NATO countries rely on assistance from US forces. In an emergency, this could be insufficient. What Europe would need for effective deterrence.
- Weakness. A threat scenario for NATO is that Russia occupies parts of the Baltics in a rapid advance before the West can react.
- Deterrence. Europe's ability to defend itself is more important than ever to limit Russia's military options.
- Support. According to new, exclusive calculations, the US can only actually send about a quarter of its soldiers and weapons to Europe.
- Precaution. Therefore, Europe should invest massively in the leadership competence and combat power of its armies to effectively deter Moscow.
Pax Americana is the name given to the peace in the West that has now lasted for almost eight decades. Under the protective umbrella of the USA, there have been no devastating conflicts between major powers since World War II. But this state is coming under increasing pressure. Currently, demands are being made in the USA - especially in the camp of Republicans around Donald Trump - to completely realign security policy. According to this, America wants to concentrate on the only potentially equal opponent: China. Europe, the Middle East, and the rest of Asia and the world should take care of their own security.
Countries like Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea are trying to exploit the looming chaos. Their main goal is to weaken the USA as the previous hegemonic power. American historian and diplomat Philip Zelikow estimates the probability of a global war occurring in the coming years at 20 to 30 percent. Military planning by US forces increasingly assumes that a war with China or Russia would not remain isolated, but that the other side would be directly or indirectly involved.
US military strategists told me that the planning assumption is now a two-front war, even if only one of the two fronts would be "hot". This seems militarily logical but would have serious implications. For example, if China did not immediately become active in a conflict in Europe, the US would still have to hold back enough reserves to be able to wage an additional war in East Asia against China.
According to common databases, the strength of the US military thus by no means corresponds to what the Americans would send to Europe, even if they wanted to. Even in the best case, the US could only deploy about 60 percent of its total troops, warships, weapon systems, etc., to the theater of war that has priority. For the U.S. Army, this would be Europe; for the U.S. Navy, it would be East Asia.
Of these 60 percent, according to my calculations, on average only about 45 percent of active troops and weapon systems and 25 percent of reserves would actually be deployable. These lower values are due, among other things, to the maintenance of individual warships, battle tanks, and other weapon systems, as well as general logistical challenges.
Furthermore, it is necessary to hold back individual units to train other units, as well as to carry out troop rotations to give soldiers the opportunity to recover for renewed deployment. Of the approximately 450,000 active soldiers in the U.S. Army, only about 122,000 could be sent to Europe. Of the over 2,600 battle tanks, the Americans could bring about 700 to Europe, of their 40 submarines, probably only four would be deployed. Conclusion: Europe must - regardless of Donald Trump - be able to wage war and deter its enemies without major US support. But this is currently a big problem.
At first glance, the European NATO allies seem to be quite equal, if not superior, to potential aggressors: The NATO partners in Europe have about 6,600 battle tanks, the Russians about 2,000. But the majority of these armored vehicles of NATO - for battle tanks, according to my own calculations, it's 57 percent - come from Greek and Turkish stocks and are partly not operational or outdated.
For example, Greece has 375 American M48 battle tanks, which were first put into service in 1952. Turkey also still has 750 of these ancient devices and additionally about 2,000 mothballed in army depots. In other important categories, such as long-range surface-to-air missile systems, Europe is also clearly inferior to Russia quantitatively.
What military threat does Russia actually pose? NATO military planners most expect a Russian attack on the Baltic states. NATO has a series of regional defense plans to defend the Baltics. These plans, in turn, derive the concrete requirements particularly for the German Bundeswehr and other NATO forces.
A frequently discussed scenario looks like this: Russia attacks Lithuania with several tens of thousands of men and hundreds of armored combat vehicles - supported by artillery as well as fighter planes and bombers. Several attack axes originating from Belarus enable Russian ground troops to capture the capital Vilnius under the protection of strong air and missile defense shields, in other words: to present NATO with a fait accompli. After all, the center of Vilnius is only 30 kilometers from the Belarusian border and thus within range of Russian heavy artillery.
The NATO Enhanced Forward Presence Battlegroup Lithuania - a NATO unit of several thousand soldiers, which from 2027 will also include a mechanized brigade from Germany - is destroyed in the fire of Russian artillery, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles. This happens within three to four days, before NATO troops of the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force or the Allied Reaction Force, two rapid reaction forces with up to 40,000 men, can launch a counterattack. Russia's strategic goal in this scenario is to take the city of Vilnius hostage in order to force NATO to stop fighting under the threat of using nuclear weapons.
A second scenario would be a large-scale Russian attack on several Baltic states. By advancing on Vilnius, Tallinn, and Riga with several hundred thousand men and thousands of armored combat vehicles, Russia would try to cut the Suwalki Gap - the land connection between the Baltics and the rest of NATO - right in the initial phase of the war.
Of course, unconventional methods of warfare would also be used in both scenarios, such as cyber attacks, disinformation, and sabotage, to sow discord between NATO members. Russia could exploit a quick success to draw NATO into a long war of attrition, while China draws the US into a similar conflict in East Asia. In such a war scenario, Russia's forces would consist of several hundred thousand soldiers, who would probably be available faster than NATO troops. The official size of the Russian armed forces as of June 2024 is 1.32 million soldiers. According to my own calculations, however, the actual strength is only about 1.1 million.
Possibly, such a war of attrition in the Baltics and Eastern Europe would mean that, depending on the outcome of the first battles, a front line could be drawn across the Baltics or from Kaliningrad through the Suwalki Gap to Belarus. Along this front, a months- or years-long positional war would be fought until Europe and the US give in due to the high losses of people and material. Russia could dig in as in Ukraine and erect dense defensive positions secured by wide mine belts. No NATO force has practical experience in how to overcome such defense systems. Any attempt would therefore demand countless victims.
