By Collins Chong Yew Keat

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: Europe is staring down the barrel of a stark new harsh truth and reality where the US is no longer a given in the security umbrella of the continent, and all the past ignorance and almost total reliance on Washington for its security needs will now need a total overhaul.

Europe and NATO without the US will inevitably spell doom for both, as although they have  more than a million troops and modern weaponry at its disposal from the 31 other countries in the alliance, they still lack the final piece of the capacity needed to win a conflict and to deal a decisive blow, or to even have a capable deterrent effect in the first place.

Europe is now seen from the lens of Washington and Trump as increasingly the enemy and disruptor from within, where decades of military support and funding have only been met with more economic and trade imbalances that have further squeezed Washington.

For Europe, long buoyed by Washington’s easy and entrenched support in a bipartisan basis before Trump came along, it has now increasingly termed Washington as the enemy rather than the trusted ally, from the increasingly fragile security umbrella to the ease of Trump using his cards to expand influence and territories and using the tariff tool to correct pact imbalances, including goals on Greenland and Canada.

Some argue that as soon as Europe realises that it can no longer trust and rely on Washington, it will be compelled to fix its own security which will create an even stronger, not weaker Europe.

This does not reflect the past and future reality of the continent’s security and economic credentials.

Poland Prime Minister Donald Tusk argued that Europe as a whole is truly capable of winning any military, financial, or economic confrontation with Russia. Far from it, Europe is left as a sitting duck without the US.

Washington has been central to European security WWII,  helped to create NATO and deployed hundreds of thousands of soldiers to Europe to challenge Soviet influence.

While some have argued that the UK, France, Italy and Spain all  possess modern aircraft carriers and amphibious ships capable of launching jets as compared to Russia’s single antiquated aircraft carrier, they lack the capacity, readiness and volumes of direct deterrence and in sustaining a protracted war that Russia is now accustomed to, even with the various economic pressure in place.

NATO’s European allies have some 7,000 aircraft, 6,800 tanks, 2,170 military ships and six aircraft carriers, according to the Global Firepower defence index. However, they lack the real life firepower capacity and the precedence of war fighting experience unlike what the Americans and Russians have had.
Russia enjoys higher volume and practical experience and an upper hand advantage both in conventional and nuclear capacities. France and Britain both have a combined nuclear warheads of around 500, while the US has around 5000, and Russia has the highest number at approximately 6,000.

Last year, only 18 NATO allies just spent the target of 2% of GDP in defence. Currently, the EU’s member states spend some €325bn ($340bn) a year on defence, which comes to about 1.8% of the bloc’s GDP.

What does Europe really lack? It is the basic military technology and capability that make armed forces credible, capable and most importantly, lethal. Europe has outdated and outnumbered ships and missiles. It has ships without the proper missiles, planes without the needed technological capacity including jamming capabilities, and even troops without adequate ammunition.

As Trump repeatedly pointed out Europe’s own perplexing irony, the EU  spent $23 billion on Russian oil and gas in the third year of the war on Ukraine, more than the $19.6 billion in financial aid it offered to the war torn country, resulting in the Kremlin making close to $1 trillion from oil exports since February 2022.

Europe has long accustomed itself to the perceived status quo model of democracy and governance that has seen it being mired in its traditional approach to addressing and perceiving threats. Vance argued that a lack of Trump-style “democracy” in Europe was a bigger security threat to the continent than China or Russia.

This Trump approach to reorient the European and Russian policies and models have invited various perceptions and arguments. Some have seen this move as a strategic model to split Russia from China and to get Europe to take care of itself, paving the way for the US to fully focus on the rivalry with Beijing.
The argument behind this is that while the West remains fairly important in maintaining the rules based order and democracy, Trump sees the more important need for America to sustain and to be strong again, as only the US has the capacity to stand up to any global threats. His aim is to Make America Great Again, and not Make the West Great Again, where a win for the US is more pervasive and important for the entire Western world.

Others have called for Europe to build its own credible nuclear deterrent, with France being called to extend its nuclear protection to Germany and to the rest of Europe. With Germany being the largest and economically most powerful country in Europe, others have called for Berlin to pay the lion’s share for this new nuclear umbrella, where with its low debt burden, Berlin would be able to mobilise money.

This remains a far-fetched ambition. Although capital and resources might be pooled, the end result in a realistic on-the-ground deterrent remains sketchy and inadequate.

Europe’s vulnerability to energy security and reliance on external energy sources remain the main sticking points. It remains hard for Europe to ward off this dependency, let alone defend the shipping lanes and pipelines for its energy imports.

The calls for Europe to enhance its domestic energy production through the woke and liberal approach of renewable energy sources continue to be a bad strategic mistake, where after the initial bandwagon of reducing fossil fuel energy reliance, most European nations switched back to conventional sources.
While Europe is busy aligning with the green and woke agenda, China and Russia continue to surge ahead with their own relentless strategic pursuits of military advancements without the limitations of green models and policies.

Trump wanted the same common sense approach in regaining America’s long subdues and hidden strength that has been curtailed by the liberal Democrats that has weakened the country’s economic, energy and military potential.

The question is, how far will Europe go to spend and defend Ukraine if it does not create the deterrent effect against Russia? It is the fear of the domino effect that  has propelled Europe to be jolted out of its slumber, where  it has for years been taking advantage of Washington in doing the heavy lifting.

If Ukraine does not serve as the buffer and as the frontier in stopping Putin’s intent, Europe will have little incentive to commit as much as Washington did.

The US and Trump still hold the upper card in dealing with both Europe and Russia, and deservingly so, for the peace of the regions and the world.

*Collins Chong Yew Keat is a foreign affairs and strategy analyst and author in University of Malaya.*