What if Europe had to fight tonight – without the Americans?

Introduction

As the possibility of a U.S. withdrawal from NATO increases, Europe faces not just a political crisis but a military emergency.  No longer shielded by American power, it may have to stand alone against a weakened, yet aggressive Russia – forced to fight, whether it is ready or not. What would war in Europe look like without the United States?  Could Europe still find a way to fight on its own terms?  It must – and it can.

Fighting without the tools to win

From British Paratroopers to Poland’s GROM, from Eurofighters to German howitzers, Europe fields some of the finest professional forces and most sophisticated weapon systems; the problem is, they just don’t have enough of them.   It is not that Europeans do not know how to fight.  The problem is, what do they actually have to fight with?  For years, defence budgets and industries have been allowed to wither away. Without the United States, European NATO members face crippling shortfalls in trained personnel, ammunition stocks, and critical military assets.  Although this has already impeded European operations in the past, it would prove fatal in a peer-to-peer conflict. 

Without U.S. stockpiles and equipment depots, Europe would face an immediate logistical challenge from the very outbreak of hostilities.  Ammunition shortages would be catastrophic.  The war in Ukraine has demonstrated that European stockpiles cannot sustain modern, high-intensity combat.  Stocks of artillery shells, precision munitions, and armoured vehicle replacements would be exhausted within weeks, with no immediate means of replenishment. 

Dwindling reserves and slow production

Unlike the United States, which maintains vast prepositioned stockpiles, European nations have allowed their war reserves to dwindle.  Decades of underinvestment and fragmentation across national borders have meant Europe’s defence industries are too slow and unresponsive to meet wartime demand.  Peacetime procurement cycles stretch across years, not weeks.  The very munitions that define NATO’s battlefield superiority – smart bombs, guided rockets, and cruise missiles – are produced too slowly and in far too small quantities.  In a war with Russia, Europe’s current production capacity would be overwhelmed within days.

To make matters worse, Europe lacks the military mobility to move what it currently has to where it is needed.  Equipment losses would mount rapidly without a resilient battlefield repair and maintenance infrastructure.  Damaged tanks, Infantry Fighting Vehicles, and aircraft would be difficult to restore to combat readiness, and many would be lost for the duration of the war.

This is not just a logistical issue; it directly impacts Europe’s ability to dictate the course of the war.  When its reserves run out and production fails to keep pace, Europe will be unable to effectively shape the strategic environment.  Yet, such shaping operations – preparing the battlefield to favour one’s own forces – are essential for modern warfare.  They involve neutralizing enemy air defences, disrupting command-and-control networks, and degrading logistics and reinforcements.  These operations set the conditions for manoeuvre warfare, allowing ground forces to exploit gaps and achieve operational breakthroughs.  Without American air assets and stand-off capabilities, Europe would struggle to achieve air dominance or degrade enemy systems sufficiently to enable rapid and decisive ground manoeuvres. 

The air domain

The inability to gain and maintain control of the air would be felt long before European troops even reached the frontlines.  Russian ISR drones would detect and track their movements, enabling relentless strikes that would force European units to disperse, dig in, and hide.  Without U.S. anti-air capabilities, European forces are vulnerable to threats from Russian glide bombs, Shahed drones, and loitering munitions. Unable to mass for decisive operations, mechanized assaults would become a non-starter.  Frontlines would harden, forcing tanks and infantry fighting vehicles to disperse even further – acting as individual force multipliers rather than combined instruments of manoeuvre. 

 

 

A highly dispersed force – down to the platoon and squad level – means that core tactical tenets would start to break down.  Fire and movement would no longer be mutually enabling components – the effective use of which has been central to Western warfare since the First World War.  With European forces unable to shape the battlefield, to mass for decisive action and to effectively suppress and outmanoeuvre the enemy, the result would be a war of attrition, much like what we see in Ukraine today.  

The Ukrainian way of war is not an option

Some argue that the war in Ukraine offers a glimpse into the future of warfare.  But while it has showcased remarkable battlefield innovation, it remains a war of necessity, not choice – and one that Europe cannot afford to emulate. 

Ukraine has fought with dispersed positions, drone teams, and small-unit tactics – not because they are optimal, but because they are the only available option.  The slow supply of Western equipment has forced it into an attritional fight, where gains are measured in tree lines rather than strategic advances.  This approach has exacted a staggering toll: entire formations lost, offensives stalled, and casualty rates in the tens of thousands.  It is a brutal struggle with no clear path to victory; and as important as they may be, no number of AI-driven drones has solved the fundamental challenge of breaking this bloody deadlock of trench warfare.

