WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Successive US administrations have long lobbied European allies to shoulder their fair burden for joint defense, but US President Donald Trump has taken a more bottom-line driven approach to NATO, publicly questioning why the United States should pay for the defense of rich European nations.
And that tough rhetoric has shaken Europe out of its decades-long national security slumber, according to Russian-American scholar Leon Aron. Germany, the second-largest economy in NATO after the United States, in March passed reforms that would allow it to unlock billions in defense funding.
“Trump woke up Europe, whether he intended or not,” Aron told RFE/RL. “The Europeans don't like it, but actually, the end result was, I think, salutary.”
RFE/RL spoke with Aron, a senior fellow at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, as part of a series of interviews called America's Foreign Policy Shifts.
Aron said that Trump alone would not have gotten Europe to scale up on defense. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, unleashing the biggest war on the continent in 80 years, was an essential element, Aron argued.
“The combination of Trump and Ukraine, I think, moved them to really seriously contemplate the enormous delinquency in their national defenses,” Aron said in a wide-ranging interview.
If a decade ago, only three European members of NATO spent 2 percent of economic output on defense, the agreed-upon minimum, today only a few don’t. However, Europe’s underinvestment in its own defense in the three decades following the end of the Cold War has left a mark, Aron said.
America's Foreign Policy Shift: A 3-Part Interview Series
This is a three-part series of interviews RFE/RL is conducting with global thinkers offering different perspectives on what we have learned from the first 100 days of Trump's second term. The aim is to provide insight into how the administration of US President Donald Trump is approaching some of the most challenging issues for Europe and the wider region since the end of World War II: Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a heightened confrontation between Russia and the West, and rising tides of disinformation.
As Trump seeks to shift some military power from the European theater to the Asia-Pacific region to deter China, allies will struggle to compensate, he said.
“It will take the Europeans years to fill the hole left by the United States,” Aron said. “They’re definitely awakened, but how they can technically arrange this very steep increase in their defense allocations remains to be seen.”
Aron, who was born in Moscow, focuses on US-Russia relations and Russian domestic policy.
From 2014 to 2020, he served on the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversaw the operations of US government-funded news outlets, including RFE/RL. He was a Russia advisor to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney during the latter’s unsuccessful bid as the Republican Party’s 2012 presidential candidate.
Ukraine War
Amid US wars against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, Romney in 2012 said that Russia — and not international terrorism — was Washington’s “number one geopolitical foe.” Two years later, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the seizure of Crimea, starting a war with Ukraine that expanded with the full-scale invasion eight years later.
Since beginning his second term, Trump has been pushing aggressively for a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine. After a flurry of diplomacy failed to convince Putin to agree to the 30-day cease-fire he was demanding, Trump said on May 16 that he needed to meet the Kremlin leader to end the conflict.
“I don’t believe anything will happen, whether you like it or not, until he and I get together,” Trump told reporters.
Three days later, the US president held a third call with Putin, and it appeared to end with Trump siding with the Russian leader’s position; namely, that a cease-fire can only come after Moscow and Kyiv reach an agreement on territorial control and peacekeepers among other issues.
Russia and Ukraine are so far apart on the issues that it may take months at best for them to agree to a deal. Putin is widely believed to be buying time because his forces have momentum on the battlefield, and he has yet to achieve any major war aims, despite illegally laying claim to five regions of Ukraine.
Trump conceded late last month that Putin might be playing him for time and threatened to further sanction Russia. Nonetheless, he spun the May 19 call as a success even as the Kremlin leader appeared to get his way.
“How far Putin can push Trump is probably the pivotal issue in this whole situation,” Aron said.
Managing Russia
Aron said Trump, like nearly every U.S. president since Franklin D. Roosevelt, is drawn to the idea of managing relations with Moscow.
“There is something almost religious about this,” he said. “Trump is no different in that respect.”
However, unlike his predecessors, Trump doesn’t delegate the Russia portfolio to seasoned diplomats, instead preferring a more personalized approach. Trump tapped his friend, real estate developer Steve Witkoff, who has no government experience, to carry out the talks with Russia. But that hands-on style, Aron said, may be playing into Putin’s strategy.
“Contrary to what Trump thinks, I believe Putin feels he can play him,” Aron said. “All he has to do is periodically massage his ego, periodically wave to him from the Kremlin, and things will go his way. Unfortunately, so far, it’s working.”
Putin’s war aims haven’t narrowed, Aron said. The Kremlin leader still aims to conquer Ukraine even though the costs of continuing the war are staggering. Agreeing to a cease-fire at the current line of conflict holds risks for his popularity, Aron said, even as many Russians want the war to end.
“He has to look at his domestic situation and decide how he’s going to explain to his people the loss of what is now approaching probably close to a million soldiers, injured or killed, for essentially getting what they had to begin with: Donetsk, Luhansk, part of Zaporizhzhya, and a couple of slivers of land.”
Putin would need to further tighten the screws on the Russian people in the event of such a peace agreement. So far, repression has kept a lid on Russian public anger.
“At this point, he feels he has control of the situation,” Aron said. “Moving toward peace contains some very serious risks for him.”
Trump should alter his position and backstop a European-led peacekeeping force to monitor any eventual deal, Aron said. If Putin continues to drag his feet, Trump should ramp up sanctions on Russia’s oil industry, including targeting the country’s oil shipping fleet.
"That's a very tangible blow to Putin,” he said. “This may move him toward at least contemplating peace seriously.”
China Watching
But the long war in Ukraine has strategic implications beyond Europe, particularly for Trump’s broader goal of focusing US policy on China, he said.
“Precisely because I assume the Trump administration wants to avoid a war with China over Taiwan, it ought to press Putin to settle for something that is not an outright defeat for Ukraine,” Aron said.
He said that rewarding Russian aggression could embolden Beijing — and pointed to China’s role in sustaining the war.
“Without China, there wouldn’t be this war,” Aron said. “China essentially finances at least half of Russian battlefield expenses by purchasing Russian oil. Xi Jinping continues to maintain that lifeline.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s protectionist trade policies could undermine the very alliances needed to confront China, Aron argued. Trump accused allies and adversaries alike of taking advantage of the United States through unfair trade practices and imposed 10 percent tariffs on most countries.
“If the American market is curtailed by tariffs, Europe -- especially Germany -- may turn back to China,” Aron said. “Germany became richer over the past three decades by sending exports to China, primarily cars, but also other luxury items. They pulled back after seeing Xi’s policies, but they may be forced to go back.”
It is a similar situation in the Global South, where the United States, China, and Russia have been vying for influence. Countries such as Vietnam, Congo, and Zimbabwe could also pivot toward China if they lose access to the US market, he said.
Trump is also seeking to curtail US involvement abroad, slashing US international aid and reportedly planning to cut the diplomatic presence in Africa. While some Trump supporters have dismissed Africa as strategically unimportant, Aron said that retreating from the continent would be a mistake.
It’s not just that Russia and China would rush in to fill the gap, international terrorist groups would too, he added, pointing to Nigeria and Mali, where militant Islamic groups are active.
“Presence itself matters hugely symbolically,” he said.
The Trump administration has defended the policies, saying it is trying to align US aid and investment with its foreign policy goals.
This is the third in a three-part series on America’s foreign policy shifts. The previous two installments ran on May 18 and May 11. To find those installments, click here.
