In Europe today, an old strategic dilemma has resurfaced with an urgency unseen since the Cold War. Russia’s war in Ukraine is not merely a contest over territory, nor even a struggle for the future of one state. It has become, above all, a laboratory for deterrence itself. Yet, European capitals face a brutal question: Can credible security guarantees be made without the United States?
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In Europe today, an old strategic dilemma has resurfaced with an urgency unseen since the Cold War. Russia’s war in Ukraine is not merely a contest over territory, nor even a struggle for the future of one state. It has become, above all, a laboratory for deterrence itself. Each shipment of weapons and each declaration of “ironclad” support force European capitals to confront a brutal question: Can credible security guarantees be made without the United States?
For seven decades, this question was largely academic. NATO existed as an American project, underwritten by US nuclear weapons and the certainty of US intervention. Today, that certainty has been shaken. Donald Trump’s return to the White House, coupled with Europe’s lackluster defense investments ever since the end of the Cold War, and Putin’s neo-imperial fantasies, have transformed what was once theoretical into an existential problem. Europeans may soon face the prospect of guaranteeing Ukraine’s security — with or without Washington.
It is already a fierce debate in Brussels, Berlin, Paris, and Warsaw about whether Ukraine should be offered NATO membership, binding all of Europe to defend it. Or should alternative guarantees, which are less formal but still potent, be devised? Should Europeans craft new doctrines — or even new weapons — to compensate for what America may no longer provide? Each option is fraught with peril as it collides with political, military, and psychological constraints.
It is already a fierce debate in Brussels, Berlin, Paris, and Warsaw about whether Ukraine should be offered NATO membership, binding all of Europe to defend it. Or should alternative guarantees, which are less formal but still potent, be devised?
Yet, what unites them all is the recognition that deterrence is not an abstract concept. It is lived in real time as adversaries probe red lines and allies weigh whether to enforce them. However, for Europe, the challenge is no longer hypothetical but an immediate one. Failure would mean not only Ukraine’s defeat but the erosion of European security itself.
This reality was starkly on display in recent days. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen suggested one of the most concrete ideas yet: the deployment of European-led troops to Ukraine, with the United States in a supporting role. Her proposal marked a sharp departure from the paper guarantees of the past, aiming at deterrence through presence rather than promises. However, within hours, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) publicly rejected the notion, warning that Brussels had neither the mandate nor the political consensus to send soldiers into a live war zone. The exchange encapsulated Europe’s dilemma.
Von der Leyen’s vision speaks to the urgency of moving beyond symbolism and putting Europeans directly in harm’s way to make deterrence tangible. Moreover, Pistorius’s rebuttal reflects the limits of fractured institutions and reluctant publics. Between these poles lies the question that will determine Ukraine’s fate — and Europe’s: Can bold proposals translate into credible guarantees before Moscow calls the bluff? That exchange was not just about doctrine but about fault lines within Europe itself, where unity regarding Ukraine often fractures along East–West lines.
After all, Europe’s political unity is complicated by diverging perspectives between Western and Central/Eastern member states. Deep historical memories and regional priorities shape differing attitudes toward confrontation with Russia and burden-sharing. For example, Poland and the Baltics remain stalwart proponents of firm guarantees, while countries like Hungary continue to obstruct EU-level financial and political initiatives, including Ukraine’s accession and broader defense funding. Meanwhile, Franco-German perspectives often emphasize diplomatic caution and cost management — creating friction over bold, risk-laden deterrence measures.
This divide complicates any consensus on deploying troops, whether dual-hatted brigades or shared missile batteries. Eastern states push for tangible, forward-deployed deterrents; Western capitals, constrained by electorates wary of entanglement and budgetary limits, are less enthusiastic. Without mechanisms that reconcile these internal tensions — perhaps through EU-wide financing tools like the Ukraine Support Instrument or joint procurement via Europe‘s Defense Industrial Strategy (EDIS) — the continent’s political divisions risk hampering deployment of truly credible guarantees.
