Europeans are facing the prospect that Russia may attack them, and they may have to defend themselves without much help from the United States. At a minimum, they have taken to heart Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s warning that the U.S. is preoccupied with our peer rival, China, and our own borders, and Europeans must take the lead on defending themselves against Russia, a peer rival for them. As a worst case, Europeans fear the U.S. may actually withdraw from NATO.
I don’t think that will happen, but the Europeans are now more serious about national security than they have been at any time since the height of the Cold War. In Poland, for example: “Poland prepares to stand its ground with massive new civil defence programme.”
Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Poland has increased its military spending to 5 percent of its gross domestic product. It has also bought tanks, air defence systems, infantry fighting vehicles, rocket systems, stealth jets and drones to build one of the largest artillery inventories in Europe. It has also set a target of 300,000 troops by 2039, which would make its armed forces the largest in NATO, after the US and Turkey.
There is much more at the link. Poland is preparing its civilian population to support a potential war effort:
The wGotowości, or Readiness, programme was created to prepare Polish society for any number of situations ranging from cyberwar to a full-scale invasion. The initiative is “the largest program of universal, voluntary defence training in Polish history”, the country’s Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said when the program was launched in November last year.
The programme stands out among similar initiatives to train European civilians for war because of its massive scale. Kosiniak-Kamysz said he hoped 400,000 people would complete training sessions by the end of 2026. The wide age range – with no upper limit – includes everyone from teenagers to seniors.
Poland’s history helps, no doubt, when its government wants citizens to focus on the need for effective defense against foreign invasion.
Then there is the U.K. Its Labour government under Keir Starmer acknowledges the need to beef up national defense, but its fiscal priorities lie elsewhere–welfare, primarily, and “green” fantasies. Today British politics underwent a seismic shock as Minister of Defence John Healey, a Labour loyalist, resigned:
A year of intense Westminster wrangling over how to pay for Britain’s armed forces to remain relevant in a time of surging global instability spectacularly exploded into the open on Thursday when John Healey announced his resignation from government. In his scorching broadside of a resignation letter to the Prime Minister, Healey noted the government was not only refusing to fund its own Strategic Defence Review (SDR), but that even if it had the document had already been rendered inadequate by new conflicts and Britain’s growing military commitments in the 12 months since it was published.
This Government has all the money in the world for Ed Milliband’s mad plans, foreign aid, and benefits for foreigners. But nothing for our armed forces.
Good on John Healey. Shame on them. Reeves and Starmer should go too. And with them this wretched Labour Government. https://t.co/f8QBpcLBVC
— Robert Jenrick (@RobertJenrick) June 11, 2026
I don’t want to overstate the case: Britain has raised its defense spending to 2.5% of GDP, while Healey’s principal concern is that it is not slated to rise significantly in the next few years. The U.S., for comparison, spends around 3.3% of our (much larger) GDP on defense.
With hindsight, it is remarkable that Donald Trump was the first major American politician to raise the issue of Europe’s contribution to its own defense. Almost immediately after Trump began saying that the Europeans needed to contribute more, they agreed that he was right. And they did, in fact, to varying degrees, increase their commitments to military security.
They have raised their spending on defense, but how effective their militaries will be in the event of a Russian onslaught is another question. America is powerful not just because we spend a lot of money of defense, but because we have a strong military tradition and a critical mass of young men who are willing to fight. In the end, those elements mean more than entries on a balance sheet.
That said, I don’t think Russia is likely to invade anyone other than Ukraine in the foreseeable future. Hats off to the Ukrainians: thanks to them, the Russians have their hands full, and thanks largely to U.S. production of oil and gas, their economy is in shambles. But to the extent that European countries are willing to revive their military traditions and take primary responsibility for defending themselves, it can only be a good thing.
And who knows? Their concerns about the possibility of a Russian invasion are based on their own intelligence, and may turn out to be well-grounded.
