Europe's Defence Dilemma: Building a Security Union Without US Guarantees
Following a year of Donald Trump's second presidential term and two consecutive Munich Security Conferences, European leaders now confront a stark reality: the continent must prepare to defend itself with significantly reduced American military support, potentially facing the unprecedented scenario of operating entirely without US backing.
The Transatlantic Relationship in Question
While European governments universally acknowledge the need to reduce their strategic overdependence on the United States, many political figures, including UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and to some extent German opposition leader Friedrich Merz, continue to cling to the remnants of the transatlantic alliance. Their position rests more on hope than certainty that America would honor its NATO commitments if Russia were to attack alliance territory.
Serious questions persist about whether Donald Trump, who has consistently favored brief demonstrations of American power over prolonged engagements, would commit US forces to an open-ended European conflict with potential nuclear escalation. This uncertainty becomes particularly acute in scenarios involving Russian aggression against vulnerable territories like Russian-speaking border towns in Estonia or Norway's remote Arctic archipelago of Svalbard.
The Financial and Structural Challenges
All European governments now recognize they must assume primary responsibility for continental defence, potentially operating independently. This monumental task requires at least a decade of substantially increased military expenditure, a policy direction that current public opinion polls broadly support, though this support remains fragile.
Several major European states, including the United Kingdom, France, and Italy, face significant fiscal constraints that prevent them from financing a defence surge without resorting to massive joint borrowing mechanisms. Germany, however, remains unwilling to countenance such financial arrangements, creating a substantial obstacle to coordinated defence investment.
Beyond simply purchasing more advanced weaponry, building credible and independent European defence capabilities requires comprehensive development across multiple domains. While politicians often showcase high-visibility assets like satellites, fighter jets, and frigates, equally critical are the less glamorous components: adequate ammunition stockpiles, spare parts inventories, comprehensive logistics networks, extensive training programs, and expanded armed forces personnel, potentially including selective conscription systems.
Leadership and Decision-Making Structures
Perhaps most crucially, Europe requires new leadership architectures capable of making timely decisions to counter aggression. Four years of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine have demonstrated that neither NATO nor the European Union can be reliably counted upon to respond with sufficient speed and adequacy to emerging threats.
NATO remains fundamentally dominated by American leadership and cannot act when Washington prefers non-involvement. The alliance worked diligently to avoid direct support for Kyiv in 2022, rejecting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's urgent pleas to enforce a no-fly zone over Ukrainian territory. NATO only assumed coordination of military supplies to Ukraine from the United States last year, highlighting its reactive rather than proactive posture.
The European Union, while imposing swift financial and economic sanctions against Moscow and managing the continent's transition away from Russian gas dependence, lacks fundamental defence organization structures. Furthermore, pro-Russian outlier states like Hungary have consistently slowed subsequent sanctions packages and financial assistance to Kyiv, demonstrating the limitations of unanimous decision-making.
The Coalition of the Willing Emerges
At the recent Munich Security Conference, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Friedrich Merz both emphasized the need to activate the EU's mutual defence pact under Article 42.7, which represents a more binding commitment on paper than NATO's equivalent Article 5. However, the European Union possesses scant military expertise and currently lacks operational command structures. No serving European general has commanded more than a brigade in combat operations since the Cold War's conclusion, with only limited expeditionary forces deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq, Mali, Bosnia, and Kosovo.
Both the EU and NATO remain constrained by unanimity requirements and contain problematic members, including four militarily non-aligned EU countries and, most significantly, the pro-Russian governments of Hungary and Slovakia. Additionally, the European Union excludes three nations crucial for continental defence: the United Kingdom, Norway, and Turkey.
When designing potential security guarantees for Ukraine in possible ceasefire scenarios, neither organization was utilized. The United States specifically avoided NATO involvement to prevent complicating its negotiations with Russia.
Instead, France and the United Kingdom, Europe's two nuclear powers and permanent UN Security Council members, assembled a "coalition of the willing" comprising approximately thirty-five nations. This grouping includes all of Europe's principal military powers alongside international partners Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. Whether these nations will actually deploy forces in and around Ukraine remains uncertain, dependent both on Vladimir Putin's willingness to end hostilities and European countries' still-evolving resolve to commit ground troops, aircraft, and naval vessels to the Black Sea region.
A Framework for Future Security Architecture
The coalition of the willing demonstrates significant promise as a plausible framework for future European security leadership without guaranteed American support. Operating from a fledgling operational headquarters in Paris, this grouping brings together all key countries and organizations, including both NATO and the EU, while excluding obstructive members.
An inner core comprising the so-called E3 nations—France, Germany, and the United Kingdom—exercises predominant influence, expanded to the E6 grouping through the inclusion of Italy, Spain, and Poland to incorporate other major European powers. Nordic and Baltic countries, typically represented by Denmark or Finland, also maintain influential positions within the coalition.
Currently, the coalition of the willing possesses no formal legal status, decision-making authority, or permanent secretariat. It functions as an ad hoc body for which the United Kingdom and France have detached limited officials and military officers. Nevertheless, this structure could evolve into the nucleus of a future European defence union, operating through NATO structures when possible but, when necessary, under coalition command.
One potential pathway involves reviving the 1955 Western European Union treaty, which was ultimately absorbed into the European Union in 2010, to provide a European defence union with legal foundations incorporating willing EU members alongside the United Kingdom and Norway. While this approach might prove too time-consuming for immediate requirements, if Europe must defend itself with substantially reduced American assistance, a nimble institution capable of shaping and implementing rapid crisis decisions becomes essential. This de facto European security council represents the most promising option currently available.
