The joint plea comes as U.S. Republicans continue to hold out on a fresh funding agreement for the war-torn country, and as European capitals mull their options to constrain Moscow amid signs of fatigue two years on.
“This war is the biggest test of our generation,” the pair write. “A wholly unprovoked invasion. A blatant threat to our collective security. The clearest example of one country trying to extinguish the independence of another.
“Other adversaries are watching how we respond. Will we stand with Ukraine? Will we stand up to Putin’s naked aggression? The consequences of failure will not just be felt in Ukraine — they will remake the world as we know it.”
Cameron, a former British prime minister-turned-foreign-secretary, got short shrift earlier this month when he traveled to Washington to try to drum up support for Ukraine. U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, an ally of Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump, told the U.K.’s top diplomat to “kiss my ass.”
But Cameron and Sikorski, who serves as foreign affairs point-man in Donald Tusk’s administration, quote 1996 American comedy film Jerry Maguire as they urge the U.S. and allies to “show me the money.”
“Britain and the EU have committed more funding to Ukraine, and we believe it is in the interest of America — and all of our allies — to do the same,” they write.
An increasingly belligerent Russian President Vladimir Putin could attack the NATO military alliance in less than a decade, Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned.
“We hear threats from the Kremlin almost every day … so we have to take into account that Vladimir Putin might even attack a NATO country one day,” Pistorius told German outlet Der Tagesspiegel in an interview published Friday.
While a Russian attack is not likely “for now,” the minister added: “Our experts expect a period of five to eight years in which this could be possible.”
Following the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has upped its aggressive rhetoric against some of its neighbors — including the Baltic countries and Poland, which are all members of NATO, and Moldova — prompting top European defense officials to warn of the risk of a major conflict.
On Wednesday, the chair of NATO’s military committee of national chiefs Admiral Rob Bauer said the military alliance faced “the most dangerous world in decades” and called for a “warfighting transformation of NATO.”
Earlier this month, Sweden’s commander-in-chief General Micael Bydén similarly called on Swedes to “prepare themselves mentally” for war.
The same day, Sweden’s Minister for Civil Defense Carl-Oskar Bohlin also warned that “war could come to Sweden.”
In his interview with Der Tagesspiegel, Pistorius said the Swedish warnings were “understandable from a Scandinavian perspective,” adding that Sweden faced “an even more serious situation,” given its proximity to Russia. It is also not yet a member of the NATO alliance, waiting for approval from Turkey and Hungary to join.
“But we also have to learn to live with danger again and prepare ourselves — militarily, socially and in terms of civil defense,” Pistorius warned.
Poland, which is spending more than 4 percent of its GDP on defense this year, is also worried about Russia’s unpredictability following the unexpected attack on Ukraine in 2022.
“Russia is defying logic. What happened in 2022 seemed impossible. We must be ready for any scenario,” Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said in a television interview earlier this week.
Late last year, Germany revamped its military and strategic doctrine for the first time since 2011, aiming to turn the Bundeswehr into a war-capable military.
“War has returned to Europe. Germany and its allies once again have to deal with a military threat. The international order is under attack in Europe and around the globe. We are living in a turning point,” said the first paragraph of the new doctrine.
Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, an outspoken Putin critic who has been one of the loudest voices in support of Ukraine in the EU, on Thursday called on Europe to speed up preparations for more Russian aggression.
“There’s a chance that Russia might not be contained in Ukraine,” Landsbergis told French newswire AFP at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “There is no scenario in this that if Ukraine doesn’t win, that could end well for Europe,” he warned.
BRUSSELS — Turkey has promised Sweden it will ratify its bid to join NATO “within weeks,” Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström said Wednesday.
Referring to his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan, with whom he spoke on Tuesday, Billström said: “He told me that he expected the ratification to take place within weeks. And of course, we don’t take anything for granted from the side of Sweden, but we look forward to this being completed.”
The Turkish parliament’s foreign affairs commission recently abruptly postponed a session to vote on Sweden’s accession bid.
According to Billström, the top Turkish envoy didn’t put forward any new conditions in the conversation. “There were no new demands from the Turkish government, so we look [at] our part as being fulfilled,” he told reporters at the NATO foreign ministerial meeting.
Apart from Turkey, Hungary has also not ratified Sweden’s membership status in the alliance.
BRUSSELS — Outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is emerging as the front-runner to be the new NATO chief, but faces resistance in Washington from lawmakers who accuse the Netherlands of underspending on defense on his watch, and from others who think it’s time for a woman at the top.
In what’s shaping up to be at least a three-person race, Rutte is considered a strong favorite, according to two European officials and a diplomat granted anonymity to talk about internal deliberations.
“He’s certainly a heavyweight, he’s a very good candidate,” Poland’s Ambassador to NATO Tomasz Szatkowski said at an event hosted by POLITICO Pro Defense on Tuesday.
One of the officials said the longtime Dutch leader had won the support of “senior U.S. and German officials.”
France, another crucial decision-maker, is also favoring Rutte, driven primarily by his personal rapport with President Emmanuel Macron, who was one of Rutte’s earliest cheerleaders in his quest for the NATO top job.
“That Macron and Rutte appreciate each other is no secret,” said a French diplomat.
However, some American lawmakers adamantly oppose Rutte, as the Netherlands has consistently failed to meet NATO’s defense spending target of 2 percent of gross domestic product.
That pits him unfavorably against Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, who signaled interest in the NATO job while in Washington last week. Her government agreed to raise defence spending to 3 percent of GDP for 2024-2027, from 2.85 percent this year. Tallinn has also been an outsize supporter of Ukraine in terms of weaponry.
The underdog is Latvia’s Foreign Minister Krišjānis Kariņš, whose announcement on Sunday that he was running was even a surprise to some in Riga, according to a diplomat.
The candidacies of Kallas and Kariņš ruffle some Western European feathers — still smarting from the intense criticism they faced from Baltic nations that they are insufficiently supportive of Ukraine and too fearful to challenge Russia.
The White House was coy when asked whether U.S. President Joe Biden prefers Rutte.
“We’re not going to get into internal deliberations over the next secretary general,” said National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson. “We look forward to working closely with allies to identify a secretary general who can lead the alliance at this critical time for transatlantic security.”
Penny-pincher
For some, though, the record of burden sharing in a secretary-general candidate’s home country does matter politically, and Washington is scrutinizing that closely.
U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan, a Republican from Alaska and senior of member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Rutte “should be unequivocally disqualified” over his country’s record on NATO burden sharing. He said there is “deep bipartisan frustration in the U.S. about NATO members not pulling their weight.”
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas signaled interest in the NATO job while in Washington last week | Leon Neal/Getty Images
The Netherlands has a poor track record. In 2014 it spent only 1.15 percent of its GDP on defense, while the alliance has a 2 percent spending goal. This year, The Hague will spend 1.7 percent of GDP and has agreed to spend 2.03 percent in 2024 and 2.01 percent in 2025.
Ahead of July’s NATO summit in Vilnius, Sullivan led a bipartisan group of 35 senators in writing a letter to Biden urging him to ensure NATO countries meet their defense spending commitments. That tally — which amounts to more than a third of the U.S. Senate — hints at the potent politics of burden sharing in Washington.
Congress’ ongoing negotiations over its annual defense legislation include a provision from Sullivan that would require the Pentagon to prioritize NATO members that hit the 2 percent target when making decisions about U.S. military basing, training, and exercises.
Some in Biden’s own Democratic Party also believe it’s time for a woman to run NATO.
