It began as a percentage disagreement about European defence spending. “I think Nato should have 5 per cent,” Donald Trump declared on 7 January. “They can all afford it, but they should be at 5 per cent not 2 per cent.” But once Trump took office on 20 January, percentages became peripheral. From the outset, the new US president shifted away from Nato’s unequivocal support for Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukraine in their three-year struggle against Vladimir Putin’s invasion. America’s commander-in-chief seemed determined to prioritise relations with Russia instead of Europe.
The turn was dramatised in the Oval Office on 28 February when Trump and his vice-president, JD Vance, berated Zelensky for blocking a peace deal with Russia and showing insufficient gratitude for US aid. Over the next few days the US “paused” military aid to Ukraine and the sharing of intelligence, increasing Ukraine’s vulnerability to Russian bombing.
European leaders scrambled to heal the rift, especially Keir Starmer, who eschewed open criticism of Trump while seeking a “coalition of the willing” to bolster Ukraine. Yet on 5 March, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, told the French people: “I want to believe that the United States will remain at our side: but we must be ready if this is not the case.” He even proposed opening discussions about formally extending the protection of France’s nuclear deterrent to European allies. And the following day an emergency meeting of the European Council in Brussels endorsed proposals from Ursula von der Leyen and the European Commission for a “ReArm Europe” programme intended to “mobilise close to €800bn for a safe and resilient Europe”.
In April 2024 Nato celebrated its 75th anniversary. Less than a year later, pundits were penning the alliance’s obituary. Is there any chance of resurrection?
To understand how it has come to this, we need to dig deep into the past. Nato began as a Western European initiative, building on the Brussels Pact of March 1948 between Britain, France and the Benelux countries. The British foreign secretary Ernest Bevin spoke of this (privately) as a “sprat” to catch the American “mackerel”. But there wasn’t much need for a bait once Stalin blockaded West Berlin. In April 1949, the US, Canada and ten West European states signed a treaty of collective security. And after the Soviet leader gave the green light in June 1950 to North Korea’s invasion of South Korea, the Korean War put the “O” into Nato, turning a paper pact into a military alliance. The US committed four combat divisions and created a proper command structure, under a Supreme Allied Commander Europe (Saceur – who would always be an American).
The first Saceur was Dwight D Eisenhower, a five-star general who had led the D-Day landings in 1944. But “Ike” was no gung-ho militarist. He did not expect Nato to outlast the 1950s. “If in ten years,” he told a friend in February 1951, “all American troops stationed in Europe for national defence purposes have not been returned to the United States, then this whole project will have failed.” Eisenhower insisted that “We cannot be a modern Rome guarding the frontiers with our legions.” His philosophy mirrored that of Paul Hoffman, the US administrator of the Marshall Plan, namely “to get Europe on its feet and off our backs”.
But things didn’t turn out that way, as Ike discovered during his two terms in the White House (1953-61); likewise his successors thereafter. So, why has it been so hard for Europe to stand on its own feet? I think there are three historical reasons, each rooted in the wars of 1914-18 and 1939-45. But equally important was the revolution in warfare and strategy as the Cold War progressed.
First, the failure to create a European Defence Community (EDC) in parallel with the European Economic Community (EEC). It’s often forgotten that in 1950, Jean Monnet, the French mastermind of European integration, proposed not only a Coal and Steel Community (the Schuman Plan) but also a special European military force with common weaponry attached to Nato’s new supreme command (the Pleven Plan). What’s more, a draft EDC treaty had been agreed by the summer of 1952. But then fractious French politics intervened. An unholy alliance of communists and nationalists blocked the treaty in the French Assembly in 1953. By contrast, the continued if erratic impetus for economic integration eventually led to agreement in 1957 to form a customs union and single market – the EEC.
What killed the EDC was the “German Question”. This took two forms. Although the Federal Republic (FRG) had been created in 1949, the French – after invasion and occupation in two world wars – were understandably wary about rebuilding Germany as a power. Its rearmament was eventually accepted only in the form of the admission of FRG units to Nato in 1955. That meant they would be under US supervision. The West German Bundeswehr rapidly became the principal component of Nato forces in Europe – hardly surprising because the main threat was from the Red Army in East Germany. But the FRG renounced the right to produce or deploy its own atomic, biological and chemical (ABC) weapons. This placated its neighbours in France and Benelux and also reflected a feeling of abhorrence towards Germany’s militaristic and racist traditions now being inculcated in the FRG’s young citizens.
