Nato cannot defend Europe from Russia without the US, warn alliance’s frontline leaders

Nato is “not ready” to fight against Vladimir Putin’s Russia without the US, the leaders of the alliance’s three frontline states have told The Independent, as they called on allies to drastically increase defence spending.

In the wake of Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election, the leaders of Latvia, Estonia and Finland have urged the alliance to stop “endlessly debating” how to cope with the looming threat of Russia, saying it is time to bolster Europe’s defences.

“We are not ready. That’s absolutely clear,” says Latvia president Edgars Rinkevics. “We can’t keep simply hoping for a situation where the US remains much involved in Europe.”

“We have to ramp up our defence capabilities,” Estonian prime minister Kristen Michal adds, “because of Russia’s threat, and its inability to be a democracy and operate in a rule-based world”.

The three countries are the only Nato members that border Russia, a frontier that runs for 1,200 miles from the northern tip of Finland down to the southeastern corner of Latvia, which also borders Belarus, a vassal state of Mr Putin that was used by Moscow as a staging post in the invasion of Ukraine.

Finland, Estonia and Latvia are also among Nato’s biggest spenders on defence relative to their gross domestic product (GDP).

Nato requires its member states to spend at least 2 per cent of its GDP on defence, but before this year only a third of countries were fulfilling this. That figure has risen to two thirds of Nato members but experts still caution that spending is too low. Russia is projected to spend 6.3 per cent of its GDP on defence by the first quarter of 2025.

Estonia spends 3.4 per cent of its GDP on defence, which is the second-highest in the alliance behind Poland. Latvia spends 3.15 per cent, making it the fourth-largest spender behind the US, and Finland spends just over 2.4 per cent.

The UK is ninth, spending 2.3 per cent, with the Labour government pledging to increase that to 2.5 per cent. But this figure belies the fact that the UK’s defence spending relative to GDP has remained relatively flat since 2014. Estonia, Finland and Latvia have all roughly doubled their spending in that time.

When Finland, alongside Sweden, applied to join Nato in May 2022, ending decades of neutrality, it was hailed as a significant boost to the alliance’s military capabilities. Their accession a year later more than doubled Nato’s border with Russia.

Finland’s military is one of Europe’s largest, including 280,000 troops that “can be mobilised and armed to the teeth in a week”, says president Alexander Stubb. Nearly a fifth of its 5.5 million residents have military training owing to the country’s national service programme.

The country has recently undergone rapid military growth, underscoring its concern over the threat posed by Mr Putin’s Russia. The amount Helsinki spends on defence each year relative to GDP has increased by nearly 0.9 per cent since 2022.

As Russian forces began their full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Finland also finalised its largest military-spending commitment, buying 64 F-35A fighter jets at an estimated cost of £7.5 billion.

Speaking about Finland’s most recent military purchases, as well as the growth of its forces, Mr Stubb says: “We don’t have this because we’re worried about Stockholm or London. We have this because we’re worried about Moscow.”

The need for Europe to increase its investment in defence predates the re-election of Mr Trump, but the return of the Republican billionaire to the White House has brought into sharp relief the poorly armed state of many of Europe’s Nato members, particularly in the western half of the continent.

At the start of 2024, the soon-to-be 47th US president said he would encourage Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to Nato members who do not pay their fair share into the Western military alliance.

That drew criticism for undermining Nato’s Article 5, which states that an attack on one is an attack on all, but Mr Stubb praised what he described as “pressure” from Mr Trump, though he urged the alliance to focus “more on capabilities rather than expenditure”.

“Everyone needs to correct their defence deficit,” he says, adding that Europe should compensate for the Cold War mentality of downgrading military capabilities. On the issue of future US involvement in the alliance, he says: “I don’t think that we can have Nato without the United States.”

Mr Rinkevics says there are discussions in progress about raising the minimum mandated spending level of Nato members to 2.5 per cent.

During a meeting of European leaders in the Estonian capital Tallinn in December, the country’s defence minister Hanno Pevkur argued Nato member states should be spending as much as five per cent.

While none of the European leaders said they believed Mr Trump would pull out of Nato, his long-held scepticism of the alliance notwithstanding, concerns prevail that the US, particularly under the incoming president, will eventually look to shift attention to China and the Indo-Pacific, including the defence of Taiwan.

“Their number one nemesis or competitor is China,” says Mr Stubb, though he adds that he believes Mr Trump nevertheless understands the importance of alliances in combating Beijing, too.

Experts have also pointed out that should the US shift its resources and focus too quickly to the Indo-Pacific without affording Europe time to become more independent, they could be dragged back into European security issues at a much greater expense.

“I think it’s in the vested interest of the United States to stay engaged [in Europe],” Mr Stubb says. “In any case, I believe that values-based alliances last much longer than interest-based alliances.”

Underlying Europe’s need to spend more on defence is its support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia. Aside from questioning US support in Nato, Mr Trump has also vowed to put an end to the prevailing Western philosophy of backing Kyiv until they push Russia completely out of Ukraine.

He has said the killing on both sides must end immediately, and that he will secure an end to the war within 24 hours of assuming office. Many fear this will involve forcing Ukraine to cede some of its currently occupied territory to Russia.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has admitted that Ukraine’s military currently lacks the strength to retake its territory under Russian control, which includes four regions in the east and south of the country, as well as the Crimean peninsula on the Black Sea.

But Europe’s frontline countries remain adamant that Putin must not be rewarded for his invasion and that the safety of the continent relies on Ukraine’s success.

“To be very frank, when Russia is fighting with Ukraine and Russia is defeated in Ukraine, there is no need to ask who is next,” says Mr Michal. “If we allow Russia as a regime, as a thug, as a bully, to take something by force, and after that, we say, yes, let’s agree that half of what is taken is theirs, then that would be a very bad message for the future of the democratic world.”

But the inability of Europe to protect itself, particularly without the US, only emphasises its difficulty in continuing to support Ukraine militarily.

When Mr Zelensky said Ukraine lacked the ability to retake Russian-occupied territory, it was significant that he suggested “diplomatic pressure” was the only way to ensure Mr Putin was not rewarded for his land grab.

During a meeting in Brussels last week, Mr Zelensky added that it was “impossible” to speak of a successful end to the fighting if Ukraine received only European security guarantees. Only guarantees with US backing could be sufficient to prevent future Russian attacks, he said.

“We are training Ukrainians together with Estonians and Finns, but at this point, the capacity is not enough,” admits Mr Rinkevics.

“I would say that currently one of the issues is not only that many nations are not ready to provide Ukraine with arms, it’s the defence industry that is not able to produce at the necessary level. We can provide Ukraine with what we can, but in many cases, we are already at the edge of what we have.”

A UK government spokesperson said: “Nato is the most successful defensive alliance in history and has made the one billion people under its umbrella area, including the UK, safer and more secure.

“We already spend 2.3 per cent of our GDP on defence, and have committed to increasing to 2.5 per cent as soon as possible.

“Our commitment to Ukraine remains ironclad, and we will deliver £3bn a year in military aid to them for as long as it is needed.”