“I’ve long thought it was time the allies appoint the first woman NATO secretary general,” Senate NATO Observer Group Co-Chair Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire, said in a statement.
“That said, it’s critical that support for NATO remains strong and bipartisan in the Senate and for that to happen, the successor for this important position should hail from a country that is meeting the 2 percent defense spending commitment, or has a robust plan in place to meet that goal, which was agreed to by all allies in Vilnius,” she added.
With NATO helping coordinate members’ efforts to help Ukraine fight Russia, there are also calls for someone from the eastern flank of the alliance to become the next leader.
“Maybe at some point it is also [the] right time for the alliance to look at the region of Eastern Europe,” Ukraine’s Ambassador to NATO Natalia Galibarenko told POLITICO. “So my preference … would be at some point to see [a] secretary-general representing Eastern Europe.”
Such as Kallas?
“Why not?” said the Ukrainian envoy.
With additional reporting from Clea Caulcutt. and Joshua Posaner. Joe Gould and Alexander Ward reported from Washington.
Russia’s Wagner Group might carry out “sabotage actions” and their threat should not be underestimated, said Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Thursday, warning that the mercenary group’s provocations are an attempt to destabilize NATO.
Morawiecki and Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nausėda met at the Suwałki Gap to discuss the threat posed by the Wagner forces, some of whom have relocated to Belarus following the aborted mutiny in June against the Kremlin.
“Our borders have been stopping various hybrid attacks for years,” Morawiecki said. “Russia and Belarus are increasing their numerous provocations and intrigues in order to destabilize the border of NATO’s eastern flank.”
Nausėda echoed the sentiment, saying the presence of Wagner mercenaries in Belarus is a security risk for Lithuania, Poland and other NATO allies.
“We stay vigilant and prepared for any possible scenario,” Nausėda wrote on social media. Morawiecki said that the number of Wagner mercenaries in Belarus could exceed 4,000.
The Polish prime minister also thanked Lithuania for “military cooperation and for the joint promise that we will defend every piece of land of NATO countries.”
“Today, the borders of Poland and Lithuania are the borders of the free world that stops the pressure from the despotism from the East,” he said, about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ongoing war on Ukraine.
Nausėda said that any closing of the border with Belarus is a decision that should be taken “in a coordinated way between Poland, Lithuania and Latvia,” national broadcaster LRT reported.
Some Wagner troops have moved to Belarus from Russia under a deal to end the group’s 24-hour rebellion against Moscow led by Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin. The move immediately sparked tension with Belarusian neighbors, prompting Poland to re-station military units to the east of the country, closer to the frontier with Belarus.
Tensions escalated Tuesday when Poland moved troops to its border after accusing two Belarusian helicopters of breaching its airspace. Belarus denied the accusation, but Poland notified NATO and summoned Belarusian representatives to discuss the incident.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that Russia has a “sufficient stockpile” of cluster bombs and threatened to take “reciprocal action” if Ukraine used the weapons against Russian troops.
The Pentagon confirmed on Thursday that Washington had delivered the cluster munitions, which over 110 countries worldwide have banned, to Ukraine.
Kyiv says it needs the explosive shells to compensate for ammunition shortages as it is currently mounting a counteroffensive against Russia’s invasion. Ukraine has said that cluster bombs would only be used on its own territory to dislodge Russian soldiers from occupied areas. Cluster bombs are filled with submunitions that are released in the air and make the weapons more effective against enemy troops but can also pose a risk for civilians.
“I want to note that in the Russian Federation there is a sufficient stockpile of different kinds of cluster bombs. We have not used them yet. But of course if they are used against us, we reserve the right to take reciprocal action,” Putin said in an interview Sunday with Russian state TV, according to Reuters.
“Until now, we have not done this, we have not used it, and we have not had such a need,” the president said. He said that he regarded the use of cluster bombs as a crime.
There is strong evidence, however, suggesting that Moscow has used cluster bombs in its war against Ukraine. In a report in May, Human Rights Watch said that “since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Russian armed forces have used cluster munitions in attacks that have caused hundreds of civilian casualties and damaged civilian objects, including homes, hospitals, and schools.”
Neither Russia nor Ukraine nor the U.S. has ratified the international convention on banning cluster bombs.
A small group of Western allies are engaged in “advanced” and “frantic, last-minute” negotiations to finalize a security assurance declaration for Ukraine ahead of this week’s NATO summit in Lithuania, according to four officials familiar with the talks.
For weeks, the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany have been discussing the issue with Kyiv, and have also reached out to other allies in NATO, the EU and the G7. The idea is to create an “umbrella” for all countries willing to provide Ukraine with ongoing military aid, even if the details vary from country to country.
The effort is part of broader negotiations at NATO and among several groups of nations over how Western allies should display long-term support for Ukraine.
Kyiv wants to join NATO as soon as possible, giving it access to the alliance’s vaunted Article 5 clause — an attack on one is an attack on all. But many allies within the alliance broadly agree Ukraine can only join after the war ends, at the earliest.
So the alliance’s biggest powers have been working to see what stop-gap security commitments they can each give Ukraine in the meantime. That view is not universal, however, with countries along NATO’s eastern flank pushing for Ukraine to get a quicker path to ascension, even as the fighting rages on.
The Western powers’ goal is to unveil their umbrella framework around NATO’s annual summit, according to officials in Berlin, Paris, London and Brussels, all of whom spoke under the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the discussions. The two-day event starts Tuesday in Vilnius.
“A discussion is under way; it’s quite advanced, in fact it’s very advanced, and we’re very hopeful that it can be concluded by the end of the summit,” a French official told reporters at a briefing.
A senior NATO diplomat agreed, telling reporters in a separate briefing there are “frantic last-minute negotiations” occurring at the moment “on what this should look like.”
Last-minute details
U.S. President Joe Biden is slated to meet with U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday in London, where their two staffs will huddle to try and iron out last-minute details, according to a second NATO diplomat with knowledge of the plans. On the U.S. side, Pentagon policy chief Colin Kahl is tasked with getting the agreement to the finish line.
The initiative may ultimately amount to promises to continue much of the aid allies are already providing: arms, equipment, training, financing and intelligence. But the intent is to offer a more-permanent signal of unity for Ukraine, especially as Kyiv is unlikely to get the firm pledge on NATO membership it wants at this week’s summit.
“It is basically a guarantee towards Ukraine that we will, for a very long time to come, we will equip their armed forces, we will finance them, we will advise them, we will train them in order for them to have a deterrent force against any future aggression,” the senior NATO diplomat said.
Many specifics of this support would be left for later, however. The diplomat said it would be up to each interested country to bilaterally determine with Ukraine “what your commitment will be. And it could be anything, from air defense to tanks to whatever.”
Last week, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz issued an “appeal to all countries that want to support Ukraine,” saying they should “make decisions for themselves that enable them to continue to keep up that support for one, two, three, and, if need be, more years, because we do not know how long the military conflict will last.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz | Pool photo by Kai Pfaffenbach/AFP via Getty Images
Separate from the security assurance declaration that Western powers are finalizing, NATO is also drawing up new ways to aid Ukraine’s military for years to come.
At the summit, NATO will agree on plans to help modernize Ukraine’s defenses, alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Friday. The plan, he said, will involve “a multi-year program of assistance to ensure full interoperability between the Ukrainian armed forces and NATO.”
That multi-year effort will also focus on Ukrainian military modernization programs, and like the “umbrella” initiative, will depend on individual countries contributing what they see fit.
