Nato leaders gathered in Ankara this week while diplomats scrambled to draft a joint statement reaffirming article 5, the alliance’s old promise that an armed attack on one is an attack on all. The panic was plain. Europe has realised it can no longer rely on the United States for protection, and the summit was built around the question of what US military deterrence would mean if the worst happened.
The War Machine Adjusts
Ahead of the meeting, officials tried to show that even in the era of Donald Trump, the US remained ready to protect Europe. That effort sat beside Trump’s own threats and demands. He suggested the ceasefire agreement with Iran was “over” after an exchange of hostilities following attacks on commercial vessels in the strait of Hormuz. Overnight, he threatened Iran that “much worse” could come after another round of strikes. During the summit, he reaffirmed his desire to annex Greenland, slammed his peers for failing to join Israel and the US’s attack on Iran, and requested that the US stop trading with Spain over its reluctance to increase defence spending.
The meeting with the other 31 leaders went well, and many had been eager to show off large increases in military expenditure since the previous summit, when member states agreed to raise defence spending to 5% of GDP by 2035. An embarrassing public argument was avoided. The choreography held. The bill, naturally, stays with everyone else.
Nato secretary general Mark Rutte framed the summit around delivery, saying Europe and Canada were “stepping up” after demands from the US president. That’s the language of the alliance: not peace, not restraint, but delivery. More money. More hardware. More dependence on the same institutions that keep turning fear into budgets.
Dan Sabbagh said, “Europe has gone through the five stages of grief and we’re certainly arrived at acceptance.” He added: “We are now at the point where people are starting to plan. They realise that you can’t rely on the US as much as before, that Europe’s run down its arms industry. Although this realisation varies depending on how far east in the continent you go. Poland and the Baltic states are spending more than 4% of GDP on defence already, whereas Spain has refused to sign up to 3.5%. But for the countries that are really motivated, we are at the point where Europe is starting to build.”
Europe Starts Building the Arsenal
Ahead of the summit, Britain and 11 other Nato countries committed to a £37bn project over the next decade to build new missile capabilities to protect Europe. Other joint defence projects are already under way: Germany may join an effort from the UK, Italy and Japan to build Britain’s next generation fighter jet. The continent’s rulers call this preparedness. Ordinary people get the invoices, the militarised borders, and the familiar promise that this time the weapons are for safety.
Critics of the increase in defence spending are questioning whether such a massive investment in Europe’s military is really necessary. Russia has been weakened by the Ukraine war, according to many analysts: almost half a million Russian soldiers have died, and the country is facing fuel shortages from Ukrainian drone attacks. Despite the threatening language from Vladimir Putin, Moscow is likely several years away from being ready to attack Europe if it chooses to once again.
Dan said, “Nato says that Russia might be ready for another war by 2030. But this seems very, very early given that the Ukraine war is still ongoing, thousands of young Russian men have died in the conflict, and lots of materials have been expended. We can’t rule it out, but if it were to happen, it would be in many years. I think we should all want to reflect on that.” Reflection is cheap. Missiles are not.
Even so, governments must prepare for the worst, and many European governments have spent the second Trump presidency thinking about how they would defend themselves if the US did not come to their aid. So far, Europe’s worst fears about the US leader have not played out: Trump has not forced Ukraine into a peace deal with Russia or teamed up with the Kremlin to reshape the continent in their own image. But it still remains unclear how the US would respond in the face of Russian aggression to a European country.
Dan said, “Europe has a population of about 600 million people, Russia has a population of 140 million. The idea that Europe could not stand on its own two feet against Russia with its economic power and technological advantages is unlikely if there really was a crisis tomorrow.” That’s the old imperial arithmetic dressed up as realism: population, output, technology, deterrence. The state counts bodies and calls it security.
The US has signalled that it wants to reduce its numbers in Europe and the amount of fighter jets it has stationed on the continent by a third, while also redeploying naval and bomber divisions away from the continent, leaving gaps in the defence. Dan said, “Can Europe compensate for that? Of course it can, but it comes at a cost to European taxpayers. The question becomes: what is the level of will among European governments and electorates to do that? As we have seen, that is variable.”
Taxpayers Pay, Generals Decide
At least some of the reaction to America’s turn away from Europe is emotional. In the wake of the end of the cold war, the US kept defence spending at a much higher level as part of its ambitions to remain the global superpower. Europe, keen to embrace its peace dividend, cut military spending, choosing to build up its welfare states instead.
Dan said, “Europe’s recognised that you can’t get away with leaning on America any more. Europe’s been getting away with it for a long time and in a lot of European countries, there’s a recognition that it needs to change. The price of deterrence may well be greater than the price that has been previously paid.” The phrase says enough. Deterrence has a price. People pay it. The alliance collects.
Even when Trump leaves office, the US position is unlikely to change on its military presence in Europe, Dan said. There may be more political stability from a future US leader, but there is no going back.
Dan said, “Europe has just got to do more to stand up for itself. People are less certain what the US would do in a crisis, and they understand they need to be self-reliant. It is a process that will take time. But do they believe that America can’t be relied upon at all? I’m not quite sure we’re at that stage.”
The briefing also included a note on ecotherapy research. Geographer Catherine Kelly said, “Research from ecotherapy shows us that nature, but particularly water, gives us this feeling of calm that we don’t get in other spaces.” She added: “A lot of our daily lives are spent on very focused attention – often on screens, unfortunately, and that makes our brain quite tired. When we go to the water, our shoulders drop, our eyes and face soften. We start breathing more slowly … we’re in a state of drift.” Tamara Davison reported that therapeutic practices are now emerging in scuba diving and freediving, where participants can experience the added sensations of weightlessness in the water.
The summit’s real business was not calm. It was the steady expansion of Europe’s military machine, the rebranding of dependence as strategy, and the familiar demand that everyone else fund the next round of preparedness.