The Trump Administration Should Be Careful What They Wish For

If Europe were to implement everything the US demanded of it last week, it would end up empowering Europe at the cost of US power

There was a reason why American security guarantees for Europe were a good deal for both sides of the Atlantic. In exchange, the US was able to rely on the old contintent’s support for most of its foreign wars, even if that support has not been uniform and has come with a healthy dose of democratic criticism. Europe may have taken a timeout from its own defence after the Cold War, but not without American encouragement: who still remembers the era of crisis management operations and wars of choice far away from home territory? That was the NATO post-Cold War doctrine under American leadership. The new NATO allies in Central and Eastern Europe were instructed to get rid of their old-fashioned conscription-based territorial forces and to adopt the expeditionary force model with professional, significantly smaller troop sizes, tailored to fight along the US in Afghanistan or Iraq. (This is one reason why appetite for NATO membership was limited in Finland in the early 2000’s. For Finland, the main threat remained a territorial one also after the Cold War.)

While it is fair to demand Europe to step up and take responsibility for its own security, it is not necessarily smart - that is, if this administration is interested in maintaining American great power status. There are multiple ways how the US might very well end up shooting itself in the foot by antagonizing Europe.

First, US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth demanded in his rambling nearly 30-minute-long remarks last Thursday that Europe must start taking full responsibility for the continent’s security with no or minimal US contributions, invest into its capability accordingly, and build up an efficient European defence industrial base. If Europe were to implement these suggestions, the US would soon find Europe less willing (and, in all likelihood less able due to new tasks on the continent) to support its wars elsewhere. The US defence industry would also find Europeans less eager to buy American, in order to support the European industrial base.

(Photo credit: MSC/Conzelmann)

Second, it was a calculated provocation to send Vice President JD Vance to the Munich Security Conference to insult all Europeans present by talking about the culture war and belittling the very real threat that Russia poses to Europe. Listening to Trump’s VP scold Europe over having cancelled Romanian election results due to Russian interference, himself representing a president who violently attacked the US system of governance and still refuses to acknowledge his defeat in the 2020 elections, is grotesque to say the least. But again, going to Munich of all places and catering to a far-right audience is simply not smart. The Trump administration does not seem to understand European coalition politics particularly well and that far-right parties in most European countries (even in those where they are in power) have to co-govern with others, and are polling at 20-25% at best. That leaves a very sizeable majority of Europeans deeply antagonized by what can only be considered a blatant insult. The MAGA administration is clearly trying to renegotiate the terms of whatever is left of the transatlantic partnership, by seeking to end liberal Western democracy and replace it with a far-right agenda, and returning to great power politics, including a diminished sovereignty for smaller countries. As it happens, this is not a winning strategy with many European countries, even where the far-right is gaining in polls, as they happen to be small states very eager to have a say in affairs directly concerning them.

Third, the US Special Envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, suggested that Europeans would not sit at the table when the US negotiates peace in Ukraine with Russia. The statement came right after the US administration circulated a questionnaire to European governments, inquiring what they would be willing and able to contribute to security guarantees for Ukraine. As it happens, this is not how anything works. The US cannot wash its hands of the consequences of a peace deal Trump thinks he’s brokering, and expect Europeans to accept being excluded from negotiating the terms of the deal but take all responsibility for its implementation. This will lead to certain failure. It takes two to tango and if Ukraine, increasingly likely supported by Europe, does not sign on to a bad deal, there will be no deal. Similarly, excluding a European ceasefire force in Ukraine from NATO’s Article 5 security guarantee is simply a bad faith deal for Europe.

Instead of splitting Europe, the audacity of US behaviour in Munich and beyond has fostered unity in Europe to not let the US serve the continent on a silver plate to Putin. What can potentially result is an increasing willingness in Europe to work against the US, not with it, as a last resort. For the sake of American global power, the Western alliance is not something the US should gamble away lightly.