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Can NATO survive without the United States?

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Seoul, South Korea
CNN
 — 

Europe is staring down the barrel of a stark new reality where the United States being the backbone of NATO – the alliance that has guaranteed the continent’s security for almost 80 years – is no longer a given.

President Donald Trump’s public animosity towards Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, his willingness to embrace Russia’s Vladimir Putin and recent comments casting doubt over whether he would defend NATO allies “if they don’t pay” have all forced European leaders to start thinking the previously unthinkable – is the US a reliable security partner at a time when the continent is being rocked by its biggest war since the 1940s?

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.

The US and Germany are the biggest contributors to NATO’s military budget, civil budget and security investment program, at almost 16% each, followed by the UK at 11% and France at 10%, a NATO fact sheet says. Analysts say it wouldn’t take much for Europe to make up for the loss of Washington’s contribution.

If European countries unite and buy the right equipment, Europe “could pose a serious conventional and … nuclear deterrent” to Russia, Ben Schreer, Europe executive director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), said in a Zoom call with CNN and other journalists in late February.

A NATO flag flies in the wind during the

“Europe alone (still has) a capacity to muster the resources it would need to defend itself, it’s just a question of whether (it is) willing to,” Schreer said.

And that’s the key question. Over more than 75 years and the administrations of 14 different US presidents, including the first Trump administration, the US has been the sinew that has kept the alliance together.

During the Cold War, US troops on the continent were there as a deterrent to any Soviet ambitions to expand the Warsaw Pact alliance and eventually saw out its end when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. NATO campaigns in the Balkans in the 1990s were conducted with US troops and airpower. And, until the second Trump administration took office on January 20, Washington spearheaded aid for Ukraine.

Those decades of trans-Atlantic solidarity may have come to an end in recent days, analysts say.

Trump’s Oval Office blow-up with Zelensky – after which he halted US aid to Kyiv – “felt like a deeper rupture, not just with Ukraine, but with the US ‘free world’ strategy from Truman through Reagan,” Dan Fried, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and former US assistant secretary of state for Europe, said on the council’s website.

John Lough, a former NATO official who is now an associate fellow at the Chatham House think tank in London, sees an even more profound split in the alliance.

“It simply feels that the United States sees Europe more as a competitor, a rival, than an ally,” Lough told CNN, adding that because of that the commitment for Washington to defend NATO allies is somewhat in doubt.

It’s a fracture that Lough sees as unrepairable.

“Once you start to lose part of that commitment, you effectively lose it all,” Lough said.

Some people in European circles are starting to ask whether Washington should be described “in some ways as an enemy,” he said.

But some analysts say a NATO without the US is not a bad idea.

“As soon as US allies become convinced that they can no longer trust in US capabilities to defend them when push comes to shove, they will rush to pick up the slack and work towards growing their own capabilities,” Moritz Graefrath, a postdoctoral fellow in security and foreign policy at William & Mary’s Global Research Institute, wrote in War on the Rocks last year.

“It is in this sense that — perhaps counterintuitively — a withdrawal of US forces will create an even stronger, not weaker, Europe,” Graefrath wrote.

Prime Minister of NATO member Poland, Donald Tusk, thinks this process has started already.

“Europe as a whole is truly capable of winning any military, financial, economic confrontation with Russia – we are simply stronger,” he said ahead of a European Union summit this week. “We just had to start believing in it. And today it seems to be happening.”

In concept, a European military could be formidable.

Turkey has NATO’s largest armed forces after the United States, with 355,200 active military personnel, according to the Military Balance 2025, compiled by the IISS. It’s followed by France (202,200), Germany (179,850), Poland (164,100), Italy (161,850), the United Kingdom (141,100), Greece (132,000) and Spain (122,200).

US President Donald Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky meet in the Oval Office on Friday.

Turkey also has the most army personnel, which make up of the majority of frontline ground troops, with 260,200, France (113,800), Italy (94,000), Greece (93,000), Poland (90,600) the UK (78,800), Spain (70,200) and Germany (60,650), according to the IISS report.

In contrast, there were about 80,000 US troops assigned or deployed to bases in NATO countries as of June 2024, a July 2024 report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) says.

Most of those US troops are in Germany (35,000), Italy (12,000) and the UK (10,000), the CRS says.

Some of the larger NATO nations also have weapons equal to or many times better than what Russia has.

Take aircraft carriers for instance. While Russia has a single, antiquated aircraft carrier, the UK alone has two modern carriers capable of launching F-35B stealth fighters. France, Italy and Spain field aircraft carriers or amphibious ships capable of launching fighter jets, according to the Military Balance.

Aside from the US, France and the UK maintain nuclear forces, with both deploying ballistic missile submarines.

