"NATO politicians should be planning for a world in which the United States will not be there"

Since Russia decided to invade Ukraine in 2022, the conversation on European security and defence has accelerated. However, as the challenges have evolved, so too has the perception that there was a trend of change that had been building for decades. To explore this idea, during the latest edition of CIDOB's international conference War and Peace in the 21st Century, Carme Colomina, senior researcher and editor at CIDOB, speaks with Daniel Fiott, director of the Defence and Statecraft programme at the Brussels School of Governance, and Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia programme at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). In their dialogue, they analyse and examine this change of era.

Both agree on one diagnosis: a Europe increasingly distant from the United States and facing different fronts. Bergmann explains it: "For the first time in the history of the NATO alliance, the United States and Europe are focused on different threats". Fiott, for his part, warns that Europe faces a challenge in its own decision-making, since "on every major political issue, it has been extremely difficult for Europeans to stay on the same track".

In the conversation, Colomina leads the analysts to explore the contradictions accumulated in previous periods: Washington asked Europe to spend more, but slowed attempts to build a genuinely European defence; European governments are increasing their budgets, but "more money does not mean more Europe". Ultimately, this is a dialogue on defence, but also on power, dependence, and the urgency of building a European autonomy that must step forward with urgency but also with organisation.
 
We are meeting at a crucial moment: so much has happened since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. European defence is undergoing a real transformation. The very concept of security has changed and, at the same time, new layers of vulnerability keep emerging: the transatlantic rift, Greenland, Iran. The sense of vulnerability does not recede; it grows. How do you see what has happened in these past few years? How solid is this shift, and where do you see its weaknesses?

Max Bergmann (M. B.): To begin with, it is both structural and temporary. Structural in the sense that we are in a different moment, a different period. For the first time in the history of the NATO alliance, the United States and Europe are focused on different threats. The United States should be focused on the Russia threat, but Washington's main focus — not only under the Trump administration, but also under previous administrations — has been China. In Europe, by contrast, the main threat is Russia.

There is also a growing sense in Washington that Europe needs to take charge of its own security, and that trend is going to continue. In some ways, the Biden administration was an aberration, a return to the past. Where we are now suggests that any future administration will want Europe to take charge of its own security.

"Europeans need to realise that they are on their own. The United States is not going to be there for them under this administration"

Then you add all the disruption caused by Donald Trump — Greenland, Iran, his attacks on Europe as a culture, his attacks on the European Union — and we are in a very different place. Europeans need to realise that they are on their own. The United States is not going to be there for them under this administration. And if somehow it is, what will the price be? Because that is the nature of this administration.

Daniel Fiott (D. F.): I do not fundamentally disagree with Max. We are faced with unprecedented crises. In some ways, even the pandemic helped widen this discussion in areas of European security that we may not have thought about before, such as supply chains and critical infrastructure. These are now part of everyday discussions within the European Union and NATO.

There is clearly a structural shift underway in the transatlantic relationship. What worries me is that Europeans may still treat President Trump as a blip in the system. They should also consider the possibility that things in the U.S. political landscape could get worse. There is plenty of evidence that President Trump is, in many ways, an opportunist. He likes chaos because he sees opportunities in it. He also likes crises because they allow him to expose Europe's weaknesses very clearly.

But let us look ahead. If one of his so-called anointed sons comes to power as the next president, he may be more ideological than Trump himself. That is a particular worry for Europe, because parts of the political elite in Washington already display a kind of visceral, inexplicable hostility towards Europe. It is hard to say where it comes from, but it is there.

So, as Max was saying, whatever future lies ahead, Europeans have to plan for their own defence. The mentality has to be: we really are alone. I understand why NATO politicians do not want to be remembered as the people who set fire to NATO and ended it. But, carefully and quietly, they should be planning for a world in which the United States will not be there. That means investing in defence and security in ways they have not done in the past.

When analysing this shift, we often begin with the war in Ukraine. But you were already pointing to longer-term changes in the U.S. approach. Barack Obama was already talking about free riders and leading from behind. The signals were there. Perhaps Europeans failed to read them, and that is what made them vulnerable. How can Europe address that now, especially when there is still a strong internal divide within the EU over how to relate to the United States? Because Russia is one challenge, China is another, but now the United States itself has become a third layer of challenge — and also a source of division among member states.

