“NATO is at best a zombie entity – one that still looks alive but is far from fully functional”, warns Garry Kasparov, the chess grandmaster-turned-political activist, in Germany’s Die Welt newspaper. His prescription for Europe’s security is unequivocal: build an autonomous military force, with Germany stepping up to a leadership role despite historical sensitivities.
The continent can no longer afford to outsource its security to America, particularly as Trump’s return threatens to upend decades of trans-Atlantic cooperation. Ukraine’s lonely fight has exposed Europe’s military inadequacy. The remedy, Kasparov argues, requires more than just increased defense spending. Europe must reimagine its institutions, forge a coherent immigration policy to stem radical parties’ rise, and craft a robust military architecture independent of American support. The alternative – a fragmented, vulnerable Europe – is too dangerous to contemplate.
“After Donald Trump’s election victory, panic is a luxury we cannot afford. Europeans will have to get their hands dirty – and quickly”, contend analysts Sophia Besch and Liana Fix in Die Zeit. European leaders have long been talking about Trump’s return but failed to plan accordingly. Now they face three urgent tasks: securing Ukraine’s survival, maintaining NATO cohesion, and preserving EU unity. With American support wavering, Europe must boost Ukraine funding while keeping U.S. military aid flowing through collective bargaining, the analysts argue.
Any halt in U.S. support could trigger Ukrainian military collapse and embolden Russia – worse still if Trump brokers a Moscow-friendly peace deal. Moving beyond the traditional Berlin-Paris axis, Besch and Fix propose that a new “E7” group – comprising major European powers plus EU and NATO officials – should coordinate the response, targeting 3% GDP for defence spending. This military build-up could benefit both European and American defence industries. While Germany’s political turmoil complicates matters, Europe can no longer afford to delay, they conclude.
Between Scylla and Charybdis
Europe can no longer afford to dawdle, yet many EU states cannot afford to boost defence spending without breaching the Stability and Growth Pact’s 3% deficit limit. This fiscal straitjacket, with its threat of sanctions, creates an apparently impossible bind. Writing in Il Sole 24 Ore, Andrea Carli describes an “Italian recipe” for this conundrum. Despite its 7.2% deficit, Italy thinks it has found a way out. Defence Minister Guido Crosetto proposes excluding military spending from deficit calculations – a creative accounting solution that would preserve social spending while boosting defence capabilities. This Italian recipe, which includes funding military expenditure through common European bonds, has won an influential backer in Andrius Kubilius, Lithuania’s EU defence commissioner.
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Trump’s victory sends shock waves through Spanish coffers as well. The country must find an extra €10.5 billion for defence spending, reports Juan Portillo in Madrid’s Expansión. The US Republican’s threat to abandon NATO allies who fall short of the alliance’s 2% GDP spending target puts Spain in a particularly uncomfortable position. At a meagre 1.3% (€19.7 billion), it languishes at the bottom of NATO rankings, far behind Poland’s muscular 4.12% and the US’s 3.38%. Yet any military spending boost faces stiff resistance at home – the government’s left-wing coalition partners, Podemos and Sumar, are having none of it.
A Perverse welcome for Europe’s wake-up call
Wolfgang Munchau, writing in El País, laments Europe’s failure to reduce its defence dependence on America after Trump’s 2016 victory. Despite Angela Merkel’s declaration that Europe must “take its fate into its own hands”, she invested no political capital in the project. With Trump’s return to the White House looming, Europe faces three options: ignore him and continue as before, take steps towards greater independence, or chase possible deals with him. While Munchau argues the best strategy would be to reduce America-dependence without becoming anti-American, he expects European leaders will try to appease Trump rather than seek strategic autonomy – a dangerous underestimation of the next U.S. president.
An even bleaker view comes from Jiří Pehe, a Czech-American analyst, writing in Deník Referendum. The EU, he argues, faces a dangerous pincer movement between Russian aggression and an America that could turn both unreliable and authoritarian. The bloc is ill-prepared for this challenge. Despite ample time, it has neither built an independent defence capability– its new defence commissioner will wield merely symbolic power – nor reformed its decision-making, with qualified majority voting still limited in scope. “It is politically perverse,” laments Pehe, “that the election of Trump is often portrayed as a ‘useful wake-up call’ for the staggering Union by the very politicians from post-communist Central Europe who are doing their utmost to prevent the EU from becoming more integrated and thus more operational.” These same leaders, he notes, understand that Europe’s cumbersome institutional architecture makes meaningful response impossible. Some may even welcome such paralysis.
Writing in Lidové noviny, security analyst and university lecturer Miloš Balabán argues that Europe must overcome its fragmented defence market to bolster its military capabilities. He believes that along with a hefty increase in defence spending, the continent needs to slash excessive regulations that constrain European manufacturers – unlike their American counterparts. “An integrated market would enable cost-effective rearmament and let defence companies reap economies of scale,” writes Balabán. According to the security analyst that means member states must favour EU suppliers and promote industrial consolidation. Such changes would foster broader production capabilities, including crucial munitions output, and enable the rise of larger defence firms able to provide comprehensive weapons systems and maintenance, concludes Balabán.
On the same topic
Swiss arms industry faces isolation over Ukraine stance
Switzerland’s strict re-export rules are costing its defence industry dearly, reports Daniel Ballmer, politics editor at Blick. The Federal Council warns that Western European countries are increasingly shunning Swiss military equipment, threatening both the domestic arms industry and army sustainability.
According to Ballmer, Germany has already excluded Swiss firms from new contracts, including a 100,000 camouflage nets tender, after being blocked from sending Swiss-made Gepard ammunition to Ukraine. The Netherlands has decided to stop buying Swiss weapons entirely, while Denmark and Spain are considering similar moves. All cite Switzerland’s War Material Act, which prohibits re-export to warring countries, as the stumbling block.
Despite multiple attempts to relax these restrictions, reform remains elusive, the editor notes. The left argues proposed changes go too far, the right says not far enough, while anti-military groups threaten referendums, he reports. Meanwhile, the industry’s predicament deepens and Ukraine’s hopes for Swiss support remain unfulfilled.
