Will This Time Be Different for the EU?

I've heard this strategic autonomy talk before. Will Trump make it real?

Photo by Christian Lue on Unsplash

Back in 2023 I warned that, “It would be reckless for other world leaders to dismiss the possibility of a second Trump term beginning on January 20, 2025…. Foreign leaders recognize that a second term for Trump would be even more extreme and chaotic than his first term. The prospect that he could return to the White House will encourage hedging in the United States’ allies.”

As it turns out, that hedging prediction did not completely pan out. A lot of European allies of the United States did not hedge at all. Indeed, it seems as though one cannot write about the European reaction to Trump’s second term without using the word “blindsided.” Trump’s decision to appease Putin and force Ukraine to the negotiating table while sidelining Europe has clearly been a shock to the continent.

Could Europe finally be getting its act together? After Germany’s recent elections, Friedrich Merz, the likely next chancellor of Germany, said some rather striking things about the transatlantic relationship and NATO:

“My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA,” Germany's chancellor-in-waiting said. “I never thought I would have to say something like this on a television program. But after Donald Trump's statements last week at the latest, it is clear that the Americans, at least this part of the Americans, this administration, are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe.”

Merz, a staunch Atlanticist who has spent much of his professional career as a lawyer working with and for American firms, didn't stop there. Later this year, a NATO summit will be held — but he suggested Europe may need to devise a new defense structure to replace it.

“I am very curious to see how we are heading toward the NATO summit at the end of June," he said. "Whether we will still be talking about NATO in its current form or whether we will have to establish an independent European defense capability much more quickly."

Such extraordinary statements from the likely next leader of Europe’s biggest economy are stronger than any head of government has made in response to the U.S. president’s 10-day onslaught against Europe and Ukraine.

On Friday, Merz suggested it was time to explore nuclear cooperation between France, the U.K. and Germany (and others) to replace the American nuclear umbrella that has guaranteed European safety from Russian attack. His speculation was anything but idle.

This caught the attention of Paul Krugman, who suggested, “This is a watershed moment. We may someday look back at the past few weeks as the moment Vladimir Putin lost his chance to conquer Ukraine.” After reviewing Europe’s considerable wealth and capacity to Arm itself, he elaborated: “People at the European Commission sometimes joke that there should be a statue of Joseph Stalin in front of the Berlaymont, the building in Brussels where the commission is headquartered. Why? Because the threat from Stalin arguably made the European Union possible. If Europe rises to the occasion now, maybe they should also put up a statue of Donald Trump.”

Krugman is correct that it would be an extraordinary geopolitical turn of events if Europe got its strategic act together. Heck, this was my own prediction last summer when Politico asked me to sketch out the legacy of a second-term Trump foreign policy.

At this point, however, I cannot shake a strong sense of déjà vu. Because I am old enough to remember current German chancellor Olaf Scholz’s February 27, 2022 Zeitenwende speech, in which he pledged to radically increase Germany’s defense spending, representing a full 180 from the German post-Cold War policy consensus. Lots of news analyses declared that it was Europe’s geopolitical wake-up moment.

As it turned out, Scholz’s defense spending plans did not quite come to fruition. That has been a recurring European theme for as long as I have been studying international relations. European leaders repeatedly declare the need for strategic autonomy only to immediately shelve the idea to focus on internal issues.

It turns out that others are familiar with this dynamic when it comes to Europe. The Economist’s leader gets to the conundrum:

The realization is sinking in. Europe needs to become able to defend itself without America’s help. From Friedrich Merz, Germany’s probable next chancellor, to Emmanuel Macron, the president of France and longtime advocate of “strategic autonomy”, politicians are calling for higher defense spending. The calls are welcome, indeed long overdue. The problem is that, so far, neither politician has offered much in the way of ideas on where the money for it is supposed to come from.

Currently, the EU’s member states spend some €325bn ($340bn) a year on defense, which comes to about 1.8% of the bloc’s GDP. That is still, three years into the war in Ukraine, less than the 2% target that NATO set its members in 2014 after Russia had illegally annexed Crimea and occupied the eastern Donbas region. Guntram Wolff of Bruegel, a think-tank in Brussels, and Alex Burilkov of Leuphana University Lüneburg calculate the immediate requirement at 3.5% of GDP for Europe to be able to defend itself without the Americans—and in the longer term The Economist thinks expenditures will need to be more like 4-5%. Even the 3.5% figure leaves a gap of 1.7% of GDP to be filled.

It is not economically inconceivable for European countries to meet these targets. But it requires a political will that no post-Cold War European leader has demonstrated to date.

The hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World has no idea if this time will be different for Europe. I know, however, that this time it should be different.