Why should the American taxpayer subsidise the European one? This question encapsulates the current discussions on America's contribution to European defence.
In Latvia in 2006, President George W. Bush said that he would: “…encourage our European partners to increase their defence investment in both NATO and E.U. operations.”
President Barack Obama said in Brussels in 2014: “If we’ve got collective defence, it means everyone has to chip in.”
President Trump saying Europe cannot keep relying on America for operations in Ukraine should not surprise anyone. He is not the first president to recognise that European allies are not pulling their weight.
American taxpayers are highly sceptical about the funding America has given to Ukraine, and against this backdrop the new administration was always going to demand that Europe do more.
Washington has, however, been crystal clear that the U.S.A. has not backed away from NATO or its Article 5 commitments. The longevity of this commitment, though, may not be permanent.
Europe has been complacent and has shown arrogance towards the United States for too long. The attitude of thinking we don’t need to increase our spending because America will look after us has no place in the realpolitik of today’s world.
Since the end of the last Cold War, the situation has changed significantly: America can no longer focus solely on North Atlantic defence.
As U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said at the Munich Security Conference: “We also face a peer competitor in the Communist Chinese with the capability and intent to threaten our homeland and core national interests in the Indo-Pacific. The U.S. is prioritising deterring war with China in the Pacific, recognising the reality of scarcity, and making the resourcing trade-offs to ensure deterrence does not fail. Deterrence cannot fail, for all our sakes.”
The U.K.’s Strategic Defence Review is due by the end of spring. It must recognise that there can be no reduction in current modern assets and platforms.
The often-heard demand that we should mothball the aircraft carriers because they are too expensive and serve no purpose is a statement of ignorance regarding the vital need to show willing support to our American allies.
Several European nations are helping America shoulder the burden in the Indo-Pacific with significant naval assets, including carriers. Without this collaboration, America may well conclude that the Europeans should go it alone in the Atlantic and elsewhere.
NATO HQ has been assessing how Europe can defend itself and estimates that military requirements have increased by around 40 per cent since the start of 2022.
This is significant as NATO reports what is needed rather than just setting an arbitrary target for what each country should spend. Its current estimate is that this will equate to more than 3 per cent of GDP for each European ally.
The U.K. and other European allies are now at a significant crossroad. NATO is not at war, but it is certainly not at peace. At the forthcoming Leaders’ Summit in The
Hague this June, allies will need to agree on a roadmap with target dates to achieve the continent's defence requirements and commit the hard cash to deliver it.
Ministers will always come back and ask which departments should be cut to pay for it, but this approach fails to recognise the costs to our basic public services if Russia attacks us. A Russian attack will not be what most people envisage; instead, it is likely to be conducted in cyberspace or under the North Sea.
War is no longer conflict in a far-off land, as it has been for much of the twenty-first century. The Baltic States are the hub of European cyber defence and the idea that those states are not worth the U.K. fighting for leaves our country wide open to a mass attack.
If Russia were to succeed in Ukraine, they would not stop there. Putin made it clear in his July 2021 essay that the Baltic States are his next target.
The consequence of the war in Ukraine was felt in every shop and petrol station in the U.K., from supermarkets to our local grocery stores. The subsequent cost-of-living crisis was initiated by Russia, sparking an energy price spike across Britain.
With Europe having weaned itself off Russian fossil fuels, are we once again going to allow Russia to cause inflationary pressures for every household in Britain?
If the Strategic Defence Review recommends spending commitments of only 2.5 per cent, you may as well save your time and put it straight in the bin.
On the other hand, if it aligns with NATO HQ’s analysis and recognises that we may need to spend more than 3 per cent of GDP, then all parties will need to support the U.K. government in its quest to achieve this.
And if The Hague summit resolves that spending requirements should be even higher, we will have to support that, too.
Whatever the cost now, if we don’t act today, we will certainly be facing higher cost later which will have everyone lamenting earlier short-termism.
If ministers decide they cannot afford to freeze spending on the NHS or cut the bloated welfare bill - the two areas to benefit most from the post-Cold War dividend - then they must simply look at spending that can wait.
Net-zero is one potential area. There is no point moving to a net-zero economy if the economy is in tatters and the outcome makes us more reliant on foreign resource. This is not to dismiss the overall policy direction, but with war currently raging in Europe and the Americans now prioritising their own taxpayers over European ones, can we really afford not to reassess the timetabling of such government spending.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke, M.P. is Vice President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.
