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The NATO chief is moving too quickly to ignore the increasingly accepted notion of a "European pillar" within NATO...
When NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte told the European Parliament that the continent could not defend itself without the US and that those who think otherwise should “keep dreaming,” he did more than simply describe Europe’s military dependence; he transformed that dependence into a political doctrine. He also positioned himself not so much as the leader of an alliance of potential equals but as the spokesman for Europe’s strategic resignation.
Rutte's view of European defense follows a familiar but increasingly untenable logic: Nuclear deterrence equals U.S. defense; U.S. defense equals European security; therefore, European strategic sovereignty is an illusion.
But this chain of reasoning is much more fragile than it seems. First of all, although Europe’s overall strategic stability depends on nuclear deterrence, most real-world security challenges in the Euro-Atlantic space, from hybrid operations to limited conventional scenarios, have developed and will continue to develop well below the nuclear threshold.
This is something that NATO’s own deterrence stance recognizes. And overemphasizing the nuclear dimension risks overlooking the crucial importance of conventional mass, sustainability, logistics, high-quality intelligence, air defense, and industrial depth, areas where Europe is weak by political choice. Moreover, the nuclear debate in Europe is not binary. The continent is not doomed to choose between total dependence on the US umbrella and total vulnerability.
A serious discussion about the role of French and British deterrent forces within a European framework, politically complex, yes, but strategically conceivable, is no longer taboo. And by pointing to the prohibitively high cost of developing a European nuclear force from scratch, Rutte’s sweeping disregard for Europe’s strategic agency in the nuclear field sidesteps this evolution rather than engaging with it.
Plus, the NATO chief is too hasty to dismiss the increasingly accepted notion of a “European pillar” within NATO. Of course, the EU’s added value is currently best illustrated in the creation of a more integrated and dynamic European defense market, which the European Commission is actively promoting. But Rutte is underestimating existing European military capabilities.
European countries already have at their disposal advanced air forces, world-class submarines, significant naval power, state-of-the-art missile and air defense systems, cyber expertise, space assets, and one of the largest defense industrial bases in the world. And when it comes to Ukraine’s defense, European allies, including France, have significantly expanded their intelligence contributions.
The problem is therefore not so much one of scarcity, but of national and industrial fragmentation, accompanied by the risk of technological stagnation and insufficient investment in key factors such as ammunition production, military mobility, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, satellites, air-to-air refueling and integrated command structures.
As satellite projects like the EU Government Satellite Communications and the IRIS² Satellite Constellation have demonstrated, these are areas that can be improved in months and years rather than decades. But telling Europeans that sovereignty is a fantasy could easily destroy the political momentum needed to fix them. Finally, Rutte’s message is strangely out of sync even with that of Washington.
American presidents have long demanded that Europe take much greater responsibility for its own defense, and in his second term, US President Donald Trump has taken that message to new levels, from burden-sharing to burden-shifting. But simultaneously telling Europe that it must fend for itself, provided it continues to buy US-made weapons, and that it can never truly succeed, is not strategic clarity, it is cognitive dissonance.
Europe can no longer ignore political reality. Regardless of what one may think of Trump and his destructive policies, the direction of US foreign policy is unmistakable: Europe is no longer a priority. The US strategic center of gravity now lies in the Indo-Pacific, and US dominance in the Western Hemisphere ranks higher than the defense of Europe.
In this changed context, placing all of Europe's "safety eggs" in the US basket is not reasonable.
None of this, however, means that Europe should abandon NATO or actively sever transatlantic ties. Rather, it means recognizing that alliances between equals are stronger than those built on dependency. A Europe that can rely militarily, industrially, and politically on itself makes a more reliable and valuable ally. And the 80-year-old transatlantic alliance will only last if the United States and Europe reach a new agreement.
So as transatlantic allies face a less direct alignment of interests and values, Rutte should promote a more balanced NATO with a strong European pillar, not undermine it. / Adapted from “Pamphlet” by “Politico”
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