In 2024, the Party Is Over for European Free-Riding on Defense

European leaders fear that the substitution of Vice President Kamala Harris for President Joe Biden at the top of the ticket, even in the case of a Democratic victory in November, could lessen the U.S. commitment to defend Europe. And well they should, because Biden is about as strong a traditional trans-Atlanticist as they come. Although Harris has trans-Atlanticist advisors, the U.S. public sphere has become more antsy about the huge continuing bills U.S. taxpayers are footing in an open commitment to Ukraine when that country’s stated war aims—to regain all its territory from their Russian aggressor—seem like a fantasy.

Although a recent Russian offensive has failed to gain much territory, the likelihood of the much smaller (in both economic output and population) Ukraine—even with Western-supplied weapons, technology, and training—completely recovering its territory through military means seems like a pipe dream, despite the legitimate desires of its government and population.

Perhaps the Ukrainians, Europeans, Americans, and the world need to focus instead on what the Ukrainians have already accomplished, and put that into historical perspective, rather than focus on what has been lost. These heroic underdogs fought off a Russian invasion that Moscow expected would take only a few days to topple the Ukrainian government. They turned it into a Russian quagmire that has lasted two-and-a-half years—with only about 18 percent of Ukraine’s territory now being occupied by Russian forces.

The Ukrainian “David” fighting off the Russian “Goliath,” with all the advantages of a great power, resembles Finland’s fending off a Soviet invasion in the Winter War of 1939-1940. Even in that conflict, perceived by history as a victory for Finland, the scrappy Finns had to make territorial concessions to Stalin’s USSR.

Ideally, any peace settlement of the war would include referendums in the occupied territories so that the inhabitants could decide whether they want to be part of Russia or Ukraine. Some of the occupied territory is populated by Russian-speaking people who might choose to be controlled by Russia if given the choice in a referendum. When Russia invaded and occupied eastern Ukraine in 2014, it got help from Russian-speaking Ukrainian separatists. Thus the Russians can claim some public support in that part of Ukraine, although the Russians’ tendency to impose corrupt and brutal rule in areas they occupy might have attenuated some such desire. In sum, to the extent that legitimate, non-coercive, and internationally monitored referendums could be held in occupied lands, it would allow both combatants a fig leaf to accept territorial concessions, which might provide incentives for a more stable settlement of the conflict.

Ukraine has always been more strategic to Russia and Europe than it is to the faraway United States. Ukraine was always an agricultural breadbasket and, in its east, an industrial center during Soviet times. The country is still on one of the invasion corridors into Russia from the West, which has seen many bloody foreign incursions over the centuries—the last of which led to 25 to 30 million deaths during World War II at the hands of Adolf Hitler. Also, the Crimean Peninsula is navally strategic because it is a warm water port, which is scarce in Russia.

Although Russia is somewhat of a menace to Europe, it has always been absurd to say that the Europeans could not defend themselves against a country with the GDP about the same as that of Italy. Even though remnant Russia was not the threat of the more potent Soviet Union, stories abounded about how Vladimir Putin had restored the luster of the Russian military after the Soviet collapse; then the abject Russian failure in Ukraine happened. The claims of some NATO countries that “Russia will not stop at Ukraine” seem laughable after the bloody nose Putin has taken in that country, which exposed the massive corruption and incompetence in his armed forces. To take the most striking example, the Russian Navy has been decisively beaten by a country with no warships.

It has been said that the Europeans don’t have the will to do more in their own defense; of course not, because the United States has been providing a security umbrella for them since the end of the Second World War. The only way that situation will change is if the United States makes it clear under Harris or Trump that it will continue to expect the Europeans to do more. The United States always claims to want its European allies to bear more of the alliance burden, but then it also wants to retain ”leadership” of the alliance. Those American goals are often at cross purposes.

To start Europe down the path to greater responsibility for its own defense, if Ukraine is understandably resistant to negotiate an end to the conflict before it wins back all its territory, it could continue the fight with military and economic support from the wealthy Europeans—with the already heavily indebted United States bowing out. Perhaps the Europeans will realize that the last of the great American trans-Atlanticists is passing the scene and that either Harris or Trump will be less than “all in” on the huge expenses of a perpetual war in Ukraine.