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A security crisis is erupting in Europe. Two dangerous elements may combine in 2025. A growing threat from Russia and growing indifference from Donald Trump’s America.
European countries must urgently respond to this alarming geopolitical combination by building up their defenses. For this to happen, it is essential that Germany, Europe’s largest economy, finally fulfills Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s promise of a dramatic increase in defense spending.
Making the political case for increased defense spending requires clarity about what is happening in both Russia and America.
Mark Rutte, the recently appointed NATO secretary general, warned last month that: “Russia’s economy is on a war footing . . . Danger is moving towards us at full speed.” He urged NATO to rapidly increase defense production and “move to a wartime mentality.”
Last April, General Christopher Cavoli, NATO’s supreme commander in Europe, warned that: “Russia shows no signs of stopping. Not even Russia intends to stop with Ukraine.” Western analysts argue that Russia is already engaged in a hybrid war with Europe – involving regular acts of sabotage that risk mass casualties.
During the Cold War, the US led the Allied response when Russia increased military pressure in Europe. But the American response this time promises to be very different. President-elect Trump’s top appointments include advisers who have been clear about their desire to redistribute US military assets from Europe to Asia.
Elbridge Colby, who has just been appointed undersecretary of defense for policy, wrote in the FT last year that China is a much higher priority for the US than Russia and argued that “the US should withhold forces from Europe that are needed to Asia. , even if Russia attacks first”.
European defense analysts worry that a US military withdrawal from Europe would encourage Russian aggression. In a recent book, Keir Giles of Chatham House argues: “Withdrawing America’s military support for NATO is the surest possible way to turn the possibility of a Russian attack beyond Ukraine into a probability.”
For much of Europe, however, the Russian threat still seems remote. In almost three years of fighting in Ukraine, Moscow’s armies have made limited territorial gains and suffered staggering losses – now estimated at 700,000 troops killed or wounded.
But the scale of casualties that Vladimir Putin is willing to absorb should also be a warning. The Russian military is now larger than it was at the start of the war in 2022. And, as Rutte recently pointed out, the country is producing “a large number of tanks, armored vehicles and ammunition.”
European countries lack the manpower and equipment to engage in a war of attrition of the kind Russia is waging in Ukraine. At the start of last year, the British army had 73,520 – the fewest since 1792. The German army has 64,000.
NATO military planners think the alliance is about a third short of where it needs to be to effectively deter Russia. There are particular shortages in air defense, logistics, ammunition and secure communications equipment.
Alliance members are currently committed to spending 2 percent of GDP on defense. They may raise this nominal target to 3 percent at the next NATO summit. But even this would only be appropriate if European nations agreed to make procurement much less fragmented along national lines.
A 3 percent target is also based on the assumption that America will largely maintain its commitment to NATO. If it doesn’t, defense planners think European nations will have to increase defense spending to 4.5 percent of GDP. But even 3 percent seems very difficult. The problem is epitomized by Rutte’s own record as prime minister of the Netherlands from 2010 to 2024. His country only reached the 2 percent target in the last year of his term.
The closer you get to the Russian border, the more seriously the Russian threat is taken. Poland is on track to increase its defense spending to 4.7 percent of GDP in 2025. But in the larger Western European economies, it’s a different story. Germany and France barely reached 2 percent last year; Britain was at 2.3 percent.
France has a budget deficit of 6 percent of GDP and a public debt of over 100 percent. The British government is also heavily in debt and struggling to raise revenue.
But Germany – with a debt-to-GDP ratio of just over 60 percent – has the fiscal space to spend much more on defense. It also still has a substantial industrial and engineering base.
Friedrich Merz of the Christian Democrats, who will probably emerge as German chancellor after this year’s election, takes the threat from Russia seriously. He can lead a historic change. If Germany relaxed its constitutional provisions against deficit financing – and accepted the need for joint EU debt to fund European defense – it could transform the continent’s security landscape.
Even 80 years after the end of World War II, some of Germany’s neighbors – especially Poland and France – will feel uneasy about German rearmament. But, in the interest of their safety, they must overcome it.
gideon.rachman@ft.com
