PARSA/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock“It’s certainly one way of focusing our minds — and wallets! Donald Trump is doing us a favour, if we choose to think about it that way. And we may as well look on the bright side. Otherwise these times are too dark.”
The words of a diplomat from a major European country, speaking after Donald Trump turned off the military aid tap to Ukraine on Monday. He asked not to be named, so he can share his thoughts more freely.
The relentlessness, and pace, of change in Washington, can be dizzying. Not only for consumers of news but politicians as well.
Europe is scrambling to react effectively.
There has been a frenzy of diplomatic activity: bilateral, late-night leader phone calls, European huddles in London and in Paris, meetings of Nato defence ministers in Brussels. An emergency security summit of EU leaders is also scheduled this Thursday.
It is a huge moment in European history.
Most European countries believe the security of all of Europe, not only the sovereignty of Ukraine, is at stake — with Russia looking to dismantle the western-facing balance of power, in place since the end of the Cold War.
Washington, which has had Europe’s back in terms of security and defence since World War Two, now appears “not to care about the fate of Europe”, according to the man poised to be the next leader of the continent’s biggest economy, Friedrich Merz of Germany.
But what are all the big-name European meetings and summits actually achieving?
Just a few hours prior to Washington halting military aid to Kyiv, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who is taking a lead in Europe over Ukraine, announced it was time for “action not words”. The European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, meanwhile, said Europe must turn Ukraine into a “steel porcupine”, with urgent, extra arms deliveries.
Can the continent really act as one, though? Europe is a sum total of different countries with different-sized budgets and diverse domestic politics and priorities.
PA MediaEurope’s aim in taking this defence action is two-fold as well:
First, to show Donald Trump that — in the words of the UK prime minister — Europe will now do the “heavy lifting” to defend itself. Europe hopes to persuade Trump to restart his military support of Ukraine, and to keep in place the current US security back-up for Europe as a whole, if he believes they are no longer “freeloading” off the United States.
But also, Europe’s leaders will need to urgently boost their own defences and support for Kyiv anyway, if Donald Trump turns away from Ukraine, and further down the line, from Europe more broadly in security terms.
It’s not only to Washington that Europe feels it has a point to prove.
Russia is watching too.
The various high-profile, big-pledging European emergency meetings must now produce speedy, impressive, practical results, otherwise in the Kremlin’s eyes, Europe looks weak and vulnerable.
Moscow has already gloated about the “splits” it sees in Western unity.
Donald Trump says he trusts Vladimir Putin but he’s been scathing about Nato allies and he called Ukraine’s president a dictator.
Russia knows that, for all Europe’s talk about now determinedly defending itself, any security expert you speak to admits that — at least in the short-to-medium term — Europe still needs the US.
That is why last week in Washington, we saw the French president and the UK prime minister, separately, wooing Donald Trump.
The US has filled the yawning gaps in European defence, left by years of chronic under-investment after the end of the Cold War.
The number of troops in Europe diminished with the end of conscription in most European countries. The US has roughly 100,000 troops and nuclear weapons in various parts of Europe under Nato’s nuclear sharing policy. Many of them are in non-nuclear, major European power Germany, which fears being severely exposed to Russia should Donald Trump withdraw support.
If the UK and France manage to assemble what they call a “coalition of the willing” — European countries that accept to send even a modest number of peacekeeping troops into Ukraine once a ceasefire is agreed — that could stretch European armies and expose gaps in Nato defences.
That is why Poland is unwilling to commit troops to that “coalition”. It says it needs to keep soldiers at home, to defend itself against Russia. It also fervently hopes the US won’t be pulling its troops out of Eastern Europe.
But Europe also relies on the US for military capabilities that ensure the smooth running of operations. These are known as “enablers”.
Ukraine leans heavily on US intelligence, for example, to maintain a strong hand against Russia.
A European peacekeeping or “reassurance” force in Ukraine would need US support to establish an air shield over Ukraine. Europe lacks air-to air refuelling capabilities, as well as munitions that could take out air defences in Russia if necessary.
These enablers “can’t be bought in a hurry at the local cash-and-carry” as one European politician put it to me.
This is why the UK, France and others in Europe are so very keen to keep the US on board for as long and as much as possible.
“Some of my esteemed European colleagues should probably hold back from tweeting in anger,” one frustrated diplomat from a high-profile nation told me.
We were discussing European outrage at the treatment of Ukraine’s president by the US president and vice-president at the Oval Office on Friday.
“Real leadership is not about letting off steam online. It’s about finding the right words to constructively move forward, however complicated the situation.
“Do we need continued US support in Ukraine and Europe? Do we have more in common with the US than with China? Those are the fundamental questions we need to keep in mind.”
Another fundamental question for Europe is, of course, how much cash is needed and how fast to credibly boost defence.
On Ukraine, Europe could arguably quite easily replace current US support, if it put its mind to it.
Germany is the largest donor of military aid to Ukraine after the US. If other European powers followed its lead, it says, Ukraine defence would be covered for the foreseeable future.
Berlin and other northern European countries express resentment against France, for example, which they say, talks big about defending Ukraine – and is strong in leadership and strategy – but has in fact donated relatively little.
As for broader defence spending, the EU Commission Chief Ursula von der Leyen declared on Tuesday that “Europe is in an era of re-armament”.
She suggested the EU alone could mobilise a total of 800bn euros for defence spending by:
- Using its joint budget more creatively
- Providing 150bn euros in loans to benefit the defence of the EU as a whole — so, for example, in air and missile defence, anti-drone systems, and military mobility
- Suspending EU fiscal rules to allow individual EU countries to spend more on defence
EU leaders will debate her proposals and others at their summit on Thursday – including whether frozen Russian assets in Europe could be used in funding for Ukraine.
But potential and very public European splits loom large. Many fuelled by member states’ domestic politics.
Hungary, close to Russia and Donald Trump’s administration, is a spoke in the wheel of pretty much every EU debate to help Ukraine. Brussels fears Slovakia is going the same way.
Countries near Russia’s borders do not need to explain to voters why defence spending needs to be high. Tiny, exposed Baltic nations Estonia and Lithuania already spend over 3% of GDP on defence. They want to raise that to 5% in the near future.
Meanwhile, big European economies Italy and Spain, geographically much further from Russia, fail to spend the Nato minimum requirement of 2% of GDP on defence.
In Germany, France and the UK, according to a study by the London-based Focaldata research group, most voters want to maintain or reduce defence spending, preferring their government to focus on other voter priorities.
But Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte is warning Europeans to wake up and smell the coffee brewing in Washington and Moscow.
European nations need to spend more than 3% of GDP now to effectively wean the continent off its deep reliance on the US, he says.
If Donald Trump pulls out of Europe altogether, never mind Ukraine, that would mean spending 4-6% of GDP, according to defence experts: a political, social and economic earthquake Europe’s leaders hope they will not have to face.