The NATO allies besides the US have about 2,000 fighter and ground-attack jets among them, with dozens of new F-35 stealth jets included in that number.

Ground forces include modern tanks, including German Leopards and British Challengers, donated units of which are now serving in the Ukrainian military. European NATO countries can field powerful cruise missiles, like the joint Franco-British SCALP/Storm Shadow, which has also proven itself on the Ukrainian battlefield.

The Military Balance 2025 report notes that Europe is taking steps to improve its military forces without US help. In 2024, six European countries united in a project to develop ground-launched cruise missiles, made moves to increase munitions production capacity and to diversify their supplier base, looking to countries like Brazil, Israel and South Korea as new sources for military hardware.

Analysts say even if the US were to completely pull out of Europe, it would leave important infrastructure behind.

The US has 31 permanent bases in Europe, according to the Congressional Research Service – naval, air, ground and command-and-control facilities that would be available to the countries where they are located if the US were to leave.

And Graefrath notes, that infrastructure would not be lost to Washington if there is regret after a possible US withdrawal.

“It leaves much of the US military infrastructure intact for an extended period (ensuring) that the United States retains the ability to make a military return if Europe were to fail to respond as predicted,” he wrote.

Some hope that the talk of a US withdrawal from NATO is just Trump bluster aimed at pushing allies to cough up and spend more on defense.

They say the world, and another key US alliance, have been here before – during Trump’s first administration, when he reportedly asked the Pentagon to look at options for drawing down US troops stationed in South Korea as protection against nuclear-armed North Korea.

That came as Trump prepared for meetings with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un at which he hoped to persuade Kim to commit to giving up his nuclear arsenal.

US President Donald Trump and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un stand on North Korean soil while walking to South Korea in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) on June 30, 2019, in Panmunjom, Korea.

A source close to the White House told CNN at the time that a US troop pullout was viewed as something that could possibly happen in the future but “not until long after (North Korea’s) nukes are verifiably gone.”

But Kim rejected all entreaties for him to give up his nuclear weapons program.

The Trump-Kim meeting “was sold as a big success despite that fact that it wasn’t,” said Schreer.

Afterward, the US returned to “business as usual” on the Korean Peninsula, Schreer said. The US – with tens of thousands of troops in South Korea – kept them there. Bilateral exercises with Seoul’s forces resumed, US warships visited South Korean ports and US Air Force bombers flew over the region.

The same could occur in Europe if Trump doesn’t get what he wants from Putin, analysts said. NATO could go on, with the recent threats to depart just a small bump in the road.

“If Putin tries to … screw Donald too much, even Donald Trump might recognize that,” Schreer said.



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Europe

Russia Ukraine truce: The real strategy behind Russia’s sudden truce announcement

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CNN
 — 

The timing, the brevity, the sudden, unilateral nature of it all. If Ukraine’s allies needed proof of Moscow’s wild cynicism when it comes to peace, the announcement of an immediate truce for Easter provided just that.

It came mere hours after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and his boss president Donald Trump said they would need in the coming days an urgent sign that the Kremlin was serious about peace.

For Russia’s proponents, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement on Saturday looked like a nod to Trump – but the sudden declaration is so riddled with practical flaws, before it even gets out of the box, that it is likely to be simply used by Putin to support his false notion Kyiv does not want his war to stop.

It will be a logistical nightmare for Ukraine‘s forces to suddenly, immediately stop fighting at Putin’s behest. Some front line positions may be in the middle of fierce clashes when this order comes through, and a cessation of this nature likely requires days of preparation and readiness.

Misinformation is bound to confuse troops about the truce’s implementation, how to report or respond to violations, and even what to do when it comes to an end.

It is possible this moment will prove a rare sign that both sides can stop violence for short period. But it is significantly more likely they will both use violations and confusion to show their opponent cannot be trusted. As of Saturday evening local time, Ukrainian officials said Russian strikes had continued in frontline areas.

The ongoing 30-day truce limited to energy infrastructure was born in conditions of complete chaos. The White House announced that “energy and infrastructure” were covered, the Kremlin said they’d immediately stopped attacks on “energy infrastructure”, and Ukraine said the truce started a week later than the Kremlin did. Its execution has been equally mired in mistrust and accusations of breaches.

Moscow made a similar unilateral declaration in January 2023, calling for a day of peace to allow Orthodox Christians to observe Christmas – a move that Kyiv and Western leaders dismissed at the time as a strategic pause for military purposes.

A genuine truce requires negotiation with your opponent, and preparations for it to take hold. The sudden rush of this seems designed entirely to placate the White House demands for some sign that Russia is willing to stop fighting. It will likely feed Trump’s at times pro-Moscow framing of the conflict. It may also cause complexities for Ukraine when they are inevitably accused of violating what Washington may consider to be a goodwill gesture by Moscow.

