Trial Separation: Europe Begins Untangling US Codependence

For 80 years, Western Europe looked to the United States for protection and opportunities, comforted by shared history and shared values.

So it was a shock to France, Germany, the United Kingdom and other European countries when US Vice President J.D. Vance appeared at the Munich Security Conference in January and scolded the Germans – and by extension most Europeans –  for violating the principles of free expression because they were not welcoming of their far right parties. Added to US President Donald Trump’s threats to take Greenland, which belongs to a fellow NATO and European Union member, Denmark, European leaders were getting increasingly anxious.

The blows kept coming. The US president stunned European leaders when he called Zelenskyy a dictator, told the world that the Russian-Ukraine war was Ukraine’s fault, and that Europeans and Ukrainians would be left out of negotiations with Russia to end the conflict. A few weeks later, Trump and Vance met with Zelenskyy in a meeting at the White House that spiraled into disaster for Ukraine: Trump halted intelligence sharing and arms shipments afterward.

Initially dazed, European leaders were soon shocked into action. Last week, they held an emergency summit, pledging money and arms for Ukraine and trying to figure out how best to go it alone because they say they can’t depend on the US anymore.

“Now is the moment to stay calm, but not carry on,” Camille Grand of the European Council on Foreign Relations and former top NATO official, wrote on X. “The US Ally has now officially decided to take a stance inconsistent with our traditionally shared interests and values. …this will have profound and enduring consequences.”

The call to action in Europe is taking many forms. France is stepping up as a leader, as it often does, along with Germany, Europe’s largest economy. But it’s bringing the UK back into play in spite of its departure from the European Union five years ago.

Officials across the continent are considering putting boots on the ground in Ukraine for peacekeeping, breaking a taboo by spending $200 billion in frozen Russian assets to buy weapons for Ukraine, steeply stepping up defense spending and expanding conscription to shore up their armed forces. They are creating a “coalition of the willing,” that could include 20 countries.

“Today it became clear that the free world needs a new leader,” said European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas recently. “It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge.”

One indicator of how panicked the Germans are is a move toward loosening deficit and debt spending rules that have kept the European Union and especially Germany restricted from increasing spending for defense.

Now, to pay for such spending, European leaders are considering the unthinkable – cutting the social spending that provides cradle-to-grave care in many of the countries. Europeans spend about 20 to 30 percent of GDP on social programs, vastly more than most other nations in the world.

It’s worth it, says French President Emmanuel Macron, who is considering expanding the country’s nuclear arsenal as a deterrent.

“I want to believe the US will stand by our side, but we have to be ready for that not to be the case,” he said. “The future of Europe must not be decided in Washington or Moscow.”

Some analysts believe that without the US’ intelligence, logistics and air support, Europe wouldn’t be able to hold back Russian troops. Others dispute that.

“Europe as a whole is truly capable of winning any military, financial, economic confrontation with Russia – we are simply stronger,” said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who is considering shoring up Poland’s military and acquiring nuclear arms. “We just had to start believing in it. And today it seems to be happening.”

Still, Europeans don’t see a choice now, they say. They add that they can’t let Russia move westward and with Trump’s “appeasement” of Putin and of failing to take NATO’s mutual defense commitments seriously, they have to step up.

“A new era is upon us,” the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told European Union leaders recently after presenting a five-part plan worth $800 billion to support Ukraine, and by extension European security. “Europe faces a clear and present danger on a scale that none of us has seen in our adult lifetime.”

What France, Germany and the UK but especially Eastern European countries worry about is that a ceasefire on Russian terms would allow Putin to rebuild the army, rearm and move aggressively toward the eastern European Union countries such as the Baltics or Poland, all of which have warned about such a situation for years.

This week, Ukraine agreed to a ceasefire deal and the US restarted weapons shipments and intelligence sharing. The US has also threatened Russia with new sanctions and took a less friendly tone than it had over the past two months.

That won’t change the Europeans’ move to stand alone, if necessary, analysts say. Initially, after Trump was sworn in, European leaders thought they could work with the new administration as they had in his first term, wrote Politico. But that was before, when Europeans couldn’t imagine his moves to destroy an alliance older than most people alive in Europe today.

Still, just because the military and diplomatic ties have frayed doesn’t mean that Europe and the US will completely go their own separate ways, wrote World Politics Review. It says that what binds the two are a shared culture and heritage as well as deeply entwined economic ties that amount to more than $1 trillion annually in trade.

“Because Trump has now been elected twice, few in Europe still think – as they did the first time – that they can wait him out and expect the old US to come back,” the magazine wrote. “But there’s much that still unites the two sides of the Atlantic…it remains a special relationship that goes beyond treaties and individual leaders.”

“They are going through a painful phase of resetting the new parameters in their relationship,” it added. “But it won’t be a full divorce.”