NATO is talked about at every turn by every analyst or pseudo-analyst, and worse still by decision-makers or pseudo-analysts.
The current debates and assessments regarding NATO are tainted by a lack of memory (and often of logic) on both sides of the Atlantic, mostly on the European side, with a different and increasingly nuanced position depending on the distance of a hypothetical front line (also variable).
The lack of memory and the poor knowledge of the dynamics (and of the previous situation) have an impact on the decisions to be taken in terms of Common Defence (European or still "Western"?)
The origins
The United States, derogating from a practice, or rather a "I believe”, which has always favoured bilateral relations (the example par excellence is the nineteenth-century “eternal alliance” with France, whose symbol, deviated over time, was the Statue of Liberty) agreed to sign the North Atlantic Treaty, in April 1949, only at the strong urging of European partners, who feared Soviet expansionism after World War II.
It was initially conceived as a collective security treaty, not as a permanent alliance or organization.
The situation changed following the invasion of South Korea by North Korea in 1950 (which, formally, led to a worldwide mobilization and participation alongside the USA, with extreme cases such as a strong Colombian presence and a completely forgotten and very marginal one by Italy).
That attack served as a warning that the Soviet Union could strike NATO with little or no warning..
American policy makers, still fresh and mindful of the events that had involved and led to the US participation in the Second World War, anticipating their European counterparts, realized that effective deterrence and defense required more than a written commitment, above all a political body capable of rapidly mobilizing - in the event of a surprise attack - permanent forces previously maintained under a common command.
That's how the North Atlantic Treaty evolved into theNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The member states appointed permanent representatives to the North Atlantic Council, the governing body of the new organization, and agreed to create an integrated military command structure, headed by a supreme commander (... and to recall the weight attributed to this function, the first appointment fell, at the beginning of 1951, on the general "winner" of the war in Europe, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, future president of the United States,).
Since then, NATO has organised collective defence through an integrated process, which includesassignment to each member of the type of capabilities he must procure and deploy.
While members are responsible for paying for and fielding their own forces, the Joint Command plans, trains and, if necessary, commands NATO operations.
It is essential to remember that in terms of credibility and readiness, NATO's real deterrent is U.S. nuclear weapons, including those deployed in Europe and shared with allied forces.
Integrated defense planning and operations have guided NATO countries for over seven decades, but this approach has only worked because the United States has played a unifying (but also dominant ...) role. US land, naval and air forces have performed (and still perform) many of the alliance's critical military functions, and in this regard it is enough to think of the main components of the integrated air defense network, which protects European skies, communications networks and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities.
In exchange for the provision of this security umbrella, the United States asked NATO partners to fully integrate their armed forces under the leadership of U.S. military personnel who have always occupied key positions in the NATO command structure, with the head of U.S. European Command in the role of Supreme Commander of NATO.
A vexatious imposition for European countries? Certainly not, since most of them, Germany (which received the greatest benefits) in the lead, were happy to do so, considering integration a form of concrete insurance that the United States would intervene in their defense. Most but not all, since Charles de Gaulle's France, mindful and still committed to a colonial and autonomous vision of its own interests, did not want to delegate anything in terms of foreign relations and bargaining power, arguing that not having full confidence that Washington would always share security interests (and power) Paris.
Eventually, France not only developed its own deterrence, with its own nuclear weapons, but in 1966 left the NATO military structure, while remaining a member of the alliance.
Although France was the only European country to desire autonomy in decision-making and deterrence (motivated by the resentments of the first Israeli crisis and the Suez Canal crisis, some also point out the policy of exporting its defense industry, with a marked resistance to standardization), was not the only country to seek greater autonomy for its armed forces.
In the 70s, when disagreements emerged within NATO over the Vietnam War, some European members feared being drawn into a war they did not believe was affecting their security.
In the early 80s, President Ronald Reagan's tough stance on the Soviet Union sparked growing fears that Europe could end up as a smoking, irradiated ruin in a clash between Moscow and Washington, while more recently some European countries were sharply divergent from U.S. priorities such as the war in Iraq.
Post-Cold War Evolution and Transition
After the Cold War, the European Union played a key role in steering European NATO members towards greater autonomy in defence and security matters, aiming for a common foreign and security policy that would also include an increasing defence dimension.
The 2009 Lisbon Treaty further enshrined a commitment to mutual defense, while recognizing that for NATO members the alliance’s collective security commitment would remain paramount. Much doctrine, however useful, but little practical effect.
