February 15, 2024 - 10:30am
Shockwaves continue to spread across Europe following Donald Trump’s threat against Nato member states. In comments at a campaign rally on Saturday, the former and possibly future US president said that his America would not protect “delinquent” countries from attack by the Russians — and that he would “encourage them to do whatever the hell they want”.
By “delinquent” he meant Nato members not meeting the pledge to spend 2% of GDP on defence — or, as many US Right-wingers perceive it, free-riding on American military strength.
Even though, as Thomas Fazi notes, it’s unlikely that Trump would actually pull out, European politicians are beginning to panic. A senior German Social Democrat, Katarina Barley, has even suggested that Europe can no longer rely on America’s nuclear umbrella. If she’s right about that then the European Union, if not completely defenceless, is in a much weaker position. Of course, one member state — France — has its own, smaller nuclear arsenal. Yet relying on the French Force de frappe would shift the balance of power within the EU. There’s also the political risk that a future French president might not be as pro-EU and anti-Putin as the incumbent. Right now, the polls give Marine Le Pen a 50-50 chance of succeeding Emmanuel Macron in 2027.
There are, however, a number of actions that Europe’s leaders can take in response to these threats. First, compared to the so-far impossible task of creating a European Army, it would be much simpler — and probably less expensive — for all Nato members to meet their 2% spending targets. Second, a boost to defence spending is an opportunity to re-industrialise. If Europe is to deter Russia, then at the very least it must match its capacity to manufacture armaments. Third, if the EU is to continue waging economic war against the Putin regime, then it must do so with credibility, starting with a crackdown on sanctions-busting activity by EU businesses.
Fourth, a successor to Nato Secretary General Jen Stoltenberg will have to be named soon. The obvious and expected candidate is Mark Rutte, currently the caretaker Prime Minister of the Netherlands. He has experience dealing with Trump — and agrees with him on Nato members paying their way.
Finally, the EU needs a fall-back position if Europe loses the American nuclear umbrella. This plan B needs to consist of more than hoping that the French don’t go wobbly. One option would be for the European Union itself to become a nuclear power. In theory, this would be more internationally acceptable than, say, Germany going it alone as a nuclear state. But how would a political entity that doesn’t even have a conventional military operate a nuclear deterrent on behalf of its 27 members? Even if control of the red button were subject to qualified majority voting, EU decision-making structures are simply too cumbersome. There’s a reason why nukes are exclusively controlled by sovereign governments.
This leaves just one option: the EU must swallow its pride and make a deal with the UK. Britain is a sovereign nuclear state, it has a strategic interest in Europe not being invaded, and it is much less likely go far-Right than the French. If only as a backstop, a British nuclear umbrella can protect the continent.
Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.
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SubscribeMore and more pennies start to drop about just how dysfunctional the EU is and was always going to be.
The EU is not, is not meant to be, and should never be, a military alliance.
At one point, it was actually meant to be a free trade zone.
I voted Leave but would rejoin an EEC without any qualms, however I fear the EU is headed for a real collapse mainly because of tensions between the stealth ‘project’ of complete fiscal, monetary and political union and the impossibility of articulating it.
The clue to my differing votes in 1975 (to stay in) and 2016 (to come out) is there in the initials of what I was voting for.
I suspect many millions of people might be the same as me.
What makes the writer think Britain is less likely to go far-right than France? Who are the likely successors to Sunak?
Keir Starmer . . so yes, more right wing (according the Corbynista rump anyway)
🙂
Regardless of interests, should the US withdraw its nuclear umbrella, I don’t think Britain should put itself in a position where its nuclear capability is underwriting the security of Europe against the threat of Russian expansion.
I don’t think it is a stance which the Russians would find remotely credible and it would collapse the minute Russian boots entered Poland.
If the US were to withdraw from NATO – which I don’t actually believe would happen in any foreseeable timescale, even if Trump is re-elected – then European states need to come together in a military alliance of sovereign states and stop allowing the EU to pretend it can operate as a kind of security superstate.
You misunderstand the nuclear position. If the UK nuclear capability were to be offered to Europe (and what a climb-down that’d require from European high horses!) it’d be in the event of an invading entity themselves using nuclear weapons. The whole point of nuclear is to act as a deterrent to its use. Russian boots entering Poland would be far from a trigger for this circumstance.
NATO’s nuclear capability has always been a counter-balance to the Soviet Union/Russia’s conventional troop superiority.
NATO troops in Europe could never have won a conventional war against the Soviets. The troops stationed in Germany were a tripwire. Were the US to leave NATO now, the Europeans certainly wouldn’t be able to win such a war against Russia.
You can decide for yourself the significance that last year Russia withdrew from the Conventional Forces Treaty in place since the end of the Cold War, designed to prevent just such a conventional disparity in the post-Cold War era.
