For decades, the United States has raised concerns about Europe’s underwhelming commitment to defense spending. The issue has long simmered beneath the surface of NATO deliberations, occasionally flaring up when American administrations lose patience. During Donald Trump’s first presidential term, the critique grew into a near-constant drumbeat. Trump’s rhetoric was direct and often dismissive of NATO as a whole, pushing European nations to contribute their fair share or risk losing US support. Now, in his second term, with global instability deepening and US foreign policy once again in flux, the issue has taken on new urgency.

The basic facts are clear: for most of the post-Cold War era, European NATO members have spent far less than the agreed-upon target of 2 percent of GDP on defense. In 2014, the year Russia first invaded Ukraine by annexing Crimea, only three NATO countries – the United States, the United Kingdom, and Greece – met the 2 percent threshold. That dismal record underscored Washington’s frustration. It took a full-scale invasion in 2022 for the rest of Europe to begin treating defense with the seriousness it demands.

Fast forward to 2025, and 23 of NATO’s 32 members now meet the 2% target. That is progress. But it is also an uneven and fragile improvement, and more importantly, it reveals a continent still torn between competing visions for its security future. At the heart of this dilemma is a critical question: should Europe build an autonomous defense identity through the European Union, or should it remain anchored within the broader transatlantic structure of NATO?

The European Union has always had difficulty forging a unified defense policy. Member states have different threat perceptions, military capabilities, and political traditions. The very idea of war-making authority being exercised by a supranational institution like the EU remains politically toxic in many capitals. Defense, after all, is among the most sacred functions of national sovereignty – one that entails decisions about life and death, and which cannot be outsourced lightly to distant bureaucrats in Brussels.

However, recent geopolitical shifts have pushed the EU to act. Russia’s war on Ukraine, a rising China, instability in the Sahel, and America’s unpredictable political future........

© Blitz