London
CNN
–
The Trump administration has sent an unmistakable message to Europe. You are yourself.
After three months of dizziness, the White House pledged to reverse decades of American foreign policy, reduce its existence on the continent, pushing to close the Russian war in Ukraine, even if it might mean handing over Russian war in Ukraine to Moscow.
The new reality is something Europe is still adjusting. But the future is no longer hypothetical, 80 years after the US and European allies were forced to surrender Nazi Germany, when the continent is neglected to protect itself from the threat of Russia.
“Europe has lived in a situation where peace is the norm, and it appears that peace has been provided free of charge,” former Italian government minister Roberto Chingolani, now the chief executive of European defense giant Leonardo, told CNN during a recent visit to the company’s headquarters in northern Italy.
“Now, all of a sudden, after the Ukrainian invasion, we realize that we must protect peace.”
In the states of NATO members in Europe, a ferocious race is underway to prepare the continent in the case of conflict with Russia. The race wins. Europe boasts an expensive army large enough to at least partially block the hole Washington is threatening to leave.
However, Western European military requires a serious influx of funds and expertise to prepare for the worst-case scenario.
In recent years, the UK, France and Germany have put money into older troops after a plateau of spending in the mid-2010s.
But it could take years before these funding impacts feel at the forefront. Since the end of the Cold War, the number of troops, weapons and military preparations have faded in Western Europe. “The high levels of attrition in the Ukrainian war painfully highlights the current shortcomings of European countries,” the London-based think tank, the Institute for International Strategy, wrote in a dull review of the European military last year.
Countries near the Russian border are moving faster. The Trump administration has welcomed Poland as a self-sufficient paragon. “We consider Poland to be an ally in the continental model. We are willing to invest not only in their defenses, but in our shared defenses and in our continental defense,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegses said in Warsaw at the first two-sided European meetings of Trump’s second term.
However, the rapid escalation in Poland’s defence spending has something to do with generations of tensions with Russia than with Trump’s desire to acquire a place in the good bounty of Trump. Warsaw and Washington are in conflict in Ukraine. Poland has been warning of the threat posed by Russia to Europe for many years, and has been a solid supporter of its neighbours in protecting its territory from Putin’s progress.
Congress reports that the US has stationed troops in Europe since the end of the Cold War, and their numbers have increased since Russia’s full-scale invasion, reaching around 80,000 last year. But the deployment is still far smaller than the height of the Cold War, where nearly half a million Americans were stationed in Europe.
For decades, American foreign policy has emphasized the importance of developing its own deployments, not just European security. Continental troops provide forward defense, support alliance training, and manage nuclear warheads.
Now, the future of these developments is not clear. While European leaders publicly urged Washington not to cut numbers, Trump, Hegus and Vice President JD Vance all revealed their intention to strengthen the US military stance in the South China Sea.
Today, most US lands and air bases are located in Germany, Italy and Poland. US bases in Central Europe counter the threat of Russia, but naval and aviation locations in Turkey, Greece and Italy also support missions in the Middle East.
According to the Washington-based European Policy Analysis Centre Think Tank, the location will serve as “an important foundation for NATO operations, local deterrence and global power projection.”
However, the most important deterrent that Europe holds is the nuclear warhead.
At the early stages of the Russian war, President Vladimir Putin repeatedly urged vigilance around the world by suggesting the use of nuclear weapons. The horror settled after the war stuck in the east of Ukraine.
However, nuclear deterrence is a region where Europe is heavily dependent on the United States. The two European countries with nuclear weapons, Britain and France, are only about a tenth of the time between Russian Arsenal. However, the American nuclear war chest is roughly in line with Russia, and dozens of these US warheads are in Europe.
