member-states. NATO’s totality of conventional and nuclear military strength, supported by its political unity, is the linchpin for credible deterrence against Russian revanchism. Collectively, NATO members have the resources, including conventional forces for modern combined arms battle and the defense industrial base for protracted conflict, to deter any repetition of Russia’s invasion against Ukraine or any Russian attack on the alliance. American commitment to European defense ensures that its strategic nuclear forces support deterrence across the entire spectrum of conflict, including possible Russian nuclear political coercion or first use.

Second, President Trump, on his best and worst days, tends to see international relations as entirely transactional. This may work when dealing with trade or tariff matters but not matters of war and peace. American entanglement with the security of Europe is not only transactional; it is also existential. European and American defense and deterrence requirements are joined at the hip, notwithstanding occasional spats and acrimony over the details of military planning and defense economic priorities. American politicians complain that the United States should try to avoid getting stuck in another “forever war” in Ukraine but Ukraine is not Iraq or Afghanistan.

A victory for Putin in Ukraine opens the door to European vulnerability that Russia will later exploit at a higher cost in blood and treasure for the United States and its European partners.

Therefore, it follows that the US decision in early March to suddenly suspend American military assistance and intelligence sharing with Ukraine was ill advised and poorly timed. Although holding back equipment deliveries might take some months to impact events at the front, failure to share timely intelligence could impact immediately on Ukraine’s ability to strike key Russian targets, including logistics hubs, command centers, and troop concentrations. Thus, the suspension sent the wrong message to Ukraine and to Russia about allied steadfastness as preliminary ceasefire and peace negotiations were taking place in Saudi Arabia.

Third, messaging of American commitment to peace and security in Europe also involves the decisions about modernization of the American nuclear deterrent and supporting infrastructure. This has a number of components. First, the US is replacing all three legs of its strategic nuclear triad. The Trump administration also wants to deploy the sea-launched cruise missile, to replace some existing nuclear warheads with upgrades, and to provide additional limited nuclear options for contingencies short of general nuclear war.

Fourth, American defense planning for each potential theater of war will continue to emphasize a spectrum of options including both conventional and nuclear weapons. The US must maintain credible deterrence against the combined forces of China and Russi, not only with respect to the possible outbreak of conventional war in Asia or Europe, but also with regard to the threat of nuclear first use or first strike against American allies or the American homeland.

In this respect, another challenge to deterrence lies in the increasing capability of conventional weapons for use against targets previously assigned to nuclear weapons, and, conversely, the attractiveness for some parties of low-yield nuclear weapons for use against targets previously assigned only to conventional weapons.

The challenges in meeting the preceding standards for deterrence in Europe and beyond are enormous. First, they include the evolving international security environment in which an emerging multipolar realignment places a coalition of China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia at cross-purposes with US and allied visions for world order in Europe and Asia. Second, the challenges involve the significance of emerging technologies for long-range precision strike, missile and air defenses, cyber deterrence and war, space conflict, and continuing developments in autonomous warfare. Third, the costs for maintaining deterrence in Asia and Europe are enormous and Europe cannot expect the United States to foot the bill.

Some American allies in Asia and Europe expressed a willingness to increase their defense budgets and their degrees of readiness for local or regional conflict. More demanding times are ahead. In short, there is no “Eurodeterrent” without the United States and vice versa.

Stephen Cimbala, PhD, is a distinguished professor at Penn State-Brandywine and a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies.

Euro-deterrence and the Quest for Peace in Ukraine was originally published on Global Security Review.

Prior to their defeat, the UK’s Conservatives advocated for raising defense spending to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030, higher than NATO’s existing 2 percent goal for member states. Their 14-year record left much to be desired with programs cancelled, defense investment waning, and the British armed forces nearly “hollowed out.” Enter Labour, which also pledged to spend 2.5 percent of GDP on defense, subject to streamlining government finances. With an unwavering commitment to NATO and the UK’s nuclear deterrent, such an increase may be possible.

