the military threat to Europe

Unlock the US Election Countdown newsletter for free

The stories that matter on money and politics in the race for the White House

The 80-year-old Pax Americana in Europe might expire next month. There’s a 50-50 chance that Donald Trump is elected president and, let’s say, a 50-50 chance that he abandons the protection of Europe, just as Ukraine runs out of soldiers. He needn’t even bother leaving Nato. He could just let it go dormant. That means a 25 per cent chance of Europe facing its worst military threat since 1945. 

Yes, it’s a hypothetical, but a hypothetical that could happen as soon as early next year. What might “Europe alone” look like?    

For years, think-tanks published reports telling European states to get ready to fight alone, but the Europeans didn’t. Even the possible imminency of Trump II hasn’t concentrated minds. The trouble is, Nato members cannot realistically plan for a future without the US, given that there is no Nato without the US. National governments and Brussels feel they have already poured more into defence than anyone imagined in 2021. The EU, never previously a military power, has sent Ukraine tens of billions of euros in weapons. Even Germany is trying to build a serious army. But these efforts aren’t enough.

Now Europe’s two main military powers, the UK and France, have budget crises, while Germany’s economic outlook is scary. None feels much pressure from voters to save Ukraine, so they haven’t. 

Poland is building an army bigger than Britain’s to protect itself, not its eastern neighbours

Officials across Europe feel overwhelmed. They struggle to get through each week’s crises. They don’t have the bandwidth to prepare for
catastrophes. Speaking to them recently, I’ve noticed the recurrent hope that Trump might stick with Europe after all. Guillaume Lagane of Sciences Po in Paris points out: “We don’t have many alternatives to optimism.” But European optimism ignores Trump’s consistency on the key issues. He’s isolationist, has repeatedly talked about leaving Nato and seems to prefer friendship with Vladimir Putin to defending Ukraine. Trump’s proposed “peace deal” would hand Russia a chunk of Ukraine.

If Kamala Harris wins, she might push Ukraine into an only slightly better deal. Nobody expects another US president as Atlanticist as Joe Biden, notes Ulrike Franke of the European Council on Foreign Relations. 

This means that Putin’s bets could pay off. He knows that westerners typically start wars gung-ho (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq) before losing interest. This time, we haven’t instituted effective sanctions or retaliated against his cyber attacks, as far as is publicly known. Russia’s population and elite remain largely quiescent. And while no ally of Kyiv’s has sent combat troops, North Korean soldiers are arriving in Ukraine. 

Russia and North Korea have one advantage. They appear to attach little value to their citizens’ lives, so they can sustain losses unimaginable to western countries. Russia is thought to have suffered more casualties taking the small Ukrainian town of Avdiivka than all US and western European military deaths in the past 50 years combined. 

What could Russia do after beating Ukraine? Steven Everts, director of the EU Institute for Security Studies, says Putin might pursue “the holy grail of Russian foreign policy” by testing whether Nato’s promise of mutual self-defence is real. Putin could do this by attacking a Nato member, probably a Baltic state, claiming to be protecting ethnic Russians there, as he did in Georgia and Ukraine. 

If that happened, while Trump watched, Europeans might send troops. But Putin could outlast them, fighting until European governments bailed. Germany’s public didn’t tolerate 59 German deaths in Afghanistan in 20 years. More could die in an hour on a new eastern front.  

There are European far-right leaders who want peace with Putin. And western countries know that, ultimately, he isn’t their problem. Britain and France are protected from Russia by distance and nuclear umbrellas. Western Europe prospered while Moscow ruled eastern Europe from 1945 to 1989. Westerners didn’t fight for Danzig in 1939, Budapest in 1956 or Prague in 1968. They might not fight for Tallinn in 2025. 

In one gloomy scenario, Putin could become central Europe’s problem. Germany’s nightmare is a Russian nuclear attack, says Franke. Berlin and Warsaw could ask France to share its nuclear umbrella. For now, Poland is building an army bigger than Britain’s or France’s to protect itself, not its eastern neighbours.

Europeans united could have defeated a country that has the GDP of Italy. But war is a contest of wills. And so, writes Everts, Europe “has subcontracted its fate to a handful of voters in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania”. 

Email Simon at [email protected]

Follow @FTMag to find out about our latest stories first and subscribe to our podcast Life and Art wherever you listen