WASHINGTON—US President Donald Trump’s new US National Security Strategy (NSS) makes clear that the United States does not maintain a shared perception of threats with its NATO allies. In an incredible reversal of priorities from the first Trump administration’s NSS, the latest document spends more time describing an internal threat to Europe from European Union (EU) overregulation, censorship, and “civilizational erasure” than it does the threat of Russian aggression, which is largely absent from the document. While calling for an end of the war in Ukraine, Trump’s NSS clarifies the United States’ position as a neutral arbiter. In response, the Russian government lauded the NSS for being “largely consistent” with its worldview, even as Russia’s own strategic documents consider Moscow to be in an existential conflict with the West.
Rather than lament the United States’ noncommittal approach to the transatlantic relationship, European leaders should instead lean into the NSS directive for greater “burden sharing and burden shifting.” Specifically, European countries should work to develop a new security architecture that allows for bold and decisive European action. This architecture should be based on coalition and consortium models for decision-making, action, and capability development. Europe must also continue to plan a central role for Ukraine in Europe’s long-term security architecture, irrespective of Kyiv’s near-term prospects for NATO or EU membership.
Some Europeans may hesitate at this idea, fearing that too much political leadership and autonomy might push the United States to further decouple from the continent. But if anything, the new NSS reinforces the need for Europe to develop new models of decision-making to bolster cooperation with the United States when practical and boost European agency to act alone when necessary and where interests diverge. If carried out effectively, this reorganization will lead to a stronger European pillar in NATO, more capable European allies and partners, and a more resilient relationship with the United States.
Momentum is building for Europe to take on a greater share of conventional deterrence
Even before the White House released its new NSS, elements of a new European security architecture had already begun to emerge. Since Russia launched its full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine, European nations have made unprecedented investments in their militaries and have been preparing their armed forces for territorial defense. On the Alliance’s eastern flank, where deterrence and defense are most at stake, NATO’s posture has evolved from a tripwire force of four battlegroups first deployed in 2017 to nine Forward Land Forces, positioned from Finland to Romania, that are better equipped to defend allied territory. The investments made by the lead European Forward Land Forces nations represent burden-sharing in action.
With Sweden and Finland’s integration into NATO, the Alliance can now operate as a united front from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. The quick accession of both countries has put Russia in a more difficult position geographically along the eastern flank: the Black Sea is effectively neutralized and the Baltic Sea has become a NATO bastion. This consolidation allows for unprecedented European military activity and reinforces allied territory against air and missile threats, which have been compounded in recent years by the broken or expired arms control treaties that previously underwrote European security.
As NATO adapts its posture to new forms of pressure from Russia, many of its military activities and operations now rely on European initiatives and assets. This is the case with NATO’s Operation Baltic Sentry, which was launched in January after several allied undersea cables were damaged or severed in 2023 and 2024. NATO’s Operation Eastern Sentry, launched in September 2025 in response to Russian drone incursions into Poland, also relies extensively on European capabilities. Both operations show that European nations can operationalize NATO’s adapted posture.
And even outside NATO frameworks, European countries and the United Kingdom are creating new dilemmas for Russia. Europeans have continued to push sanctions and are focusing on dismantling Russia’s “shadow fleet” of oil tankers. In October, for instance, French forces boarded a Russian shadow fleet tanker as part of a broader effort to hinder Russia’s ability to illegally acquire revenue.
New defense agreements between several European countries have reinforced a commitment to mutual defense that has, outside of US extended deterrence, primarily existed to date in NATO’s realm of crisis management. In just the past few months, the United Kingdom and France penned the Lancaster House 2.0 Agreement to modernize their defense and security relationship, Germany and France agreed to develop a defense and security council to better operationalize joint responses, and the United Kingdom and Germany signed a mutual defense agreement called the Kensington Treaty.
While these agreements and initiatives affirm the respective nations’ commitment to NATO’s collective defense and the EU’s mutual defense clause, they also highlight European countries’ push to work more closely with one another on security amid increasing uncertainty emanating from Washington. Importantly, these agreements also create complexities for Russia and China, both of which would prefer to deal with a less-intertwined continent.
