American Dependence Is a Myth — the EU Does Not Need the U.S.
- john raymond
- Sep 19
- 5 min read
Thesis — The myth that the European Union and loyal NATO members are irretrievably dependent on the United States for defense is false in both principle and arithmetic. With coherent political will, accelerated spending, and properly aligned logistics, a coalition of European NATO states plus Ukraine can impose costs on Russia that make aggression strategically untenable.
Recent Russian probes into NATO airspace are not proof of European weakness but tests that should produce the opposite response: accelerated unity, reinforced Eastern-flank posture, and resolute collective signaling.
Evidence assembled to date shows the capability gap is bridgeable; the strategic problem is coalition will and industrial mobilization, not an insuperable lack of means.
Evidence — Recent incidents and policy moves underline both the threat and the remedy. On 19 September 2025 three Russian MiG-31s violated Estonian airspace for twelve minutes; NATO fighters intercepted the aircraft and Tallinn invoked Article 4 consultations. The episode is widely reported as an “unprecedentedly brazen” test of alliance resolve.
At the alliance level, NATO has launched a dedicated posture enhancement called “Eastern Sentry” to bolster the eastern flank and intercept probes and drones—an explicit organizational response that shows the alliance can move quickly when members align.
On the material side, independent policy institutes and defense think tanks have produced sober estimates of what it takes for Europe to be militarily self-sufficient in the face of a major Russian threat.
Bruegel’s modeling for example suggests that replacing the equivalent combat capacity of large U.S. ground formations would demand an increase on the order of tens of brigades and focused investment in mechanized and armored capabilities; the IISS and other authoritative studies map out the industrial and logistical scaling required and conclude the costs are large but technically and economically feasible if sustained political commitment is applied.
NATO leaders in 2025 have already committed to sharply higher defense-spending targets to close capability gaps, and new capability targets and industrial initiatives are explicitly aimed at making the alliance more resilient and less U.S.-dependent.
Analysis — Apply the Raymond Method (Pillar One: Regime Security; Pillar Two: Asymmetric Warfare; Pillar Three: Byzantine Traitor-General) to see why the arithmetic favors Europe when political incentives are aligned.
Pillar One (Regime Security). Russia’s probes—airspace breaches, drone incursions—are not primarily tactical attempts to seize territory but signaling intended to sow doubt among allies and to test whether defections or hesitation can be exploited.
When NATO members treat these signals as decisive inputs and respond with fragmentation, Putin’s regime gains asymmetric political leverage. When they treat them as provocation vectors to produce greater unity, the tactic collapses.
The Estonian breach therefore becomes a political inflection point: it either hardens alliance integration or it hands Russia a strategic dividend. The immediate NATO interception and Article 4 consultations are the correct political choice because they deny the Kremlin the bargaining leverage it seeks.
Pillar Two (Asymmetric Warfare). Russia’s strengths are asymmetric — local mass, tactical escalation, and coercive signaling — while European strengths are cumulative economics, logistics, industrial base, and the ability to marshal long-term mobilization.
Asymmetric probes are cheap for Russia but politically costly if met by credible, coordinated deterrence that neutralizes the signaling value. The math is straightforward: Europe’s population, GDP, and industrial base far exceed Russia’s. The immediate deficit is not physical potential but the speed of conversion: procurement, munitions production, reserve mobilization, and integrated C4ISR.
Think-tank modeling shows that building the equivalent of U.S. expeditionary heavy forces would require substantial but finite increases in brigades and capacity—a task of industrial mobilization, not of miracle technology. With the 2025 NATO spending commitments and industrial initiatives, Europe is already explicitly narrowing that gap.
Pillar Three (Byzantine Traitor-General/minimax corollaries). The strategic risk is not only conventional Russian force but political defection — leadership or policy choices that undercut coalition response.
The classical prisoner’s dilemma facing NATO members (defect for short-term national comfort vs cooperate for long-term security) becomes resolvable when: (a) the loss from defection is made credible and immediate through collective measures, and (b) the benefits of cooperation are concretely lowered-friction (shared logistics, pooled procurement, common targeting, pre-positioned stockpiles).
The Eastern Sentry model is a step in precisely this direction: it operationalizes collective response at lower political cost for individual states, making cooperation the strictly dominant strategy in the minimax sense.
In short, the “math” is not heroic: convert economic mass into military sustainment, align political incentives so that defection is costly, and use targeted posture (air policing, integrated air defenses, maritime interdiction) to neutralize asymmetric probes. This is feasible because Europe already has the underlying resources; it lacks only the accelerated political will and industrial scaling.
Implications — Strategic prescriptions follow directly.
First, treat every Russian probe as a political test to be failed for Russia. Intercept, document, and escalate diplomatically while simultaneously increasing visible posture (air policing, air defenses, pre-positioned munitions) so the probe’s signaling value is nullified.
Estonia’s Article 4 consultation was correct; escalation should be matched with increased Eastern Sentry forces and explicit industrial pledges.
Second, accelerate the conversion of GDP into defense capacity. The IISS/Bruegel estimates are explicit: meeting the capability shortfall requires a concentrated production and procurement program (armored brigades replacement, artillery and missile production, drones and counter-drone systems, and munitions stockpiles).
Europe must treat these as economic mobilization priorities with multi-year production targets and cross-border industrial coordination. NATO’s 2025 capability pledges move in this direction; they must now be implemented with urgency.
Third, operationalize burden-sharing not as abstract fairness but as minimax insurance. Pooled logistics hubs, common ammunition contracts, shared training rotations, and interoperable command structures lower the marginal political cost of cooperation and raise the immediate cost of defection.
Eastern Sentry is a template for how to institutionalize that posture along the flank; expand it, connect it to a NATO-wide logistics spine, and make its defensive measures fully interoperable with Ukrainian forces where viable.
Fourth, communicate the arithmetic publicly and decisively. The Kremlin’s strategy depends on confusion and doubt; the antidote is clarity. Publicly publish the industrial roadmaps, brigade-by-brigade build plans, and the timelines for munitions stockpiles. Transparency turns Kremlin probes from covert tests into overt failures.
Conclusion — The myth of European dependence on America is strategically useful to Moscow but empirically weak. The problem is not the absence of resources but the absence of concentrated political will to convert resources into wartime capacity quickly.
The correct response to airspace violations and drone probes is not panic or appeasement but exactly what European NATO members are starting to do: intercept, invoke alliance mechanisms, and accelerate Eastern-flank posture and industrial mobilization.
When the alliance does that, the prisoner’s dilemma collapses: cooperation becomes the rational, dominant strategy and Russia’s asymmetric signaling becomes self-defeating.
The math before us is simple; the task, however, is one of political execution.
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