Despite Russia’s military travails in Ukraine, the narrative that Article 5 is a bluff has gained widespread acceptance in Moscow. After all, there are many ways in which Russia can test Article 5 without launching a full-scale conventional war. Russia’s revanchist views on Baltic Sea boundaries could inspire maritime aggression; deniable terrorist attacks and cyberattacks on critical infrastructure are plausible; a small-scale military attack on the Baltic States or Sweden’s Gotland might also be considered. If America or any country were to question the doctrine of Article 5 in these instances, then it would give Russia a green light, some leaders believe, to continue its probing until it can fatally destabilise several nations.

Unfortunately, in some European capitals there is still denial about Russia’s willingness to test Nato’s Article 5 – unable to see the nuances of how it can be probed without being crossed – with memories of Trump’s relatively-stable first term breeding complacency.

Aside from Europe’s delusions, the lack of consensus around acceptable “escalation risks” with Russia is also concerning. It is not projecting strength, and without US support, these divisions could surely widen and paralyse Europe’s response to a Russian challenge to Article 5. Fundamentally, Europe is still psychologically unprepared to go-it-alone.

The combat readiness picture is equally bleak. Take Germany. Despite Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s creation of a 100-billion-euro special fund to purchase modern weapons, Parliamentary Commissioner for the German Armed Forces Eva Hogl recently lamented that the Bundeswehr has “too little of everything.” Although Hogl wants the German army to increase its ranks from 181,000 to 203,000, manpower declined by 1,537 in 2023.

Similar issues plague the British Armed Forces. In February, the House of Commons Defense Committee was warned that manpower and war materiel shortages would exhaust Britain’s military capabilities after two months of war. Defense contractor Northrop Grumann recently warned that Britain’s air defences are “very limited, to the point of being negligible.”

Europe’s defense-industrial base is also unprepared to stand alone without America. Last month, the EU’s commissioner for the internal market Thierry Breton announced that the EU would produce 1.7 million 155mm shells in 2024. European arms industry insiders warned that the EU’s actual production would likely be one-third of that total. These estimates are likely on the mark. The EU only met 30% of its March 2024 one-million shell delivery target to Ukraine. An alarming trend, as Russia produces between 2.5 to 5 million shells a year and can import countless more from Belarus and North Korea.

So it is a bleak picture indeed. As such, now is the time to inject a vital sense of urgency into European decision making. The Continent’s defense spending is slowly rising. In February, Nato’s outgoing Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg declared that European alliance members would collectively spend $380 billion on defense in 2024; a marked increase. Poland even plans to increase its defense budget to 5% of GDP in 2025 and German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius ponders a 3.5% of GDP military outlay.

The EU’s European Defense Industry Strategy is also helping governments take over civilian arms production in the event of an emergency and loosens regulations on third country arms sales. Command structure reforms, such as Germany’s integration of structures overseeing domestic and foreign deployments into a new central command, are encouraging, as is the appointment of clear-headed hawks like Estonia’s former prime minister Kaja Kallas to chief diplomat in Brussels.

But given the scale of post-Cold War neglect, much, much more needs to be done.

While Trump provided lethal arms to Ukraine and used the threat of a U.S. withdrawal from Nato to scare European allies into increasing defense spending, his second term would be quite different. Vance is firmly convinced that U.S. military resources should be redirected to the Indo-Pacific region and is more committed to a Middle East footprint than a European one. House Speaker Mike Johnson and many of his colleagues think differently, but they are unlikely to torpedo a unified Trump-Vance position.

As Trump’s frontrunner status hardens, Europe must become more self-reliant. Not just for Ukraine’s sake, but for the continent-at-large. Yesterday was already too late. 

Dr Samuel Ramani is an Associate Fellow at RUSI, the Royal United Services Institute