Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's newsletter focusing on the key issues concerning the European Union, NATO, and other institutions and their relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe's Eastern neighborhoods.
I'm RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and this week I'm drilling down on one big issue: The future of NATO going into 2025.
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Wider Europe Briefing: NATO Braces For An Unpredictable 2025 (Listen)
The Briefing: NATO Braces For An Unpredictable 2025
When speaking to NATO officials about the incoming U.S administration, I generally hear some variation on "We'll make it work," immediately followed by a reassuring, "Don't worry, we're not in panic mode." But will they? And aren't they, actually?
In his first term as U.S. president, Donald Trump was said to have been toying with a possible U.S. withdrawal from the military alliance over burden-sharing (notably at a summit in Brussels in 2018). Then, on the campaign trail earlier this year, he said he would encourage Russia to do "whatever the hell they want" with NATO members that didn't spend enough of defense -- essentially casting doubt on Article 5, the collective-defense clause of the North Atlantic Treaty that is the cornerstone of the organization. Trump's nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has also questioned why the United States should be the European "emergency contact number," and has described the continent's NATO allies as "outdated, outgunned, invaded, and impotent."
Many NATO diplomats I've chatted with have tried to make sense of the U.S. president-elect's flurry of cabinet picks. In the first administration, you had what one source called "NATO guardrails" in the form of seasoned U.S. generals like Jim Mattis and H.R. McMaster -- people who were very much shaped by the Cold War and NATO's role as a fundamental Western building block. It was pointed out to me that Hegseth has instead been influenced by the Iraq war, and more importantly by Afghanistan. Whisper it if you're in the alliance's Brussels corridors, but Afghanistan is widely seen as a major failure in which NATO pulled out after 20 years and let the Taliban reconquer the place. Moreover, no one's saying it very loudly but inside NATO it's seen as a conflict in which the United States was doing the heavy lifting while many Europeans were present but avoided much of the action.
The Trump team's selection of former acting Attorney-General Matthew Whitaker as ambassador to NATO also raised eyebrows, as he doesn't appear to have much foreign policy experience. The press release announcing the nomination sent mixed messages, saying that Whitaker will both "strengthen relationships with our NATO Allies" and "put AMERICA FIRST." I should note that Trump's NATO ambassador during his first term, Kay Bailey Hutchison, also had little foreign policy experience but ended up being well regarded within the alliance. Diplomats told me it's a good sign that the new pick for NATO ambassador has been announced so early; Trump didn't nominate Hutchinson until June 2017, more than six months into his presidency. Many also seemed reassured by the presumptive national security adviser, Michael Waltz, and by the man picked for secretary of state, Senator Marco Rubio, who is known to many in Europe and co-authored U.S. legislation in 2023 barring any president from exiting NATO without Senate approval or an act Congress.
Keeping The Alliance Relevant
What many say they learned from the first Trump term is that one should heed actions rather than the "noise" playing out in the media. They noted, for example, that Trump increased the U.S. military presence on NATO's eastern flank. They do, however, acknowledge a certain nervousness about the perceived "unpredictability" of the incoming president and his team. All organizations want some sort of stability, but even more so a military one and especially NATO, where even annual summits are carefully choreographed: Major decisions are generally made weeks, if not months, in advance and the final meeting communique is rarely tampered with during the actual summit (unlike, for instance, European Union meetings, at which leaders can fight on for days over every comma).
The key is essentially to keep NATO relevant. And that can only happen if the military alliance can defend every inch of its territory. Simply put: deterrence. And that means 1) plenty of powerful military gear, which the United States has; and 2) the political will to honor Article 5. It's the second of those two things that people at NATO are fretting over.
The Two-Pronged Tactic
The NATO tactic to keep Washington coupled with the alliance going forward is two-pronged and can be detected in pretty much everything that NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has said since taking up the hot seat in October. The first is higher defense spending among NATO's European members; the second is a greater focus on China. In fact, it was Trump who hammered home these two things in his first term, and that has not gone unnoticed inside the alliance. When Trump was last president, just a handful of countries were spending the required 2 percent of GDP on defense; today, it's 24 of the 32 allies, and many credit the rise to Trump's scare tactics (although the war in Ukraine has obviously been a contributing factor). Rutte has been on the record from the very start saying that 2 percent is not enough. NATO officials I've spoken to argue that most must reach 3.5 percent in order to be competitive. The official commitment is there, but the question is whether it's accompanied by political will -- particularly considering that many European economies, notably Germany's, are hardly growing. Another problem is that the European defense market remains fragmented. And while the continent produces good stuff, it's rather "artisanal" in its approach -- in other words, its goods are high-end but take time to manufacture and don't come in bulk. Another NATO diplomat I spoke to was more blunt: "The Americans have better [aircraft] carriers, better drones, better air defense -- just better capabilities in general. Plus, the size of their army dwarfs every European one." Don't rule out European allies buying American in an attempt to please the new administration, instead of going through the longer-term and more painstaking ordeal of ramping up their own domestic production.