M. B.: When I look at the state of European defence and European security, the United States bears a good deal of responsibility for it. Over the last thirty years, we kept telling Europeans to get their act together and spend more on defence. But every time there was an effort for the European Union to do something on defence, we said: not that, do not do that.

That happened under Clinton, under Bush, under Obama, under Biden — it has been continuous. Why? Because the United States had more influence in Europe than in any other region of the world. It had a good thing going. Why upset NATO? Why upset the status quo? If the EU started getting into defence, Europeans might not need the United States as much.

So the United States had its own confusion. On the one hand, those focused on NATO wanted things to remain the same, with America in charge. On the other hand, those who do not focus much on Europe and NATO kept asking why Europe was not stronger. That confusion is now baked into the current structure, where, for some reason, EU defence is still seen as competition with NATO. Why? Because the United States said it was duplication twenty-eight years ago. It had no clear strategy. It wanted the status quo, but it was upset with the status quo.

D. F.: I do not disagree with that. Especially after the first Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014, there was a great deal of ambition and awareness among European leaders that Europe had to take on more responsibility. The problem was that whenever Europe tried to push in that direction, it would always get the phone call from Washington saying: easy, easy — maybe we are happier with you making statements on defence rather than actually doing anything.

That is changing now. The mindset has really changed. And if, in the future, someone sits in the White House who has a more constructive view of Europe, and by then Europe is more independent in defence — with the capabilities and the political ability to exercise its power in the world — the United States may come to see that as a positive outcome.

But Europe has been caught in that immediate post-Cold War dynamic in which Europeans were seen as the weaker party, the free riders — and then, whenever they tried to do something about it, they were told to stop. That cycle has now been broken.
 
There is also a widely accepted narrative that Europeans do not spend enough, but in recent years they have been spending much more. So is the real problem the amount of spending, or the way it is spent? And what does that mean in practice? Does higher spending mean a stronger Europe, or simply a more rearmed Europe that is not necessarily stronger?

D. F.: That is a very good point, because there are several things to unpack. The first is that more money does not mean more Europe. In fact, when governments have more money in the bank, there is a tendency to invest it on a national basis.

"There has to be a European level to this investment, especially in those defence capabilities that no single member state can deliver alone"

Now, we have to be careful with that argument, because many European governments are starting almost from a blank sheet when it comes to defence. So it is not realistic to insist that national investments should not happen. Some national investment is inevitable, both to get the industrial base moving and to bring public opinion along. In the current climate — food prices rising, budgets being cut in health and education, the energy crisis — it is even harder for governments to make the case for defence. They have to show citizens that this money is also being reinvested in their own economies.

However, that should not become the defining feature of investment. There has to be a European level to this investment, especially in those defence capabilities that no single member state can deliver alone. Otherwise, it is just a waste of money — throwing money around like a water sprinkler and ending up with no real military capabilities.

The second issue is political. Imagine a future in which Europeans do have the capabilities, the industrial base, the innovation, the trained and stocked militaries. Even then, one major political problem would remain: our disunity as Europeans. We cannot act together in a coherent way. On every major political issue, it has been extremely difficult for Europeans to stay on the same track. Just look at the war in Iran right now. Where is Europe's moral authority? It seems to be either the Pope or Pedro Sánchez, and no one else. That is the kind of disunity I am talking about, and it is very problematic.

M. B.: Two quick thoughts, partly to disagree with Daniel. I do not see European disunity in the way Europe sees the world, in the way Europe wants to act, or in the broad lines of European foreign policy. Europe is quite united there.

The problem is structural. In foreign policy, there should be division. There is never total unity in the United States about what its approach to the world should be. There are two parties, there are disagreements, and there are different sides. The problem in Europe is that, in order to have a common foreign policy, everyone has to agree. That means Europe only agrees on the easy things — the things that do not matter very much.

