Defense promises but scant detail as Europe enters decisive week

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LONDON — Europe enters a pivotal week for the future of its security after a summit in London that delivered plenty of promises but few concrete answers.

A group of world leaders — including Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine but not U.S. President Donald Trump — spent Sunday afternoon in the palatial surroundings of the U.K. capital’s Lancaster House chewing over the history-changing question of whether America is still at the heart of the western defense alliance.

“There was a renewed sense of urgency” to safeguard the continent’s collective security after the shocking scenes witnessed in Washington on Friday, according to one European diplomat close to the discussions.

That was a reference to Trump’s vicious verbal assault on Zelenskyy at the White House, which left European leaders wondering whether the U.S. still sees itself as an ally. Shortly after the stunning 15-minute scolding, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas even suggested that America no longer led the “free world;” and while the temperature cooled over the weekend, the nagging doubts haven’t gone away.

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who organized the March 2 summit before the Trump-Zelenskyy spat, said on Sunday that Europe “must do the heavy lifting” when it comes to protecting Ukraine from Russian expansionism from now on, indicating the reality of a reduced American presence on the world stage.

After ingratiating himself with the U.S. president earlier in the week Starmer sees himself as something of a bridge-builder, and Britain along with France and Ukraine are now to draw up a peace plan and then present it to Trump — a marked change from previous assumptions that the U.S. would take the lead.

The prospective plan includes a U.K.-French-led peacekeeping force, which Starmer called a “coalition of the willing” — an echo of the U.S.-led group of countries that invaded Iraq in 2003.

Who else is in that coalition is still up in the air. “A number” of countries signed up to the peacekeeping force behind closed doors at the summit, Starmer said, adding that it needed U.S. backing to work. He declined to say which governments had committed.

He said the U.S. was still “a reliable ally” and that “we agree with the president on the urgent need for a durable peace, now we need to deliver together.”

All eyes on Thursday’s meeting of EU leaders

But governments are also coming round to the view that an increased role in Ukraine’s future security means greater military capacity, and in turn the financing to pay for it. Those realities are likely to be front and center at a meeting of the EU’s 27 national leaders in Brussels on Thursday. Despite leading Sunday’s charge, Starmer and the U.K., of course, won’t be in attendance.

Speaking to French daily Le Figaro after the summit, French President Emmanuel Macron demanded that NATO countries invest more in their armies.

“For the past three years, the Russians have been spending 10 percent of their GDP on defense,” he said. “We need to prepare what comes next, with an objective of 3 to 3.5 percent of GDP.”

NATO’s current spending target is an annual 2 percent of gross domestic product, but many European governments don’t even manage that, much to Trump’s annoyance. France just sneaks over the line at 2.1 percent.

In order to massively jolt European defense budgets the French president urged the bloc to raid centralized EU programs “that aren’t being used.”

“We need to give a mandate to the [European] Commission to use innovative funding,” he said. “That means either common borrowing, or the European Stability Mechanism [the bailout fund created in the wake of the eurozone debt crisis] … in a first instance we need €200 billion to be able to invest.”

As she left the summit, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said now was the moment to “urgently rearm Europe.”

It all points toward Thursday’s gathering being a critical moment. A historic announcement on defense budgets was possible, said the European diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.

But that won’t be easy given that some leaders, notably Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán, are more supportive of Russian President Vladimir Putin than of any plan to defend Europe from him.

NATO chief Mark Rutte, who also attended the London summit, said some countries had pledged to “ramp up” defense spending ― but again, details about which ones, and by how much, remain elusive.

Talk is cheap

Europe’s defense industrial base already has limited capacity, meaning defense spending increases could be slow to yield actual results.

Beyond the increased rhetoric from European leaders, the lack of detail is glaring.

Crucially, there are also no details of what any peace plan would actually contain or how Starmer and Macron will be able to get buy-in from the White House.

A second European diplomat noted that Zelenskyy desperately needs to find a way to create a relationship with Trump and sign the U.S.-Ukraine minerals deal, which was supposed to have been finalized last week.

The diplomat said the current situation “involves U.K. and France stepping up to lead,” but that “the logic is also that the minerals deal will give the U.S. a commercial stake and business interests physically on the ground so provides a degree of protection.”

And this says nothing about how Europe will get Putin to the table to negotiate their prospective peace plan.

The Kremlin has already ruled out the presence of a NATO peacekeeping force in Ukraine.

Given the public celebrations by Putin’s allies at Trump’s numerous slapdowns of Zelenskyy, the Russian president could hold out for a White House-led approach.

After Sunday’s summit, Zelenskyy told Sky News there had been communication between the White House and his administration since Friday’s televised argument, but “not on my level.”

He also reiterated his vow to resign if Ukraine was given NATO membership.

Another attendee of Sunday’s summit ― and likely a crucial player at the next gathering on Thursday ― Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk sounded bullish in calling for Europe to end its reliance on U.S. security guarantees.

“Five hundred million Europeans are asking 300 million Americans to protect them from 140 million Russians,” he said. “Can you count? Count on yourself. Start counting on yourself,” he said.

Clea Caulcutt contributed to this article from Paris.

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