It's a shame that there cannot be a common, single European Defence if there is no EU political union., as has been demonstrated from the very beginning by the failed attempt of the founding fathers with CED, the European Defence Community (Community Européenne de Défense, definition of the time strictly in French and not in English).
In theory, the United States has accepted the need for Europe to assume and play a greater role in its own security, on the assumption that greater European autonomy would lead to a fairer sharing of the overall defense burden, a goal of every US administration since the alliance's founding.
Washington, of course, has equally resisted any “innovation” that might undermine the United States' leading role in NATO or the the alliance's preeminent position in Western security.
Greater European contributions to common defence were and are hoped for – indeed they are urged – but they had to and must be in support of NATO and not of a parallel structure and independent.
In 1998, the then US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, warned that the United States would evaluate any European defence effort from the perspective of what came to be called the "three Ds" (Decrease, Duplication, Discrimination):
- none dreduction of the role of NATO,
- none duplication of addresses and commitments for defense,
- none ddiscrimination by the EU against non-EU NATO members when it came to defence procurement.
In light of this, any hypothesis of establishing separate headquarters, armed forces "external" to the structure mobilised by the Alliance or other forms of autonomy on the part of the European partners has always been considered - and dismissed. - from Washington as incompatible with the primacy of NATO.
Coincidentally (?) today in the two documents published in sequence and in great haste by the EU, ReArm Europe e Readiness 2030 There is more than a vague reference to Albright's 1998 document.
Already then, and in the fallacious enthusiasm for an irreversible and lasting peace after the equally fallacious disappearance of the Soviet threat, the EU should have questioned, and perhaps negotiated, on greater autonomy, on whether NATO was still useful and could survive without the United States which throughout the history of the alliance has been both its main member and its main provider of security: why wasn't it done?
Regardless of the shock and from the distraction from reality that the elephant Trump can generate in a glass palace already in fragile equilibrium, the solution of a totally autonomous EU defense or of a “Europeanization” of NATO requires three elements that are currently in short supply:
- money,
- time
- US cooperation.
The cost of undertaking this fundamental change will require a significant increase in European defence spending – with members earmarking "considerably more than three percent" of their GDP on defense, according to recent statements by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
Even with sufficient resources, however, a European Defense alternative will take years, if not more than a decade, to build the necessary capabilities, train and equip forces, and deploy them. For this reason, Europe will need Washington's active cooperation to shift responsibility from the United States to other NATO members.
In some areas, particularly nuclear weapons, It is unclear whether anyone would benefit from a total transition.
Theoretically, if the United States were to withdraw from NATO, under pressure from the Trump administration, the treaty would remain in force for the other 31 members, but in practice the role of the United States in the Alliance would be difficult to replace, especially in the short time required by current contingencies.
Planning is foresight and caution: given the potential for fundamental changes in current U.S. foreign policy, the most urgent step for the rest of NATO is to imagine a future without the United States and reinvent and position the alliance to remain credible, regardless of any transition.
To do so, European members will have to find more funds, buy time and ensure however a (strong) measure of certain and continued cooperation from the United States.
European leaders have already decided on more resources, partly real partly with contraptions and budgetary possibilities/flexibility, exempting defense spending from budget restrictions but will immediately have to invest it in the kind of critical military capabilities that the United States has long provided.
They will also have to provide most of the forces needed to defend themselves, and do so within a matter of years, not of decades, exactly when the personnel problem is one of the critical factors, after the senseless post-cold war policies. After 25 years, an entire generation and the solutions in this sector have changed they cannot be improvised even with large financial resources.
A future of European defense only?
The European Common Defence is not a novelty, it is not a rabbit pulled from the hat of an adventitious political magician, but dates back to the wishes and objectives of the founding fathers, in the early 50s of the last century, when NATO was still a collective security treaty.
The European Defence Community (CED, acronym for Communauté Européenne de Défense) was a project of military collaboration between some European states proposed and supported by France, in its aspirations of being a "victorious power" and "legal leader" of a European grouping that was still to be outlined (and Defense would have been its axis), more precisely by Prime Minister René Pleven, in full agreement with Alcide De Gasperi who assured Italy's collaboration, the accession of Benelux and a subsequent hypothesis of extension to West Germany, still subject to the clauses and measures of the peace treaty.