On China, NATO has already moved toward a much tougher stance on Beijing. The leaders of the alliance's four Asia-Pacific partners (Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea) have already attended the last three NATO summits, and will be welcomed in the future. The quartet will also have a seat at the table in defense and foreign affairs meetings going forward. NATO diplomats keep arguing that the alliance is good for the United States, as its 32 members account for half the world's military and economic might, while China doesn't have 31 friends or allies. The European Commission recently slapped tariffs on Chinese-produced electric vehicles, and Sino-European relations might further sour following two recent events. The first was news that European intelligence believes Chinese-made military drones have been sent to Russia. The second was the severing last week of two Internet cables under the Baltic Sea, with a Chinese vessel reportedly spotted near both locations. Given that another Chinese ship destroyed the Balticconnector natural gas pipeline that runs between Estonia and Finland in 2023 and that Beijing declined to cooperate on any international investigation (although it acknowledged fault), many European governments might join Washington in becoming more hawkish on China.
The Trump-Whisperer And The EU Problem
Then, of course, there is NATO Secretary-General Rutte himself. The former Dutch prime minister was chosen in part because of a near-mythical belief in Brussels that he is something of a "Trump-whisperer" who developed a good relationship with the American during his first administration. People close to Rutte believe he's one of the few European leaders whom Trump actually respects, and he hasn't been shy about crediting Trump for the increased European defense spending. It's not for nothing that he was at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence over the weekend. Ever the pragmatist, Rutte famously noted before he got his new gig at NATO that Europe must stop worrying about who's in the White House and "dance with whoever is on the dancefloor."
Despite the preparations, people I speak to still ponder what might go wrong. One scenario involves Americans conflating NATO with the European Union. While the belief within the military alliance is that Trump is OK with NATO as long as Europeans pay more, the European Union is bracing for a trade war. Billionaire entrepreneur and avid Trump supporter Elon Musk is a key individual in that context. Musk has sparred publicly with European politicians on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter that he bought two years ago. The fear is that Musk's interests will become very much intertwined with those of the U.S. administration. X is in the EU's regulatory crosshairs, notably in connection with the recently enacted Digital Service Act (DSA) that governs online content moderation in the EU. Most Internet giants try to comply with it; but the European Commission recently opened formal DSA proceedings against X that could result in fines of up to 1 billion euros ($1.04 billion). The fear is that this could erupt into an almighty transatlantic rift, with NATO suffering collateral damage.
Poland's Moment
There is perhaps one European country to watch out for in particular: Poland. Irrespective of the government in Warsaw, relations with Washington are warm. That's for good reason; Poland is spending more than any other NATO member on defense (a projected 4.7 percent of GDP in 2025). It has also invested massively in U.S. weapons: A new U.S. ballistic-missile-defense base was opened there in November, a U.S. company is building nuclear reactors in the country, and 10,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Poland. Will Warsaw be the county that keeps the U.S. anchored in Europe? Many officials I speak to hope so.
Something else to monitor is what might happen to the 90,000 or so U.S. troops deployed elsewhere on European soil, and whether they are redeployed outside Europe or mostly moved from Western Europe to the eastern flank. Poland could prove crucial, with Emmanuel Macron's France hobbled by a government dependent on the support of the far-right National Rally. For its part, Germany is facing federal elections in February that are likely to be followed by protracted coalition talks. But it's also the case that the person tipped so far to emerge as German chancellor, center-right candidate Friedrich Merz, could strike up a well-functioning relationship with Trump, thanks in part to his roots in the business sector and his hawkishness on the issue of immigration.
Ukraine In The Balance
It is ultimately the future of nonmember Ukraine that will shape much debate at NATO in the coming months. Publicly at least, European allies have clung to the notion of "nothing about Ukraine, without Ukraine." But there are signs that Washington is moving in the direction of "land for peace" despite Kyiv's insistence that it won't cede territories to Russia.
While no one I've spoken to is privy to any concrete negotiation plan with Russia, one way or another, NATO will be part of any conversation. For instance, might NATO membership be offered to a "reduced Ukraine"? And would all 32 allies agree to such a thing, as is required for any accession? The concern I invariably hear in this context is that Moscow might immediately test Article 5 by sending a rocket into "reduced Ukraine" in the hope that there's no appetite within the alliance to fight Russia -- a hope informed, perhaps, by recent NATO summits at which Ukraine's invitation to NATO remained as elusive as ever.
Instead, it could be that NATO membership will be on hold for a longer period of time. European diplomats I've spoken to have instead suggested more robust bilateral security deals with Kyiv, sending greater quantities and more sophisticated arms so Ukraine could defend itself if Moscow decided to heat up what could be a budding frozen conflict.
Looking Ahead
Check out the European Parliament plenary this week. On November 27, the chamber is voting on confirmation of the next European Commission, which, if green-lighted, will officially start working on December 1. Then, on November 28, MEPs will vote on a nonbinding resolution on Georgia; the key point to watch is whether they demand new elections there.
That's all for this week. Feel free to reach out to me on any of these issues on X @RikardJozwiak or on e-mail at jozwiakr@rferl.org.
Until next time,
Rikard Jozwiak
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