President Donald Trump has made NATO, already the most successful defensive alliance in history, far stronger by his incessant demands that its 31 other members increase defense spending. Trump has also rightly provided recent reassurance of his commitment to the alliance, especially when it comes to allies bordering Russia, which spend well above NATO’s original 2% of GDP minimum defense spending target. Trump recently reached an agreement to see that the target move to 3.5% of GDP.
Nevertheless, Trump has only himself to blame for the increasing trend of allies looking closer to home for major defense equipment purchases.
Take Denmark‘s announcement on Friday that it will spend $9.1 billion on new air defense systems as an example. This is the country’s largest single equipment order ever, seeing buys of the excellent Franco-Italian Aster missile for long-range air defense and other European systems for medium-range air defense. The Danish Defense Ministry noted, “The systems have been selected based on an overall assessment of operational, economic, and strategic factors.” Other European governments are also buying more equipment from European defense manufacturers.
This announcement comes just days after Russia deliberately launched dozens of drones into Polish airspace. That intimidatory test of NATO’s air defenses found them wanting (you can guarantee that China took note). As the Washington Examiner has editorialized, Russia must face limited air cordons over Belarus and Ukraine for its escalating aggression toward NATO. Still, the words “strategic factors” in the Danish statement demand close U.S. attention.
After all, while the choice to buy European makes sense from European domestic economic and political considerations, it also makes sense considering the U.S. defense industrial base’s extraordinarily incessant struggle to produce goods on time and on budget. But these defense purchases also make sense at the strategic level. Namely, by ensuring Europe can protect itself if a reconstituted Russian military (rearmed by sanctions relief amid any peaceful resolution to the war in Ukraine) invades Europe five, 10, or 20 years down the road. And does so in a situation where a future U.S. president refuses to support defensive military action.
Yes, the absolutely necessary U.S. military pivot to deter China means the United States must focus some but not all (some Army and nuclear forces should remain in Europe) military resources in the Pacific. But thanks to Trump’s sometimes flippant and callous disregard for some allies, the U.S. is no longer seen as a totally reliable ally in Europe. Eighty percent reliability? Absolutely. Ninety percent reliability? Yes. A hundred percent? Forget it.
To understand Denmark’s conundrum, we need only look at Trump’s fetish for taking control over the country’s Greenland territory. Denmark is a great U.S. ally. Unlike many other European allies that ignored the U.S.’s call for help, Denmark lost the population equivalent of 2,365 soldiers fighting alongside the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Now imagine if Denmark and the U.S. had their respective economic and military power reversed. Imagine that the U.S. faced the credible threat of a Chinese invasion of Hawaii by 2035. Imagine, then, that a Danish prime minister insisted that one way or another, Alaska was going to come under Copenhagen’s control. Imagine that Danish Defense Intelligence Service officers had been secretly running around Alaska trying to shape politics toward seceding from the Danish crown. Imagine how the U.S. government would adapt to grapple with this threat.
Would the U.S. continue to buy Danish military equipment that relied upon Danish supply chains for technical expertise, spare parts, and munitions? Or would it seek to diversify to defense equipment of an equal or superior quality that came with the benefit of assured technical and spare part supply chains?
The answer, as Denmark has just shown, is a no-brainer.
The answer bears close consideration. While Trump views any decision not to purchase U.S. arms equipment as a personal insult deserving of riposte, that would be the wrong response here. U.S. trade with Europe, including U.S. export trade, is vastly lucrative to the U.S. economy (Russia could never compete with it). Historic ties of people and democratic values also matter in informing foreign policy decisions in the U.S.’s favor. NATO continues to benefit Americans greatly.
Moreover, the key U.S. strategic interest in European defense procurement is not how much said procurement benefits U.S. businesses, but whether it allows Europe to bear more of the burden of its defense. And with Europe finally taking steps to increase defense spending, the burden-sharing issue is slowly being resolved. Yes, the U.S. must maintain close attention as to whether the Europeans are actually spending on weapons systems or gimmicks. But Europe is finally, finally, finally moving in the right direction.
Trump deserves much credit for this development, of course. He has put NATO into a far stronger position than it ever was under former Presidents Joe Biden or Barack Obama. The history of how we got here is clear.
Trump began clamoring for increased Canadian and European defense spending during his first term. Some progress was made. But even when Russia launched the largest land war in Europe since 1945, most NATO allies continued to treat defense spending as an abstraction. Leaders of the four leading economies in the European Union, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy, made bold promises about rising to meet a new era of Russian imperialist threats. But they didn’t put their money where their mouths were. They failed to meet the 2% of GDP minimum defense spending target that all NATO members agreed to move toward at the alliance’s 2014 summit. Germany pledged a revolution in defense spending but then abandoned its commitments under the weak leadership of former Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
It has taken Trump’s return to office and the arrival of a bolder European leader, Chancellor Friedrich Merz, to see Germany finally pull out the stops and start investing seriously in defense. France and the United Kingdom have followed suit (the approach of Italy and Spain remains highly problematic).
CHARLIE KIRK ASSASSINATION CRYSTALIZES COUNTERSNIPER CHALLENGE
In essence, then, this Danish action and similar actions by other European allies underline the two sides of Trump’s strategic coin.
On the one side, Europe sees a president that rightly demands a fairer deal for Americans via Europe putting juicier military capability meat on the defensive bones of our alliance. On the flip side, Trump’s sometimes petulant obsessions are encouraging allies to make decisions to guard against the possibility that the U.S. isn’t wholly reliable.