NATO aspirations
NATO leaders will also create a new NATO-Ukraine forum, giving the two sides a space to work on “practical joint activities,” Stoltenberg added.
The broader security assurance conversation has inevitably become intertwined with the debate around Ukraine’s NATO aspirations, which will be high on the agenda when leaders gather in Vilnius.
In the formal communiqué that will be issued during the summit, “we will be addressing Ukraine’s membership aspirations and that is something that NATO allies continue to work on,” U.S. Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith told reporters on Friday.
Specifically, leaders are aiming to update the alliance’s vague 2008 promise that Ukraine “will become” a NATO member at some point. But they aren’t expected to offer Kyiv the “clear invitation” that Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy is seeking.
Scholz conceded as much last week.
“Certainly, we will also discuss the question of how to continue to deal with the perspective of the countries that look to NATO and want to join it,” Scholz said. Yet, he added, “it is also clear that no one can become a member of a defense alliance during a war.”
Stoltenberg nonetheless struck an upbeat tone on Friday.
“I’m confident that we’ll have a message which is clear,” he said. “We have to remember that Allies also agree already on a lot of important principles when it comes to Ukraine and membership.”
Jacopo Barigazzi contributed reporting.
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Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba warned European allies that it would be “suicidal” not to accept Ukraine into NATO after the war with Russia is over.
Kuleba’s comments come ahead of a NATO summit in mid-July when Kyiv’s membership bid is set to be the most politically sensitive point of discussion. Ukraine is looking to get a commitment from the defense alliance on its NATO aspirations, but a number of allies say a serious discussion on Ukraine in NATO can happen only after Russian forces are no longer on its territory.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on June 22 that the NATO summit in Vilnius on July 11-12 should focus on strengthening Ukraine’s military power instead of opening a process for Kyiv to join the transatlantic alliance.
“After the war ends, it will be suicidal for Europe not to accept Ukraine into NATO because it will mean that the option of … war will remain open,” Kuleba told Axel Springer, POLITICO’s parent company, in an interview on Friday in Kyiv.
“The only way to shut the door for the Russian aggression against Europe and Euro Atlantic space as a whole is to take Ukraine in NATO, because Russia will not dare to repeat this experience again,” Kuleba said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has a vision for Ukraine to join NATO, as well as the EU, once Kyiv has repelled Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion. Ukrainian Ambassador to NATO Natalia Galibarenko told POLITICO in late June that Kyiv is seeking “some kind of invitation — or at least commitment … to look at the timeframe and modalities of our membership” at the Vilnius summit.
Kuleba in the interview pushed back on Germany and others advocating against such a commitment, warning against an outcome similar to the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, when Berlin and Paris rejected NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia.
“Do not repeat the mistake Chancellor Merkel made in Bucharest in 2008 when she fiercely opposed any progress towards Ukraine’s NATO membership,” he said.
“This decision opened the door for Putin to invade Georgia and then to continue his destabilizing efforts in the region, and then eventually illegally annexing Crimea,” Kuleba said. “Because if Ukraine was accepted in NATO by 2014, there would not [have been] the illegal annexation of Crimea. It would not be war in Donbas, there would not be this large-scale invasion,” he said.
Kuleba rejected statements by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán that it will be “impossible” for Ukraine to win against Russia, saying he is “tired of countering all these meaningless arguments.”
BRUSSELS — NATO is crafting its new military plans assuming Moscow will make a comeback.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Admiral Rob Bauer, chair of the NATO military committee, said that although the bulk of Russia’s land forces are fighting in Ukraine, he believes the Kremlin’s forces are still a threat.
“We are convinced that the Russians are going to reconstitute,” he said. “And therefore, the plans are built on not the actual status of the Russian army, but on the status of the Russian army before they attacked Ukraine.”
Russia, Bauer said, “will learn lessons from that war” and NATO “will continue to look at them as a serious threat.” That includes in the seas, in the air and in space, where Russian forces “are still very, very capable,” in addition to nuclear capabilities.
“We should never underestimate the Russians and their ability to bounce back, as they have shown in history a couple of times,” he added.
Next Tuesday and Wednesday, the Western alliance’s leaders will gather in Vilnius, where they will sign off on historic new regional military plans and discuss how to boost investment in defense as Russia continues its war in Ukraine.
Speaking about NATO’s new military plans, Bauer underscored how the summit will mark the beginning of a long implementation process.
“We have to go and do our work — to reach the higher number of forces with a higher readiness, we need to exercise against the plans, we need to buy the capabilities that we require,” he said, “and that will take time.”
Executing the plans ranges from more recruitment to ensuring sufficient weapons and ammunition are being produced — along with more resources dedicated to defense.
“We need more money, collectively, to pay for that,” Bauer said. Plus, NATO’s new model for high-readiness forces will require “making sure that the nations have a mechanism in place to increase the numbers of people that are available for the armed forces.”
Asked about the status of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, the admiral pushed back against a narrative of disappointment with Ukrainian forces.
“It is extremely difficult, this type of operation,” the chair stressed. “I think the way they do it is commendable,” he said, “and I think they are — for good reasons — in some places cautious.”
At NATO summit after NATO summit, European leaders get a clear public message from Washington — increase spending on defense.
In private, there’s another message that’s just as clear — make sure a lot of that extra spending goes on U.S. weapons.
European leaders are resisting.
“We must develop a genuinely European defense technological and industrial base in all interested countries, and deploy fully sovereign equipment at European level,” French President Emmanuel Macron said at the GLOBSEC conference in Bratislava last month.
The decades of cajoling from Washington are paying off. Although most EU countries aren’t yet meeting NATO’s target of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense, the alliance has seen eight years of steady spending increases. In 2022, spending by European countries was up by 13 percent to $345 billion — almost a third higher than a decade ago — much of it a reaction to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Now the question is how that money will be spent.
The U.S. wants to ensure that European countries — which already spend about half of their defense purchasing on American kit — don’t make a radical switch to spending more of that money at home.
Some European leaders are hoping that’s exactly what happens, but it’s an open question whether the Continent’s defense industry can make that happen.
“Traditionally, there was a suspicion about a change in Europe’s defense capabilities which dates back more than 25 years,” said Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia, Eurasia Program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. “What direction would the EU go, would it mean the EU would decouple from NATO, what would the impact be on U.S. defense industrial policy?”
Buying at home
The current tensions in Brussels are over whether new EU-wide defense policy should be limited to EU companies — a position driven by Macron and Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, a Frenchman. That confirms suspicions stateside about European protectionism when it comes to allowing U.S. companies to compete for EU contracts.
“Our plan is to directly support, with EU money, the effort to ramp up our defense industry, and this for Ukraine and for our own security,” Breton said last month.
Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton wants new EU-wide defense policy to be limited to EU companies | Olivier Hoslet/AFP via Getty Images
But there’s an uncomfortable fact for the backers of European strategic autonomy: When it comes to arms, Europe still depends on the U.S.
While European companies have deep expertise in defense — building everything from France’s Rafale fighter to Germany’s Leopard tank and Poland’s man-portable Piorun air-defense system — the scale of the U.S. arms industry, as well as its technological innovation, makes it attractive for European weapons buyers.
The most common big-ticket item is Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, at a cost of $80 million a pop. There is also an immediate surge in demand for off-the-shelf items like shoulder-fired missiles and artillery shells.
“Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European states want to import more arms, faster,” said a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
Buying abroad
The war in Ukraine has underscored the dominance of the U.S. defense industry.
