Dr Liviu Mureșan, President EURODEFENSE Romania, President-in-office 2025 of the EURODEFENSE Network
“At this year’s NATO Summit, Donald Trump won, Ukraine lost, Europe rolled out the red carpet and exposed the total psychological dependency on the US” (RUSSI, 26 June 2025)
This week, at Den Hague, we could say that we have witnessed a “Trump Summit” where NATO and related issues were discussed in some rush. The planet’s most powerful man “arrived, dictated and left”, leaving behind a Europe that is discovering that the distance from the Eastern to the Western coast of the Atlantic is “longer” than the distance from the Eastern coast to Europe. Mark Rutte, who seems to be like a co-president of Europe, and his Security, Defense and Foreign Affairs Minister presented, on behalf of all those present, their praise of Donald Trump.
On this occasion, one could get insights into the real political, security and defense power of Europe, as compared to the United States, as well as glimpses into how it compares to Russia’s and China’s defense capabilities.
These days, the USA have again projected themselves as World Power number 1, politically and militarilly. The United States, with their 43 four-star generals and admirals, leading 1.2 million military, 750 military bases around the world (while during WW2, there were 7 four-star generals for 12 million American military), provide job opportunities for the largest military complex in the world.
When Air Force One took off from the Netherlands, the most powerful and sophisticated US President left behind a strong message: “the cash and carry security”. After decades of comfort, benefiting from defense and security provided by the USA, thanks to the financial contribution of the American tax payers, Europe and European leaders are now waking up to new realities.
It turns out that it is no longer conceivable to get defense and security provided by the US, at little or no cost.
The new Mantra is now 5% .
What will Trump’s NATO agenda bring about for the new European defense and security formula, considering that each additional cent contributed to defense and security will diminish the budget of education, healthcare, social welfare, research, a.o.? How will the future look like with mass demonstrations in the streets and with stronger, vocal opposition in the national parliaments? The politicians will have to be prepared to listen to and take account of their electorate’s concerns, and, at the same time, to develop better response strategies. A prerequisite for the new European defense and security budgets will be a better cooperation among European states, as well as an improved agility of European institutions vis-à-vis foreseeable pressures from US institutional actors.
The next 100 days will, for sure, add new challenges for the international environment: a possible rethinking of EU-China relations on the occasion of the 50th anniversary, the next BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the future Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit, a.o.
The next 100 days will be crucial also for Romania, working on updating its security and defence vision in/for the new “cash and carry security” environment.
Note: This article represents only the author’s point of view.
Thursday, 26 June 2025, EURODEFENSE Romania organised an international webinar (in round-table format) on “The current geopolitical environment and its implications for European security and defense”, with contributions by civil and military experts from 12 countries represented in the international EURODEFENSE Network. Special guests included a group of international experts from McKinsey Romania.
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