The contentious clashes on February 28 in the Oval Office between Presidents Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump centered around military-backed security guarantees for Ukraine in exchange for Russian deterrence linked to a mineral partnership. These discussions highlighted the noticeable absence of a significant third-party — specifically NATO and its EU partners — who have a great responsibility and stake in the outcome.
Two days later, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer hosted nearly 20 of the NATO allies in London to organize a “coalition of the willing” which would commit to provide Ukraine with vital military assets including troops on the ground, the latter of which the Trump administration has ruled out as a U.S. contribution.
Starmer reported, “Through my discussions over recent days, we’ve agreed that the U.K., France and others will work with Ukraine on a plan to stop the fighting, then we’ll discuss that plan with the United States.”
Playing down Trump’s harsh negative response to Zelenskyy’s repeated insistence on a security guarantee, Starmer said, “I do not accept that the U.S. is an unreliable ally.”
Creation of such a coalition should be regarded as a very welcome development from a U.S. perspective, motivating those nations most vulnerable to dire consequences of a Ukraine collapse to ante up money, weaponry, and human resources to take lead conflict resolution and peacekeeping roles.
This, after all, is what Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth urged members of the NATO Ministers' Ukraine Defense Contact Group to do during a during a meeting in Brussels last month.
Hegseth emphasized that the U.S. “remains committed to the NATO alliance and to the defense partnership with Europe. Full stop. But the United States will no longer tolerate an imbalanced relationship which encourages dependency.”
The U.S., despite far less blood and treasure at risk, has been Ukraine’s largest financial supporter — more than $100 billion so far, including nearly $70 billion in U.S. weaponry aid. This is about twice what all next-door Western European countries spent combined, and dwarfing any other individual allies.
Incredulously, the EU spent slightly less than $20 billion on Ukraine during the third year of war, while spending $23 billion on Russian oil and gas that helped to finance opposing weaponry.
Ukraine has vastly expanded its own domestic arms industry, currently producing $30 billion in annual weaponry including 1.5 million drones last year.
Nevertheless, Ukraine depends heavily upon the U.S. for advanced weapons such as air defense and surface-to-surface ballistic missiles which Europe lacks capacity to replace.
Without more U.S. support, Kyiv could find itself short of ammunition by summer.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte admitted in February that “Russia is producing in three months in ammunition what the whole of the alliance is producing in the year, and this is simply not sustainable. We have to ramp up the defense industry production.”
The percentages of GDP spent on defense vary widely across NATO member countries.
Whereas the U.S. has typically committed about 3.5% of its GDP to defense over the past decade, only Poland (4.1%), Estonia (3.4%), Latvia (3.2%), and Greece (3.1%) have chipped in that amount.
Ironically, significant European economic and military powers are among the members’ biggest military tightwads, including U.K. (2%), France (1.9%), Italy (1.5%), and Germany (1.6%).
Germany, with the largest GDP, wants the U.S. to continue picking up the check for its seat at the table at a NATO luncheon as its own credit card is maxed out.
Little wonder that Germany now finds itself in the middle of a self-inflicted financial crisis driven by insanely naïve “green energy transition” policies which have removed affordable mainstays such as coal and nuclear from its power mix that have made it absurdly dependent on Russian natural gas while simultaneously bankrupting its domestic economy.
Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine made matters worse. Germany’s economy had come to rely heavily on cheap Russian natural gas to offset energy shortages, a stopgap they could no longer count on, contributing to two years of recession and accelerating deindustrialization, including military weaponry.
Meanwhile, former President Joe Biden banned U.S. exports of liquid natural gas (LNG) which might have helped them out, a prohibition that President Donald Trump has since fortunately reversed.
Incoming German Chancellor Friedrich Merz arrogantly chided that he would seek “independence” from the U.S. and warranting that “the free world needs a new leader” following President Trump’s unwillingness to guarantee Ukraine security.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis offers more constructive advice, urging European NATO members to "wake up" from the "geopolitical and economic lethargy into which it has unfortunately fallen for some time."
Mitsotakis wisely added, "Unfortunately, recent developments and this different view of things from the United States now oblige us not only to face the truth, but to move at a very high speed and implement decisions that we have been discussing for a long time."
Whereas many NATO members might unrealistically wish for America to continue disproportionately picking up the tab to protect them, there is much they can do to help influence Russia to play nicer.
On the economic war front, keep in mind that Europe’s GDP —12 times larger than Russia’s — represents a vital market for their oil.
Additionally, a European naval presence could disrupt Russian oil shipments to China.
As for Chancellor Merz’s caustic call for new U.S. leadership, he might be reminded that a Trump presidency backing a credibly strong European NATO alliance might have prevented Russia’s horrific Ukraine invasion altogether.
Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and the graduate space architecture program. His latest of 12 books is "Architectures Beyond Boxes and Boundaries: My Life By Design" (2022). Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.