How will Europe defend itself? 3 ways Trump is forcing the continent to adapt.
In European capitals, pressing questions about security are emerging on at least three fronts simultaneously since the dramatic rupture last Friday between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy: how to supply war support for Ukraine, keep the United States involved, and ensure that any peace deal with Russia comes with some strong security guarantees.
The need for Europe to do more to defend itself and its neighbors is an alarm bell that’s been ringing and downplayed, analysts argue – if not since Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea, then since President Trump’s first administration, when he accused a rich Europe of freeloading off U.S. military might.
Now, as the U.S. pulls back from its long role as a bulwark of European security, the continent is facing a “crossroads in history” and must take the lead to make peace in Ukraine, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said as he hosted European leaders in London Sunday.
Why We Wrote This
European leaders are attempting to step up their defense of Kyiv and adjust to shifting security norms after President Donald Trump’s public rebuke of Ukraine’s president.
“The U.K. is prepared to back this with boots on the ground and planes in the air,” he added, as part of an effort to create a “coalition of the willing” to help protect the war-torn country invaded by Russia three years ago.
Arming Ukraine to put it in a position of strength
Ukraine remains in dire need of weapons, and the supply from the U.S. is running low. On Monday evening, the White House reportedly paused military aid to Kyiv to “to ensure that it is contributing to a solution,” according to a White House official. It’s been nearly two months since the Department of Defense announced a new military aid package for Kyiv – not since President Trump took office.
“We urgently have to rearm Europe,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Sunday, adding that the continent must turn Ukraine into a “steel porcupine that is indigestible to potential invaders.”
Mr. Starmer outlined a plan to shore up European security and keep the spigot of aid to Kyiv flowing with a loan from the United Kingdom using profits from seized Russian assets.
“A number of countries” agreed Sunday to increase their defense spending, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said, without sharing specifics.
Yet these pledges – for which successive U.S. administrations have lobbied – are also exposing the limitations of Europe’s capacities for cooperating on things like arms production, particularly with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán acting as a spoiler within the European Union. Mr. Orbán, who aligns himself with Russian President Vladimir Putin, was not at Sunday’s meeting and has called for direct negotiations between the EU and Russia.
Another complication comes from Elon Musk, now a close adviser to Mr. Trump, who on Saturday voiced his support for the U.S. leaving NATO in a post on his social media platform X.
Still, Europe “usually finds a way to compromise and find more money,” says Nick Witney, who served as the first chief executive of the EU’s European Defence Agency in Brussels.
That said, he adds, “The much more difficult thing to work out is what it would actually mean in terms of organization for the Europeans to put up a decent deterrent screen against the Russians without full American participation.”
The EU will continue to hash out the continent’s security shortfalls in an “extraordinary summit” Thursday that will delve into how to streamline missile production and create integrated European air defenses. Also on the agenda: trying to craft an aid package for Ukraine that will require relaxing EU rules to let members spend more on security.
This idea of independent European defense capabilities is a considerable shift in the continent’s historical approach to security.
“The normal thing for 80 years when faced with a geopolitical problem is to trod along to Brussels and be told what to do by the Americans, which is what NATO is for,” says Mr. Witney, currently a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
“We must brace ourselves for the fact that Donald Trump will no longer unconditionally honor NATO’s mutual defense commitment,” new conservative German Chancellor Friedrich Merz noted – a striking statement from a candidate who campaigned on his ability to strengthen transatlantic ties.
This will necessarily include discussion, too, of how to replace the American nuclear umbrella on which Europe has long relied. French President Emmanuel Macron has offered up his country’s nuclear capabilities for continental defense.
Repairing the rift between Trump and Zelenskyy
Following the contentious White House meeting with Mr. Zelenskyy Friday, senior Trump administration officials said they may cancel even indirect U.S. military support for the country, which includes intelligence-sharing and training for Ukrainian troops.
At the same time, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has reportedly ordered U.S. Cyber Command to suspend offensive operations against Russia.
Mr. Starmer sought to give assurances about Mr. Trump’s commitment to Ukraine in London, saying he’d spoken with Mr. Trump on Saturday. “[I] wouldn’t be going down this road [to a peace plan] if I didn’t think it had a chance.”
That chance involves locking down U.S. support for a ceasefire deal that could include some security guarantees, since Europe doesn’t have the troop levels to back a peacekeeping agreement on its own.
President Macron took a stab at smoothing ruffled feathers Sunday to get Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelenskyy talking again. “I think that beyond the frayed nerves, everybody needs to calm down, show respect and gratitude, so we can move forward concretely, because what’s at stake is too important,” he said.
Mr. Zelenskyy seemed to heed the entreaties. “Of course we understand the importance of America,” he said in a video address Sunday night. “There hasn’t been a single day when we haven’t felt grateful.”
For his part, Mr. Trump, in a Truth Social post he shared over the weekend, appeared to reiterate his interest in salvaging a mineral deal that was meant to be signed Friday before the White House dust-up delayed it.
The deal could provide economic security guarantees to Ukraine that U.S. officials have argued could prove as effective as U.S. troops on the ground.
“Once U.S. companies have mining operations in Ukraine, Putin will be unable to attack without triggering massive international consequences,” Mr. Trump’s Sunday social media post argued.
But by Monday, President Trump was complaining, again through Truth Social, that Mr. Zelenskyy “doesn’t want there to be Peace as long as he has America’s backing.” European leaders, he pointedly adds, “stated flatly that they cannot do the job without the U.S.”
Security guarantees to prevent Putin from breaking promises
One key security guarantee on the road to a ceasefire deal in Ukraine could involve European peacekeeping troops, to which Britain’s Mr. Starmer has already volunteered to contribute.
A number of other countries committed Sunday to sending peacekeeping troops to Ukraine as well, Mr. Starmer said.
Mr. Trump told reporters last week that when he “specifically asked” Mr. Putin during a phone call about such forces in Ukraine, the Russian president had “no problem with it.”
The Kremlin contradicted this characterization, saying such peacekeepers would be “of course unacceptable to us.”
Mr. Putin has little interest in ending the war, says Rob Potter, a visiting fellow at Australian National University’s Center for European Studies in Kyiv. “He thinks he can get more if the Americans turn the arms off and get conned into giving up sanctions.”
Ukrainians have largely given up on the possibility of any more U.S. military aid as Europe prepares to pick up the slack, but they are hoping Mr. Trump keeps U.S. sanctions in place, Mr. Potter adds.
For now, the Kremlin has been enjoying the Ukraine-U.S. drama.
A Russian spokesperson congratulated America’s president and vice president for holding back “from hitting” Mr. Zelenskyy as President Trump and Vice President JD Vance scolded him in tag-team fashion in front of the assembled press. It was, she said, “a miracle of restraint.”
Editor’s note: This story, originally published on March 3, has been updated with news of the Trump administration pausing military aid to Ukraine.
