One of the more durable beliefs in the foreign-policy communities on both sides of the Atlantic is that Europe cannot handle its own security problems and must therefore rely on the United States for protection. Although European leaders and defense experts have spoken of wanting greater strategic autonomy and occasionally suggested that it was time to take their fate into their own hands (as German Chancellor Angela Merkel put it in 2017), the belief that security in Europe ultimately depends on the United States dies hard.
This conclusion is puzzling. Although the nations of Europe face several security problems, the only threat to the continent for which U.S. military power might be relevant is a direct military clash with Russia. Yet, on paper at least, Europe has more than enough latent power to deal with that problem. NATO’s European members contain more than 500 million people; Russia’s population is only 145 million. Europeans are also much healthier: Average life expectancy in Europe is roughly 82 years, whereas in Russia it is only 72 (and even lower for men). NATO Europe’s combined GDP is more than $15 trillion; Russia’s GDP is only $1.7 trillion, which is smaller than Italy’s alone. More remarkable still, NATO’s European members spend three to four times what Russia does on defense every single year. Indeed, Germany and France together spend more than Russia does, and Russia must devote some of what it spends to the Far East, its large nuclear arsenal, and its engagements in places like Syria.