Ultimately, this brief, likely theoretical, probably rhetorical and entirely unilateral stop to a three-year war, is likely to do more damage to the role of diplomacy in the coming months than it does to support it.



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Live updates: Trump news on Iran and Ukraine talks, immigration crackdown, tariffs

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Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

Delegations from the United States and Iran are holding their second round of high-stakes nuclear talks today.

Officials from both countries met in Oman last weekend for talks mediated by the Gulf Arab nation. This round is being held in Rome, with Oman once again serving as mediator between the US team — led by special envoy Steve Witkoff — and the Iranian one, headed by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

How we got here: A nuclear deal was reached in 2015 between Iran and world powers, including the US. Under the deal, Iran had agreed to limit its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.

Trump abandoned that deal in 2018, during his first presidential term. Iran retaliated by resuming its nuclear activities and has so far advanced its program of uranium enrichment up to 60% purity, closer to the roughly 90% level that is weapons grade.

Back in the White House, Trump has given Tehran a two-month deadline to reach a new agreement.

What the US is saying: Trump has vowed a “stronger” deal than the original struck in 2015, and has threatened to bomb Iran if it does not come to an agreement with the US.

Since reporting that last weekend’s initial talks were “constructive,” Trump administration officials oscilated this week between a conciliatory approach and more hawkish demands to fully dismantle Tehran’s nuclear capabilities.

What Iran is saying: Iran this week doubled down on its right to enrich uranium and accused the Trump administration of sending mixed signals.

Iranian media has reported that Tehran had set strict terms ahead of the talks with the US, saying that “red lines” include “threatening language” by the Trump administration and “excessive demands regarding Iran’s nuclear program.”



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Russia sentences 19-year-old woman to nearly three years in a penal colony after poetic anti-war protest

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CNN
 — 

A St Petersburg court has sentenced a 19-year-old woman to nearly three years in a penal colony after she was accused of repeatedly “discrediting” the Russian army, including by gluing a quotation on a statue of a Ukrainian poet.

Darya Kozyreva was sentenced to two years and eight months, the Joint Press Service of Courts in St. Petersburg said in statement Friday.

Kozyreva was arrested on February 24, 2024, after she glued a verse by Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko onto his monument in St Petersburg, according to OVD-Info, an independent Russian human rights group.

The verse from Shevchenko’s My Testament read, “Oh bury me, then rise ye up / And break your heavy chains / And water with the tyrants’ blood / The freedom you have gained,” OVD-Info said.

A second case was brought against her in August 2024, following an interview with Radio Free Europe in which she called Russia’s war in Ukraine “monstrous” and “criminal,” OVD-Info said.

During one of her hearings, the teenager maintained that she had merely recited a poem, and pasted a quote in Ukrainian, “nothing more,” the court press service said.

The anti-war activist has had previous run-ins with the law, having been detained in December 2022 while still at high school for writing, “Murderers, you bombed it. Judases,” on an installation dedicated to the twinning of the Russian city of St Petersburg and Ukraine’s Mariupol, the rights group said.

She was then fined for “discreditation” a year later and expelled from university for a post she made on a Russian social media platform discussing the “imperialist nature of the war,” according to Memorial, one of the country’s most respected human rights organizations.

Describing Kozyreva as a political prisoner, Memorial condemned the charges against her as “absurd” in a statement last year, saying they were aimed at suppressing dissent.

Prosecutors had been seeking a six-year sentence for Kozyreva, Russian independent media channel, SOTA Vision, reported from inside the courtroom. Video footage by Reuters showed Kozyreva smiling and waving to supporters as she left the court.

Kozyreva’s lawyer told Reuters they would likely appeal.

The verdict was condemned by Amnesty International’s Russia Director Natalia Zviagina as “another chilling reminder of how far the Russian authorities will go to silence peaceful opposition to their war in Ukraine.”

“Daria Kozyreva is being punished for quoting a classic of 19th-century Ukrainian poetry, for speaking out against an unjust war and for refusing to stay silent. We demand the immediate and unconditional release of Daria Kozyreva and everyone imprisoned under ‘war censorship laws,’” Zviagina said in a statement.

Russia has a history of attempting to stifle anti-war dissent among its younger generation. Last year, CNN reported that at least 35 minors have faced politically motivated criminal charges in Russia since 2009, according to OVD-Info. Of those, 23 cases have been initiated since Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Currently, more than 1,500 people are imprisoned on political grounds in Russia, according to a tally by OVD-Info, with Moscow’s crackdown on dissent escalating since the war began. Between then and December 2024, at least 20,070 people were detained for anti-war views, and there were 9,369 cases of “discrediting the army,” relating to actions including social media posts or wearing clothes with Ukrainian flag symbols, according to OVD-Info.



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