On 7th and 8th July, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) held its annual summit, hosted this year in Ankara. Notable pronouncements included commitments to collective defence; the creation of the Defence, Security, and Resilience Bank (DSRB), led by Canada; pledges to increase defence investment and expand defence industrial capabilities; and support for Ukraine against Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Within the alliance, the United States (US) under President Donald Trump is continuing to signal a reduction in military presence across Europe to focus on the Indo-Pacific and Western Hemisphere, with the expectation that European allies will assume a greater share of the defence burden. Being one of European NATO’s two largest defence spenders, the United Kingdom (UK) is ideally positioned to lead in doing so. As such, for this week’s Big Ask, we asked eight experts: How can Britain construct a European pillar within NATO?
Hugo Barker
Chief of Staff, Defence, Security, and Resilience Bank (DSRB) Development Group, and Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy
Ankara showed that the question for European rearmament has moved from intent to delivery. European allies and Canada added more than US$139 billion (£103.6 billion) to core defence budgets last year. What European nations still lack is the architecture to turn that spending into sustained capability.
Europe has multilateral banks for reconstruction, development, and infrastructure, but none for defence. As argued in Project Syndicate this month, higher spending alone will not deliver capability: NATO needs a defence market built on sovereign-backed finance that lowers the cost of industrial expansion and crowds in private capital.
That is what the DSRB is designed to create. At the summit itself, nine nations led by Canada signed a joint declaration supporting its establishment. The UK was not among them. It should be.
The debate in London is live: Rachel Reeves, Chancellor of the Exchequer, called during summit week for the DSRB and Britain’s own Multilateral Defence Mechanism to merge, even as ministers told Parliament that the two do different things. Either way, the UK can only shape the outcome from inside.
With a new Prime Minister imminent, joining the DSRB as a founding member would be an early, concrete signal of intent, and one that fits the incoming administration’s agenda: defence-industrial finance flows to the regions where Britain builds ships, submarines, and munitions – exactly where a government promising industrial renewal must deliver.
A European pillar built on budget lines alone will not last. One built on a durable market and durable institutions will. The UK should help to build both.
Political Adviser to the Commander, NATO MARCOM, and International Fellow, Council on Geostrategy
The European pillar of NATO is not Britain’s to construct alone. The UK would not even be the central actor, but it would be a critical one, along with France and Germany.
Why? First, as so many say, the land matters most, and the vast bulk of European territory threatened by Russia is not British. That will always place the centre of gravity on the continent’s mainland. The UK’s army and navy have downsized to the point that the country can no longer leverage the outsized role it had in the Cold War or even the post-Cold War era.
That said, an effective European pillar of NATO – one that could deliver the conventional defence of Europe – is not possible without Britain as a key participant. The UK can leverage its nuclear deterrent commitment to the alliance, along with new nuclear arrangements with France, to bolster Europe’s own nuclear umbrella. Britain leads in technology, avionics, space, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and quantum capabilities, and can play an enabling role for European defence. The City of London can help to finance that defence. The Royal Navy and Royal Air Force (RAF) continue to play irreplicable roles in the security of the North Atlantic, while the British Army’s Enhanced Vigilance Activities (EVA) deployment in Estonia has an important deterrence role. Leadership of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) is also a useful complement to NATO structures.
Two geopolitical dynamics underpin such a role for the UK. Firstly, that London keeps Washington onboard. Secondly, and in tension with the first to a degree, is to deepen economic and political ties with continental NATO and the European Union (EU), the underpinning of defence solidarity. The Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) is an excellent example. Other cooperative defence initiatives should follow.
*This response is written in a personal capacity, and does not necessarily reflect any official national views, nor those of NATO.
Professor of Geopolitics and Faculty Dean, Middlesex University London, and Honorary Fellow, Council on Geostrategy
Britain’s strategic position has shifted in the Trump era. Recognising implicitly that the US is a volatile security partner, His Majesty’s (HM) Government has pivoted towards Norway and other JEF members, Finland, and Poland. Additionally, Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine has decisively shaped the European security landscape.