The project failed due to implosion, due to a change of heart by France, with a change of government substantially opposed to the enlargement of the EDC to the "historical enemy", Germany, even if reduced to the Federal Republic of Germany, an enlargement which restored dignity and equality to Germany itself (recognition that Germany nevertheless obtained from NATO starting in 1960).
At the EU summit held in early March 2025, European leaders decided to activate a financing (loan) of 150 billion euros, nebulously and substantially for defense-related supplies and production, to ease the rigid European budget rules limit the budget deficit of EU members, eliminating defense spending and potentially making available in the next ten years 650 billion euros, further debt not always sustainable to the same extent and progression by all member countries.
These additional resources should meet NATO's force requirements, but they presuppose a political and management unity that is not yet specific to the EU.
As a minimum, European member states should commit to providing 75-80% of the forces needed to implement the Alliance's regional defence plans by the early 30s and, in the longer term, to providing nearly all forces.
This will involve developing critical capabilities – including satellite communications and advanced air and missile defenses – to conduct high-intensity, long-term combat operations.
European governments should also double down on the recruitment, training and training of their own military personnel, in a move against policies adopted over the past decades.
A list of good intentions, which pragmatically must however take into account that, even if sufficient funds and time are available, this transition requires active support from Washington.
It is significant that Germany, which for a long time spent relatively little on defense, perhaps the country that speculated most on US “participation” despite being Europe’s largest economy, has made a major change in its spending rules.
In March, his parliament, which was also expiring and had a different majority than the incoming one, decided to exempt defense spending, funding for intelligence services and aid to Ukraine from the country's traditionally strict budget constraints, a move that could increase the defense budget by up to 400 billion euros in the coming years.
Europe is still divided on these issues, when it is not a question of common debt, with governments following the German one but equally, as already mentioned, with other governments perplexed about taking on further debt on less than optimal budgets.
The Genesis and Evolution of Transatlantic Relations
NATO is unlike any other military alliance, with shared responsibilities among members, but where the United States plays a central role in each.
Not only have they been and still are the largest and most significant military contributor to the alliance, but they have also long insisted that other members agree to integrate their defense capabilities within this US-led structure, thus ensuring that Washington controls their use in major military operations.
In the early 90s, there were voices that leaned towards the gradual dissolution of NATO after the end of the Warsaw Pact, in a blind paroxysm of irreversible peace, while on the contrary Russia began its path of revisionism, highlighted in 2014, with the occupation of Crimea and Donbas.
It was the turning point: NATO not only resisted, but even strengthened, and it did so in terms of cohesion, belonging and deterrent power.
With the new US administration, a problem of trust has exploded: for the first time, European leaders are not sure that the United States will remain committed to NATO and to the American leadership role within it.
Necessarily taking a small step back from today's disputes and accusations, the story is more complex and it would even be appropriate to remember that Trump played a fundamental role in the defense of Ukraine, tracing the path that Biden then followed.
It is not far-fetched to argue that Ukraine owes its survival in the critical days of early spring 2022 largely to the support of the former Trump White House (photo below).
Why would Washington now want to abandon this extraordinary success story, a story of combined US-Ukraine determination and resolve to uphold and defend the sovereign rights of a free country?
Even Trump's United States knows well the dangers of leaving Europe to deal with Russia or negotiate about it, after the failures of the so-called “Minsk process” as well as that of the so-called “Four of Normandy”, the contact group composed of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine which met between 2014 and 2022. Processes losers, great disappointment about European capabilities, while the American leadership vacuum only encouraged Russia to further escalation, culminating in the invasion of February 2022.
The United States knows well the dangers of abandoning Europe to confront Russia.
These events are fatally reminiscent of those of 30 years ago, when the bloody war in Bosnia led Europe to proclaim the "Europe time", which led to nothing, and only through the Dayton Accords of 1995 was it possible to achieve peace.
Neither the first Trump administration nor the Biden administration repeated the mistake made by the Obama White House in 2014: they did not leave the resolution of the war in Ukraine to the Europeans, but decided to lead a significant international effort in support of Ukraine.
The precedents should make one think that it may be in Europe's interest to welcome, in principle, a strategic commitment from the United States, which in reality stands in the way of a broader shift from Washington from Europe to China.
But to succeed, both sides of the Atlantic must quickly bridge the huge trust gap.
The U.S. military presence in Europe has been strengthened in recent years, but it is far from equal to the hundreds of thousands of Russian troops in Ukraine and Russia's western military districts.