So there is a huge structural problem in how Europe represents itself on the world stage. It is not that there are no common interests or views. It is that there is no single voice, no single person, no real foreign-policy mechanism capable of expressing them effectively.

The second obstacle is this idea of sovereignty, of national sovereignty. Europeans have not been sovereign on defence since 1945 — perhaps Spain a little differently, but certainly Western Europe. Instead of working together and integrating defence efforts, as the original European project intended through a European Defence Community, Europeans failed. The United States had strongly supported that idea because it did not want to stay in Europe forever. That was never the plan after the Second World War.

The well-known NATO slogan — keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down — is a British phrase. The Americans did not want to stay in. The plan was to leave, and the way to leave was to build a common European military. Eisenhower strongly supported that idea when he was NATO Supreme Allied Commander and later as president. But when that failed because the French voted it down, the United States faced a terrible choice: Europeans could not defend themselves, so what do we do? And so it stayed.

"Europe outsourced its defence to a foreign power, and that foreign power either does not want to do it anymore or wants a great deal in return"

That gave Europeans the illusion that they were sovereign on defence. But where is the sovereignty? America might pull out, and then what? Europeans have to debase themselves to keep the Americans in. Mark Rutte has to bend the knee to try to do it. The national militaries do not make Europe sovereign. In fact, they are probably an obstacle to Europe becoming truly sovereign. Europe outsourced its defence to a foreign power, and that foreign power either does not want to do it anymore or wants a great deal in return.

D. F.: And it could be even worse if we add Greenland to the equation. Then it is not just about breaking dependency; it is a hostile act of takeover of European territory.

At the end of the day, the European Union has always explained itself as a peace project, but it was an armed peace project, and the arms came from the United States. That part was never really explained. At the same time, I sometimes feel that Europe should also tell Washington: be careful what you wish for. Because if Europeans actually did everything Washington now says it wants — if they spent 5% on defence, took the lead and became fully independent in security — NATO might cease to be useful or attractive to the United States.

M. B.: I do not agree. If you go back to John F. Kennedy's speech in Philadelphia on 4 July 1962, about transatlantic interdependence, the idea was that the United States of America and the United States of Europe would work together. What the United States should want is a true partner.

Yes, those who work on NATO love the influence the United States gets through it. But what it should want is a Europe that can stand up for the same values that it hopefully still shares — stability, rule of law, democracy, freedom — and can help promote those values around the world. That is what it should be looking for.
 
And perhaps that is what the European Union feels it now supports more strongly than the United States itself.

M. B.: That is true. But then it becomes a matter of Europe actually standing up and promoting those values in the world, rather than simply bending the knee to Washington.

Let me close with this, Daniel. If everyone is asking for a stronger European pillar inside NATO, who should lead that pillar?

D. F.: That is a very challenging question. I hear a lot, even now, about the Europeanisation of NATO. But I still struggle to understand what that really means in practice. If we are dealing with a scenario in which the United States decides tomorrow that it does not want to be in NATO, then it is no longer really the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It becomes what — a European Treaty Organization? Plus Canada, Turkey and the United Kingdom, which creates its own challenges, of course.

"The worst-case scenario is that Europe Europeanises NATO in such a way that it simply imports into NATO all the things it does not like about the EU today"

So I understand why governments may want to play with the idea of Europeanising NATO. In their minds, NATO already has the command structures, and so on. But what they neglect is the deterrent power the United States has historically brought. The United States has a very clear decision-making capacity that Europeans cannot easily replicate. I often play this game with my students: who should be the European SACEUR [Supreme Allied Commander Europe]? And you immediately see what kinds of conflicts would emerge just from choosing the person.

In a European defence organisation, you need a very solid structure of decision-making. Otherwise, adversaries will not take you seriously. The worst-case scenario is that Europe Europeanises NATO in such a way that it simply imports into NATO all the things it does not like about the EU today. That would be a major mistake.

So Europe needs to think very carefully, not only about the capabilities and the forces it needs — which are critical — but also about decision-making processes. And for that, governments need to stop acting as they have done for many years, which is to rely on the United States or avoid taking decisions themselves.

Thank you very much.