The prospect of former US president Donald J Trump securing a second term has become the reality to which European political and military officials must now adapt. Though the exact nature of the policies the Trump administration will pursue remains uncertain, the president-elect has outlined several objectives, which if implemented would radically alter the nature of US security engagement with European partners on issues such as the Ukraine conflict and continued US participation in the Nato alliance itself.
On the subject of Ukraine, the Trump administration claims it will pursue a more conciliatory approach towards the Russian government while halting all financial and military assistance to the Ukrainian government. Such a policy would have multiple implications for European security and related spending initiatives depending on the speed and degree of US disengagement from the international apparatus currently supporting Ukraine. European and Nato member states on the continent’s eastern edge have championed foreign support efforts due to the geostrategic risks entailed by a Russian military victory on or near their borders, and are likely to continue this policy regardless of US disengagement efforts. However, other European nations may seek to characterise the withdrawal of US aid as a catalyst for drawing down or ceasing their own aid efforts, creating divisions within the pan-European apparatus susceptible to further exploitation by both the Trump and Putin administrations. While many European leaders have committed to increasing their contributions of financial and military aid support to the Ukrainian government, with efforts such as the Czech shell initiative and the delivery of F-16 fighter jets earlier this year illustrating the practical outcomes of such promises, the lacklustre pace of the European defence industrial revival will prevent these efforts from entirely covering the gaps left by US disengagement.
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Of even greater concern amongst European defence officials is the Trump administration’s rhetoric espousing a more isolationist US foreign policy, echoing threats made by President Trump during his first term to withdraw the US from the Nato alliance altogether. Should such a policy be implemented at any stage throughout Trump’s second term, it would deprive the European member states of their strongest ally in terms of financial capital, production capacity, technological supremacy and professional expertise. A US exit from Nato would undermine the alliance’s deterrent effect, subsequently incentivising an already belligerent and isolated Russian administration to increase both overt and covert (grey zone) activities within European territorial borders and critical international waterways. While the general consensus within the European defence community is that regional governments will need to take greater financial and industrial responsibility for their own security, divisions as to the best approach to reinforcing collective security could create further political deadlocks susceptible to exploitation by hostile actors. While recent reports by the European Commission have highlighted the importance of investing in domestic and pan-European defence industrial capabilities, many nations may opt to increase their purchases of US-manufactured defence equipment in the short term due to financial constraints or the desire to placate the incoming Trump administration’s historic criticism of substandard European defence spending.
Both of these strategic challenges are likely to drive increased investment in the domestication of supply chains and expertise within the European defence industry as policymakers pursue a greater degree of strategic autonomy from the US, regardless of the speed and scale at which the Trump administration decides to alter US security commitments. While some nations such as France and Germany possess relatively well-established industrial capabilities, allowing them to produce material and solutions specifically adapted to their respective security requirements, nations with smaller or less well-developed industrial capabilities will continue to rely heavily on excess foreign capacity while they seek to expand domestic infrastructure. Though this dynamic would provide market expansion opportunities for European defence primes in the short term, this would also increase the risk of supply chain bottlenecks as the few primes’ order books grow beyond their production capacity. Should European companies remain incapable of scaling up capacity to offset such bottlenecks in the short and medium term, regional government clients would be further incentivised to procure material from non-European suppliers such as the US or South Korea, the latter of which has established itself as an increasingly prominent industrial partner over the past two years.
As European leaders and policymakers rush to adapt their defence and security policies to reflect emergent geopolitical realities, it is important to highlight European capitals’ repeated failures to heed prescient warnings from US policymakers over the past three decades. During a 2014 speech discussing US and EU relations, former US President Barack Obama cautioned policymakers on the risks of potential shifts in US commitments to European security:
“To be honest, if we [the US] defined our interests narrowly, if we applied a cold-hearted calculus, we might decide to look the other way. Our economy is not deeply integrated with Ukraine’s. Our people and our homeland face no direct threat from the invasion of Crimea. Our own borders are not threatened by Russia’s annexation. But that kind of casual indifference would ignore the lessons that are written in the cemeteries of this continent.”
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By GlobalDataNevertheless, the majority of European policymakers and Nato member states failed to appropriately address these risks, with limited commitments to investing in the expansion of Europe’s defence industrial base driving continued dissatisfaction within successive US governments and the electorate itself. Those policymakers and alliance members are now faced with the real prospect of a US government threatening to ignore security commitments to those allies who fail to meet the minimum Nato defence spending target of 2% of gross domestic product. President-elect Trump recently emphasised this approach during a campaign rally, recalling having told an unnamed Nato member state: “No, I would not protect you [from Russian military actions]. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay.” due to said state’s failure to meet defence and security spending commitments. As European leaders now rush to invest in defence and security infrastructure, the US and South Korean defence industries are primed to reap significant benefits at the expense of European companies’ market share, an outcome for which Europeans themselves must shoulder the blame.
