io.

Three years have passed since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russia didn’t really manage to force any regime change – the formerly mostly Russian-speaking Volodymyr Zelensky is more popular than ever – and the goal of denazification that had been echoed for the first six months of the war has disappeared.

With Trump’s electoral victory and the doubts around his Kremlin ties, Europe and Ukraine got a cold shower. The US are now back on track for official amicable relations with Russia, and this created a massive short circuit across the world.

That’s right, those both inside and outside of Europe who thought that the west was just following America’s imperialist venture are now challenged by an ideological conundrum. Many of them could accept dancing to Moscow’s tune to justify their anti-Americanism. Will they accept to dance to Washington’s too?

NATO then

We need to be fair to Trump. In his first term, in his frequent child-like naivety, he pointed out that many NATO countries weren’t paying their share. What he didn’t really realise was that this asymmetry, combined with the divisions within Europe, primarily benefitted the US. Its status of main NATO benefactor granted Washington the informal capability to call the shots.

The perception of NATO varied a lot depending on the geopolitical situation of its members. Countries like Italy or Spain are strong enough not to worry about being attacked by any of their neighbours. France is also a nuclear power but it might call for favours in case of a severe attack to its overseas territories. But Europe isn’t just big, well-positioned countries. There are also places like Poland, Lithuania and Hungary, which border Russia or parts of the “potentially-Russia-aligned” former Soviet Union¹. A crippled Germany no longer being threatening, trouble on the eastern front made joining NATO a no-brainer for many of them. Even Montenegro and North Macedonia joined NATO. This is how non-controversial NATO membership was.

Despite the nonsense being spread by the Kremlin’s useful idiots in Europe, there was no such thing as a NATO invasion, primarily because NATO is a defensive alliance. As above, we can argue about its usefulness in general but NATO membership is what sets Georgia and Ukraine apart from the rest of Russia’s European neighbours. They had no security guarantees from anyone but themselves, and as a result, they got invaded. After all, Russia could have pushed for a regime change in Belarus and Latvia, as Latvia has quite a lot of Russian speakers, proportionally (did you remember that that was one of the official causes of the Special Operation?). This didn’t happen because Belarus is fully aligned with the Russian Federation, and Latvia is a NATO member, protected by Article 5 – an aggression against a member is an aggression against the whole organisation.

The reason it’s useful to point at Belarus in particular is that for some bizarre reason it’s almost acceptable to talk about NATO at the gates of Russia, but it’s not acceptable to talk about the Kremlin at the gates of Europe.

Either way, it is quite ironic that NATO, which formally protected a lot of former eastern bloc countries from potential Russian aggression, had its reputation completely ruined in the west from the only time that article 5 has been activated, in the aftermath of ⁹⁄₁₁.

NATO now

It’s 2025 and with the MAGA crowd wielding supreme power in the US, the “leave NATO” slogan is popular again, in the country one would expect it the least from. That’s right, because the once-revived organisation is now potentially on its death bed. The new American administration has reiterated several times that the US shouldn’t pay for anyone else’s defence anymore².

This is, of course, music to the Kremlin’s ears, and perhaps a small source of panic in places like Poland or Estonia. But overall, Europe still has a big backbone of people who never trusted America, and these people who have felt comfortable opposing the US whilst sitting under the American nuclear umbrella, have now a fresh political choice to make.

That’s right, because a few weeks ago smoking a cigar while saying nice things about Russia could have been seen as an edgy point of view, which many far right parties have profited from. But now that Russia and America are aligned, and Russia’s leadership is openly talking about this or that European country being “defenceless”, it will be hard for any anti-EU party to sound less aligned to the interests of their country, than preaching about more alignment with Russia and with Trump’s America, especially after the trade war started by the new administration.

Those who saw NATO’s rebirth as “not necessarily bad” for “utilitarian” reasons, rather than ideological, as, indeed, NATO coordination did help Ukraine in the middle stage of the war, are now partially rewarded as they can feel that their prior scepticism was right, but they are now divided on what should happen next.

Europe rearms

The reality is that Europe needs defence, one way or another. It needs defence because while America is far enough and (for now) uninterested in aggression³, Russia definitely is, and if article 5 isn’t a good deterrent anymore, there needs to be a new one.

A lot of ideological opposition to rearming was the fact that many European countries (Italy and Germany on top of the list) had become US vassals, when it comes to defence policy. The military bases in those countries, such as Ramstein or Aviano, are seen as leftovers from a long and unjust occupation. Ironically, many of these bases might shut down, or, at the very least, see a huge downsize in US personnel. Most of the Italian left couldn’t have dreamt of a better opportunity in decades. And yet, it’s precisely from those political spheres (in Italy and Germany) that we see most scepticism.

Another common critique is directed at the means. Proponents of an EU army are sceptical about EC-sponsored tax breaks for individual nation states. And rightfully so, as nobody would like to see EU-funds being used, for example, for Viktor Orbán’s new North Korean-style military parade. The problem, though, lies in how the EU still works. On one hand it’s wildly inefficient to have a lot of armies with little coordination. On the other hand, one wouldn’t want to risk a single country’s veto on these matters. Besides, when it comes to defence, not all views are equal, as stakes are wildly different.

There’s also another important detail. We can argue at length whether Russia’s threats are real or not, but “just in case”, in a big city with moderate risk of break-ins, we are better off with armoured doors than without. If the European arsenal of drones and fighter jets – and, as it’s being planned by France and the UK, a European nuclear umbrella – looks scary enough, that is a victory in itself. If it doesn’t look scary, the Kremlin won’t wait for Europe to talk budget and common defence.

In a surprising twist of events, Russia’s threats and American ideological shifts are strengthening European unity, even causing ripples in pro-Kremlin factions, from Orbán’s regime to the Kremlin-funded parties across Europe (France’s RN, Italy’s League, and so on). It remains to be seen whether this will have any consequences in the polls, especially given the recent success of AfD in Germany.

Flawed as it is though, the Rearm Europe initiative has been voted by the European Parliament with a wide majority.

And, flawed as it is, the Walled Garden of Europe will only stay a garden if it’s kept safe.