If a conventional European army – however it might be constituted and led – were faced with a conventional attack by the Russian army, you can decide for yourself whether it’d do better or worse than against one single army: that of Ukraine.
That further misplaced confidence in Russia’s (now depleted) conventional capability aside, it’s time we in Europe got our own act together. Relying on the US in the aftermath of WW2 was the only possibility since Europe was in disarray/bankrupt. There’s no excuse now.
The Russian army is well ensconced in large areas of Ukrainian territory, despite £150bn+ in financial and military aid to Ukraine, around half of which from the US.
I don’t question their courage or determination, but without US support Ukraine would have been ground down by now.
Yes, i know how things stand on Ukraine territory, thanks; also its reliance on support from NATO members, primarily the US. It makes not one jot of difference to your overconfidence in Russian future capability.
My point is quite simple: we, in Europe, need to re-arm and be prepared for any eventuality. If we do that, there will be no invasion, or even talk of it.
That’s not the point being made is it. Russia has made hard work of invading a poor country of 40 million that’s entirely reliant on aid from others. How do you think it would fare against the combined forces of major European nations?
That would depend on their preparedness and unity in the face of aggression.
Extension of America’s nuclear capability to cover its allies has always been the ultimate guarantor of collective Western determination.
In the absence of the USA, Britain’s nuclear capability cannot credibly perform that role.
That’s the point.
Maybe Europe should get itself some nukes then.
If the US had given Ukraine access to its full arsenal, the war would have quite a difficult complexion. For starters, it would be residents of Moscow who would be dodging incoming missiles.
Spot on, both points… If the Russian economy is doing gangbusters (according to its online fanboys and fangirls), with 6% devoted to defence, mainly, by the sounds of it, not so much more nuclear as more ordinary bombs, shells and conventional weapons. Then the much larger UK economy, let alone the vaunted EU states economies, should abandon chimerical ‘Green Industry’ dreams and invest in munitions and weapons industry for both much greater security from Russia’s rag, tag and bobtail army of crims and rapists, AND enjoy an immediate massive economic fillip.
That was certainly the theory at the end of the Cold War. Since then, we’ve seen just how awful the Russian Army is.
Russia’s conventional troop superiority? Really? Russia using it’s entire military can’t even manage to subdue one former Soviet Republic! If Russia invades Europe, only it’s nuclear deterrant would stop that invasion from being driven back to Moscow.
It is a bit funny to see the ‘linkage’ of the security aspects of Britain’s nuclear deterrent to European interests after the EU went to enormous lengths to disallow linkage between security and economic aspects and the craven May, Hammond, Gauke administration went along with it.
The 2 policy areas for both the EU and UK were always inevitably linked, whatever Barnier, Junker, Tusk (now born again as a pro-nation stater apparently) maintained, supported by the Ever Remain constituency here, and it’s taken just 7 or 8 years to reveal this truth.
Had May et al. not allowed the linkage to be dismissed we would have had a very different agreement and a very different situation. Which is likely what we will see before much longer.
There is no way that Germany will ever become a nuclear state. The only way I could ever imagine Germans going along with this is if the project is situated at EU level.
This is absurd. If EU elites are genuinely “beginning to panic” at Trump’s latest outrageous gag, then they are even more realitätsfern than they already appeared to be.
Is the real fear here having to admit that this is yet another issue where Trump is correct?
His point is correct. His way of making it is (like so much to do with Trump) repulsive.
What else can he do to those EU states who refuse to meet their obligations and rely on America to protect them? He pointed this out in a meeting with Merkel when he was President and got rebuffed.
You’re so stupid.
All this pants wetting over 2%. “But Trump!!” Uh, no; how about the countries that have long benefitted start participating in their own defense a little bit. The US is broke, intentionally aiming to fundamentally transform itself into the very third-world cesspit the flood of “migrants” is leaving behind. At this rate, we won’t be able to defend ourselves, let alone anyone else.
We already can’t. I recall reading somewhere that in the event of a high intensity conflict a la Ukraine, we’d run out of ammunition within 2 weeks. That was before we gave all our ammunition away. And of course we can’t make the ammunition ourselves. The market will provide though.
We don’t have the spare parts to operate our equipment for very long before it breaks down. We couldn’t even get the one aircraft carrier away on time. The carrier is supposed to be home to 40 planes – I believe it has 12 at the moment? Is that enough for continuous air patrol? If it is, how many planes are left for y’know, attacking the enemy? Not that it matters as they’ll all break down before long. The carriers don’t have the support vessels required for them to operate except as a joint command with our countries.
None of the forces can hire anyone to fight for them. It’s all a bit sad really. 30 years ago, as I understand it, we could genuinely call our armed forces the finest in the world. But they are simply no longer capable of operating except on paper.
