European defence future without U.S involvement

With the US no longer serving as a reliable defence partner, Europe must step up to provide support to Ukraine and address its own dependencies on the US.

The United States has decided that it will no longer underwrite European security. The administration of President Donald Trump has stopped aid to Ukraine and surrendered key positions to Russia in order to achieve a ceasefire in Russia’s war of aggression. It has done so without much regard for European security or for whether there will be a just or lasting solution to the conflict.

For European leaders, debating whether the transatlantic relationship can be repaired, complaining about the US or developing schemes to mollify Trump are distractions. Rather, the task should be to build up European defence capability; decide which technological dependencies on the US in military and civilian domains remain acceptable and which do not; explain to voters the harsh reality of a world in which major powers use economic and military coercion to get their way; and inject additional immediate military and financial assistance into Ukraine. European leaders need to stop focusing on Trump’s choices and instead concentrate on their own.

They could, firstly, decide to give the roughly US$200 billion worth of Russian frozen assets in Europe to Kyiv to provide it with funding for its war effort and humanitarian needs. This would be a real financial boost. As research by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) shows, using Russian frozen financial assets to assist Kyiv is legally sound and politically desirable to show Russian President Vladimir Putin that he will be thwarted.

Secondly, Europeans should go through their military inventories to identify more equipment that can be given to Ukraine and place orders with their defence industries to enable the investments that will unlock greater capability. Defence industry leaders say they can deliver, and European leaders should hold them to this. Rheinmetall has said it is producing more artillery munitions per year than the US and plans to increase this output. The Ukrainian defence-industrial sector itself has notable capabilities and can boost these further, particularly in cooperation with European and other partners. Not everything that the US has provided in the past can be replaced, but a lot can. Just like the arrival of individual weapons systems on the battlefield has never been a silver bullet, the disappearance of some systems will not be a bullet to the head for Ukraine’s sovereignty.

To be sure, these steps are expensive, politically demanding and require focus and compromise. They need to be explained to voters who will rightfully want to know why this resource allocation is necessary and a priority. Even with this push, Europe will be militarily vulnerable for several years, but leaders can gradually shrink this window of exposure. Europe has the economic and technological base to achieve this; if it does not have the political will to exercise its latent strength, it has only itself to blame. Waiting for the US to reassert its role as the guarantor of European peace is not sound European strategy.