A host of European countries are buying Javelin anti-tank missiles produced by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin; Poland this year signed a $1.4 billion deal to buy 116 M1A1 Abrams tanks, as well as another $10 billion agreement to buy High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems produced by Lockheed Martin; Slovakia is buying F-16 fighters, while Romania is in talks to buy F-35s.
Those deals are raising fears in Europe over whether they can wean themselves off of U.S. defense suppliers. In one example, France and Germany worry about Spain’s intentions as it kicks the tires on F-35s while also being a partner in developing the European Future Combat Air System jet fighter.
But the need to restock weapons depots and continue shipping materiel to Ukraine is urgent, and after decades of contraction, the Continent’s defense industry is having a difficult time adjusting.
“Our European allies and partners, they’ve never experienced anything like this,” said a senior U.S. Defense Department official, referring to the spasm of spending brought on by Russia’s invasion. The official was granted anonymity to discuss the situation. “They don’t yet have the defense production authorities they need [to move quickly] and they’ve really been looking to us to try to get a handle on how they can increase production, and I think they’re learning a lot from us.”
To help Europe get there, the United States has expanded the number of bilateral security supply arrangements it has with foreign partners since the Russian invasion, signing new agreements with Latvia, Denmark, Japan and Israel since October. These allow countries to more quickly and easily sell and trade defense-related goods and services.
The Biden administration also signed an administrative arrangement with the European Union in late April to establish working groups on supply-chain issues, while giving both sides a seat at the table in internal meetings at the European Defence Agency and the Pentagon.
But there are limits to how far and how fast both sides are able and willing to go.
In the near term, capacity issues and political will means the rhetorical sea change in EU military spending is unlikely to make a huge dent in U.S. military industrial policy.
While the past 18 months have seen a huge spike in defense budgets — Germany announced a special debt-financed fund worth €100 billion after the Russian invasion of Ukraine; Poland’s defense expenditure is set to reach 4 percent of GDP this year — EU-wide projects are facing significant headwinds. European companies say they need longer lead times and long-term contracts to make needed investments.
“You need that visibility and certainty to make those investments. We’re in a chicken game between governments and industry — who are the first ones that are putting the money on the table,” said Lucie Béraud-Sudreau, director of the military expenditure and arms production program at SIPRI.
Ultimately, the global defense boom means that there should be plenty of military spending to go around, at least in the short term as countries rush to prove their worth to their NATO and EU allies and the Russian threat remains acute.
Paul McLeary reported from Washington and Suzanne Lynch from Brussels.
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Don’t expect to see F-16s in Ukrainian skies anytime soon — the allies need some time.
Following months of Ukrainian lobbying, the U.S. on Friday greenlit training for Ukrainian pilots on fourth-generation fighter aircraft, raising expectations that a fleet of F-16s would soon be on its way.
Yet as of now, some of the leading contenders to donate the American-developed warplanes — including the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark — have only committed to helping train Ukrainian pilots, expressing reluctance to make further promises.
“Let’s make sure we now make the most of training activities,” Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra told reporters in Brussels on Monday. “What the future then holds for us,” he added, “remains to be seen.”
Some, like Belgium, have even directly said they don’t have F-16s to spare.
The pattern, however, is one that has played out over and over as Western allies gradually escalate the weaponry they are shuttling to Ukraine. At first, there is hesitation. Then one of the major powers — often the U.S. — takes a first step, followed by a coalition of European nations that jump roughly together.
“This is kind of indicative of how the U.S. has provided assistance at every step of the war in Ukraine,” said Seth Jones, director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
For now, no one is ready to send the first jet. That could easily change — in time.
“The delivery of F-16s will indeed make a difference … months from now,” said Ben Hodges, former commanding general of U.S. Army Europe.
Where are the jets now?
The slow decision-making is linked to both political and technical considerations. Few countries have an F-16 surplus, and the modern machines require significant training and logistics. The U.S. also has to authorize other countries to re-export the plane.
Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov, said “the Netherlands are in a position to be [the] first” country gifting fighter jets.
The Netherlands currently has 24 F-16s in use which are “operationally deployable” and “will remain in use until mid-2024,” a spokesperson for the Dutch defense ministry said. “After that, they are available for another destination, such as sale.”
Ukrainian Air force MiG-29 fighter planes take part exercises during August 2016 | Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
The Netherlands also has an additional 18 F-16s “which are no longer used operationally” and “can also be given a different destination.”
Twelve of these 18 were originally slated to be transferred to a private company, but the transfer had been delayed, the spokesperson noted.
Predictably, the U.S., where the F-16 was invented, maintains its own massive fleet. Yet asked Monday if there is any chance the U.S. will provide its own planes, U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told reporters: “I don’t know. I mean, I think there’s a number of possibilities.”
The U.K., meanwhile, has been an aggressive advocate of creating a Western “coalition for jets.” But the country itself lacks any F-16s to donate.
Several other capitals have also signaled they are only willing to go as far as training. In addition to Belgium, Polish President Andrzej Duda said last week that Warsaw will not give away its more modern jets — the country maintains a fleet of 48 F-16s — after already donating Soviet-era MiG-29s.
How long will training take? Where will it happen?
Washington has indicated that while it now supports Ukraine getting access to the F-16s, the decision is designed to help Kyiv in the longer term — and won’t have an immediate impact on the battlefield.
“It will take several months at best for them to have that capability and there are a lot of details that are going to have to be sorted out,” Kendall, the air force secretary, said Monday. “It will give the Ukrainians an incremental capability that they don’t have right now. But it’s not going to be a dramatic game changer.”
For now, allies are working to get the training started.
A spokesperson for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz — whose country doesn’t have F-16s — said on Monday that Berlin and Washington were in “close coordination” on the plans, but stressed that the program “takes several months or even years, depending on the previous experience of the pilots.”
The spokesperson cited Spangdahlem and Ramstein as air force bases in Germany where the U.S. has F-16s stationed, offering possible sites for practice. The spokesperson declined to comment on what specific support Berlin may provide.
Some experts have criticized the pace of decision-making.
The U.S. administration’s “continued incremental decision-making undermines so much of the good work it has already done,” Hodges, the former U.S. general, told POLITICO on Monday.
“If the administration would decide that it wants Ukraine to actually win this war, then all the excuses would go away, decisions would be made in time, and the full effect of Western support would bring about the quickest possible successful conclusion to this war,” he added.
Kendall, the U.S. air force secretary, underscored that the issue is a matter of priorities — and that there is now a shift to thinking ahead.
“We could certainly have started earlier, but there were much higher priorities and it’s seen by some as an escalatory act on our part,” he said.
How would Ukraine use F-16s? Would Russia respond?
While there were fears earlier in the conflict that providing advanced, Western fighter jets could be escalatory, officials appear to have shed those concerns — as they did earlier in the conflict on the issue of sending modern, Western tanks.
A diplomat from a European country with F-16s said Ukraine could use the planes in different ways, including mere surveillance and defense of its airspace, and commit to not launch any bombing campaigns over Russian territory.
U.S. President Joe Biden said over the weekend that he received “a flat assurance” from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the jets will not be used in Russian territory. “But wherever Russian troops are within Ukraine in the area, they would be able to do that,” he said.
Alexander Grushko, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, warned that Western countries sending F-16s to Ukraine would incur “colossal risks for themselves,” according to Russia’s state-owned news agency Tass. Yet that’s a message Moscow has tossed out for each new stage of Western support — and the Kremlin is running out of ways to escalate further.