Coalition and consortium approaches to security
Next, Europe needs to strengthen its ability to take bold and decisive action. The first step in doing so is for democratic European nations to follow through on their pledges to increase defense spending. NATO’s new target of 5 percent of gross domestic product for defense spending, coupled with the EU’s Readiness 2030 plan, gives leaders fiscal and political headway to drive up defense budgets. This will not be easy given anemic economic growth and the strength of populist opposition parties across Europe, but the threat of a revanchist Russia makes higher defense spending even more urgent. With defense industrial capacity nowhere near the scale and speed necessary to meet the strategic environment on both sides of the Atlantic, nations should also direct new defense spending toward effective and efficient defense industrial initiatives that will fill Europe’s urgent capability shortfalls.
At the multilateral level, if Europe is to spearhead proposals for and by itself, European nations must prioritize decision-making formats that are smaller than NATO and the EU. This is true with Ukraine, as the future of Kyiv’s armed forces will be a cornerstone of the new European security architecture. The British and French-led “coalition of the willing” that supports Ukraine began as a summit. Today, twenty-six countries have made formal pledges, the coalition has established a permanent headquarters in Paris, and it plans to create a coordination cell in Kyiv.
The coalition, though currently stalled amid frustrated cease-fire negotiations, at least allows Europeans to shape how Ukraine could integrate into Europe’s security architecture in the future. The coalition has announced that it would support Ukraine in a post-cease-fire environment by regenerating Ukraine’s land forces (possibly with boots on the ground), securing Ukraine’s skies, and ensuring safe and secure access for vessels transiting Ukraine’s ports. This structure remains the best model for supporting Ukraine in the future, given the United States’ lack of clarity around security guarantees for Ukraine or support for Kyiv’s future NATO membership.
To build up the continent’s defense industrial base, European nations should adopt a consortium approach aimed at jointly developing and procuring military equipment and technologies that are complementary with NATO. This approach will be critical for rapidly resourcing and filling gaps that might be left by departing US capabilities in the coming years. For example, the European Long-Range Strike Approach (ELSA) shows promise, and it can be regarded as a blueprint for how European nations can work together to develop new capabilities together and decide when and how to use them. ELSA, which includes France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, aims to build a full-spectrum system for weapons with a range exceeding 500 kilometers. It complements the European Sky Shield Initiative, which although incomplete, aims to create a ground-based integrated air-defense system to protect European airspace that remains heavily dependent on US enablers.
For these capability-centric consortiums to reach their potential, Europeans should pool financial resources through the EU and make better use of the intergovernmental European Defense Agency for funding and coordination. Several projects show promise such as the satellite programs for intelligence or observation as a future alternative to Starlink through Eutelsat. The uptick in Italian and French land-air missile SAMP/T co-production, which will in the future equip Denmark, the third European country to operate the system rather than Patriot. For smaller scale projects, the EDA should continue to support programs like the Belgian Dutch-led “replacement Mine Countermeasures” (rMCM), which aims at upgrading mine warfare capabilities.
A new way of working with the United States
As Europe seeks to maintain US interest and commitment in the near term, it has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rethink its security architecture and rebalance the transatlantic relationship. In this new strategic landscape, the future of transatlantic relations will rest on Europe working toward being able to defend itself while carving out room to advance proposals with the United States where advantageous for both sides of the Atlantic. Europe has strengths of its own in the balance of power against Russia, despite the latter’s perceived escalation advantage, and a major one is its high level of cooperation and interoperability.
Only a few years ago, building European coalitions and capabilities independent of the United States would have seemed a potential threat to transatlantic and European unity. Now it is the opposite. As the United States repositions and reprioritizes, more European action does not have to equal less cooperation with Washington. This new security architecture would also allow the United States to better identify points of dialogue on specific issues, helping answer the Cold War–era dilemma of who to dial when the United States wants to call Europe. Especially as the new NSS calls for the United States to “organize a burden-sharing network.”
Trump’s new NSS has outlined US goals, and neither Europe nor Ukraine should wait any longer for Washington to reinforce its commitment to transatlantic security. US priorities lie outside the European theater regardless of the security threats Russia or China may pose. Moreover, Europe will not receive such strategic clarity from an administration that pursues a situation-based and transactional approach to security dilemmas. Instead, Europe must be bold in advancing a new security architecture that has the potential to strengthen European defense and reset the transatlantic relationship for the better.
