Linas Kojala
Director of the Geopolitics and Security Studies Center, Vilnius
On one hand, there is no real alternative to the U.S. security guarantee. Declaring that the transatlantic relationship has collapsed would be like stepping off a ship in the middle of the ocean with no other vessel in sight. This means Europe must swallow the Trump administration’s criticism and do everything possible to keep the relationship intact. There are some signs it may not completely fall apart, including U.S. President Donald Trump’s assurances that he does not intend to withdraw all U.S. troops from Europe.
On the other hand, European countries must start building real military strength.
As early as 1963, former U.S. president John F. Kennedy urged Europeans to take greater responsibility for their own defense. The same message has been repeated for decades, yet Europe consistently ignored the warnings and failed to address its own vulnerabilities.
The recent extraordinary meeting of several European leaders in Paris was a missed opportunity once again: more talk than action. Deploying European troops, even in limited numbers and outside the front lines in Ukraine, is necessary. So is joint EU borrowing on international markets to rapidly finance increased defense spending.
Europe has the potential to be a major geopolitical force, but it must prove it by expressing self-confidence and stepping out of the usual decisionmaking process.
Jana Puglierin
Head of the Berlin office and senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations
The transatlantic relationship is undoubtedly at a breaking point. A new transatlantic project is emerging on both sides of the Atlantic—beyond the established institutions and actors.
In his Munich Security Conference speech, JD Vance implied that he and the Trump administration represent the “true West” and that it is not them driving in the wrong direction but the liberal elites in Europe and the United States who have eroded and perverted Western values in the name of wokeness and political correctness.
Vance and the Trump administration despise the EU—its green transformation efforts, its regulation of “free speech,” and its alleged “cancel culture.” This unites the Trump administration with many of the protagonists of the far-right parties in Europe and creates new points of contact. Securing national borders while promoting “remigration” and fighting against “gender madness” links parties such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD), Law and Justice (PiS) in Poland, and Fidesz in Hungary with the Trumpism of the Republican Party. They also share a common contempt for the ruling elites and the “deep state.”
Europeans should prepare for the Trump administration to prioritize contacts with the likes of Giorgia Meloni or Viktor Orbán, while enhancing the chances of the other similar actors coming to power.
Nigel Gould-Davies
Senior Fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies
This is an unprecedented transatlantic crisis. During the Cold War, there were fears that America might decouple from the alliance, abandon Europe, and return to isolation. What has begun now is worse: By negotiating with Russia over European heads and intervening in European politics, the United States is not only decoupling from, but deciding for and disrupting Europe.
But it is too soon to write NATO’s epitaph. First, it is not yet clear whether Trump’s European policies are shaped more by contradictory impulses or by a deliberate strategy. His demands on Greenland and Gaza, no less shocking, have receded.
Secondly, many around Trump, including Republicans in Congress and his own negotiators, privately disagree with his policies. They will try to restrain his most radical and destabilizing instincts.
Third, senior officials have offered reassurance amid their hard messages. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told his European counterparts that America remained “committed to the NATO alliance and to the defense partnership with Europe. Full stop.”
Finally, if Russia overplays its hand and demands too high a price for ending its war on Ukraine, a frustrated, mercurial Trump could turn against it.
In short, while old transatlantic certainties have been thrown into confusion, the contours of a new order are still being formed.
Kristi Raik
Director of the International Centre for Defence and Security, Tallinn
Europe, apart from Ukraine, is not at peace, but not at war, either. The transatlantic alliance is not alive, but not dead, either. The United States remains an ally until it actually abandons Europe, not just in words but in deeds. It’s a matter of time, and Europe must act quickly.
Europeans should not be surprised. The United States has wished to reduce its presence in Europe for years, not to speak of the decades-long demand for Europeans to do more for their own defense.
Those who have called for European strategic autonomy for many years seem to feel vindicated, but if France was so convinced that it knew the right course, why did it not do more to strengthen European defense?
Real autonomy cannot be built with words only; Europe needs real military capability and of course political will, too, to stop Russian aggression. For the past three years, Europe has behaved as if it were in a bad dream, expecting to wake up and get back to normalcy. It has failed to take its destiny into its own hands. If it doesn’t do so now, its fate may be decided by other, stronger and darker forces.
Minna Ålander
Associate fellow at Chatham House
For months leading up to Donald Trump’s inauguration, European media outlets were filled with articles and programs speculating about which of all the proposed policies Trump will actually implement once he is in power. In many ways, the Munich Security Conference provided clarity on this question. Clearly, the Trump administration’s approach toward its European allies is to antagonize them as much as possible.
It was a particularly calculated provocation to come to Munich, of all places, and cater to European far-right parties. The audacity of Vice President JD Vance scolding Europe for canceled elections in Romania due to Russian interference—when he himself represents a U.S. president who violently tried to overturn the election result in 2021 and still claims the election was stolen—was not lost on the European audience.
Given that President Trump seems to have endorsed the Russian negotiation position in the deal he aims to broker between Kyiv and Moscow, it seems that the new transatlantic partnership under Trump is mainly an offer to like-minded far-right parties in Europe. For the rest of the continent—the vast majority, that is—it remains unclear what is left of the once-strong partnership that benefited both sides of the Atlantic.