Western Europe’s military capability was also weakened by Gaullist exceptionalism. After the febrile politics of the French Fourth Republic since 1945, the takeover of power by General Charles de Gaulle in 1958 signalled a forceful new nationalist foreign policy, designed to resist American hegemony and resurrect French grandeur. During the 1960s, De Gaulle blocked Britain’s belated efforts to join the EEC. He also pulled France out of Nato’s integrated command and evicted all Nato bases and installations. France was still a member of Atlantic Pact, but its military capability could not be counted on in Nato planning.
So, here are three reasons, rooted in history, for why today’s Europe punches below its weight within Nato. But related, and more important, was the nuclear revolution. In 1949, the USSR joined the US as an atomic power. During the 1950s, both superpowers not only developed thermonuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles to deliver them, but also introduced various levels of nuclear weapons to the battlefield itself, blurring any line between conventional war and nuclear war. The US was particularly ready to lower the nuclear threshold because its conventional forces in Europe did not match those of the USSR. Nuclear deterrence therefore became Nato’s main strategy to prevent a Soviet attack: if the Red Army and its allies drove through the so-called “Fulda Gap” towards Frankfurt and the Rhine, they would risk rapid escalation into global nuclear war.
Amid these emerging scenarios for tomorrow’s war, the Western Europeans had little to offer. Although Britain and France had developed their own nuclear forces during the 1950s and 1960s, these counted for relatively little in the global balance, and Britain’s soon became reliant on US delivery systems – first Polaris and then Trident. Although France’s Force de frappe was more genuinely independent, both nuclear arsenals were heavily dependent on Nato support, such as its early-warning system. And so, America’s European allies came to accept Uncle Sam’s finger on the trigger – despite periodic rumbles from France and Germany, especially in the 1980s over the deployment of Cruise and Pershing missiles. (The FRG, of course, would be ground zero in any war.) This division of labour – American nukes and European boots – seemed tolerable most of the time during the Cold War.
In any case, by the 1990s, European defence no longer seemed an imperative, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the absorption of most of its former eastern-European empire into the EU and Nato. There was heady talk about the “End of History”, a “New World Order” and especially a “Peace Dividend”. To quote Nato’s own analysis from 2023: “During the Cold War, defence spending for Nato allies (even putting the United States aside) routinely averaged more than 3 per cent of GDP.” But there was a sharp drop in the early 1990s – to an average of 1.6 per cent in 1995 – and this continued in the new century.
The slide was halted only after Russia’s 2014 occupation of the Crimea. Nato members now pledged to devote at least 2 per cent of GDP to defence, but even that took time. In 2014, only three Nato allies hit the target, but by 2024, the figure was 23 (out of 32 member states). That might have pleased the Biden administration, but not his successor: hence Trump’s broadside on 7 January and the debate it stirred up across the Atlantic.
The numbers game has hit the headlines, but it’s not the real issue. As the Washington defence analyst Max Bergmann observes, “Europe does not just have a spending problem; it has a collective-action problem. European countries treat defence policy as a national responsibility.” What they really need to do is “integrate their efforts”.
To some extent, integration has already been happening. After Nato’s 2016 summit, the alliance established four multinational battle groups on its north-eastern flank in Poland and the three Baltic states – coerced republics of the USSR until 1991. The visitors, from various Nato countries, train and conduct exercises with troops of the host nation. In 2022, after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, another four battle groups were added, in Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania, to support anxious allies in south-eastern Europe. In each of these countries, Nato’s Enhanced Forward Presence (EFP) has a lead state in command: the UK, for instance, in Estonia, and Germany in Lithuania. Nor is this simply a European deployment: Canada takes the lead in Latvia and the largest EFP force (11,000, at least on paper) in Poland is led by the US.