A European pillar within NATO allows the UK (and potential JEF members such as Canada) to showcase how NATO and EU/broader European priorities can and should be aligned. It foregrounds collective responsibility for continental security, and responds directly to Trump’s complaints that alliance members are ‘not doing enough’, as he told participants at the Ankara summit. Finally, it highlights the importance of aligning EU-level initiatives such as the European Defence Fund with a NATO-first mindset. All of this requires a cross-party political consensus in Britain – and elsewhere in Europe – regarding defence investment, political leadership, and NATO-European complementarity.
The UK should help to support and clarify a division of labour. NATO must remain the primary collective defence organisation, and the EU should focus on developing a defence industrial policy and investment package that responds to NATO’s operational requirements. European capacity building in toto signals to Washington that the continent is taking its responsibility for its own security seriously. The US turning away from NATO would be a disaster for Britain and European allies.
A European pillar would help to make those collective European defence efforts more coherent and signal to America, both now and in a post-Trump era, that burden sharing is mutually beneficial. While Trump will continue to amplify grievances and demands, including purchasing Greenland, the best response from Europeans is to demonstrate determination to buttress a NATO-first posture. The harsh reality remains; Russia is an ongoing threat to the UK and its European allies.
Artur Honich
Senior Defence Analyst, RAND Europe
In June, the Pentagon announced a six-month review of American military posture and basing in Europe. As the US clarifies its future footprint, burden shifting should produce ‘a stronger Europe in a stronger NATO’ (as set out in the Ankara Summit Declaration), rather than a stronger Europe in a weaker NATO.
British leadership will be important across several areas as European NATO members prepare to assume primary responsibility for the alliance’s conventional defence and deterrence. The first element of this is to implement the capability targets apportioned to the UK and deliver a fully deployable and enabled Strategic Reserve Corps.
Second, Britain’s investment in airpower, the development of ballistic and cruise missile capabilities in the 300-2,000+ kilometre (km) range, and its return to NATO’s nuclear sharing arrangements will provide significant opportunities to strengthen deterrence and develop new concepts for escalation management.
Third, the UK should further increase its role in planning and executing exercises within NATO and complementary multinational frameworks such as the JEF. If burden shifting leads to reduced American participation, European allies will need to sustain exercise patterns that signal credible deterrence by visibly demonstrating the capacity for high-intensity warfighting.
Fourth, Britain should further strengthen its representation in NATO’s command structure, leveraging the deep experience of its officers in defence planning, doctrine development, and operations.
Finally, the UK must overcome fiscal pressures to meet the agreed 3.5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) defence spending target by 2035. This would require an additional £25 billion every year by that date beyond the commitments made in the Defence Investment Plan. Without a credible roadmap towards this, important capability areas and allies’ confidence in British leadership could be put at risk.
Project Manager and Researcher, Ax:son Johnson Institute, and Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy
As the host of maritime command architecture, the UK occupies a credible position as the organiser of a European pillar within NATO that holds a focus on maritime security. The alliance’s Maritime Command (MARCOM) and the JEF Standing Joint Force Headquarters both sit at Northwood, meaning maritime planning and European coalition building in Britain is well practised. Geography offers other strengths: the UK, as host to His Majesty’s Naval Base (HMNB) Clyde, the closest submarine base to the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) gap, and Devonport, Western Europe’s largest naval base, can commit assets in days rather than weeks.
The JEF’s members already coordinate on the same threats that a maritime pillar would need to address: Russian activity in the GIUK gap, undersea cable and pipeline security, and the Kremlin’s ‘shadow fleet’. Britain’s leadership of NATO’s Standing Naval Maritime Group 1, and the recently selected command of Joint Force Command Norfolk, only boosts its institutional strength within this pillar.
The strategic importance of a maritime European pillar is interesting. Such a pillar allows the UK to demonstrate real European leadership as the US reorients its threat assessment toward the Indo-Pacific, while not displacing American capability elsewhere. While a European land forces pillar could be seen as duplication, a maritime pillar becomes complementary – a response to the ‘burden shifting’ that Washington demands. It reflects an alliance-wide paucity of maritime resources, such as in escort fleets, which necessitates pooling and burden sharing.
A British-led European pillar in NATO, coordinating maritime security in the North Atlantic, Baltic, and Mediterranean (all Eurocentric security concerns), is a plausible and useful model for strategists to consider.
