When Donald Trump was re-elected as president of the US in November 2024, the mood in the Nordic and Baltic states as well as in Poland was somewhat less anxious than in most of Europe. The countries believed themselves to be in a good position for pragmatic engagement with the second Trump administration, thanks to their high level of defense spending, traditionally strong bilateral relations with the United States, and their rather positive experience of the first Trump presidency, when the US presence in NATO’s eastern flank countries increased.
Five months later, the space for pragmatism has dramatically narrowed. Finland may have scored points through an act of “golf diplomacy” that President Alexander Stubb conducted with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and may succeed in securing a big deal for the selling of ice-breakers to the US. Yet there is no way of denying the rapid decay of the transatlantic alliance.
President Trump has shocked his best allies in Europe with his soft approach to President Vladimir Putin’s Russia and utter disregard for the sovereignty of Denmark and Ukraine, expressed by his desire to take over Greenland and gain control of Ukraine’s critical minerals (not to speak about the humiliating treatment of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office). US tariffs against EU member states as well as the United Kingdom are not just causing economic losses but threaten to destroy the global system of free trade that all the small Northern European states have been strongly committed to and reliant on.
The US Is Still Needed
Yet some things have not changed: Russia is still a long-term and existential threat for the Nordic-Baltic states and Poland, and the US remains an indispensable ally in countering this threat. Europeans are thus far not able to provide Ukraine with sufficient military support for stopping Russia’s slow advance on the battlefield. They are also struggling to come up with a credible response to Ukraine’s need for security guarantees beyond the war. Even more importantly, NATO’s defense and deterrence rely on the US contributing critical capabilities that Europeans lack such as intelligence, air defense, and a nuclear shield.
As trust in the strongest ally has crumbled, dependence on the security guarantees that it provides has become increasingly problematic. Countries in Northern Europe are therefore doubling down their efforts to strengthen their defense capabilities. Poland is spending 4.7 percent of its GDP on defense this year and aims to reach 5 percent next year. The Baltic states are also moving toward the 5-percent target. Finland has recently announced that it will spend a minimum of 3 percent of GDP on defense in the next four years. Sweden is about to reach 2.4 percent of GDP in 2025 and aims at 3.5 percent by 2030. Denmark is committed to more than 3 percent this year and next.
Europe’s Dilemma
It has become the most important task—but also the biggest dilemma for Europe—to try to keep the US engaged in European defense, while preparing for its possible abandonment. Needless to say, the countries that are most vulnerable to the Russian threat are facing this dilemma in its sharpest form.
At the surface level, the same measures are required for both maintaining the US presence and preparing for its withdrawal. The key to solving the puzzle is that Europeans need to become militarily stronger. However, a closer look into defense planning reveals that it is not the same thing to prepare to defend Europe with a reduced US contribution or without the US. According to some estimates, it would take up to 10 years for Europeans to replace most of the US competences in NATO.
So far, Europeans are struggling to meet their commitments in NATO’s defense plans, adopted at the Vilnius Summit in 2023, even if the Americans are doing their share. The plans are built on the promise of the Europeans taking on a bigger share of the burden. In the meantime, the focus of the European debate has moved from burden-sharing to burden-shifting, and from the desire to keep the Americans on board to the need to prepare for their departure. It will not be enough to implement the defense plans in the spirit of burden-sharing; Europeans need to prepare for burden-shifting, i.e., taking over the share of the US.
There has been reluctance in the Eastern flank countries to talk about burden-shifting out of fear that speaking about Europe’s aim to take over US commitments will encourage the latter to precipitate its withdrawal. Yet it would be irresponsible for Europeans not to prepare for a scenario where the US will not come to defend its allies or will demand an unbearable price for doing so. Even if the US maintains its military presence in Europe, the Trump administration’s motivation to do so seems to profoundly differ from that of its predecessors—it is no longer about protecting freedom, democracy, and the right of sovereign nations to choose their alliances. Instead, Trump’s focus is on the narrow interests of his own power position and his MAGA vision. Even if he wishes to achieve peace in Ukraine or to keep NATO alive, from the European perspective he is doing so for the wrong reasons.
Sticking Together
The Nordic-Baltic states are sticking together in the turbulent geopolitical environment. Regional cooperation is closer than ever especially in the field of security and defense, which used to be a no-go area even in Nordic cooperation not so long ago. The accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO removed old barriers. Together with Poland, Germany, and the United Kingdom, the Northern Europeans form a considerable, though loose grouping with largely shared security interests. Germany’s ability to spend wisely the hundreds of billions of planned additional funding for defense will be of critical importance for further enhancing defense and deterrence in the Baltic Sea region and reducing dependence on the US.
While regional efforts matter, it is also worth noting that the security of the Baltic Sea region is inseparable from European security at large and will heavily depend on the outcome of the war in Ukraine. It also, crucially, depends on the willingness of other European countries to invest more in collective defense.
Testing Times
There is no doubt that the US will try to drive wedges between European countries. It might also test the unity of the Northern European grouping. If the US becomes even more assertive vis-à-vis Greenland it will be difficult for the other Nordic-Baltic countries not to condemn this, but will they risk their relationship with the US? If the US requires its allies to stop supporting Ukraine in order to force Kyiv to accept a bad peace deal, will the Nordic-Baltic countries, which have been staunch supporters of Ukraine, risk losing the security guarantee of the US? Would it be more dangerous for them to go along with a bad deal for Ukraine in the hope of saving their relationship with the US, or to continue supporting Ukraine and reckon that the US has become an unreliable ally in any case? Hopefully such choices can be avoided, but it cannot be excluded that they might emerge.
In the spirit of Northern pragmatism, the optimal way forward would be managed burden-shifting pursued under the disguise of strengthening the transatlantic alliance. A gradual move toward a more European NATO might be the only way to keep the alliance alive and Europe safe in the coming years. The critical question is if Europeans will have enough time to pursue this approach. The faster they move, the better the chances of preventing NATO’s collapse at the time when the alliance is badly needed to protect Europe against Russia’s revanchist aggression.
Kristi Raik is the director of the International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS) in Tallinn, Estonia.