The EFP has been a spur to greater cooperation. But, digging beneath the surface, its limitations are clear. Numbers are small (mostly 2,000 to 4,000) and the troops rotate every six months. This is greater interaction rather then deeper integration. There are also a number of rapid-reaction forces on the sidelines, of which the most significant are the Franco-British Combined Joint Expeditionary Force (CJEF) and the British-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), with units from nine other countries. Both have land, air and naval components that train regularly together, but neither is a standing force and they can only remain operable for about three months.
To create real “interoperability” requires much more. By focusing their limited post-Cold War defence budgets on expeditionary forces, governments neglected the equipment and stockpiles needed to wage and sustain high-intensity conflict. If the EDC had been created in the 1950s, it might have helped foster a western-European defence-industrial base – akin to the Coal and Steel Community – to produce materiel that could be used by all Nato armed forces. Instead European countries nurtured their own defence industries, producing relatively small amounts for small markets, with long production times and high unit costs. Most states also protected a few key companies as national champions, for economic benefit and to boost domestic employment.
In 2021 Von der Leyen established a European defence fund and then appointed the first European Commissioner of Defence and Space in November 2024. But this was widely seen as a Commission power grab, especially by member states in the east who resent the dominance of major defence companies in France, Germany and Italy. The €800bn now being pledged to rearm Europe may change the situation. But that will take time. And, until recently, the rigidity of EU regulations made it more attractive to develop working production partnerships across borders. Such partnerships will be particularly necessary for Brexit Britain – self-excluded from formal cooperation with Brussels.
Two shocked months into Trump 2.0, some are saying that Nato is finished. But that seems to me both premature and dangerous. In the debit column, Trump – as in his first term – is clearly fascinated by Putin, who managed to resurrect the Russian empire from the ash heap of history and make it (seem) great again. Trump craves a special relationship with the Kremlin magician and that, in his mind, requires pressuring Ukraine to make peace. He appears indifferent to Putin’s blatant invasion of a sovereign state. Trump loves realpolitik. Or should we say realtorpolitik? Making the world safe for property development rather than for democracy. Will the Gaza Riviera be followed by the Crimean Riviera?
On the other hand, maybe the Democrats will bounce back (despite their current paralysis) and find a leader to rally campaigns for the midterms in 2026 and the presidency in 2028. And maybe the 22nd Amendment (no third term) remains intact and neither Trump nor Vance wins the White House. A lot of “maybes” here. And one presumes that another Democrat president will expect much, much more from Europe – the Trump first 100 days are irreversible. But Europe is now moving, belatedly but firmly, in that direction.
Yet equally irreversible, it seems, is the deepening polarisation of the United States into two feuding political camps, each talking to itself and immersed in its own channels of information. If that does prove the case, it cannot constitute the basis for a secure transatlantic partnership. But nor does it warrant giving up yet on Nato.
Remember that this is the “North Atlantic” alliance: four of the 12 founding members were Canada, Iceland, Norway and Denmark – the last including the autonomous territory of Greenland, which is now being eyed by Trump. Together with the former Soviet states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (2004) and Finland and Sweden (2023-24) – which abandoned their historical neutrality after Putin invaded Ukraine – the grouping forms a formidable defensive arc. All of these countries are integral to the emerging struggle for the Arctic region with Russia and China. They all have strong reasons for hanging together, rather than hanging separately.
In any case, all the Nato allies are ultimately dependent on the US nuclear guarantee, because America and Russia are in a league of their own as nuclear powers. Whatever emerges from Macron’s recent musings, the French Force de frappe – though more sophisticated than Britain’s ageing Trident system – cannot compete as a global deterrent. Uncle Sam still matters. Hence Starmer’s diplomatic gymnastics.
In short, we must hope for the best, while preparing for the worst. That way we have a chance of persuading those in Washington who still want to think of us as allies that we are (finally) doing our bit, while also building a more plausible deterrent against potential foes. Not exactly guaranteed security for the long run. But, as John Maynard Keynes said, “in the long run we are all dead”. Politics is the art of the possible – often one month, even one week, at a time.
David Reynolds is the author of “Mirrors of Greatness: Churchill and the Leaders Who Shaped Him” (HarperCollins). He co-hosts the “Creating History” podcast with Russell Barnes
[See also: Trump’s Golden Age]
Content from our partners
Related
This article appears in the 19 Mar 2025 issue of the New Statesman, The Golden Age