There is also still too little engineering equipment in NATO, such as mine-clearing tanks, to punch several larger gaps in such a defense system and thus enable a breakthrough. Russia's goal would be the destruction of NATO and the loss of US credibility.
Currently, the US plays a central role in Europe's security structure - and not just because of the number of its troops and weapons. The real military significance of US forces lies in their function as an integrator of the various national forces. Only the US has the necessary structures, command centers, command systems, and associated staffs to effectively and efficiently coordinate the activities of the entire NATO in an emergency. This also includes special units, so-called supporters, which make combat, leadership, and deployment of NATO troops possible in the first place.
Germany wants to gradually take over this integrator role, but that is future music and will take many more years. Other countries such as France, Poland, or Great Britain cannot fulfill this function either. No European country is currently able to lead a large formation like a corps (up to 50,000 men), let alone an army, without American support. The army headquarters of NATO that still existed during the Cold War no longer exist.
Without them, a war against Russia would be difficult to coordinate. Although there are structures at the corps level in the individual armed forces to lead subordinate units, the Europeans lack any practical experience in leading such large formations. Exercises at the corps level of individual multinational NATO corps regularly take place only in the form of computer simulations. At the same time, these multinational NATO corps lack the aforementioned supporters - such as army aviators, artillery as well as air and missile defense - but also reconnaissance troops and, last but not least, logistical units.
Discussions about the so-called strategic autonomy or sovereignty of Europe thus collide with the harsh military reality. Without the US, Europe will have difficulty defending itself in the coming years and will have trouble planning and conducting larger military operations at all. In other words: Without the integrator, the entire European defense construct threatens to collapse.
In this respect, all comparisons between Russia and the European NATO countries in terms of the number of battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, artillery, and fighter aircraft tell only part of the story. Should a President Trump focus on China and steadily reduce the US forces currently stationed in Europe, a dangerous gap will emerge. To become more strategically autonomous, Europe would therefore have to invest primarily in nine areas:
- Command systems
- Reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition
- Long-range precision weapons
- Air and missile defense systems
- Electronic warfare
- Cyber warfare
- Logistics and sustainability
- Strategic and tactical air support
- Engineer troops
The gaps are partly enormous. In the area of air and missile defense systems alone, the European members of NATO could together provide only five percent of the equipment needed to protect troops in the Baltics, larger cities, and other important critical infrastructure. Together, the European NATO countries have only 36 long-range air defense systems, which are stationed from Spain to Germany; some of them have already been delivered to Ukraine.
According to my calculations, 70 to 90 long-range air defense systems would be needed in the two Baltic scenarios alone to protect NATO forces on site. For the protection of cities and critical infrastructure, at least 50 additional long-range air defense systems would be necessary in Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, the shortage cannot be remedied quickly: Between contract signing, production, and delivery of a single system such as an M902 Patriot, more than four years can pass.
Troop strength and operational capability have also been greatly reduced in recent decades. In 1990, when the Cold War ended, the West German Bundeswehr alone still had 215 combat battalions - i.e., light infantry, mountain infantry, paratroopers, and all types of armored units - in high operational readiness. Today, Germany has about 34 such battalions, and they are not really combat-ready. During an exercise of the 10th Armored Division at the end of 2022, the entire fleet of 18 Puma infantry fighting vehicles in one battalion failed.
To bring troop strength in the most important European NATO member back to a required level, there are two possibilities: One would be to obligate all young people who voluntarily join the Bundeswehr to reserve exercises after their active service contracts expire. Until the age of 45, soldiers could thus be called up annually for refresher exercises. This would allow a larger reserve to be built up within a few years.
To prevent volunteers from being deterred by the obligation to participate in these exercises, additional financial incentives would probably be needed, which would quickly raise the defense budget above the minimum defense expenditure of two percent of gross domestic product (GDP) demanded since the 2014 NATO summit.
Another option would be the reintroduction of conscription. The best model would be a combination of the Finnish and Swedish mustering and training systems: As in Sweden, entire age groups of young Germans, men and women, would have to be mustered. As in Finland, however, only a small part would be drafted for military service, and otherwise, there would continue to be a strong reliance on voluntariness. However, the Basic Law in Germany expressly prohibits obligating women to serve with weapons. It follows that mustering cannot be mandatory for them either. As long as the Basic Law is not changed, this will remain the case.
In the described Baltic war scenarios, the US would not intervene with full force. They could neither cover the European need for long-range air defense systems nor make up for the lack of troop strength, as they would have to reckon with a future entry into war by China or possible tensions on the Korean peninsula and the Middle East.
European decision-makers must understand that US support can quickly dwindle not only under a President Trump but even with existing political will in the White House, it will not be sufficient in an emergency due to the limited military capacities of the US. Europe cannot fill this gaping gap at the moment.
Of course, the economic power of the West is superior to that of China and Russia, and if the right steps are now initiated to create the capacities necessary for such a war in the national armaments industries, the Russian and Chinese calculations may not work out. But we are far from such determination. Even if the rearmament works, it remains unclear whether the West has the will to endure a long war of attrition. This question is also being asked by the strategists in Moscow and Beijing. Only we in Europe can answer it.
Emergency. Russia could attack NATO by creating military facts at a vulnerable spot in the Baltics and forcing the West into a war of attrition. Without the US, Europeans could do little against it.
Gap. Around Donald Trump, US strategists are considering plans to reduce troop strength in Europe. But even if the US wanted to help with all its might, it could only deploy a small part of its military in Europe.
Autonomy. Europe should become strong enough on its own to deter Russia from attacks on NATO territory. The German Bundeswehr would play a key role in this, which it is currently not capable of.