However, Labour’s immediate decision was to declare a “strategic” pause on the 6th-generation aircraft program whilst they investigate its feasibility. Chief of the General Staff General Sir Roland Walker predicted that Britain must be ready within three years to fight a war against an “axis of upheaval” of China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia. And when delivering his closing keynote address at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Land Warfare Conference (2024), Walker declared that he intends to double the Army in three years and triple it by 2030.

In France, foreign and defense policy are reserved for the president. However, it is the parliament that controls the purse, which is problematic when the president’s party does not hold a majority in parliament—the case for Macron. Because Macron was concerned with the strong showing of the “far right” National Rally in European Parliament elections, he abruptly dissolved the French Parliament, calling for constitutionally scripted elections in two rounds, for its 577 members (called “députés”) to be renewed.

The first round saw the National Rally come in first place, followed by an improvised grouping of “far left” communists, socialists, and greens, with Macron’s centrist party shrinking and the center-right Les Républicains barely surviving. Tactical voting in the second round had Macron’s party and the hastily coalesced left mutually desist to prevent the right-leaning candidates from reaching an absolute majority. This resulted in a hung parliament, with no pathway for coalitions leading to an absolute majority from which a prime minister could be selected.

Because of France’s election outcome, Macron might wait until September to nominate a prime minister. No one knows from which party the prime minister will come. The key is choosing a person who can ensure the government survives any parliamentary motion to terminate the government. Thus, it remains unclear how the potential ungovernability of France, until the 2027 presidential election, may affect defense policy.

The European Parliament’s swing to the right weakened German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social-Democrat Party and his Green Party allies. Former German defense minister, Ursula von der Leyen, recently won reelection to the presidency of the European Commission by a more comfortable margin than five years ago, grabbing the vote of Green Party members. She pledged to implement the Green Deal, albeit in diluted form. Von der Leyen also received support from Italian prime minister Georgia Meloni, who leads the right-wing coalition immediately on von der Leyen’s right, though not as “far” right as the coalition led by French National Rally’s Marine Le Pen and Hungary’s Victor Orban. As president of the European Commission, von der Leyen offers strong support for Ukraine, and stronger European defense—in areas where the European Commission can sway what national governments plan and implement.

At the NATO 75th anniversary summit in Washington, DC, the national leaders of member-states issued a plan for the next year, calling Ukraine’s path to membership in the alliance “irreversible.” That statement follows a document issued by NATO at the 2023 Vilnius, Lithuania, summit. For NATO accession to start, a country should not be involved in on-going conflict. So even if the NATO accession process could be accelerated for Ukraine, it is unlikely to happen any time soon. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, was not given an accession schedule.

In February 2024, at the annual Munich Security Conference, long before his selection as Donald Trump’s running mate, Senator JD Vance rang alarm bells among Europe’s political and foreign policy elites when he voiced his opposition to military aid for Ukraine and bluntly warned that Europe will have to rely less on the US to support NATO. Political rhetoric has a place in American elections, but the fact is, American presidents change their views as resources tighten.

Regardless of whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris win the White House in November, the United States faces fiscal constraints in the years ahead because it faces a national debt that now exceeds defense spending. A perfect storm driven by the “Axis of Upheaval” may absorb American capability in the Indo-Pacific while the US is stretched thin elsewhere.

Europeans may signal which candidate they perceive as more hostile to their interest, but it is the geopolitical and budgetary math that ultimately shapes the nature of alliances. Unless Europe tackles the harsh reality that it must take its own defense seriously, French President Macron will be proven right after he once argued that it was not only an issue of sovereignty, but a matter of survival for Europe. How that works politically and fiscally is for Europe to figure out.

Christophe Bosquillon is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. He has over 30 years of international experience in general management, foreign direct investment, and private equity and fund management across various industries in Europe and the Pacific Basin. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

Political Uncertainties Are Affecting Europe’s Defense Buildup was originally published on Global Security Review.