The Trump-Putin summit shows why Europe needs to continue re-arming itself

Much store has been placed over the past eight months in how foreign leaders prepare to interact with US President Donald Trump. From a European point of view, there has been a carousel of winners and losers.

Take, for example, a write-up in The Wall Street Journal of the golfing prowess of Finnish President Alexander Stubb and how that was key to the relationship between the two men. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer would have enjoyed the headline on Monday that said he was hoping to “exploit his curious relationship” with the US leader to the benefit of Ukraine.

Mr Trump appears to enjoy it all. Going back to his first term and the notorious handshaking with French President Emmanuel Macron, Mr Trump sees meeting European leaders as a kind of vaudeville performance. At the start of this week, he was boasting that Monday’s White House gathering on Ukraine was a big day in history. “Never had so many European Leaders at one time. My great honour to host them!!!”

Step back from all the stage management, and the reality is that Mr Trump and the new American political establishment see the Europeans as all one, not the individual performers that the news reports highlight.

The war in Ukraine appears to have reached the moment of truth. By abandoning demands for a ceasefire as a gateway to peace talks during his Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Mr Trump has established how the conflict can now end. For the Europeans, this means the transactional basis of US foreign policy going forward is a fundamental reality that cannot be wished away anymore. Nor even blunted by the kind of summit theatrics we have seen over recent months.

The Europeans must now follow through on the generational change the continent’s leaders have promised on its collective defence. This means all nations need to match the kind of uplift that Germany has promised.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz arrived at the White House on Monday having promised to raise defence spending to 3.5 per cent of national gross domestic product by 2029. It also means that leaders must be more ruthless in the dollars versus euros choices that the Europeans are making when buying defence equipment. Put simply, to defend itself Europe must now more aggressively buy European as a long-term strategic play.

The third aspect of this is that the Europeans must show they are prepared to join in delivering what it takes to be robust in their own self-defence. That is why I describe this as a generational choice. It is surely true that the defence spending must go back to levels last seen during the Cold War. But it is also true that the population must be mobilised in civil defence and formal security roles in new and wider ways.

The war in Ukraine has already changed the trajectory of the European story. A decade that started with the Covid-19 pandemic has seen its growth and prosperity derailed by the subsequent decoupling from Russia. This isn’t just in terms of the cost of living, which was severely hit by the resources shock following the war. The wider outlook for the continent is also one of beleaguered choices between welfare and warfare with no real prospect of an economic revival.

It is not just Ukraine that is a frontline state. The Baltics and Scandinavians have that mentality, too. Alliances have been formed such as the 10-nation Joint Expeditionary Force, which stretches from Iceland through the UK to those northern frontline states.

Most European countries are on a trajectory to higher government spending, but the reforms in the security mentality are not yet as real as the scale of the challenge that the continent is facing. The retired British general Richard Barrons observed last week that no one was talking about a Russian invasion of the UK as a credible prospect, but he queried the readiness for a more wholistic threat landscape. This includes strengthening the digital sphere in the information age.

Ukrainian army soldiers with the artillery unit fire a Howitzer towards Russian positions near the frontline in Donbas, Eastern Ukraine. Getty

A society mobilised to take on these challenges is clearly just as vital as strong defences in Finland or elsewhere.

For now, the Europeans will seek to eke out as much of a security blanket from the US as they can feasibly obtain. That is why the cast at the White House on Monday was not just Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy but also included Mr Starmer, Mr Macron, Mr Merz, Mr Stubb, plus Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

It would be a fool’s paradise, however, to not see the writing on the wall. When the Signal chat involving American leaders was leaked during Washington’s confrontation with Yemen’s Houthis, Vice President JD Vance was shown asking why the US was bailing out European security. The intervention across the Red Sea was quickly curtailed.

France has long argued that at least two thirds of the coming European military build-up should be manufactured at home. Vulnerabilities of ordering from the US include long lead times and a de-prioritisation of the European inventory rebuild in areas such as ammunition. Other European countries openly push for the high-capability requirements on offer from the US. This pushes the longer-term restructuring of the continent’s defence industries into the long grass.

So while orders are flowing from a top-line increase in defence budgets, it is hard to shake the questions around adequacy. Not only is the spending rising as fast as pledged but also can Europe become strong enough, faster?

The answer to that question won’t be found in this week’s trip to Washington.