“There is not much they can do,” said Jones, the CSIS scholar. “I think it reflects that the concerns I think that a range of government officials have had about how the Russians might respond to more sophisticated weapons have just not proven to be accurate.”
The European diplomat said the U.S. could grow more comfortable with the idea of sending F-16s to Ukraine if Kyiv fails to make significant gains in its upcoming offensive, or if the West finds itself unable to supply Ukraine with other key needs and decides to compensate with jets.
Asked if it is realistic for Ukraine to get F-16s by the fall, a senior Central European defense official was upbeat, saying “I think it is.”
Weighing in on the same question, a senior diplomat from Eastern Europe quipped: “Why not?”
Jacopo Barigazzi, Hans von der Burchard, Jan Cienski and Barbara Moens contributed reporting.
Berlin is keen to expand its support to Ukraine as the government in Kyiv prepares for an anticipated counteroffensive against Russia’s invasion of the country.
The German government has approved a new €2.7 billion package of weapons for Ukraine, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters on Saturday. The package, first reported by German outlet Spiegel, is Berlin’s largest arms delivery to Ukraine since the beginning of the war in February 2022.
“We all wish for a speedy end to this terrible and illegal war,” Pistorius said. “Unfortunately, this is not yet foreseeable.”
“Therefore, Germany will provide any help it can — as long as it takes,” he added.
The planned shipments include armored vehicles, drones and air-defense systems, Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian president’s office, said on Telegram on Saturday. The package also includes “a large amount of ammunition,” he said.
The new package will be formally announced on Sunday in parallel with the presentation of the Charlemagne Prize to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Aachen, according to a report by Spiegel. Ukraine should receive the equipment in the coming weeks and months, the outlet said.
Zelensky is traveling to Rome on Saturday for talks with Italian officials and Pope Francis. That trip could be followed by a visit to Berlin. German officials have not confirmed the visit, but Berlin police have opened an investigation after details of a possible trip appeared in the media.
Between January 1, 2022, and April 24, 2023, Germany exported about the same amount of military goods, according to government figures.
France “will train and equip” several Ukrainian battalions and provide them with “tens of armored vehicles and light tanks,” Emmanuel Macron and Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced late Sunday.
The news came after Ukraine’s president traveled to Paris and had a three-hour dinner with his French counterpart (including one hour alone, without advisers) as part of a tour of European capitals designed to shore up support among Kyiv’s allies.
“In the coming weeks, France will train and equip several battalions with tens of armored vehicles and light tanks, including AMX-10RCs,” according to a joint statement issued by both France and Ukraine after the dinner. France is also “focusing its effort in supporting Ukraine’s air defense capacities.” Macron and Zelenskyy also called for new sanctions against Russia.
Macron is also expected to make more announcements on Ukraine on Monday.
“What Ukraine needs is combat equipment, armoured vehicles, tanks, artillery,” an Elysée official said. “Zelenskyy also expressed the need to protect the skies from drone or missiles attacks … France will continue to deliver … More of the most modern systems will be offered.”
But on the question of whether Paris would send Ukraine the fighter jets it has been asking for, the French official said: “That discussion is a bit premature” due to the focus on land operation and air defenses.
As he arrived in France, Zelenskyy said: “With each visit, the defensive and offensive capabilities of Ukraine increase.” He added: “The connection with Europe is getting stronger, and the pressure on Russia is increasing. I will meet my friend Emmanuel. Let’s discuss the most important points of bilateral relations.”
Agence-France Presse and a handful of other outlets first reported on Sunday that French President Emmanuel Macron would receive Zelenskyy in the evening and the two leaders will hold talks over dinner ahead of a possible joint announcement.
The Ukrainian president earlier Sunday was in Berlin to meet with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who confirmed that his country would send a €2.7 billion package of military aid to support Ukraine.
“Now is the time for us to determine the end of the war already this year, we can make the aggressor’s defeat irreversible already this year,” Zelenskyy said at a press conference with Scholz.
On Saturday, Zelenskyy met with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome, thanking her for “helping to save lives” by continuing to provide aid to Kyiv. He also sat down for an audience with Pope Francis, who told the Ukrainian leader that he is “praying for peace.”
The flurry of diplomatic visits comes as Ukraine calls on the West to provide its armed forces with more heavy weaponry and fighter jets to support a long-awaited counteroffensive and help liberate Russian-occupied territory in the east of the country.
“We are working on the creation of a coalition of combat aircraft,” Zelenskyy said on Sunday, as fierce battles continued to rage near the contested town of Bakhmut, where the two sides have been locked in a bloody stalemate for weeks.
According to Kyiv, its troops have made a series of gains there in recent days, and Zelenskyy has pledged to take back swathes of territory currently held by Russian forces, while adding that he is open to peace talks on Ukraine’s terms.
LUXEMBOURG — Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Monday implored EU foreign affairs ministers to move faster on their promises to supply Kyiv with ammunition. But his plea came as officials were given new details showing the EU still has a long way to go to meet its lofty pledges.
According to several diplomats, Kuleba — who addressed a meeting of foreign ministers in Luxembourg via video link — was critical of the slow pace of the EU in delivering ammunition and missiles as part of a plan to provide 1 million shells in the next 12 months as Ukraine fights off Russia’s invasion.
The plan has already been endorsed by EU leaders but, when it comes to the technical details, has only been partially agreed upon by member states, which are still discussing the so-called track two of the scheme, which involves the joint purchase of ammunition.
The bone of contention is a legal one about exemptions for companies based outside the EU in the supply chain of the defense companies involved in the plan, but in the background doubts also remain as to whether the EU defense industry can really deliver all of these shells.
Kuleba on Monday “repeated that Ukraine needs desperately the ammunition to stand against the Russian attacks, and also to organize the counterattack,” Margus Tsahkna, the foreign minister of Estonia, which put forward the ammo plan, told POLITICO. “And ammunition is crucial.”
The problem is not only the speed of the EU in delivering the ammo, but also the quantity. The plan is being funded by a pot of money called the European Peace Fund, which partially reimburses the member states for ammo and missiles. That cash, meant to help provide ammunition quickly, comes from the so-called track one of the plan — worth a total of €1 billion — which has already been fully agreed upon. EU top diplomat Josep Borrell, speaking to journalists Monday, said that “we have received requests for reimbursement for €600 million.”
Yet according to three diplomats, not all the material that member states want reimbursing for has actually been delivered. Of the €600 million that Borrell mentioned, €180 million was for the provision of 1,080 missiles (six of which have not yet been reported as delivered) and the rest of the money was for 41,000 pieces of ammunition, of which 28,000 have not been reported as delivered, the diplomats said.
Those numbers are well short of 1 million.
Kuleba stressed “that if there is one priority, and if it’s a single burning issue, this is weapons delivery, in particular ammunition … he also asked for not being hesitant on delivering the aircraft and other modern pieces of military technology,” Slovakia’s foreign minister, Rastislav Káčer, told POLITICO. “He was pushy, politely,” Káčer added.
Borrell tried to offer reassurance on the speed of the EU decision-making process, saying: “There has been some disagreement but the work continues. We are not waiting for the legal document to be finished to start working. The work continues and everything is being prepared,” he said at a press conference after the meeting.
Diplomats reckon it’s a matter of days, likely Wednesday, before track two of the plan will be finalized.
“The truth is that there is not satisfaction about how we’re delivering on track one, in the quantity and the speed,” Káčer said. “We can do more, we can scratch more. Slovakia is trying. We are putting everything we have in the stockpiles.”
