Markus Thiel is a professor of politics and international relations at the Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs and an expert on the European Union, which is the overarching framework in which 27 member states cooperate with each other. He heads FIU’s Jean Monnet Center of Excellence, established in 2001 with support from the European Commission to promote teaching, research and outreach activities relating to the EU.
Thiel recently spoke in a video about the shifting dynamics in the U.S.-EU relationship that are reshaping the global geopolitical order. He discusses Europe’s move to rearm the continent, the future of NATO and nuclear proliferation. A lightly editing transcript follows.
On Europe’s rearmament
Why the Europeans feel it necessary to rearm largely has to do with the Trump administration's handling of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Europeans see, for one, the administration’s mischaracterization of Ukraine as the aggressor in the conflict. Secondly, they see the administration’s cutting off Ukraine temporarily from military support and intelligence sharing. And thirdly, they see the administration’s threatening, indirectly or even directly, to cut off NATO security guarantees, in case of a Russian invasion of Europe more generally, to EU member states that do not pay their expected share of 2% of GDP for defense.
On Europe’s defense budget
The president of the EU commission European Union itself recently came up with a defense package worth up to 800 billion euros. In reality, probably only 150 billion euros will be spent to produce more joint European defense capabilities. That also means buying more European weapons rather than, as in the past, buying more from the Americans. In my own native country, Germany, we had elections at the end of February, and the incoming chancellor pushed a government bill through that allows for up to 400 billion euros in new spending just on Germany’s military. That's on top of a hundred extra billion euros that were committed after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. So, you can really see that the Europeans are gung-ho on rearming given the increased security threats that they see not only, of course, from Putin in the east but, increasingly, because they feel they cannot rely on the U.S.
On NATO’s continued viability
NATO has been declared dead multiple times since the end of the Cold War in 1991, yet NATO really has shown remarkable resilience in not only surviving but actually thriving. In fact, because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, NATO recently gained two members, Sweden and Finland, who used to be neutral countries.
On the possibility of the United States exiting NATO
President Trump will not be able to easily exit NATO because the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in fact, in 2023 pushed a bill through Congress that prohibits the unilateral withdrawal of the U.S. without Congressional approval. So the Europeans and Americans are connected through NATO. But doesn't mean that NATO doesn’t need to change or that NATO will not change.
And, of course, the long-standing U.S. expectation that European countries will pay in a minimum of 2% of their GDP for defense expenditures is already outdated. We heard from the Trump administration of going to 3% - 3.5% and higher, and the Europeans are already increasing defense expenditures, with an increase of some 30% after Ukraine was invaded in 2022. Europeans are now putting in a lot of money. For example, Financial Times analysts have calculated that Germany can spend up to two trillion euros more on defense and infrastructure over the next decades [without harming its own economic growth]. That, by the way, is 2,000 billions, so here we're talking about potentially huge sums. But we will have to see, of course, if the words are being followed with actions and if those actions are actually contributing to a modernized NATO that is sufficiently able to satisfy the U.S., which for the most part now supports NATO financially as well as technology-wise. We will have to see if the Europeans can match that so that NATO remains a bulwark against international aggression against the Western world.
On nuclear proliferation
I don't think the current situation will lead to a major increase in nuclear powers even though there has been such talk. Nuclear weapons, while they are a good deterrent, are really expensive. With new military technologies, including the use of AI, including drones, and so on, I think there's a lot of more weaponry that has a better return on investment.
Of course, the Europeans are afraid that the U.S. may cut off the nuclear security umbrella that it traditionally has provided to Europe. We've seen, for example, that the French government now has taken the step to potentially offer other European countries their nuclear defense should the U.S. withdraw from that.
On a new world order
This all spells out the end of the so-called liberal international order, the postwar, U.S.-built global economic system that was very multilateral, that involved the UN, that involved the Bretton Woods Institutions [the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank], that also had a lot of U.S. engagement internationally. And we've seen that not only through the pressures from non-Western countries such as Russia and China, who would like to become a competitor to the U.S. But we’ve seen it also through the U.S.’s increasing isolationist tendencies under the Trump administration. We seen that the liberal international postwar order that we knew is dead.
The question is, what will come with that. The Europeans are trying to address development aid where USAID has been cut, in terms of global environmental protection where the U.S. has withdrawn from the post-Kyoto treaties, including the Paris Agreement. We see that the Europeans will have big shoes to fill to avoid leaving a vacuum that autocrats across the world could enter.