In 2011, the withered remains of Europe’s first defense union were taken to the European Union (EU) and given a quiet funeral.
The Western European Union (WEU), born in 1955, was formally pronounced dead. Now that NATO and the EU had replaced its main functions, it had been reduced to the role of a third leg, which is to say it had no role at all. Now, in 2025, with the world changed in unimaginable ways, it may be time to resurrect the idea of a Europe-only defense alliance. After all, the US has made crystal clear that it won’t any longer do the heavy lifting on continental defense.
“With the collapse in US credibility, NATO’s much talked-about ‘European pillar’ has gone from an aspirational extra to an absolute necessity,” says CEPA Senior Fellow and Senior Advisor Edward Lucas.
Time is short. The US will open talks later this year with its European allies about cuts to its European forces. That makes many US generals nervous (and unhappy), but the policy drift is clear; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth cited “stark strategic realities” forcing the US to reshuffle its worldwide deployments.
Can Europe do it alone? The answer, at least for now, is no. There are simply too many areas — including aerial refueling, air transport, and intelligence and surveillance capabilities — where it is lacking or under-resourced. That should change as Europe aims a firehose of money at rearmament, but it will take time.
The last time Europe faced this dilemma was after World War II. It was far from clear in 1945-46 that the US would be willing to keep troops in Europe, any more than it had after World War I. Britain, the only military power in Western Europe in those years, worked intensively with France and others to agree on a system that could fight the Soviet Union.
The result was the 1948 Brussels Treaty between the UK, France, and the Benelux countries, which included an unambiguous commitment to mutual defense. West Germany and Italy joined later.
Now that Vladimir Putin may already be eyeing his next incursion west, Europe once again faces a threat from an expansionist and imperialist Kremlin.
If Trump really does withdraw from Europe, especially if it happens quickly, the continent would face serious difficulties compensating for the loss, according to Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Gordon “Skip” Davis, CEPA Senior Fellow and former deputy assistant Secretary General at NATO. “The US is needed for the theater-level expertise in running high-intensity combat at scale,” he said. “That will be one of the most difficult aspects for Europe to ever make up for in trying to deter and defend against Russian aggression.”
The point was underlined by James Fennell, a security expert and former Royal Navy officer. He has pointed out that the UK, like most European countries, had simply subcontracted its grand strategy to others. “Strategic thinking, such that it was, moved to NATO in Brussels, and ultimately to the Pentagon,” he wrote. This will need to return to Europe,
Flexibility will be critical to the success of any new alliance. States should be able to join the effort quickly and without regard for their relative contributions.
But there are elephant traps to avoid. The behavior of Hungary, Slovakia, and Turkey (both over NATO expansion and on EU support for Ukraine) has shown it’s risky to give recalcitrant members a veto or blocking power. There has to be a way to circumvent this problem.
Europeans know that fractures will appear. Indeed, it’s impossible to avoid. The rise of populist parties with widespread support is associated with a NATO skepticism. This sentiment — sometimes merely insular and sometimes overtly pro-Kremlin — makes pan-European defense problematic. Countries in Central and Eastern Europe are now divided between traditional, pro-Western parties and upstart groups. Every time a country switches from one to the other at election time, the security architecture changes with it. The issues raised by this pendulum process will have to be addressed. That may make European leaders wary of building an overly rigid new security alliance.
“Some of the NATO-EU countries like Hungary play a destructive role,” CEPA’s Lucas says. “One’s got to settle the wagon a bit and build coalitions of the willing.”
There will be some national squabbling and jostling too. A new security organization will need strong leadership for its joint command and direct military planning. For example, if the US abandons its military role as supreme commander in Europe. France will likely hope to fill the position, something that the UK and Germany may be willing to concede. President Emmanuel Macron led the charge for European strategic autonomy back in 2017 and his country has spent more time than any other imagining an autonomous Europe.
But Germany and Poland are critical. They are all making big strides towards improved collective defense, and both would have to produce many more service personnel (both have plans to expand their permanent forces; Germany by up to 60,000 to reach a total of 260,000 troops, and Poland by more than doubling its regular and reserve force to 500,000).
The UK, traditionally a hardliner on defense and security, is somewhat more problematic and must decide how serious it is. The government has inched up defense spending to 2.5% of GDP but refuses to target 3% for another nine years. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has made clear that this is inadequate and that 3.5% must be the target. It’s hard to see how the UK can claim a significant security role if it won’t pay up.
What might a future grouping look like? Europe ought to look to existing smaller-scale efforts such the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), a UK-led military partnership involving 10 countries, which helps to build readiness. According to Lucas, the JEF could be used as “the beginnings of a non-NATO military training arm, and a planning and interoperability framework.” Within NATO too, initiatives like Baltic Sentry — an effort to protect against Russian hybrid warfare in the sea of that name — offer a blueprint for coordinating increased European collaboration.
As for likely membership, the outlines are fairly clear and very much slanted to the continent’s north (indeed, it could even be named the North East Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NEATO). France, Germany, and the UK are already engaged, as is Poland. The Benelux countries will likely want to be involved, as they were in 1948, and so will the Baltic states and the Nordic countries, known as the Nordic-Baltic Eight (NB8). That makes 15 countries.
As for Italy, Spain, and the pendulum countries of Central and Eastern Europe, there’s less certainty and far less enthusiasm for any rise in defense spending. Indeed, on June 22, just before the NATO summit, Spain’s prime minister trumpeted that he had secured an opt-out from the alliance’s new defense spending targets. Hungary and Slovakia have self-excluded by electoral choice.
NATO’s frontline states display a fervent willingness to defend the continent against Russia: “Poland, Finland, Sweden . . . they’re totally committed to ensuring that never again are they going to be the victims of Russian aggression, and the same type of attitude is in the Baltic nations,” says Davis.
NATO is damaged. Administration statements, including some from the president, have made the commitment to the Article 5 mutual defense commitment less than certain. But that doesn’t mean the continent should simply give up or ignore the potent threat to its freedom and prosperity from the Russian regime. It has the responsibility and the power to act.
“Europe is growing up fast,” says CEPA’s Lucas. “But questions remain. Why would Putin wait until the Europeans are ready? Will the US drawdown be orderly and helpful? And is the US going to like what it wishes for: a sovereign, capable Europe?”
Amy Graham is a CEPA editorial intern.
Francis Harris is Managing Editor of Europe’s Edge.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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