For over a decade, Western policymakers have resorted to, almost ritualistically, the same set of conventional security guarantees for Ukraine. Treaties and memoranda have been the cheapest form of reassurance. They are also the least reliable. Russia has signed dozens of solemn pledges to respect the sovereignty of its neighbors — the Helsinki Accords of 1975, the Paris Charter of 1990, and the Budapest Memorandum of 1994. None prevented the invasions of Georgia in 2008, Crimea in 2014, or the full-scale assault on Ukraine in 2022.
Offering Kyiv another piece of paper would not be a fresh beginning, but a grim parody of history. Ukrainians know better than anyone that Russia signs treaties when it is weak, discards them when it is strong, and treats the exercise as a demonstration of Western naïveté.
Offering Kyiv another piece of paper would not be a fresh beginning, but a grim parody of history. Ukrainians know better than anyone that Russia signs treaties when it is weak, discards them when it is strong, and treats the exercise as a demonstration of Western naïveté
The notion of buffer zones is no less archaic. During the Cold War, the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea was made credible only by the presence of tens of thousands of American troops and the backing of US nuclear weapons. Nothing of that scale is imaginable on the flat, open steppes stretching from Kharkiv to Odesa. Ukraine’s borders are too vast and porous to be secured by a few neutral strips patrolled by international monitors. Nor could any demilitarized line prevent the tools of 21st-century warfare: drones, cyberattacks, sabotage units, or cruise missiles. To propose such an arrangement today is to mistake geography and technology for nostalgia.
Peacekeepers, too, belong to that world of diplomatic illusion. The United Nations, or perhaps the European Union, could dispatch blue helmets to Ukrainian soil. But what would they achieve? In Bosnia during the 1990s, peacekeepers watched helplessly as massacres unfolded around them. Lightly armed contingents serve as witnesses to atrocities, not preventers of them. In Ukraine, they would be even more vulnerable: hostages whose fate would depend entirely on the Kremlin’s goodwill.
All of these proposals share the same defect: they rely not on Western power but on Russian restraint. And Russia has built its modern empire precisely by exploiting such illusions — the notion that agreements, neutral zones, or international monitors can tame a regime that only respects force. If Europe is serious about deterrence, it must move beyond these hollow forms and confront what genuine guarantees would actually require.
But if the familiar menu has failed, what remains is the untried. Europe’s hardest task is to shed decades of strategic passivity and confront choices long avoided. None is easy. Some are politically incendiary, others operationally daunting. But all share a common virtue: they move beyond symbolism toward real deterrence — the kind that forces Moscow to reckon with consequences even in a world where Washington’s reliability can no longer be assumed.
Since 1949, European security rested on a paradox that Washington might risk New York to save Berlin. Today, that paradox is no longer credible. If Trump or a successor proclaims that NATO’s Article 5 is conditional, Europe’s eastern flank becomes exposed. Yet, the continent possesses two nuclear powers: France and the United Kingdom, together fielding roughly 500 nuclear warheads deliverable by submarines and aircraft. However, neither has historically extended its deterrent to the continent. Charles de Gaulle built France’s force de frappe precisely to avoid dependence on others, while Britain has remained tethered to the United States for targeting and systems integration.
The continent possesses two nuclear powers: France and the United Kingdom, together fielding roughly 500 nuclear warheads deliverable by submarines and aircraft. However, neither has historically extended its deterrent to the continent
In the absence of America, a “nuclear umbrella lite” becomes imaginable — and in fact, Paris has already offered Germany protection under its umbrella. Paris and London could thus jointly declare that any Russian nuclear strike on Ukraine — or European forces stationed there — would provoke a nuclear response. Even ambiguity that is deliberately cultivated would matter. During the Cold War, the Soviets often acted not out of certainty about NATO’s response, but out of uncertainty.
However, the obstacles are, needless to say, immense: public opinion in both countries remains wary of nuclear entanglements, and extending deterrence outside NATO would provoke domestic fury. Yet in strategic terms, even a hint of such an umbrella might create hesitation in Moscow. Deterrence, after all, is as much psychological as it is material.
