Russia’s major attack on Ukraine created a clear new mission for the defense alliance NATO. It also quickly led Finland to become a member of NATO – that is, an ally of the world’s largest military power, the United States.
The USA has recently flashed its military power in several NATO exercises in Europe. In June, for example, NATO organized a gigantic air war exercise, the core of which was the American bases in Germany.
For decades, Europeans have been able to rely on the fact that Europe is ultimately protected by American weapons. In reality, Finland also relied on this basic arrangement even before NATO membership, although they did not always want to say it out loud.
What if the American desire or ability to defend Europe disappears?
Trump can become president again
Presidential elections will be held in the United States again next year and Donald Trump’s re-election is entirely possible. The new Trump era could weaken the alliance dramatically.
At the moment, the West and NATO are more united than in decades. Still in 2019, the president of France Emmanuel Macron called NATO brain dead.
During the time of the previous US President Donald Trump, NATO was in a serious crisis. For years, Trump has directly despised NATO. Trump sees US alliances mainly as an expense, not an advantage for Americans.
Several members of Trump’s previous administration, including a former national security adviser John Bolton have warned that Trump might even disconnect the United States from NATO in his new presidency.
While campaigning this year, Trump has also repeatedly criticized US support for Ukraine. Trump constantly claims that he can end the war in an instant if he becomes president.
– It only takes one day. I know exactly what I would say to them. I get along well with Putin, Trump said in his speech in March.
Of course, some of the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination support the US’s traditional defense policy and also support for Ukraine.
But besides Trump, his main challenger within his own party, the governor of Florida Ron DeSantis considers supporting Ukraine a waste of money. Many supporters think the same.
In Europe, it is worth taking seriously the fact that the attitude of many supporters of the Republican Party towards US ally relations has become considerably more critical.
Most of the Republican senators are still supporters of Reagan’s strong foreign and defense policy, but Trump’s “America First” populism is getting stronger in the House of Representatives.
Next year’s US presidential election is not the only thing that can quickly change the US attitude towards European defense.
The United States has long shifted its military attention to the Pacific Ocean. Americans across party lines see China as the country’s most important strategic adversary in the coming decades.
China is getting stronger militarily all the time, and the United States is also this spring focused on strengthening its military relations specifically in Asia. In Finland, it has been relatively little noticed that despite the war in Ukraine, the president Joe Biden this year has met with numerous leaders of Asian countries, especially their traditional or potential new military allies.
Biden has repeatedly assured the commitment of the United States to the defense of Japan, South Korea and the Philippines, for example. The United States has also supported this message with spectacular military exercises with its allies.
The United States has used the entire range of diplomacy to strengthen the anti-China front. Also the authoritarian Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi received an almost royal welcome in Washington during Midsummer week.
India is not willing to side with the Americans against China, but its relations with China are bad enough that the Americans want to at least try to woo the giant country.
In the US, many security policy experts have long been of the opinion that the US should focus on China and leave the defense of Europe to the Europeans.
Many of them you willwho believe in the US’s traditional alliance systems, worry that the US may simply not have the resources to fully focus militarily on both Asia and Europe.
The military situation in the South China Sea and around Taiwan has been intensifying all the time. Throughout the spring, dangerous situations have been seen, for example, when Chinese military aircraft and warships have deliberately circled the American routes.
Russian Vladimir Putin made the USA invest in Europe again, but China Xi Jinping may force Americans to focus on Asia.
Lots of talk – few grenades
As a result of the war in Ukraine, NATO has prepared a comprehensive defense plan against Russia for the first time since the Cold War. It is supposed to be discussed at the NATO summit in Vilnius.
The war has also revealed the puzzlingly poor preparedness of many European countries for traditional warfare.
In Ukraine, even the majority of those who have fallen have died in artillery strikes. For years, however, Europe’s major military powers have mainly invested in crisis management capabilities outside of Europe. Finland, which has invested in traditional national defense and, for example, artillery, is an exception in Europe.
The analysis of Europe’s defense capability published by the authoritative Economist magazine in May is harsh reading.
The expert interviewed by the magazine Bastian Giegerich The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) think tank estimates that, for example, Germany has ammunition in its warehouses for perhaps two days of intensive war. In Great Britain’s own training simulations in 2021, it was estimated that the British have ammunition for an eight-day full-scale war.
Replenishment of stocks is now a challenge, because at the same time Western countries are trying to support Ukraine more and more strongly.
For years, Germany believed that Russia could be tied to the West through economic ties. Its policy bottom fell out in February last year.
Germany has indeed said that it will strengthen its defense with a new program of 100 billion euros, but in practice it has so far made very few concrete arms purchases.
Also, the new military investments of many other Western European countries in their own defense as a result of the war in Ukraine have actually been quite modest.
Stockholm’s peace research institute Sipri estimates that, in principle, European countries increased their military spending by no less than 13 percent last year. In practice, however, inflation has eaten up two-thirds of the increase.
A notable exception is Poland, which is strengthening its military at a tremendous pace. Poland also relies on US military technology, in June the first batch of American Abrams tanks arrived in the country.
In any case, without the United States, Europe’s defense would be in a dangerous state of flux.
Sources: The Economist, Foreign Affairs, Reuters, Washington Post, DKTV2.