ABOARD COTAM UNITÉ (FRANCE’S AIR FORCE ONE) — Europe must reduce its dependency on the United States and avoid getting dragged into a confrontation between China and the U.S. over Taiwan, French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview on his plane back from a three-day state visit to China.
Speaking with POLITICO and two French journalists after spending around six hours with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his trip, Macron emphasized his pet theory of “strategic autonomy” for Europe, presumably led by France, to become a “third superpower.”
He said “the great risk” Europe faces is that it “gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy,” while flying from Beijing to Guangzhou, in southern China, aboard COTAM Unité, France’s Air Force One.
Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party have enthusiastically endorsed Macron’s concept of strategic autonomy and Chinese officials constantly refer to it in their dealings with European countries. Party leaders and theorists in Beijing are convinced the West is in decline and China is on the ascendant and that weakening the transatlantic relationship will help accelerate this trend.
“The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers,” Macron said in the interview. “The question Europeans need to answer … is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction,” he said.
Just hours after his flight left Guangzhou headed back to Paris, China launched large military exercises around the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which China claims as its territory but the U.S. has promised to arm and defend.
Those exercises were a response to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen’s 10-day diplomatic tour of Central American countries that included a meeting with Republican U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy while she transited in California. People familiar with Macron’s thinking said he was happy Beijing had at least waited until he was out of Chinese airspace before launching the simulated “Taiwan encirclement” exercise.
Beijing has repeatedly threatened to invade in recent years and has a policy of isolating the democratic island by forcing other countries to recognize it as part of “one China.”
Taiwan talks
Macron and Xi discussed Taiwan “intensely,” according to French officials accompanying the president, who appears to have taken a more conciliatory approach than the U.S. or even the European Union.
“Stability in the Taiwan Strait is of paramount importance,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who accompanied Macron for part of his visit, said she told Xi during their meeting in Beijing last Thursday. “The threat [of] the use of force to change the status quo is unacceptable.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron in Guangdong on April 7, 2023 | Pool Photo by Jacques Witt / AFP via Getty Images
Xi responded by saying anyone who thought they could influence Beijing on Taiwan was deluded.
Macron appears to agree with that assessment.
“Europeans cannot resolve the crisis in Ukraine; how can we credibly say on Taiwan, ‘watch out, if you do something wrong we will be there’? If you really want to increase tensions that’s the way to do it,” he said.
“Europe is more willing to accept a world in which China becomes a regional hegemon,” said Yanmei Xie, a geopolitics analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics. “Some of its leaders even believe such a world order may be more advantageous to Europe.”
In his trilateral meeting with Macron and von der Leyen last Thursday in Beijing, Xi Jinping went off script on only two topics — Ukraine and Taiwan — according to someone who was present in the room.
“Xi was visibly annoyed for being held responsible for the Ukraine conflict and he downplayed his recent visit to Moscow,” this person said. “He was clearly enraged by the U.S. and very upset over Taiwan, by the Taiwanese president’s transit through the U.S. and [the fact that] foreign policy issues were being raised by Europeans.”
In this meeting, Macron and von der Leyen took similar lines on Taiwan, this person said. But Macron subsequently spent more than four hours with the Chinese leader, much of it with only translators present, and his tone was far more conciliatory than von der Leyen’s when speaking with journalists.
‘Vassals’ warning
Macron also argued that Europe had increased its dependency on the U.S. for weapons and energy and must now focus on boosting European defense industries.
He also suggested Europe should reduce its dependence on the “extraterritoriality of the U.S. dollar,” a key policy objective of both Moscow and Beijing.
Macron has long been a proponent of strategic autonomy for Europe | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
“If the tensions between the two superpowers heat up … we won’t have the time nor the resources to finance our strategic autonomy and we will become vassals,” he said.
Russia, China, Iran and other countries have been hit by U.S. sanctions in recent years that are based on denying access to the dominant dollar-denominated global financial system. Some in Europe have complained about “weaponization” of the dollar by Washington, which forces European companies to give up business and cut ties with third countries or face crippling secondary sanctions.
While sitting in the stateroom of his A330 aircraft in a hoodie with the words “French Tech” emblazoned on the chest, Macron claimed to have already “won the ideological battle on strategic autonomy” for Europe.
He did not address the question of ongoing U.S. security guarantees for the Continent, which relies heavily on American defense assistance amid the first major land war in Europe since World War II.
As one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and the only nuclear power in the EU, France is in a unique position militarily. However, the country has contributed far less to the defense of Ukraine against Russia’s invasion than many other countries.
As is common in France and many other European countries, the French President’s office, known as the Elysée Palace, insisted on checking and “proofreading” all the president’s quotes to be published in this article as a condition of granting the interview. This violates POLITICO’s editorial standards and policy, but we agreed to the terms in order to speak directly with the French president. POLITICO insisted that it cannot deceive its readers and would not publish anything the president did not say. The quotes in this article were all actually said by the president, but some parts of the interview in which the president spoke even more frankly about Taiwan and Europe’s strategic autonomy were cut out by the Elysée.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that Moscow would station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, Russian state media reported.
Russia will “complete construction of a storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus on July 1,” Putin said, according to a report by Ria Novosti.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has agreed to the deployment, which won’t violate obligations under nuclear nonproliferation agreements, Putin was quoted as saying. Moscow would not transfer control of the nuclear arms to Minsk, according to the reports.
“We agreed with Lukashenko that we would place tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus without violating the nonproliferation regime,” Putin said, according to Tass.
“The United States has been doing this for decades,” Putin was quoted as saying. “They deployed their tactical nuclear weapons long ago on the territories of their allies, NATO countries, in Europe,” he said.
“We have agreed [with Belarus] that we will do the same. I stress that this will not violate our international agreements on nuclear non-proliferation,” Putin said.
Russia has already stationed 10 aircraft in Belarus capable of carrying tactical nuclear weapons, he said.
The U.S. said it would “monitor the implications” of Putin’s plan but would not adjust its nuclear weapons strategy.
“We have not seen any reason to adjust our own strategic nuclear posture nor any indications Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said. “We remain committed to the collective defense of the NATO alliance.”
The development came as intense fighting continued around the Ukrainian town of Bakhmut, which Russia has been trying to capture for months. The Russian forces’ assault on the town has “largely stalled,” the British Defense Ministry said on Saturday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Saturday evening that Moscow “must lose” in its war of aggression against Ukraine. “We are doing everything possible and everywhere so that Russian revanchism loses in every element of its aggression against Ukraine and the freedom of nations in general,” he said.
“Russia must lose on the battlefield, in the economy, in international relations, and in its attempts to replace the historical truth with some imperial myths,” Zelenskyy said. “It is the full-scale defeat of Russia that will be a reliable guarantee against new aggressions and crises.”
The U.K. Defense Ministry said there was “extreme attrition” on the Russian side around Bakhmut, but that “Ukraine has also suffered heavy casualties” in its defense of the area, which has become a focal point of the war.
Moscow may be shifting its operational focus following “inconclusive results from its attempts to conduct a general offensive since January 2023,” the ministry said.
The Hungarian parliament ratified Finland’s NATO membership on Monday, putting Helsinki one step closer to joining the alliance but leaving Sweden waiting in the wings.
Members of Hungary’s parliament voted by a margin of 182 to 6 in favor of Finnish accession.
Helsinki now only needs the Turkish parliament’s approval — expected soon — to become a NATO member.
Hungary’s move comes after repeated delays and political U-turns.