If nuclear guarantees are politically inconceivable, missile defense could offer a more practical alternative. Russia’s most devastating strikes against Ukraine have come not from tanks but from the sky: cruise missiles, ballistic projectiles, and Iranian drones. Protecting Ukraine’s skies would blunt Moscow’s offensive advantage and symbolize Europe’s stake in Kyiv’s survival. A permanent European-run air-defense umbrella could combine German-Israeli Arrow systems, British Sky Sabre, French-Italian SAMP/T batteries, and Patriot units.
Unlike ad hoc donations, this would be a standing shield, financed collectively and handled by the ‘coalition of the willing.’ The analogy is Israel’s Iron Dome — not perfect, not total, but politically transformative. Each intercepted missile demonstrates commitment. Each radar system deployed in Ukraine creates a shared risk because Russian attacks on those sites would involve Europeans directly. Unlike nuclear deterrence, this model is technologically and politically more feasible. It builds on the European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI), originally proposed by Berlin. The challenge is permanence; guarantees require institutionalized deployments, not temporary shipments.
Yet the question is not only whether such systems could be deployed but also whether Europe can actually sustain and scale them.
Europe’s defense posture is already shifting from reliance on stockpiles to ramping up industrial output — though significant bottlenecks remain. For instance, Germany’s Rheinmetall recently inaugurated the continent’s largest ammunition factory in Unterlüß, aiming to boost annual production from 25,000 to 350,000 shells by 2027, contributing to an EU-wide goal of 2 million rounds per year.
Across Europe, arms factories are expanding at triple the peacetime rate, with over 7 million square meters of new facilities and a projected jump from 300,000 to 2 million ammunition rounds annually. Additionally, the EU’s Act in Support of Ammunition Production (ASAP), along with von der Leyen’s broader Readiness 2030 plan, foresees mobilizing up to €800 billion over the coming years to underpin defense infrastructure — ranging from fiscal flexibility and €150 billion in defense loans to private capital mobilization.
Yet, production expansion faces systemic obstacles: shortages of explosive materials and long-range missile components persist. Defense firms could soon warn of absorption capacity constraints — that is, their ability to convert funds into an effective output, which means that proposals like a permanent air-defense umbrella or coastal missile systems are theoretically viable — but only if industrial capacity continues scaling robustly and logistics chains, from transport to maintenance, upgrade in tandem. Without addressing these structural gaps, Europe risks promising more than it can deliver.
Proposals like a permanent air-defense umbrella or coastal missile systems are theoretically viable but only if industrial capacity continues scaling robustly and logistics chains, from transport to maintenance, upgrade in tandem
Ukraine’s future does not depend only on the trenches of the Donbass. Its ports on the Black Sea are lifelines — for grain exports, foreign currency, and the sense that Ukraine remains connected to the world. Russia knows this. Each missile strike on Odesa and every mine drifting into shipping lanes aims to strangle Ukraine’s economy and remind allies that Moscow can still dictate terms at sea. Europe could change that balance. Several member states already possess advanced coastal defense systems like Norway’s Naval Strike Missile, France’s Exocet, Britain’s Sea Ceptor and Italy’s Aster-30. Stationed along Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, such systems would render Russia’s naval intimidation far more costly. But their true power lies not in hardware alone but in the flags painted on the launchers.
A credible guarantee would involve Europeans themselves — Polish, French, or British crews rotating through Ukrainian bases, much like NATO pilots rotating during Baltic air policing. Their presence would mean that any Russian strike on Ukraine’s coast risked killing Europeans. An attack on Odesa would cease to be an attack solely on Ukraine; it would be an attack on Europe, with all the escalatory consequences that it implies.
The model is not unprecedented. Since 2004, NATO has stationed rotating air detachments in the Baltics to ensure their skies are never undefended. In South Korea, American officers man artillery and air-defense systems side by side with their hosts, binding US credibility to the peninsula’s survival. Coastal defense integration in Ukraine would follow the same logic: deterrence through shared risk. Politically, it would be incendiary. The European public would have to accept that their soldiers are not merely training Ukrainians but standing in the line of fire. Russia would denounce it as NATO encroachment — and in a sense, it would be correct. But that is why it could work. Guarantees matter only when they alter Moscow’s cost-benefit calculus.