Even the Trump administration, with its hubris, needs its European partners (and in this case it has openly acknowledged this by calling on European forces to guarantee or enforce a possible agreement on Ukraine).
Trust and solidarity between partners
America is tired of subsidizing the freedom and security of Europeans while 'Europe no longer trusts Washington's commitment to the continent's security.
If the United States were to leave NATO and withdraw from Europe in a rapid and uncoordinated manner, it would likely collapse the integrated structure that has been built over decades, and which represents the culture and foundation for a new form of effective defense.
Pragmatically, it must be acknowledged that European countries simply today They do not have the military and technological resources to immediately replace what the United States has provided, precisely because Washington has made it clear to them for decades that building such capabilities was a duplication and a waste.
In some areas, such as nuclear weapons, the United States may even prefer to remain involved in NATO, if the alternative is for other European countries to develop their own nuclear capabilities.
The opposition, real or specious, is today between the two sides of the Atlantic, but we all forget that in reality the United States has positioned itself for decades, even physically, as a European power.
If one examines the history and trajectory of NATO, one should understand that America has been for decades not a partner but in fact a European power, sedentary: is it still or can it still be?
Behind the current tensions (including those between Washington and Kiev) Europe's role in the security equation is hidden.
The opportunity for dialogue and negotiation to re-establish Western balances should see Europeans not inclined to kick the table but resolute enough to confront Washington on a non-confrontational reciprocal basis, with lasting and secure peace agreements (also in the specific case of Ukraine), on existential security issues for all of Europe.
The pragmatic question to answer it's about Russia, and how to deal with it, knowing that Russia will generate, in turn, problems of strategic stability, including those concerning US military installations in Europe.
Europe and the United States must prepare for a long and difficult, thorny and even painful process, for which a new type of European leadership is not enough.
To defend their strategic security interests and rebuild the alliance, the European powers must demonstrate not only that they are capable of taking on a greater burden, one that truly strengthens the collective power of the alliance, but also that they are capable of bringing the United States to the role and status of a European power.
This is certainly not news, given that the same magazine Foreign Affairs in a very critical background of the current situation and positions, he recalled how thirty years ago the diplomat Richard Holbrooke wrote an essay for his pages entitled "America, a European power" (and without a question mark).
Holbrooke predicted that "in the 21st century, Europe still needed the active American involvement that has been a necessary component of the continental balance for half a century".
The essay concluded with a prophetic statement: "The task before us is as daunting as its necessity is evident. To turn away from the challenge would only mean paying a higher price later.".
What to do and the immediate future (of Europe and NATO, not just Ukraine)
Europe needs the United States to end the war in Ukraine once and for all, but it is equally true that the United States will need Europe to successfully complete this task.
We cannot only hope that the Trump White House will recognize this reality, but also be proactive and not just stubbornly oppose the actions (and, why not, the apparent Trump's tantrums).
Going it alone, on both sides, is not a solution, but above all it is not convenient for either of the parties.
La common European defence must be a thoughtful evolution, built on solid foundations, the premise of that European construction that the founding fathers had set themselves from the beginning and which stopped at the creation of a single currency, at the condition of a financial regulator: the decision for a common defense is a transcendental political act and cannot be traced back to a hasty and almost infantile and capricious retaliation of a child who has been deprived of access to the box of sweets or the box of toy soldiers.
Trump's America is no longer the one we used to know, the one we perhaps thought we could always fall back on: simply, and perhaps again, because it is no longer the great battleship that was able to provide security to the free world and, at the same time, counter its terrible enemies.
It is not the battleship that has lost value, we are the ones who have grown up and we can and must keep up of the battleship.
If we consider the costs, freedom has a cost, security an additional cost, truth is a supplement to the tariff, leadership or, if you prefer, hegemony is a luxury with an even greater cost as an exclusive option.
A luxury with a cost that appears exorbitant.
If this were the case, it would explain, at least in part, the many oddities and twists and turns of the Trump administration; however, we must avoid closing an umbrella that, although worn and a little tight, has protected us for a long time and today appears to be held with an unsteady hand by its owner: we must find a different refuge to shelter from the dangers that loom over the international situation, being grateful and also offering space to the umbrella owner, always handy with his worn out tool when he has to go back outdoors.
Photo: NATO / web / US DoD / Presidency of the Council of Ministers / European Union / The White House / US Army