Hungarian officials spent months telling counterparts they had no objections and their parliament was simply busy with other business.
Budapest then changed its narrative last month, with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — who has an iron grip over his ruling Fidesz party — arguing the point that some of his legislators had qualms regarding criticism of the state of Hungarian democracy.
Finland and Sweden have been at the forefront of safeguarding democratic standards in Hungary, speaking out on the matter long before many of their counterparts.
But earlier this month — just as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that he will support Finland’s NATO membership — the Fidesz position flipped again, with its parliamentary group chair then announcing support for Helsinki’s bid.
Turkey’s parliament is expected to ratify Finnish membership soon. But it is keeping Sweden in limbo, as Turkish officials say they want to see the country implement new anti-terror policies before giving Ankara’s green light.
Following in Turkey’s footsteps, Hungary is now also delaying a decision on Sweden indefinitely — prompting criticism from Orbán’s critics.
Attila Ara-Kovács, a member of the European Parliament from Hungary’s opposition Democratic Coalition, said that Orbán’s moves are part of a strategy to fuel anti-Western attitudes at home.
The government’s aim is “further inciting anti-Western and anti-NATO sentiment within Hungary, especially among Orbán’s fanatical supporters — and besides, of course, to serve Russian interests,” he said.
“This has its consequences,” Ara-Kovács said, adding that “support for the EU and NATO in the country is significantly and constantly decreasing.”
A recent Eurobarometer poll found that 39 percent of Hungarians view the EU positively. A NATO report, published last week, shows that 77 percent of Hungarians would vote to stay in the alliance — compared to 89 percent in Poland and 84 percent in Romania.
But Hungarian officials are adding the spin that they do support Sweden’s NATO membership.
The Swedish government “constantly questioning the state of Hungarian democracy” is “insulting our voters, MPs and the country as a whole,” said Balázs Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister’s political director (no relation to the prime minister).
It is “up to the Swedes to make sure that Hungarian MPs’ concerns are addressed,” he tweeted on Sunday. “Our goal,” he added, “is to support Sweden’s NATO accession with a parliamentary majority as broad as possible.”
Not even a war has succeeded in pushing Europe’s biggest powers to reach their defense spending targets.
The Continent’s largest economies all fell short of a common goal of spending 2 percent of economic output on defense, according to a NATO report published Tuesday.
And across the entire military alliance, only seven out of 30 members spent at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense last year.
And although that amounts to billions, officials and experts warn the organization’s members will need to spend much more to assure its security.
The figures, all NATO estimates for 2022, show that while allies have been pouring significantly more money into their militaries for years, many are still largely lagging behind an alliance spending target, set in 2014, to spend 2 percent on defense within a decade.
Of 30 members, only Greece, Poland, the Baltic states, the United Kingdom and the United States spent more than 2 percent of their economic output on defense last year, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s annual report shows.
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, whose country reached 2.12 percent last year according to the report, said on Tuesday that she was “quite shocked” when looking at who is and is not fulfilling the target.
“Come on, it’s not possible — I think everybody should understand, knowing and seeing what is happening in Ukraine, that we don’t have that time,” she told POLITICO.
The report does underscore, however, how NATO allies have been continuously investing and are now spending significantly more than when the target was first agreed.
“European Allies and Canada have increased defence spending for the eighth consecutive year,” the report said. “In total, over the last eight years, this increase added USD 350 billion for defence,” it added.
Plans to boost investment
Nevertheless, America remains NATO’s moneybags.
While the U.S. represents 54 percent of the alliance’s economic output, it contributes 70 percent of defense expenditure, the report noted.
The next-biggest spender, the U.K., amounted to about 6 percent of the alliance’s total spending, while Germany stood at around 5 percent.
A senior European diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive alliance dynamics, said that what matters is the positive trajectory, and that many allies have plans in motion to boost investment.
“Some nations already announced at least 2.5 percent, several even higher … there are nations that have not met the ambition, but at least have a plan,” the diplomat said.
“The trend has been positive,” they said, although “we need to invest more.”
Indeed, there is an understanding within the alliance that promising to boost defense spending and actually doing it are not the same thing.
“Political proclamations about boosting defense capacities are welcome,” said a senior Central European defense official. Making pledges is easy, they added.
“But spending substantial extra money on defense is very difficult in practice,” the official said, pointing to numerous bottlenecks impacting European countries.
These include inefficient defense planning, a shortage of raw materials for production of weapons and ammunition, long procurement processes and limited production capacity that could take years to expand.
“Real defense spending will increase at some point, but it will take at least several years — provided the existing political will is sustained,” the official added.
Speaking on Tuesday, Stoltenberg praised allies for progress since 2014 — but told reporters that new pledges must now turn into real cash, contracts and equipment. The NATO chief also said that he will advocate for the alliance to agree on a more ambitious target that sets 2 percent as a minimum.
Multifaceted security challenges
Experts caution that percentages are far from the only measure that matters as the alliance grapples with developing security threats.
The debate over 2 percent “places greater focus on the inputs to the alliance’s collective security rather than the outputs,” said Seamus P. Daniels, a fellow focusing on defense budget analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.
“NATO members need to invest the appropriate funding for defense,” he said, “but we should focus more on whether allies are providing modern capabilities and forces necessary for collective security efforts.”
Another European diplomat acknowledged hurdles on that front, such as Germany not yet having touched its new €100 billion military modernization fund. And some allies have been investing in costly equipment while lacking sufficient forces for possible operations.
But the diplomat also pointed out several factors pushing forward European investment in defense — including the economic benefits of spending money on defense and possible political shifts in the U.S.
And while officials and experts expect Washington to continue playing a leading role within NATO, there is a recognition that regardless of who is in the White House, America’s attention will be shifting ever more to Asia.
While the current U.S. administration has been highly supportive of NATO and is spending vast sums to help Ukraine, some voices — including Republican presidential contenders — have been questioning the outlay.
Russia’s war in Ukraine “has changed perceptions and everyone gets that [the] US has other priorities than Europe,” the second European diplomat noted.
There are “fears,” the diplomat said, linked to a possible “Republican comeback.”
The EU has reached a deal to send Ukraine 1 million rounds of ammunition within the next 12 months.
The plan — seen by POLITICO — will see the EU both donate ammunition from its own stockpiles and also jointly purchase new shells for Ukraine. It also leaves open the possibility that the EU could help countries collectively buy missiles for Ukraine. And it sets a goal to “jointly procure” these munitions “in the fastest way possible” before October.
Diplomats and ministers finalized the strategy during meetings in Brussels on Sunday and Monday. EU leaders are expected to give their final blessing at a summit in Brussels later this week.
The deal represents a landmark juncture for the EU, marking the first time the self-described peace project has plotted to jointly buy arms for a country at war. Officials have argued the EU must evolve to meet the extraordinary moment — no less than the fate of democracy on European soil is at stake, they insist.
“A historic decision,” tweeted Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, once the deal was clinched Monday.
The plan has come together rapidly in recent weeks amid fears that Kyiv is running out of shells to hold off Russia’s unyielding assault. Ukrainian officials have said they need at least 1 million 155-millimeter shells to restock and maintain their defenses — a figure that far outstrips Europe’s annual production capacity.
To make up for the shortfall, the EU has drafted a multi-stage blueprint.
First, it will dedicate €1 billion to countries able to either donate ammunition immediately from their own stockpiles or redirect existing orders. Then, it will set aside another €1 billion to jointly buy more ammunition (and possibly missiles) for Ukraine and replace Europe’s donated shells. Finally, it wants to explore ways to boost Europe’s ability to manufacture the arms it needs for years to come.
