Since the end of World War II, the United States has served as Europe’s bodyguard. That arrangement is coming to an end, at least for as long as Donald Trump is president of the United States.
After Trump made clear the U.S. will dial back its military presence in Europe and put the Continent’s nations in charge of their own security, a collective freakout erupted. U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, even while announcing that Europe will begin providing “boots on the ground and planes in the air” for Ukraine’s battle against Russia, did so with the disclaimer that the U.S. must serve as a security backstop. This prompted Trump to point out the foolishness of announcing to the world, the Russians included, that the once great and mighty England is quaking in its boots.
While Starmer’s views represented anxiety among many of Europe’s leaders, at least one head of state publicly acknowledged the absurdity of so many Europeans depending on fewer people on a continent far away for their security against a smaller number of Russians. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said:
Ladies and gentlemen, there is a paradox, and someone has already overlooked it. Just listen to this. Five hundred million Europeans are asking 300 million Americans to defend them against 140 million Russians. … If you know how to count, count on yourself. Start relying on yourself. Not in isolation, but with full awareness of your own potential. Europe, if there is something we lack today, it is not economic or demographic power, but the belief that we are truly a global force.
🚨🇵🇱BREAKING NEWS
Polish PM Donald Tusk:
“500 million Europeans are asking 300 million Americans to defend them against 140 million Russians.”
pic.twitter.com/qD1OdscU5b— Radio Europe (@RadioEuropes) March 2, 2025
Europe to Increase Defense Spending
On Thursday, 27 European leaders signed off on a plan to increase defense spending. The plan would put about 150 billion euros from the European Union’s unused funds toward military purchases.
“As a priority, the funds would be spent on air and missile defense, artillery systems, ammunition, drones and air transport, as well as cyber systems, artificial intelligence and electronic warfare,” The Associated Press reported.
The Ukraine-Russia war was the main topic discussed at the security summit, but no one pledged more money or weapons to keep Ukraine in the fight, despite recent tough talk indicating such support might be on the horizon.
The United States has halted essentially all military support for Ukraine. It has frozen the transfer of any more weapons and stopped sharing intelligence. Trump’s intent is to force Ukraine to the negotiating table with Russia and bring the war to an end. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has swung between openness to the idea and resistance. He has expressed concern that Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot be trusted to stay true to any peace agreement. But considering that his depleting army is largely dependent on the U.S. for weapons, he won’t have much of a choice unless the Ukrainians plan to defend themselves with sticks and pitchforks.
On Friday morning, Trump said he is considering leveling banking sanctions and tariffs on Russia as part of his effort to end the war in Eastern Europe.
Germany Vows Military Buildup
Germany is indicating it’s serious about learning how to fight again. News out of the “heart of Europe” is that the Germans are planning to lift caps on military spending and go on a spending spree. The Wall Street Journal reports:
In a hastily convened press conference in Berlin late Tuesday, Friedrich Merz, the man in line to become Germany’s next chancellor, announced a break with a position that had governed the country’s relations with its European partners for decades.
From now on, Germany’s famously strict fiscal rules, Merz said, would no longer apply to military spending, paving the way for a rapid acceleration in the country’s rearmament. The incoming government would also set up a €500 billion infrastructure investment fund to rebuild the country’s long-neglected transport, energy and digital infrastructure, he added.
“Given the threats to our freedom and to peace on our continent, we must do whatever it takes for our continent,” Merz said. The country needed to rearm, he added, and to do so it needed to rebuild its economic muscle.
Germany is so serious about European defense that it’s no longer ruling out having its own nuclear arsenal. Merz has said that Europe needs to begin talking about expanding French and British nuclear capabilities. When asked if his country should get its own nuclear arsenal, he didn’t reject the idea outright. He said, “There is no need for this today.”
Germany is home to the Büchel Air Base, where the U.S. stores tactical nuclear weapons. It also houses one of America’s largest overseas military contingents.
Nuclear armament is a serious topic, especially since Russian officials have made multiple public statements indicating they are not afraid to use their own nuclear weapons. The Europeans are now taking the threats seriously. German conservative lawmaker and foreign policy expert Thomas Silberhorn has noted:
Russia has threatened us with nuclear strikes. We Europeans have to take this nuclear threat seriously and face it with a nuclear deterrent. So far, that’s been provided by the U.S., and we are now discussing whether we could organize it at a European level, with France and Great Britain.
Some suggest the fastest way the Germans could rebuild a deterrent would be to replicate its arrangement with the U.S. This could result in French nuclear bombers stationed in Germany with the mandate to protect the country, or German pilots flying German planes armed with French nuclear weapons while Paris holds the key to the button.
Will NATO Survive?
Trump’s turning America’s foreign policy on its head has sent shock waves throughout not only the U.S., but the continent it affects most, Europe. On Friday, CNN published an article with the question, “Can NATO survive without the United States?”
The U.S. contributes about 16 percent of NATO’s military budget, civil budget, and security investment. Only Germany comes close to matching this. But the U.S. provides the overwhelming majority of NATO’s military muscle. The question now is: How will NATO move ahead without America serving as its military backbone?
Apparently just fine, some believe. CNN reports:
But NATO without the US is far from impotent, with more than a million troops and modern weaponry at its disposal from the 31 other countries in the alliance. It also has the wealth and technological knowhow to defend itself without the US, analysts say.
In America, many high-profile American figures are suggesting it’s time for the U.S. to exit NATO. Among them are Elon Musk, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), and the ever-consistent Ron Paul, a former congressman and the godfather of modern libertarianism. A rising concern is that Europe’s foolish leaders will get involved in a needless conflict and drag the U.S. with them, as per the treaty’s collective defense clause.
Obviously our European allies don’t need us
Let’s leave NATO
We don’t fit in there https://t.co/112IBoPCT5— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) March 3, 2025
NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was established as an alliance to deter Soviet expansion. But instead of disbanding after the official collapse of the Soviet Union, it only grew. It has ballooned from 16 member countries to 32, and that expansion has served as Putin’s justification for his invasion of Ukraine.
NATO’s official purpose is likely not the real reason it exists. As we noted in the February 14, 2022, issue of The New American, it’s no accident that NATO and the European Union have expanded in tandem:
Just as NATO is the most significant international military alliance ever created, so too is the European Union the most “successful” attempt at consensual economic and political union in history. The European Union, originally created out of the deceptively named European Common Market, has become a very transparent effort to set up a full-blown regional government. … The ultimate motivation behind such regional arrangements is to drastically reduce the number of sovereign governments on the face of the Earth and provide for a simpler and more orderly integration of such regional blocs into a single global authority — the real ultimate goal of internationalist foreign policymakers. As former U.S. National Security Advisor and unapologetic globalist Zbigniew Brzezinski opined in 1995, “We cannot leap into world government in one quick step…. The precondition for eventual globalization — genuine globalization — is progressive regionalization, because thereby we move toward larger, more stable, more cooperative units.”
At the same time, regional military alliances, and especially NATO, are perpetuated as a means of internationalizing military force, to prepare for the eventual consolidation of regional military alliances into a global military — another indispensable ingredient of a consolidated global government.
Europe should learn to take care of itself. The U.S. should exit not just NATO, but all international entangling alliances — including the United Nations. Their stated purposes are not genuine. They are the building blocks of a world government.
