Is Europe ready for a US-free Nato?

Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor-in-waiting, is right to warn that America is switching sides to ally itself with Russia, says Sean O’Grady – but he is also the first European leader to have a plan for this new reality

On the anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of a smaller neighbour that posed no threat to Russia, a moment of thanks for the Ukrainian people. Russia has not won, at least on the battlefield.

Despite recent setbacks and the catastrophic defection of their greatest ally, the United States, Ukrainians have not been defeated. President Putin hasn’t enjoyed the victory parade in Kyiv he fancied. Volodymyr Zelensky has not fled into exile.

The scale of that Ukrainian achievement is something that should inspire other, fellow Europeans for the future: Russian dominance of our continent is no inevitability.

As if to jolt us into looking to the future, with felicitous timing, a new European leader has emerged to provide leadership for Europe. A vision, even.

The soon-to-be new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, may not be quite a Teutonic knight in shining armour, but as the leader of Europe’s most powerful economy and unchallengeable industrial machine, he is in a position to offer the leadership the continent has lacked since, well, the departure of another Christian Democrat, Angela Merkel. His background and style are different from hers.

Merz is something of a counter to the likes of Donald Trump and JD Vance – a European who is clear-sighted and who says it like it is. Direct and unsentimental, he declares he has “absolutely no illusions“ about Trump, who “pretty much no longer cares about the fate of Europe”.

Merz seems to have that quickness of mind that the best politicians possess – able with lightning speed to think two, three, four stages ahead. As he says, it is “unclear whether we will still speak of Nato in its present shape” by the time of the June Nato summit in the Hague.

Where some, such as Keir Starmer and Mark Rutte, secretary-general of Nato, cling to the hope that the “backstop” of an American security guarantee in Europe can survive – and others, notably Boris Johnson, tie themselves into pretzels trying to pretend that nothing big has changed – Merz is the first to urge his fellow Europeans to face the painful truth: America has switched sides.

It is now Russia’s partner, leaning toward being an ally. It’s the change we feared, but worse. There is even a German word for it: zeitenwende, a turning point between eras.

It all points to the need for a new European Defence Community or, better, a constitutionally enshrined European Treaty Organisation (ETO) to grow out of Nato, to complement it, if not replace it. It is not what European powers want – we are stronger together with the United States. But we may have no choice, if there is a new US-Russia partnership (whether that makes geopolitical sense or not).

The fulcrum would be the concept of “collective security”, a treaty pledge that an attack on one is an attack on all – carrying over the North Atlantic Treaty’s Article 5.

The new ETO could encompass associated but sympathetic powers outside Europe – Canada, Australia, South Korea and Japan, for example. Maybe Turkey. But the core would obviously be the European nations, inside and outside the European Union.

There will need to be vast resources devoted to building up defence industries, satellite networks, advanced technology, and truly independent nuclear deterrence (which only France possesses – the UK relies on American delivery systems). Intelligence and surveillance networks will need to be built up. Joint command systems, evolving from existing Nato structures, will also be essential.

All of those challenges are great enough. But the political ones they entail are equally steep. As with Nato in its 75-year life, an ETO is only sustainable if there is a broad political consensus for it in each nation.

Yet we know that, for example, right now Hungary and Slovakia would be unwilling to commit, and that the AfD in Germany would much rather appease Russia and resume the flow of cheap gas.

The very mention of a “European Army” causes spasms across the British right. If the Spanish, Italians, and the Luxembourgeois won’t stump up the money for their Nato commitments, why would they for the ETO? Would the French agree to put their troops under the command of a British, Polish or Dutch general? And which comfortable European electorate will vote to switch resources from their welfare states to the military? Would the UK and France use their nuclear arsenals to defend Estonia, Moldova – or Germany?

It is easy, and probably wise, to be pessimistic about European democracy’s ability to defend itself, and the record in the 20th century doesn’t read well.

It’s easy to imagine American heft and know-how can be replaced quickly or easily. But if America really does not want to fight our wars for us, as it’s put in DC these days, then we will have to fight them instead.

If the American nuclear umbrella is folded up and taken home, then ETO will have to replace it, and it will need to build strong relationships around the world. It will be based on values that America, under this administration, no longer shares (as JD Vance came over to inform us), as well as enlightened self-interest.

There is no alternative, as Merz warns us all.