Merz pushes European defence independence as Trump undermines NATO Article 5

Friedrich Merz has not yet taken office, but the incoming German chancellor has already forced the central question of European security into the open. His declaration that his "absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA" marks the first time a leader of Europe's largest economy has treated American unreliability not as a risk to manage but as a fact to plan around.

The treaty's famous collective defence clause has long been read as an automatic American military guarantee. The text, however, is narrower. Article 5 states that an attack on one ally "shall be deemed an attack against them all" and that each will take "such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force". The phrasing leaves the form of response to national discretion.

Edward Arnold, an analyst at the Royal United Services Institute in London, put it bluntly: "If Estonia was invaded by Russia, the US could send a single surveillance plane in support and that would meet the letter if not the spirit of Article 5." There is no legal mechanism to compel a specific contribution. The assumption that Washington would commit its full weight rested on political habit, not treaty law.

That habit mattered because the United States supplies roughly 70% of NATO's capabilities and command structure. More than 100,000 US troops are stationed across Europe. The alliance depends on American air-to-air refuelling tankers, strategic airlift for moving troops and supplies, the bulk of nuclear deterrence, and the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance architecture that binds the alliance together.

The Supreme Allied Commander Europe has always been an American general. Americans hold most senior NATO military posts. "Because the US is militarily so overpowering, it has always been a natural leader of NATO," said Armida van Rij, head of the European programme at Chatham House. "No other single European NATO ally can step into that space because no one has the capabilities or troop levels."

The shift did not begin with Donald Trump. A decade before his first term, the Obama administration warned Europe to step up. Under Joe Biden, the Pentagon formally designated the Indo-Pacific as its primary theatre, signalling a structural pivot away from the continent. Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 pulled American attention back, but the past fortnight has accelerated a reassessment that was already underway.

Trump has described the war in Ukraine as "far more important to Europe than it is to us, we have a big, beautiful ocean as separation." He has told allies to raise contributions sharply and, at one point last year, openly encouraged Vladimir Putin to attack members who fell short. His administration insists it is not leaving NATO and remains committed to the defence partnership, but adds it will "no longer tolerate an imbalanced relationship which encourages dependency."

"The events of the past week have shown that Trump has undermined Nato, undermined its secretary general and undermined the Article 5 of collective defence," said van Rij. "The idea behind it was this all for one and one for all belief, and that's been broken." Minna Alander, a defence analyst at the same think tank, went further: "It even looks like Trump outright switched sides into Russia's team."

Merz's language is the sharpest, but he is not alone. Denmark announced a major defence spending increase last week. Greece and Norway have voiced similar concerns. On Tuesday, the United Kingdom committed to an extra £13 billion a year for defence, funded by cutting the foreign aid budget. Keir Starmer called it a "painful" choice but said the defence and security of the country comes first.

The British prime minister travels to Washington on Thursday, days after Emmanuel Macron's visit on Monday. Both are attempting to gauge how much of the American security umbrella remains credible. Merz, who will join them as the third of the European "Big Three" once he forms a government, has even questioned whether the NATO leaders' meeting in June "would still be talking about Nato in its current form or whether we will have to establish an independent European defence capability much more quickly."

Building that capability is not a matter of spending more on tanks. Europe lacks a credible nuclear deterrent independent of the United States. France and the United Kingdom possess nuclear arsenals, but neither matches the scale or the extended deterrence posture the US provides. There is no European equivalent of the American tanker fleet or the C-17 and C-5 strategic airlifters that move heavy equipment across continents.

Intelligence sharing is another dependency. The US national technical means, satellites, signals interception, cyber capabilities, feed NATO's situational awareness daily. Replicating that would require not just money but decades of institutional development. Arnold noted that European stockpiles are "quite dry" after supplying Ukraine, meaning any new spending starts from a depleted baseline.

Analysts converge on the view that this is not a temporary dispute. "We are seeing now what is a long term shift in the global security order," Arnold said. "The US is not the ally that it once was, and it is very, very unlikely to ever go back to that view." The question is no longer whether Europe must do more, but whether it can organise itself fast enough to matter.

The irony is that the very success of the American security umbrella allowed Europe to underinvest for three decades. Now the bill has arrived, and the creditor is signalling he may not honour the old terms. Merz's bet is that the threat of a Europe that finally arms itself concentrates minds in Washington. Whether that bet pays off before the June summit will shape the continent's security architecture for the rest of the decade.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization · Chatham House · Royal United Services Institute · German Federal Government · UK Government · French Presidency

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