Not long after Trump took office, I observed that the status of the US as the “indispensable nation” could not be sustained. A year later, the US, considered strictly as a state actor, is already dispensable and has, in fact, been largely dispensed with, by Europe in particular. The standing ovation given to Rubio in Munich recently (made almost unavoidable when his retinue jumped to their feet in Stalinesque fashion) should not obscure the fact that almost no one interpreted it as anything more than a politer restatement of Vance’s tirade a year ago. At that time, Europe needed to keep Trump on-side to prevent a sudden collapse in support for Ukraine and to avoid an all-out trade war.
None of that is particularly relevant now. Europe (include Ukraine) has held Russia to a standstill for a year despite the complete cessation of US military aid. The US is still relevant as an arms exporter and as a patchy supporter of sanctions against Russia, but that’s about it. Trump has turned his attention to his desire to rule the Americas from Nunavut to Tierra del Fuego, as well as returning to the forever wars of the Middle East.
US discussions of European military dependence commonly assume that independence requires the attributes of a superpower: global reach, expeditionary capacity, and a highly centralised state authority. But Europe does not need to replicate a superpower model. It needs only sufficient political cohesion and integrated military capability to deny territorial aggression on its own continent. In that sense, the relevant model is a Greater Switzerland: coordinated and capable enough for credible defence, without aspiring to global hegemony and without transforming itself into a unitary — or even fully federal — state.
Measured against this objective, Europe has already surpassed the US. Ukraine alone has more troops, hardened by years of war, than the US, and Europe as a whole many more. Europe’s armaments industry, much derided in the early years of the war, is now churning out munitions (particularly artillery shells and drones) at a capacity far greater than that of the US. There are gaps, notably in missile defence, but these are being closed quite rapidly.
Against this, arguments for continued dependence on the US commonly focus on logistics, command-and-control, and ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance). These arguments sound impressive, but collapse on closer investigation.
Logistics is the clearest example. Before Trump, analysis of a possible war with Russia assumed a massive lift of US forces to Europe for which only the US had any capacity. But it’s clear that this won’t happen. Europe will have to fend (almost) entirely for itself. The resulting logistics problems are immense, but they all involve land transport within Europe – bridges that can’t support the weight of tanks for example.
In fact, the dependence now goes the other way. The global force projection capacity of the US depend critically on bases in Europe like Rammstein, not to mention the UK-leased Diego Garcia. Until recently, a loss of US access to these bases was unthinkable. But it would be a low-cost path to retaliation in the event of an occupation of Greenland.
The same points apply to command-and-control. The US military is central to NATO and would be crucial in the (now improbable) event of a war between NATO and Russia. But in the actual war between Ukraine/Europe and Russia, it’s irrelevant. At the operational level, Ukraine is in charge of its own military. At the logistical level, it’s increasingly integrated with Europe.
Finally, there is ISR. Most of the work these days is being done by drones, which have made concealment nearly impossible anywhere near the front lines. US military satellites play a role, but it’s less important than it was. The most important US player is not the state but Elon Musk’s Starlink, which is gradually being challenged by European alternatives.
Then there is “intelligence” in the sense of analysis, where the US is arguably worse than useless. The US intelligence system scored a win at the beginning of the war by correctly predicting the Russian invasion, but it was right for the wrong reasons, expecting an easy Russian win. Because of the dominance of superpower thinking, the US has routinely overestimated Russia.
This can be seen in the remorselessly pessimistic reporting of the New York Times, which (not surprisingly) reflects the advice it is getting from US intelligence officials. The NYT first announced the imminent fall of Pokrovsk (a relatively unimportant city in Eastern Ukraine) as a likely consequence of Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk in 2024. The latest announcement, accompanied by a concession that Russian progress had been slower than expected, was a week ago. Perhaps they will be right this time. But anyone who had read consistent NYT reports of Russian advances for the past three years, without checking the map, would have been anticipating T-72s on the Champs-Elysees by now. These reports are clearly guiding the thinking (to describe it kindly) of the Trump Administration, and reflected in the advice given to Ukraine.
That’s the military side of things. As far as dispensing with the US role in global society is concerned, Trump is doing the work himself. USAid has been gutted, with catastrophic consequences . The US just withdrew from dozens of international organisations , and is sowing chaos in others
The big steps here, with respect to the UN, World Bank and IMF, have not yet been taken But even if Trump does not make the first move, the continued location of these institutions in the US can’t be sustained. With the US out of most UN organisations, UN presence in New York is likely to shrink to the provision of a meeting place for the Security Council and General Assembly, and even that role is threatened by travel restrictions. Their buildings can presumably be taken over by Trump’s Board of Peace. A similar process will play out as Trump attempts to direct the lending policies of the World Bank and IMF
The big force for inertia is the idea that Trump will be gone in 2029. That seems increasingly unlikely, but unless Trumpism is completely defeated, the process will continue with the next Republican administration. A complete defeat of Trumpism would require a massive constitutional upheaval in the US, which would entail a need to focus almost entirely on domestic problems.
The US state may already be dispensable, but the same is not true of the US role in technology and finance. Conflict in these areas is only just starting, but will be intense. More soon I hope.