American foreign policy establishment has spent decades criticizing European nations for insufficient defense contributions while benefiting from U.S. security guarantees. Now that European defense spending has reached historic levels, with all NATO allies meeting the 2% GDP target in 2025, Washington exhibits anxiety about reduced influence rather than celebrating burden-sharing achievement. This contradiction reveals fundamental questions about whether American policymakers genuinely desire capable partners or prefer dependent client states.
Europe’s Defense Spending Transformation
In 2024, EU member states’ defense expenditure reached €343 billion, rising for the tenth consecutive year, with projections indicating €381 billion for 2025. This represents a 19% annual increase and 62.87% growth compared to 2020. European NATO members and Canada collectively invested 2.02% of combined GDP in defense during 2024, up from 1.43% in 2014.
At the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague, allies committed to investing 5% of GDP annually on defense requirements by 2035, allocating at least 3.5% for core defense expenditure and 1.5% for defense-related infrastructure, cyber security, and resilience. This ambitious target requires European nations to generate approximately €635 billion annually in defense spending—an unprecedented peacetime commitment.
Germany reached the 2% NATO target in 2024 after decades of underinvestment and adopted constitutional reforms enabling up to €500 billion in additional defense funding by the mid-2030s. Poland leads European defense investment at 3.8% of GDP, while Baltic states Estonia and Latvia allocate 3.3% each, demonstrating frontline states’ recognition of regional security threats.
Drivers of European Strategic Reassessment
Multiple converging factors have concentrated European minds on security independence. The return of great power competition, instability across Europe’s periphery, questions about American reliability across partisan divides, and recognition that post-Cold War peace dividends have evaporated collectively drive policy recalibration. The Ukraine conflict has crystallized understanding that European security cannot indefinitely rely on external guarantors.
France and Germany are leading discussions about European defense architecture capable of functioning independently when necessary. Poland and Baltic states are building substantial military capabilities responding to perceived Russian threats. Even traditionally neutral nations are reconsidering security postures. These developments reflect realist calculations about state responsibility for security rather than anti-American sentiment.
The American Paradox
Washington faces contradictions of its own creation. After decades demanding greater European defense contributions, American anxiety about influence loss emerges precisely when Europeans respond to those demands. Concerns center on potential policy divergences creating transatlantic friction when European capabilities enable independent strategic choices.
This anxiety fundamentally misses the point. A Europe capable of managing neighborhood security challenges represents precisely what sustainable transatlantic relationships require. The alternative—continued European dependency—breeds resentment across the Atlantic, overstretches American commitments, and leaves European strategic culture underdeveloped. Dependency dynamics serve neither party’s long-term interests.
European Strategic Autonomy Initiatives
France champions strategic autonomy, advocating for Europe’s ability to defend itself and reduce dependence on external powers, particularly the United States. The EU has launched major initiatives including the €150 billion Security Action for Europe (SAFE) instrument for defense loans and the broader ReArm Europe plan investing in European defense industrial base capabilities.
The European Defence Agency data shows defense investments exceeded €100 billion in 2024 for the first time, accounting for 31% of total defense spending—the highest share recorded. Defense equipment procurement increased 39% compared to 2023, reaching €88 billion. Research and development spending reached €13 billion in 2024, projected to increase to €17 billion in 2025.
However, strategic autonomy faces significant limitations. Europe’s defense capabilities remain fragmented across different operating systems despite collectively possessing more military equipment than Russia. Regulatory barriers, competition among member states, and national commercial interests slow progress toward integrated capabilities. European access to both legacy defense systems and critical emerging technologies depends substantially on transatlantic commercial engagement.
Towards Post-Hegemonic Partnership
The path forward requires adjusting American expectations to match reality. The United States cannot afford to serve as perpetual security guarantor for wealthy, industrialized democracies fully capable of self-defense. European strategic autonomy doesn’t mean NATO’s end but rather its evolution into an alliance of relatively equal partners with shared interests rather than a protection arrangement with overwhelming American dominance.
This transition will generate friction over defense industrial cooperation, disagreements about threat assessments and priorities, and debates about out-of-area operations. Europeans may make decisions Washington dislikes. This represents normal alliance dynamics among actual partners rather than dependencies. Accepting this reality proves preferable to continuing current patterns—Americans complaining about burden-sharing while resenting European capability development, Europeans frustrated by American demands while remaining strategically dependent.
Realist Imperatives
From realist perspectives, Europe’s move toward strategic responsibility appears both inevitable and desirable. States in anarchic international systems cannot permanently rely on distant protectors whose interests may diverge from their own. The question was never whether Europe would develop autonomous capabilities but when and under what circumstances.
Academic analysis suggests that strategic autonomy has become necessity rather than luxury for the EU, particularly given questions about American commitment to European security. Even the largest member states prove too small individually to decisively influence international affairs, necessitating EU-level cooperation. The challenge involves bridging internal divisions between frugal northern states and southern European nations regarding necessary disbursements and investments.
American foreign policy must facilitate this transition rather than resist it. This means accepting that European interests will sometimes differ from American preferences, that Europeans will occasionally make different strategic choices, and that multipolar Western arrangements prove healthier than unipolar ones. It requires focusing American resources on genuinely vital interests rather than attempting to micromanage European security arrangements.
Structural Realities and Future Trajectory
The era of American hegemony within Western alliance is ending not because of European ingratitude or American weakness but because global power distribution and contemporary challenges make it unsustainable. Europeans increasingly recognize this reality and act accordingly. The sooner Washington accepts and adapts to new realities, the better positioned both sides will be addressing genuine security challenges.
Russian defense spending now exceeds combined European spending, with Moscow’s war economy operating at full capacity. This threat environment makes European capability development urgent rather than optional. Yet internal European disagreements persist between Atlantic-oriented states prioritizing NATO and those advocating stronger EU-level defense integration.
France’s vision of strategic autonomy faces criticism that it represents Europeanization of French security interests using the EU as power multiplier. The French push to exclude non-EU states from ReArm plan procurement—labeled “European preference”—reinforces these concerns. Success requires avoiding “France first” approaches while building genuine consensus around collective European defense objectives.
Testing American Foreign Policy Wisdom
The real test of American foreign policy wisdom involves whether Washington can welcome European strategic maturity or will cling to hegemonically dependent relationships serving neither side’s long-term interests. Historical precedent suggests great powers struggle to accept former dependencies developing autonomous capabilities. Yet multipolarity among democratic allies offers greater resilience than unipolar arrangements dependent on single nation’s commitment.
Europeans are finally taking security seriously after decades of underinvestment. This development fulfills long-standing American demands for burden-sharing and alliance revitalization. However, genuine burden-sharing necessarily implies that allies will sometimes make different strategic choices based on their distinct interests and threat perceptions. American policymakers must decide whether they truly want capable partners or prefer compliant but militarily inadequate client states.
The answer to this question will determine whether the transatlantic alliance adapts successfully to contemporary security challenges or ossifies into dysfunctional dependency relationships. European strategic awakening represents opportunity for alliance renewal rather than threat to American interests. Whether Washington seizes this opportunity or resists it will shape Western cohesion for decades to come.
Original analysis by Leon Hadar from The National Interest. Republished with additional research and verification by ThinkTanksMonitor.
