\n<\/p>\n
President Trump has never had much love for the NATO alliance, which he thinks is overdependent on American largess, and in his first term, talked about abandoning the collective defense pact.<\/p>\n
In his second term, Mr. Trump and his senior officials have made it clear that the security of Europe is no longer the first priority of the United States, which wants to concentrate resources on its own border and the Indo-Pacific, where China has become a peer rival.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Mr. Trump suggested that the United States might not protect<\/a> NATO members that he believed were not paying enough for their own defense, calling it \u201ccommon sense.\u201d<\/p>\n But what would Europeans need to do to replace the enormous American contribution to NATO?<\/p>\n The answer comes down to money, personnel, time and cooperation with Washington, said Ivo Daalder, a former American ambassador to NATO and a coauthor of a recent report<\/a> from Harvard\u2019s Belfer Center on how to create \u201ca strong European pillar\u201d in the alliance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The central problem is that NATO was built as an American-dominated alliance, intentionally dependent on American leadership, sophisticated weaponry, intelligence and airlift. The current NATO command structure is essentially owned and operated by the United States, led by Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli.<\/p>\n \u201cThe United States is the linchpin of the alliance so we could control our allies and get them to do what we want,\u201d Mr. Daalder said. More practically, the United States military is the skeleton of NATO, and \u201cif you suddenly pull out the skeleton, the body dies.\u201d<\/p>\n Relative to other challenges, money is the easiest part of the European quandary. The question, as ever, is political will and commitment to spending larger sums \u2014 and the trade-offs and political costs it will entail.<\/p>\n Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland put it simply last week, saying: \u201c500 million Europeans ask 300 million Americans to protect them from 140 million Russians.\u201d What Europe lacks, he said, is \u201cthe belief that we are truly a global force.\u201d<\/p>\n Friedrich Merz, who is on course to be the next chancellor of Germany, offered a bold response this week to the new pressures on Europe, proposing to spend nearly 1 trillion euros, or $1.07 trillion, on the military and infrastructure over the next 10 years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Britain, Belgium, Poland and Denmark have also recently said they would spend more. On Thursday, E.U. leaders agreed to boost military spending outside normal debt limits. But overall, European nations remain far shy of the spending that experts say they will need to replace the American commitment.<\/p>\n Those estimates vary, but could mean a hike of \u20ac250 billion a year, or about 1.5 percent of the European Union\u2019s gross domestic product, according to a study<\/a> from two research institutions, Bruegel and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The study recommends that European nations spend at least 3.5 percent of G.D.P. per year on the military; currently just five of 32 NATO members, including the United States, spend above 3 percent<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Europeans possess a lot, but also need a lot more sophisticated weaponry, now largely provided by the United States. The biggest gaps are in integrated air and missile defense and long-range precision strike capability, said Ben Hodges, a former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Europe also lacks \u201cstrategic enablers,\u201d including transport aircraft, sophisticated drones and satellites \u2014 crucial systems for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.<\/p>\n It has the capacity to produce more of its own weapons, he said. But that would require better coordination among nations to invest in the right industries and purchase jointly. <\/p>\n Ideally, Europe should have sufficient stocks of ammunition and missiles to fight a high-intensity war for at least six months, but those are badly depleted from the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n A study<\/a> by the International Institute for Strategic Studies found that even fundamentals like the number of combat battalions and in-service battle tanks have remained static or fallen since 2014, despite Russia\u2019s annexation of Crimea.<\/p>\n Political will matters here, too \u2014 to overcome bureaucratic constraints and requirements on manufacturers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The European Investment Bank is prohibited from providing loans to make weapons, though the European Union is rethinking the rule.<\/p>\n And German law requires that weapons makers have direct orders from the government before production can even start. That makes production for potential future sales impossible even if they have excess capacity now.<\/p>\n Right now, there are only about 100,000 U.S. troops in Europe \u2014 a number that could fit into the University of Michigan\u2019s football stadium \u2014 said Mr. Hodges, who used to command them.<\/p>\n Yet it seems almost impossible that the Europeans, even if they increase military spending, could quickly replace the bulk of them, let alone fight on their own for any extended period.<\/p>\n Of the U.S. troops, 20,000 were sent to Europe after Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, to shore up NATO deterrence. Analysts expect the Trump administration to pull out those troops before too long.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Another 40,000 of the U.S. troops, Mr. Hodges said, are in Europe on expensive rotations, which Mr. Trump is also likely to want to stop.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n There are multiple problems for Europe in replacing such numbers.<\/p>\n Only a handful of European nations still have conscription forces. And attracting the right recruits is hard; pay scales and career prospects are better in the civilian world. Even once soldiers are trained, especially in high-tech warfare or \u201cback office\u201d jobs like engineering or mechanics, it is hard to retain them.<\/p>\n Recent suggestions that Europeans put troops into Ukraine to secure a potential peace deal would put extra strain on personnel, potentially for the long term.<\/p>\n NATO is already pressing members to meet requirements for a new force model. Under that agreement, more than 300,000 troops would need to be available within 30 days <\/span>to reinforce the alliance\u2019s eastern flank against Russia in the event of a crisis.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n For now, there are simply not enough soldiers, logistics specialists and intelligence officers to go around.<\/p>\n \u201cEuropean armies are too small to handle even the arms that they\u2019ve got now,\u201d said Jim Townsend, a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense who is now at the Center for a New American Security.<\/p>\n \u201cThe British and the Danes, to pick two examples, are good militaries, but they would not be able to sustain intense combat for more than a couple of weeks,\u201d he said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter how good you are if there aren\u2019t enough of you.\u201d<\/p>\n The scale of what the Americans now handle for NATO is too big to replace quickly. To buy or produce the necessary equipment and recruit and train the necessary troops will simply take time.<\/p>\n In normal times, it would take a decade for Europe to catch up, said Camille Grand, a former NATO assistant secretary general, who wrote a detailed report<\/a> about the problem for the European Council on Foreign Relations last year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nMoney<\/h2>\n
Personnel<\/h2>\n
Time<\/h2>\n