Western Europe needs to come to terms with the fact that Russia will be its enemy for at least the next 50 years, and probably the next 100. It should rearm on that basis. Hopefully a “hot war” will be avoided, but the occasional proxy war (like now in Ukraine) can almost be guaranteed. Russia should simply not be trusted, and should not be materially traded with.
Europe’s green energy pursuits are contributing to a rapid and significant de-industrialization trend (see Germany). It’s highly unlikely that Europe will have the heavy industrial capacity to sustain a credible collective deterrent in the future. That begs a question as to what course the U.S. should follow when NATO is content to neglect the investments necessary to offer up a credible collective defense? I’m sure our U.S. MIC will exhaust every effort to do what they’ve always done but the U.S.’ fiscal disaster suggests that the status quo is going to encounter a brick wall in the near future.
18 of NATO’s 31 member states meet the target of spending two per cent of GDP on defence only if you count things like military pensions, the Coast Guard, the Met Office, and the BBC World Service. Britain counts all of those, and only under David Cameron and George Osborne did it start to count Trident. Just think about that.
The only ever invocation of Article 5 had nothing to do with a threat or attack from Russia, which initially gave important assistance to NATO’s side, and it ended in abject defeat after 20 years. Russia cannot even subdue Ukraine, as it would at least have any wish to do. It is a very bad joke to suggest that NATO has given its members peace. When was Britain, for one, last at peace? People eyeing up employment by arms companies need to be honest about it, as do people who are already funded by them, as do people to whom the Armed Forces are the basis of their family and thus political identity, and as do those khaki festishists who have never been anywhere near the Forces but who are infatuated with them.
NATO is finished. Explicitly, if Donald Trump were re-elected. But implicitly, even if he were not. Facts must be faced. The Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP all refuse to face facts.
Hahaha! Backstop. I’d trade off nuclear protection in return for getting rid of the idiotic arrangement we have in Northern Ireland where EU laws apply in our country. Not that the EU will or, if it did, Sunak would pursue this line. But I would.
The condition on which UK should offer the nuclear umbrella for other states is if those other states are prepared to pay properly for their own conventional defence. In my opinion, any European state spending less than 5% on non-nuclear defence is being highly irresponsible.
The ultimate test of whether a state is taking responsibility for its own defence, however, is whether it is prepared to stand up against autocratic and authoritarian nations rather than appease them.
A couple of points…
Article 5 of the NATO Treaty doesn’t oblige any member to undertake military action if another member is attacked…and never has. The USA doesn’t enter such obligations…and never has. Whether it would actually take such action, especially against a nuclear power is open to debate; the US umbrella may not actually exist other than as a bluff.
The UK nuclear deterrent probably cannot be used without the consent of the USA. Britain is not actually a “sovereign nuclear state” being reliant on US technology ie Trident.
The whole premise of the article is flawed.
This is such a weird inaccuracy that I keep seeing crop up. The UK is very much a sovereign nuclear state and does not need US approval to use a weapon. This would anyway completely invalidate the existence of the weapons as a deterrent, but it just isn’t true and I don’t know where the assumption comes from. If the claim is because Trident is US technology, it should be noted that it is actually jointly developed and jointly produced technology, including here in the UK itself at Aldermaston. I just cannot get my head around this claim…
Yes it does invalidate the existence of the weapons as a deterrent. Assurances by the British “authorities” do not re-assure… MRDA…as ever.
And so a US withdrawal would create inevitable nuclear proliferation at pace, albeit in a more sane part of the Globe – Europe. Even so not exactly what the Americans likely to want so another reason unlikely to happen.
But some of what Trump’s language has prompted not all bad, even if he’s not entirely thought it through.
Britain does not have an independent nuclear capability. Its nukes are limited to its subs, and controlled by the US.
Anyway, nukes are a red herring. Nukes are a weak party’s weapons – if Europe does not have a credible conventional defence, only nukes, then a nuclear war is a foregone conclusion – and against Russia, which has a credible missile defence, Europe would inevitably lose.
Nukes had a purpose when targeting technology was so imprecise that the size of the warhead had to compensate. That is no longer necessary.
Europe needs to focus on a strong defensive posture – that is a whole lot cheaper then setting yourself up for force projection for colonial wars.
The nuclear weapons being submarine based is not the “limit” you necessarily think it is; it’s a choice because subs are the most survivable type of nuclear weapon.
And no, UK nuclear weapons are absolutely not “controlled by the US”.
Good point. If Western Europe is looking to the French nuclear umbrella to protect it, it is being very foolish.
Why the heck is paying 2% of your GDP for defense so HARD? Why are European states grumbling and grousing at (gasp!) paying for a small share of their defense. The answer is, they’re used to saving money on defense, outsourcing it (for free) to the US of A, while spending the money saved on benefits for their citizens, such as paid sick leave, universal healthcare, and so on. Americans need to pay for these things themselves, while Europeans, freed from the crushing burden of defense, have extra cash to spare on these little things.