The “pathetic” Europe may finally be waking up from military sleep

It was an ambush television that many in Europe expect it to prevent a war.

Donald Trump’s rebuke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House was a blow to the transatlantic alliance, dispelling the remaining illusions in Europe on whether the American cousin will be by his side to fight Russian aggression.

Europe may finally have recovered judgment on its self -defense needs in Trump’s era.

“It’s as if Roosevelt had received Churchill (in the White House) and began to intimidate him,” European legislator Raphaël Glucksmann told CNN.

In a month when US Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, called Europe “pathetic” for “taking advantage of the generosity of others” in a group conversation in a chat with managers (which inadvertently included a journalist from The Atlantic), the old continent has been breaking decades on defense taboos. They have been on the table that would be unthinkable for just a few weeks.

The biggest change occurred in Germany, the largest economy in Europe. After the federal elections, Chancellor Friedrich Merz won a vote in Parliament to end Germany’s constitutional “debt brake” – a mechanism to limit government loans.

In principle, the amendment of the law allows unlimited expenses with defense and security. Experts expect this measure to make it unlock up to 600 billion euros in Germany over the next decade.

“This is a paradigm shift in Europe, because Germany was the most late country – especially among the big countries – with regard to defense,” he told CNN Piotr Buras, senior member of think tank European Council on Foreign Relations.

As he surpassed his debt phobia, Buraas said that Germany finally acted as if Europe had actually passed a “Zeitenwende” – or “turning point” – as the outsider Olaf Scholz described in February 2022, just three days after the large -scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

Although the invasion shaken Germany, “only Trump’s shock caused them to make this really fundamental decision to suspend the debt brake,” noted Burars.

“This is the real zeitenwende.”

Taboos

In neighboring France, President Emmanuel Macron – which has long advocated European “strategic autonomy” from the US – said he is considering extending the protection of nuclear arsenal to his allies, already ostensibly protected by American bombs.

Macron’s comments earlier this month came after Merz defended conversations with France and the United Kingdom – the two nuclear powers of Europe – about the widening of their nuclear protection. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk greeted the idea and even called for Poland to consider the possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons.

However, Poland and the Baltic States Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia – all neighbors from Russia – abandoned the 1997 Otava Treaty on land mines, a lot of fundamental milestone at the end of mass armed conflicts. Lithuania has already announced the purchase of 85,000 terrestrial mines; Poland intends to produce 1 million in its own country.

Lithuania also withdrew this month from the international treaty against fragmentation ammunition, becoming the first signatory to always do so.

Military recruitment also returned to the continent. Denmark made women fit for mandatory recruitment from 2026 and reduced health requirements for some functions within the reinforcement of the country’s armed forces. Poland also announced plans for all male adults to receive military formation.

Even notoriously neutral countries are reconsider their positions. In the midst of discussions on how to maintain peace in Ukraine, in case the government of Ireland – a militarily poorly active country, centered on peacekeeping operations – presented legislation that allows troops without UN approval, surrounding a possible Russian (or American) veto.

For a long time, it was an uncomfortable truth – and often not said – in Europe that its protection against invasions ultimately depended on the American cavalry that rode on the horizon. This support no longer seems so safe.

The fundamental principle goes beyond who will fight the fight and who will provide the weapons. Some began to question the future purchases of the Astronomically expensive F-35 fighters, made in the US, that several European air forces had planned to acquire.

Portuguese Defense Minister Nuno Melo said Portugal was reevaluating planned purchases of fighters, giving preference to European alternatives due to concerns about the supply of US -controlled spare parts.

This is the first time such concerns have been publicly expressed at such a high level, especially in favor of airplanes that do not offer the same abilities on paper.

European Union?

But while Europe seems to have realized the message, talking about a unified approach is premature.

When the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, revealed a plan to spend over millions of millions in defense, called “Rearmar to Europe”, Spain and Italy refused. Since then, the plan has been renamed “Ready 2030”.

The Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also excluded the possibility of sending Italian troops as part of a European contingent to maintain peace in Ukraine if there is a negotiated deal – another fundamental issue in which the continent is divided.

The change of name indicates a dividing line in Europe: the farther from Russia a country is, the less likely it is to put the weapons in front of the butter.

Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez said this month that “the threat is not Russia to bring their troops across the pyrenees.” Sánchez asked Brussels to “keep in mind that the challenges we face in the southern neighborhood are slightly different from those we face in the east flank.”

Gabrielius Landsbergis, former Foreign Minister in Lithuania, told CNN that he was “boring” with Spanish statements and that a recent trip to Kiev – where the air strike sirens sound almost every night – made it very easy to imagine scenes similar to Vilnius in the future.

“The more west it is going, the harder it is to imagine this kind of things. All problems, all decisions, are relative,” said Landsbergis.

Although this geographical division can deepen ECFR’s divisions, buras, it argues that Europe’s total unity will always be “an illusion.”

“What really matters is what the key countries do,” he said, pointing to Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Poland. “I want to be cautiously optimistic, but I think we’re on the right track now.”

Asked if March will be remembered how the month when Europe woke up, has no doubt: “Yes, we wake up – but now we have to dress.”