Perhaps the most creative option would be to integrate select Ukrainian units directly into European command structures. Just as the Franco-German Brigade serves both Paris and Berlin, Ukrainian brigades could be dual-hatted under NATO or EU commands. In practice, this would mean Ukrainian officers reporting to European headquarters, participating in joint exercises, and perhaps wearing two flags on their uniforms. An attack on such a brigade would then be, by definition, an attack on a European structure.
The symbolism would be immense: Ukraine not as a supplicant but as a participant in Europe’s defense. For Moscow, the message would be clear — aggression would no longer be bilateral but multilateral. However, this approach edges toward de facto NATO membership without a treaty. Yet as a form of creative ambiguity, it could prove decisive and powerful. By blurring the line, it complicates Moscow’s planning. And in deterrence, complication is a weapon.
That said, every European guarantee, whether conventional or novel, runs into the same wall: Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats. Whenever Europe edges closer to committing forces, deploying systems, or extending guarantees, Moscow rattles the nuclear saber. State television airs simulations of strikes in London. Officials warn of “unpredictable consequences.” Western leaders, almost invariably, flinch, in part because the general public is largely unaware of the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction — and Putin is keenly aware of it. Yet, this pattern reveals the heart of the deterrence problem: Europe is not paralyzed by Russian tanks, but by Russian theater.
The heart of the deterrence problem: Europe is not paralyzed by Russian tanks, but by Russian theater
Since the 1960s, the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) has kept nuclear peace. No leader, Soviet or American, dared to break the nuclear taboo. Each understood that escalation would mean civilization’s end. Yet, Europe behaves as if MAD does not apply. It accepts Russian threats at face value, as if Moscow were uniquely willing to break the nuclear taboo. The paradox holds: if Putin truly values his survival — and all evidence suggests he does — then he is bound by MAD as surely as his predecessors.
Russia acts as if it controls the escalation ladder. Each time it raises the stakes, Europe retreats. Yet this dominance is illusory, sustained by European timidity. Deterrence functions not because one side can escalate further, but because both sides believe the other might. Credibility rests on visible commitment, not on balance of power. As long as Europeans act more afraid of nuclear war than Moscow, deterrence will fail. As soon as Moscow perceives Europeans may actually respond, deterrence will succeed. MAD remains undefeated. The bigger challenge here is not military, but psychological: Europeans must learn to wield the shadow of nuclear weapons as leverage rather than treating it as a paralyzing curse.
As soon as Moscow perceives Europeans may actually respond, deterrence will succeed. MAD remains undefeated. The bigger challenge here is not military, but psychological
But even if nuclear theater is exposed as a bluff, Europe still faces the harsher arithmetic of politics and budgets. Not all guarantees are equal. Some, like a Franco-British nuclear umbrella, are strategically conceivable but politically remote. Even the more promising options run into the hard limits of political will, fiscal capacity, and social priorities.
Europe’s rearmament drive collides with challenging economic limits: constrained budgets, competing social priorities, and inflationary risks. Defense investments at 3 to 4 percent of GDP would require politically painful reallocation. Without sustainable financing — whether through common borrowing, private capital, or EU funds, many of the boldest ideas risk remaining aspirational.
The most plausible near-term guarantee remains a European air-defense umbrella. It addresses Ukraine’s immediate vulnerability and avoids the nuclear question. Yet this option depends on overcoming deeper obstacles: industrial bottlenecks, fiscal limits, and political rifts between East and West. Unless Europe can scale production, pool financing, and align its governments, even an air shield risks becoming another overpromised gesture.
The real trajectory may not be a single, sweeping guarantee but a patchwork: incremental deployments, partial integration of Ukrainian units, and a gradual buildup of defense industry capacity. Such steps may lack the drama of a treaty or nuclear umbrella, but over time, they could amount to a layered deterrent.
Ultimately, the question is not whether Europe can guarantee Ukraine’s security. It is whether Europe can guarantee its own courage. The war in Ukraine has stripped away illusions. The continent must decide whether it will remain a theater for distant promises or become a guarantor of its own principles — willing to bear the real risk in defense of an embattled neighbor. The answer will shape not only the fate of Ukraine, but the very future of European security in a world where America’s certainty can no longer be taken for granted.
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