The young European officials and defense experts gathered for an informal dinner at an international conference in Europe earlier this month were caustic and unequivocal. “NATO is dead,” one member of parliament from a Central European country declared bluntly. “Why are we bothering to keep up the pretense?”
Others at the table nodded in agreement—no discussion needed. Whether or not Donald Trump someday makes good on his threat to pull out of the alliance, he has already rendered it all but toothless by suggesting, again and again, that he might not defend a NATO member under attack. For skeptical Europeans like the young officials at dinner, it’s a terrifying moment, leaving a largely defenseless Europe to face an aggressive, revanchist Russia. “We should stop wasting energy on NATO,” another parliamentarian, from a second country, agreed. “We need to focus on building an alternative.”
This week, there was none of that skepticism at the annual NATO summit in The Hague. Trump cast a shadow over the meeting even before he arrived, once again raising doubts about his willingness to defend Europe and comply with Article 5 of the NATO charter, stipulating that an attack on one is an attack on all. “Depends on your definition,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “There are numerous definitions of Article 5.” The only time Article 5 has been invoked in the past was when allies rushed to help prosecute the war in Afghanistan after 9/11.
But the highly scripted two-day gathering went relatively smoothly once things got going. Trump walked back his comments on Article 5. Unlike at the G7 meeting in Canada this month, where the 47th president walked out spewing insults at his fellow leaders, he stayed till the end of the NATO convening. It helped that the meeting’s duration had been sharply curtailed—just one short session instead of the usual daylong conversation. Also, to keep Trump happy, there was hardly any discussion of the country most Europeans see as their principal adversary, Russia, or of the situation in Ukraine.
Most importantly—a clear victory for Trump—European allies promised to meet his demand for sharply increased “burden sharing.” After some waffling on deadlines, members of the alliance committed as a group to spending 5 percent of national GDP on defense by 2035—3.5 percent on core military needs and an additional 1.5 percent on related infrastructure like bridges, ports, and cybersecurity.
The meeting’s success, despite Trump’s loose remarks, is a sign of how much Europeans feel is at stake. But it would be a grave mistake for anyone, European or American, to be fooled by the apparent comity in The Hague.
Like any relationship, the transatlantic alliance has its ups and downs. French President Emmanuel Macron declared it “brain dead” in 2019, only to see it blossom in the first years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But this is different.
At best, the 76-year-old pact is heading into a profound transformation with an uncertain outcome—and in this unsettled moment, both Europe’s plainspoken skeptics and the compliant leaders at the summit may be on to something. For now, Europe must do all it can to keep NATO alive, even as it builds an alternative, independent defense capability.
The European leaders at The Hague are hardly blind to the uncertainty Trump has unleashed. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz pointed to the danger in no uncertain terms on the night he was elected last February. Looking ahead to this week’s summit, he wondered aloud if the world “would still be talking about NATO in its current form or whether we will have to establish an independent European defense capability much more quickly.” But, once in office, Merz quickly aligned with Macron and United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer, speaking more circumspectly and taking a conciliatory approach. “Whether we like it or not,” Merz commented in June after visiting Trump in the Oval Office, “we will remain dependent on the United States of America for a long time.”
The truth is, Europe needs the U.S. and will need us well into the future. No matter how quickly the continent ramps up defense spending, what Macron first labelled “strategic autonomy” is years, if not decades, away.
The challenges start with industrial capacity. Between June 2022 and June 2023, European Union countries spent some €75 billion on defense, but according to former European Central Bank president Mario Draghi, 63 percent of the money was disbursed in the U.S. on American hardware and ammunition. Several European nations have robust defense industries, but by and large, they produce solely for use by their own forces. German tanks are different from British tanks, which are different from French and Italian tanks. The EU recently approved a policy aimed at pooling demand and coordinating production. But this will take years; in the meantime, European defense budgets may exceed the European equipment available.
Among the components—big-ticket items and advanced technology—likely to prove most elusive: long-range missile systems and satellite capacity for surveillance and intelligence. Both France and the UK are nuclear powers, but together, they have only about 500 warheads compared to America’s 5,277 and Russia’s 5,449—and the British deterrent is heavily dependent on Washington.
Troop recruitment is also sure to prove an uphill climb. Germany, among other countries, is starting to face the challenge. Berlin aims to double its standing army and reservists over the next 10 years, adding more than 200,000 servicemen and women. But according to a 2024 Gallup survey, only 23 percent of German respondents say they are “willing to fight for their country,” with an additional 20 percent saying they’re not sure.
According to one estimate, by the UK-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, like-for-like replacement of U.S. weapons and the 128,000 American soldiers stationed on the continent could cost European taxpayers $1 trillion over 25 years. But even that doesn’t capture the biggest hurdle ahead: replacing American leadership of NATO—the strategic and tactical leadership soldiers call “command and control.”
Trump is hardly the first American president to call on Europe to carry more of the cost for NATO, but the U.S. has been more than happy to dominate the alliance since its founding in the aftermath of World War II. As the world’s leading economic and military power, we contributed the lion’s share of the organization’s budget. We set the agenda, weighing in heavily on all decisions, large and small—from which countries to admit to where to deploy troops and weaponry. All the alliance’s supreme commanders have come from the U.S., starting with General Dwight D. Eisenhower, appointed in 1951, and even simulated battlefield operations tend to be led by Americans.
“It’s about experience—staffing and training and military exercises,” explains American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Giselle Donnelly. “There’s no country in Europe that can deploy, sustain, command, and control more than a brigade”—generally 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers. Preparing to take command at the top and the tactical level will require a generation’s turnover, training, and experience, and it’s unclear how much Europe can accelerate the timeline.
The last few months have shown just how difficult it may be for Europeans to take charge. The “coalition of the willing” formed in March to mobilize a peacekeeping force for Ukraine ultimately came up empty-handed. EU efforts to lead on sanctioning Moscow regularly run up against stalling and vetoes by Hungary and other Russia-leaning powers on the continent. Even this week’s commitment to spend 5 percent of GDP on defense is a bit of a fudge—the language in the declaration had to be changed to paper over Spain’s refusal to participate.
The bottom line is that the months and years ahead will require a tricky balancing act. European leaders must do everything they can to keep Trump on board and forestall an abrupt breakup of the alliance. But they must also work overtime on every conceivable front to build the capacity for an independent defense.
Among the worst possible mistakes would be misreading the summit—assuming it satisfied Trump on spending and falling back into a complacent embrace. America’s 2028 presidential election will bring no reprieve. As China grows in power and influence, the U.S. will continue to pivot away from Europe, no matter who is in the White House. And there can be little doubt that Moscow is watching and waiting, preparing to take advantage of any European vulnerability.
The good news is that Europe has the capacity—the manpower, economic heft, and industrial know-how—to build an independent defense. What’s needed is political will and leadership to replace the decisive role traditionally played by the United States.
