Shared burdens make stronger allies and more stable regions
Europe’s new defense investments show Trump-era pressure is producing a long-overdue rebalancing of NATO responsibilities
By John Vick, Executive Director at Concerned Veterans for America
2025 has been a rough year for the elite foreign policy literati throughout the Western world.
From Washington and New York to Paris and Brussels, there is a ripping of tunics and gnashing of teeth which escapes living memory. Dark clouds have formed over the Kennedy School of Government – a sign that the gods of liberal internationalism are displeased. One shudders to imagine the sacrifices to come.
The reason for this calamity, according to some very important people wearing blue suits and brown shoes – people with thick business cards and key fobs that grant access to highly esteemed office buildings – is that the United States is abandoning its allies all over the world.
In a frenzy of retrenchment, the great guarantor of global peace and security is sallying home to bask in supposed isolationism; the United States under President Donald Trump is abandoning NATO, Kyiv, and the international order that it created, come what may.
This hysterical rhetoric flies in the face of both empirical evidence and President Trump’s stated intent. The United States has very capable European allies – they simply need a little extra encouragement on actualizing those capabilities.
President Trump’s tough discourse with America’s friends across the pond has led, in very short order, to the most substantial progress in regional security burden sharing that any living American can recall: an €800 billion investment by Europe in its own security.
Originally known as “ReArm Europe,” the European Commission recently rebranded the effort to “Readiness 2030” – a reference to the date by which Russia might have the capability to launch an attack on a NATO or EU member state.
The EU is flexing its fiscal policy to generate the funds: €150 billion in low-interest loans will help countries “invest in key defence areas like missile defence, drones and cyber security” while member states are empowered to devote an additional €650 worth of EU Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to defense spending without triggering EU fiscal penalties.
In other words, a regional alliance of generally prosperous and well-developed nations identified a security threat, worked out a plan to mitigate that threat, and got the money together to fund their plan.
Capable allies, being capable.
It is also worth noting that these capable allies make a lot of great gear. Some of the quietest submarines, the toughest tanks, and stealthiest jet fighter systems are designed, funded and built by American allies. The key is getting them to build enough of them to share the burden for protecting themselves and securing our common interests around the world.
Readiness 2030 is a highly encouraging response to America’s new tack on foreign policy, but such responsiveness to burden sharing has not always been the case.
In the 80 years since the end of the Second World War, the United States has shouldered a disproportionate share of responsibility for European security. In the nascent days of the Cold War, this made a lot of sense – two world wars had devastated European infrastructure and society, and the United States was the only country positioned to defend the continent against an expansionist Soviet Union.
That post-war relationship, anchored in NATO, skewed Europe’s security evolution in a way that we have only recently begun to address. It was only last year that a majority of NATO members finally started paying 2% or more of national GDP on defense spending, over a decade after agreeing to these targets at the NATO Wales Summit. But after Russia’s 2022 re-invasion of Ukraine, Europeans need to be thinking bigger.
Despite Europe being much more exposed to trans-regional threats than the United States (which spent 3.4% of GDP on defense in 2024), underinvestment has been the norm outside of Eastern Europe and the Baltics. Belgium, a founding member of NATO, spent only 1.4% in 2024. The tiny nation of Luxembourg, another NATO founder and perhaps most indebted to the NATO alliance, spent only 1.3% in 2024 – even while having the highest GDP per capita in the world (estimated at over $140,000 per person in 2025). Even some of Western Europe’s most militarily powerful nations, Germany and France, only reached the 2% threshold last year. Germany’s Bundeswehr, which at one time fielded 12 divisions on the frontline of the Cold War, is a shadow of its former self and has serious readiness problems.
This is in stark contrast to how America’s most capable allies and partners invest in their own security: Israel at 5.3%, the Republic of Korea at 2.8%, even Poland at 4.1%.
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI ), Yearbook: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security.
Simply put, Europe has gotten a free ride on its own security because America offered one. It is hard to fault them for accepting American largess, but the time has come for all of us to be more responsible.
Shortly after his second inauguration, President Trump struck a distinctly different tone with regard to regional security in Europe and around the world.
Regardless of how some may judge his tone and tenor, the message is clear: American alliances must be anchored in mutual benefit and directly related to U.S. national interests. No more free rides.
It is a credit to both President Trump and our European allies that this message seems to have been received and responded to in a constructive (if slightly begrudging) way.
Europe sharing the burden for its security protects Europe but also better protects American interests in Europe. It also empowers the United States to be nimbler in its ability to defend its interests in other regions – such as the Pacific.
It is incumbent upon American leaders to capitalize on this success, show that it works, and continue to lead among its allies. That will make America, Europe and the world a much safer place.
John Vick is the executive director of Concerned Veterans for America, an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, and a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of the Navy or the Department of Defense.