Donald Trump’s dressing-down of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House was a lightning strike to the transatlantic alliance, dispelling lingering illusions in Europe about whether their American cousin will stand with them to counter Russian aggression. Reeling, perhaps even fearful, Europe may have finally come to its senses over its self-defense needs in the era of Trump.
“It is as if Roosevelt welcomed Churchill (to the White House) and started bullying him,” European lawmaker Raphaël Glucksmann told CNN. In a month when US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called Europe “PATHETIC” for “free-loading” on defense in a group chat with administration officials (which inadvertently included a journalist for The Atlantic), the continent has been shattering decades-old taboos on defense. Policies are on the table that would have been unthinkable just weeks ago.
The biggest change came in Germany, Europe’s biggest economy. After the federal election, chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz won a vote in parliament to scrap Germany’s constitutional “debt brake” – a mechanism to limit government borrowing. This is a game-changer in Europe, because Germany was the laggard – especially among the big countries – when it comes to defense,” Piotr Buras, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, an international think tank, said.
In getting over its phobia of debt, Buras said that Germany has finally acted as though Europe really had passed a “Zeitenwende” – or “turning point” – as described by outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz in February 2022, just three days after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Although the invasion jolted Germany, “only the Trump shock made them take this really fundamental decision of suspending the debt brake,” said Buras.
“This is the real, proper Zeitenwende.”Even famously neutral countries are reconsidering their positions. Amid discussions about how to keep the peace in Ukraine in the event of a settlement, the government in Ireland – a military minnow focused on peacekeeping operations – put forward legislation to allow troops to be deployed without UN approval, skirting a possible Russian (or American) veto.
It’s long been the uncomfortable – and often unspoken – truth in Europe that its protection from invasion was ultimately dependent on the American cavalry riding over the horizon. That support no longer looks so sure. The pivot goes beyond who will do the fighting to who will provide the arms. Some have begun to question future purchases of the astronomically expensive US-made F-35 jets that several European air forces had planned to acquire.
Portuguese Defense Minister Nuno Melo said his country was re-evaluating the expected purchases of the jets in preference for European alternatives over concerns of the US-controlled supply of spare parts. It’s the first time such concerns were aired publicly at such a high level, especially in favor of jets that, on paper, don’t offer the same capabilities.
Source: Here