Rosa Balfour
Director of Carnegie Europe
Events of the past week, from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s call with Trump on February 12 and JD Vance’s speech in Munich to the normalization of U.S.-Russia relations in Riyad, suggest Trump is pursuing a volte-face toward his NATO allies.
The turnaround is extraordinary: Once the United States’ Cold War archrival, Russia now puts words into Trump’s mouth. The U.S. president’s talking points on Ukraine and the Yalta-inspired ambition to carve up the world into spheres of influence come straight from the Kremlin.
At the very best, the transatlantic relationship is hanging by a thread. Whether the thread will hold depends on whether Trump will be persuaded to give his NATO allies the military backstop they need for a European mission in Ukraine. It is a minimum but necessary security demand if Ukraine is to avoid being drawn into the Russian orbit of power. But this, too, may turn out to be wishful thinking, as have the past four years of Trump-proofing the transatlantic relationship.
Even if the United States survives the assault on its democracy and Europe survives Washington’s triple attack on its security, economy, and democracy—and maintains a degree of independence—the scars will not heal easily.
Europeans have no alternative but to overcome their cognitive dissonance over the relationship with the United States and get their act together.
Élie Tenenbaum
Director of the Security Studies Center at Institut français des relations internationales
This is a long train coming home and, at the same time, Europe’s worst fears coming true.
U.S. discontent with European burden sharing as well as its pivot to the Indo-Pacific and desire to reduce force commitments in Europe have been consistent since at least George W. Bush’s second term. Although Europeans have been increasing their defense spending, it has been too little, too late to keep up with the more brutal tempo of a Trump administration.
Europeans have remained in a state of semi-denial, clinging to whatever reassuring messages they can find from an increasingly marginalized set of voices in Washington. As a result, their proposals have been largely conservative and incremental, aimed at preserving the status quo of the past thirty-five or even seventy-five years.
This approach is not sustainable. To save the alliance and keep the United States engaged, Europeans must be willing to transform it in ways they have so far resisted. The first test will be Ukraine and security guarantees without a U.S. backstop. The second will be moving beyond former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright’s “three D’s”—avoiding decoupling, duplication, and discrimination. To mitigate the already ongoing decoupling process, Europeans will need to begin duplicating U.S. capabilities and discriminating against U.S. industrial capacity to allow its own production line to scale up.
Nathalie Tocci
Director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali
We have known for some time that the United States was losing interest in European security and called for greater burden sharing. It’s against this backdrop and above all because of Russia’s growing threat that Europeans, particularly those in the continent’s east, have been spending more on defense this past decade. Polish and Baltic defense spending now nears 5 percent of GDP, which is significantly higher than what the United States spends, in relative terms.
What we have learned over the last few days, though, is that Europeans should be opening their eyes to the harsh reality that Donald Trump’s United States is far too interested in Europe—but in a dangerous way. Washington now has an interest in weakening and dividing Europe, much like Russia and not unlike China. His aim appears to be the hollowing out or destruction of European integration. The best way to achieve that is by empowering Europe’s far right.
Europe will need to do even more on defense if it is to defend itself against Russia without—or even at crosshairs with—the United States. And if America is intent on weakening Europe, instead of trying to please Trump by buying more U.S. weapons or liquefied natural gas, Europe should reduce its reliance on the United States.
Charles Grant
Director of the Centre for European Reform
The transatlantic relationship is fracturing, but not so much between Europe and America as between competing visions of world order. The liberal idea of international relations emphasizes the rule of law to protect the weak from the strong, and territorial integrity. Until recently, it was self-evident that all Western governments subscribed—at least in theory—to that liberal view.
But there is a competing concept, beloved of “strongman” leaders, which is that big or powerful countries should enjoy spheres of influence in their neighborhoods. Smaller states should genuflect before larger neighbors. Vladimir Putin thinks this way and therefore does not want Ukraine to exist as an independent sovereign state. Chinese President Xi Jinping takes the same line. And so, we now know—since he talked of taking over Greenland, Canada, and the Panama canal—does Donald Trump. Consistent with this thinking, Trump is relaxed about Ukraine falling into Russia’s orbit.
Being quite small, most European countries back the liberal order. But several governments, such as those in Slovakia and Hungary, and a larger number of European opposition parties, implicitly support spheres of influence—and Russia. Meanwhile about half of America backs liberal principles. So the rift in the West is ideological more than geographical.
Oana Lungescu
Distinguished fellow at the Royal United Services Institute
The transatlantic relationship is at a turning point. Trump is not the first U.S. President to pressure NATO allies, but no other has parroted the adversary.
Trump’s “Russia First” approach may be an attempt to pull Putin away from Xi—but it’s more likely to undermine the most successful alliance in history and make the world more dangerous for both America and Europe.
Preserving the transatlantic alliance won’t be easy, but it remains in Europe’s interest. Both our allies and our adversaries only respect strength. So rather than hand-wringing, it’s time to finally muscle up.
Seizing the $300 billion in frozen Russian assets can strengthen Ukraine for the long term while giving the EU real leverage, both with regard to Moscow and Washington. NATO allies that still haven’t invested at least 2 percent of GDP on defense should do so by the June summit, and prepare for at least 3.5 percent, in the full knowledge that without the United States, defense spending in Europe would at least double.
Europeans should also be clear about their red lines: no new Yalta. If Trump joins Putin and Xi on May 9 in the Red Square, he would become not just the parrot but the puppet of America’s adversaries.
