The transatlantic relationship is not cracking under the weight of speeches.
It is cracking under the weight of numbers.
The United States still provides roughly two thirds of NATO’s high-end military capability in Europe. Strategic lift. Air and missile defence. Intelligence. Long-range precision fires. The backbone is American. Balance sheets do not care about feelings.
It bears repeating again: Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine exposed Europe’s “empty cupboards”. Ammunition stocks. Air defence layers. Armoured mass. Production depth. Empty, thin, or painfully slow to refill.
At the same time, Washington is shifting strategic weight to the Indo-Pacific. The 2026 US National Defense Strategy formalises what experts understood a while ago: Europe must carry more of the burden. Article 5 exists. Yet, its credibility depends on capacity.
Europe has begun to respond. ReArm Europe. Rebuilding the European defence industry. €800 billion ambition. SAFE loans. Joint procurement. The direction is correct.
Now the question many seem to want to avoid: If we are about to spend hundreds of billions on defence, under what transatlantic framework are we actually doing it with our American allies?
Yes - the transatlantic relationship is now more complicated than it has been in a long time. Allies have been pressured publicly. The tone has shifted. Some assumptions have been shaken. Maybe some of it was necessary.
But before casting the problem entirely across the Atlantic, we should look at ourselves.
We are announcing €800 billion for defence, and the EU still has no binding industrial partnership with the United States. We have a Security and Defence Dialogue. We have an administrative arrangement with the European Defence Agency (EDA).
Europe has been, in many areas, too slow - no disagreement there, for sure.
Latvia rebuilt its state based on a rules-based international order. Watching it fray is painful - and we are entitled to say so. But belief does not deter aggression. And values without structure are just a good speech.
Power respects structure. We need structure.
Since 2024, the EU has signed Security and Defence Partnerships (SDPs) with eight like-minded countries: Moldova, Norway, Japan, South Korea, North Macedonia, Albania, the United Kingdom and Canada. These structured frameworks cover dialogue, interoperability, PESCO participation and defence-industry cooperation. The EU is now in active negotiations or exploratory talks on SDPs with Australia, India and Ukraine.
With the United States - a partner of incomparably greater military and industrial weight - we have much less.
A dialogue since 2022. An administrative arrangement with the EDA. The architecture that exists for Japan, Canada, Norway, the UK and others should be the floor for what we negotiate with Washington – not the ceiling. That this gap exists at all is an anomaly.
The EU should propose a formal EU–US Security and Defence Partnership Agreement – building on the SDP frameworks we already use with Japan, Canada, Norway, the UK and others, but calibrated to the scale of the transatlantic relationship.
Not a NATO duplicate. Not another declaration. A binding industrial, technological and capability framework.
Russia is not a regional irritant. It is a systemic threat backed directly by Iran, North Korea and enabled by China. It is testing NATO’s deterrence daily.
Deterrence is measured in shell output, production lines and stockpiles that exist before the crisis.
Without a structured EU–US framework, we risk parallel industrial strategies that collide instead of reinforcing. Brussels pushes European preference. Washington applies ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) restrictions. Companies face uncertainty. Joint projects stall. Supply chains fragment.
If we are serious about scaling ammunition production for Ukraine, replenishing NATO stockpiles and securing the eastern flank, we need institutional alignment.
Industrial cooperation with legal clarity. ITAR remains a real barrier to co-production and joint development. A negotiated framework can streamline licensing and technology transfer without undermining legitimate security controls. The EU market has leverage. We should use it.
Defined reciprocity in defence programmes. EU instruments such as the European Defence Fund restrict third-country participation for good reason. A formal agreement would define reciprocal conditions. US entities participate under clear rules. European firms gain structured access to US defence R&D streams. Interoperability is not dependence. It multiplies force.
Export control and standards alignment. Producing together is meaningless if we cannot deploy together. Certification, export control coordination and technical standards must align so that equipment moves across NATO’s theatre at speed. Speed is deterrence.
Permanent strategic consultation. A standing EU–US defence industrial board, anchored to NATO planning, should coordinate capability development, production surges and long-term stockpile rebuilding. €150 billion in SAFE loans must finance scalable production lines. Markets invest where frameworks are durable, and we must make them durable.
“This undermines strategic autonomy.”
No.
Strategic autonomy means the ability to act when necessary - not the exclusion of allies. The European Defence Industrial Strategy aims to strengthen intra-EU procurement and the European industrial base. That objective remains.
What a formal EU–US agreement builds is something else, and deliberately so. Healthy interdependencies. Shared supply chains. Linked R&D pipelines. Industrial stakes that are mutually costly to unwind.
“We should buy European.”
We should increase European production drastically. But we do not yet produce the full spectrum required for high-intensity warfare. Advanced air defence systems, fifth-generation aircraft, critical enablers - US systems remain part of the picture.
The real choice is not Europe versus America. It is fragmented bilateral deals versus a structured framework that secures co-production, technology cooperation and industrial investment inside Europe.
Integration builds European industry.
“US politics is volatile.”
Exactly.
The answer to volatility is not disengagement. It is institutionalisation. Rules outlast personalities. Frameworks outlast administrations.
We do not have to agree with every decision coming out of Washington. We do have to protect our own interests - with our eyes open and our pen ready. For far too long, both sides have been toxically dependent, what we need is healthy interdependencies.
The old security architecture is gone. The US is recalibrating. Europe is rearming.
If Europe wants real strategic autonomy, it needs factories, munitions and integrated supply chains - embedded in healthy interdependencies that make the alliance durable.
A serious Europe builds strength. A serious Europe writes it into law.
That means a formal EU–US Defence Partnership Agreement.
I would love to live in a time when the U.S. buys military equipment from Europe.