Borrell in his final remarks speaking to journalists said countries had agreed to the €2 billion total. But diplomats said the legal texts were still being finalized.
Funding for the endeavor is expected to come from the so-called European Peace Facility, formerly an obscure program that has become the EU’s main wartime vehicle to partially reimburse countries for their weapons donations to Ukraine.
Less firm is what the EU plans beyond the €2 billion meant to jointly buy ammunition and cover donations of existing munitions. EU countries did not put forward anything about how to fund the last phase of its plan: growing industrial capacity for years to come. The document circulating Monday merely invited the European Commission to explore the issue and “present concrete proposals.”
“We have an industrial problem,” one seniorofficial conceded late last week, referring to Europe’s struggles to bolster homegrown defense manufacturing.
The €2 billion, Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu agreed Monday, is “a clear and solid step further but it won’t be enough.”
Still, the ammunition agreement is a victory for Estonia, which first floated the idea of quickly providing Ukraine with 1 million fresh rounds as part of its push to get EU countries to send more weapons to Kyiv.
It’s also poised to be a boon for France and its many defense firms, as well as numerous defense companies across the EU. France, which has the bloc’s strongest defense sector, has long led the charge to augment European defense spending within EU borders, and the plan approved Monday will essentially do just that, instructing all joint EU contracts to go to EU firms. The only exception is Norway, which is already closely integrated into the EU market.
Several diplomats said French officials were also the ones pushing to include missiles in the scheme, although others chalked it up to Ukraine’s need for the weapons.
Despite the agreement, officials still need to hammer out exactly how the program will operate in practice. Officials have been going back and forth over whether the joint contract negotiations should go through EU agencies, or whether countries should just band together on their own.
EU officials were keen to see the plan identify a role for the European Defense Agency (EDA), the EU body meant to help countries cooperate on national security issues. But some countries have been wary about empowering Brussels to essentially become Europe’s arms negotiator.
The final decision, in classic EU fashion, is an all-of-the-above approach.
Ultimately, only 18 countries signed an agreement to work with the EDA on “the collaborative procurement” of ammunition. On the list are EU heavyweights like Germany, France and the Netherlands (as well as Norway), but not Italy or Spain. The pact envisions two parallel efforts — “a two-year, fast-track procedure for 155mm artillery rounds and a seven-year project to acquire multiple ammunition types.”
But countries will also be able to form groups of three or more to jointly negotiate contracts on their own. Three diplomats said the Netherlands and Denmark, for instance, have expressed interest in joining Germany in its national efforts to procure more ammunition.
Officials acknowledged that considerable work lay ahead.
“Definitely there are many details to be solved,” said Hanno Pevkur, Estonia’s defense minister.
Gregorio Sorgi and Nicolas Camut contributed reporting.
As Russia’s war in Ukraine puts a heavy strain on EU arms, there’s infighting in Brussels over how best to reload.
The latest skirmish is focused around a procurement fund intended to ramp up production of arms in Europe.
POLITICO has learned that key committees in the European Parliament — namely, the committees for industry, the internal market, and the subcommittee on security and defense — have clashed over the fund, formally known as European Defense Industry Reinforcement Through Common Procurement Act (EDIRPA). It holds €500 million for now, with the possibility to grow.
A French-led group in the Parliament is vying to keep the joint defense purchase pot within the borders of the European Union — which opponents are deriding as a power grab for France.
Currently, a compromise text seen by POLITICO leaves the door open to spending outside the EU. It says non-EU companies may be involved “provided that this does not contravene … the security and defense interests of the union and its member states.”
A faction across therelevant committees — consisting mainly of Polish, Estonian, Portuguese, German and Luxembourgish parliamentarians — has also amended the text to include “associated third countries.” They want to keep open the option to tap non-EU countries, like South Korea or the United States, to fill any gaps in weapon production.
In light of grinding ground battles on Ukrainian territory, concerns have been growing over the EU’s capacity to ramp up production of ammunition and weapons.
Yet French MEPs who dominate the Renew Europe group have been pushing back, seeking to make the fund a European-only affair.
Nathalie Loiseau, chair of the parliamentary defense subcommittee, denied that the push to limit funding to European countries would benefit only France. “France is not the only country producing weapons in Europe,” the Renew MEP told POLITICO, pointing also to Germany, Italy and Poland.
Loiseau said the entire remit of EDIRPA is intended to strengthen European industrial policy. “We need our industries to be able to produce [arms] more quickly, and we need to find a way to encourage this, so we need a solid EDIRPA.”
Ivars Ījabs, a Latvian MEP in the Renew Europe group who is leading work on the file in the internal market committee, described how he and his colleagues are “aware of the immediate challenges to European defense forces.”
As one of the MEPs most opposed to the French position, he explained: “My French colleagues are very much in support of the European Commission’s original proposal, with an emphasis on strengthening the defense industrial base in the medium term.”
Loiseau added that while she is open to non-European companies producing the weapons, “they must be produced in Europe,” arguing that spending EU money on weapons produced outside the bloc would be illegal under EU treaties, risking collapse of the entire procurement program.
Striking a balance
The increasingly acrimonious row in Parliament over the defense plan hits on a question raised since Europe began discussing beefing up its defense capabilities: Who will be able to get their hands on the extra billions of euros the EU intends to invest?
Thierry Breton, the internal market commissioner who announced the plan last year and has been championing it, is also French. Unveiling the initiative, he said, “These investments, funded by the European taxpayers … should benefit first and foremost European industry wherever that is possible.”
French industry accounts for more than 25 percent of European military capabilities. But many other countries, from Italy to Sweden, also have strong defense sectors (and many key companies based there often have strong corporate ties with countries outside the EU, such as the U.K. and the U.S.).
German center-right MEP Andreas Schwab said a balance needs to be struck to get the process moving.
“This instrument needs to find a middle ground, a middle way: sufficiently flexible for foreign components, but also a boost to EU industry — and especially, a boost to make ministries of defense start working together on bigger joint procurement projects,” he told POLITICO.
Thierry Breton announced the procurement plan last year, arguing it should benefit first and foremost European industry | Pool photo by Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images
All major players agree on one thing: The fund should be bigger.
While the Commission’s plan earmarked an initial €500 million, the draft European Parliament proposal by the internal market and defense committees increased that to €1.5 billion.
But even €1.5 billion is “peanuts” when it comes to military hardware, said Dragoş Tudorache, Renew’s lead on EDIRPA in the defense subcommittee.
Tudorache explained that Parliament could theoretically wrap it up within two to three weeks once there’s agreement among the three committees.
As to which of the two camps will win out: “Right now I would not call it either way,” the MEP said.
A vote of the full Parliament — possibly in June — may be the most likely outcome.
EDIRPA is separate to the European Peace Facility, an off-budget intergovernmental EU fund that is now being used to backfill member countries’ supplies once they’ve sent arms to Ukraine. This mechanism is at the center of current plans to provide ammunition quickly to Ukraine, as first reported by POLITICO.
In contrast, EDIRPA is a medium-term project, originally meant to be for 2022 to 2024, to carry forward the joint procurement of arms and ammunition.
Based on EDIRPA, the Commission is meant to present an even larger program for joint procurement, called the European defence investment programme, which was originally expected for last year but is now tapped to arrive later this year.
Diplomats point out that is unclear where the Commission could find the money for a more ambitious joint procurement program.