James Langan
Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy
The UK is well placed to lead the development of a stronger European pillar within NATO by leveraging its position at the centre of several NATO-adjacent minilateral and multilateral frameworks, most notably the JEF. Comprising ten Northern European nations, the JEF provides a ready-made mechanism for coordinating regional deterrence, enhancing interoperability, and responding rapidly to emerging security challenges across the High North and Baltic regions.
Historically, Britain has been most successful when acting as the balancer of European security. The enduring foundations of the UK’s grand strategy rested on three principles: securing Europe’s sea lines of communication, safeguarding commercial trade, and building flexible coalitions of smaller states capable of resisting aspiring hegemons. This approach enabled Britain to aggregate collective power while avoiding unsustainable continental commitments. It also helped to sustain a favourable European balance of power that endures today, despite the UK lacking many of the conventional foundations of great power status – most notably a large standing army.
A contemporary European pillar within NATO should therefore be built around British convening power rather than British primacy. By strengthening the JEF, deepening defence cooperation with Nordic and Baltic allies, and integrating complementary initiatives such as the Combined Joint Expeditionary Force and Weimar+, the UK can help to aggregate European military capabilities within a coherent strategic framework.
In doing so, it would reinforce the alliance’s collective deterrence, promote more equitable burden sharing, and reduce European dependence on direct American military engagement, thereby strengthening the resilience and credibility of the Euro-Atlantic security architecture.
Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy
Greater Europeanisation of NATO is an urgent requirement as the US becomes a more structurally unreliable ally with diverging priorities.
Britain has already proved successful in establishing an American-free European framework in the JEF, now a notable ‘pillar’ of Northern European security. This puts it in a good position to encourage the Europeanisation of NATO itself. Both within and without the alliance and the JEF, the UK should prioritise exercises with European allies to improve interoperability, ideally in contexts where US support is absent or not guaranteed.
Britain should also reduce its reliance on American weaponry and technology and replace them with European alternatives. This includes continuing to strengthen defence industrial ties both bilaterally with European nations and with the EU.
However, the UK’s influence will be constrained if it does not adequately resource its defences and show actual leadership on broadening military capacity. Britain currently holds significant structural power within NATO, but this is not guaranteed to continue. The customary holding of the Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe (DSACEUR) posting may not be tenable in the future, especially considering the growing power and strategic importance of Germany and Poland. Likewise, the UK’s leadership of MARCOM may also be questioned if the Royal Navy’s readiness cannot be improved.
British power – soft and hard – continues to decline due to the unwillingness to resource either defence or broader foreign policy commitments, and to make bold strategic choices. If the UK wants to remain influential in NATO, it will have to start putting its money where its mouth is.
Co-President (Research), Council on Geostrategy
To construct a credible European pillar within NATO, Britain must establish itself as the centre of gravity – a strategic hub around which other European allies can rotate. To avoid duplicating capabilities though, HM Government should focus resources on two essential lines of effort.
First, the UK should enhance its high-end conventional capabilities. This involves co-investing with France in critical enablers, such as strategic lift, air-to-air refuelling, and force projection platforms – including deep strike, orbital systems, and the New Hybrid Navy – to allow European forces to deploy power without the US. Simultaneously, Britain should work with Germany and Poland to build up a robust conventional deterrent on the alliance’s eastern front. From Finland to Bulgaria, the UK should forward-deploy around 300 troops to each ally, backed by force multipliers such as autonomous combat systems, to signal its geopolitical intent and compound the extension of its nuclear deterrent.
Second, Britain should re-establish a sub-strategic nuclear capability. Currently, the Royal Navy’s Continuous At-Sea Deterrent (CASD) offers only a strategic, all-or-nothing response. Reintroducing a lower-yield option would fill a critical escalatory gap, which is vital for addressing Russian non-strategic nuclear coercion. This sovereign capability would reassure eastern allies and provide NATO with flexible response options to the Kremlin’s provocation.
Ultimately, a European pillar cannot be built on institutional frameworks or political rhetoric; it demands a militarily capable core. By binding together key regional powers and restoring a full spectrum of deterrence, the UK can secure its continent and draw European allies into its defence industrial ecosystem – with all the positive implications this would have for the British economy.
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Withdraw from both, with extreme prejudice