2023 – a counteroffensive without air superiority

The failed 2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive revealed the harsh limits of attacking without air dominance, without deep strikes, and without shaping operations – precisely the situation European forces would face if they had to fight Russia alone.  Yet, unlike Ukraine, which spent eight years adapting to Russian tactics along the demarcation line and over three years in all-out war, most European armies lack comparable experience.  They also do not possess Ukraine’s extensive anti-air network, leaving European cities and infrastructure even more vulnerable to Russian missile and drone strikes.  Most critically, if Europe fights without the United States, it will have no external lifeline.  Ammunition shortages will not be offset by foreign aid, depleted stockpiles will not be replenished, and tank battalions will not be resupplied by allies. Europe must be able to sustain itself.

 

 

Furthermore, while Ukrainians have shown enormous resilience, driven by a fight for national survival, it is hard to imagine similar determination across Western Europe.   Few European nations beyond the Baltic countries and Poland have the resolve to endure the kind of high-casualty warfare that would likely follow if Europe had to go to war today.  Public support for any conflict involving mass casualties and prolonged attritional warfare would likely collapse.

To understand what Europe must do now, we must recognize that Ukraine is not fighting this war on its own terms.  This is why it has repeatedly pleaded and begged for more artillery, aircraft, cruise missiles, and combat vehicles.  As critical as innovation and adaptability are in modern warfare, they cannot replace the fundamental need for firepower and manoeuvre.  Thus, while Ukraine has adapted to sustain its fight with domestically built systems, it has not regained the operational capabilities needed for decisive action.

Russia is weaker than we think

The good news is – neither has Russia.  Despite the gains it has made in recent months and the remarkable ‘political will’ – for lack of a better word – to sacrifice hundreds of thousands on the battlefield, the Russian Armed Forces have proven themselves far weaker than most anticipated before 2022.  While they have made tactical adaptations and remain proficient in defensive operations, Russia has paid a steep price.  It has lost large portions of its pre-war force, depleted its Soviet-era stockpiles, and pushed its economy to the limits of its labour force. 

The Russian military has repeatedly failed to conduct basic combined arms manoeuvres or air campaigns and has yet to find a solution to the stalemate other than pressing forward with wave after wave of squad-sized infantry assaults.  For now, Russia remains stuck in Ukraine, and it is highly unlikely that it can simultaneously defeat Kyiv, reconstitute its forces, and open a second front against Eastern Europe.  Where Europe lacks the means to fight the war the way it wants to fight, Russia lacks the systems to conduct it effectively. 

Europe still remembers what stalemates look like

This is the other good news: Europe knows how to avoid a bloody stalemate – because we have been here before: after the First World War, Western militaries adapted their operational and tactical procedures to ensure that it would never again be trapped in the kind of static, attritional warfare that defined the battlefields of Flanders.  The Western Allies, the Wehrmacht, and later NATO did not adopt manoeuvre warfare out of academic preference, but out of the hard-learned necessity to avoid pointless slaughter.  Despite repeated claims by some analysts, it does not mean NATO was incapable of attritional warfare.  Attrition was not abandoned – it was moved away from the frontlines.  Air campaigns and stand-off capabilities such as cruise missiles and long-range rocket artillery were how Western militaries sought to degrade enemy capabilities before their own soldiers ever entered the fight. 

Both these core tenets were validated in Ukraine, as most recaptured territory resulted either from operational breakthroughs – such as the 2022 Kharkiv counteroffensive – or from shaping the environment into untenable conditions, forcing Russian troops to withdraw, as seen in Kherson later that year.  And while the Kursk offensive has been controversial strategically, it shows that the Russian Armed Forces cannot defend in force everywhere – leaving exploitable gaps and opportunities for manoeuvre.

Russia has shown it cannot replicate the systems to conduct complex air campaigns and shaping operations – even in its own backyard.  This is because NATO’s dominance in Multi-Domain Operations has never been just about tanks, stealth aircraft or cruise missiles.  Rather, it came from the integration of systems—command structures, intelligence fusion, and targeting processes – that allowed NATO forces to operate with unmatched precision.  In this, NATO had – and still has – no peer in the world. 

European strength remains a political—not a military—question

Much of this has depended on U.S. assets, technology, and personnel.  Yet Europe possesses both the institutional knowledge and technological expertise to rebuild these capabilities independently in its own area of responsibility.  We know what to do, how to do it and what to do it with.  Large-scale air exercises with European command structures have demonstrated this potential.  Technology, both new and old, an industrial base and financial resources exist to produce, procure, and employ the necessary weapon systems – build, buy and bomb.  This applies to everything from aircraft and drones to cruise missiles, long-range rocket artillery, and other critical capabilities. 

Europe also has a deep well of doctrinal expertise and a large corps of staff and non-commissioned officers capable of leading the necessary expansion of forces.  With a workforce more than twice the size of Russia’s – and larger than that of the United States – Europe has the manpower to sustain and build up its militaries – if it acts now. 

The crisis facing Europe means challenge is formidable.  Nations – some of which may not even believe in the cause – must unite.  Fragmented European defence industries have to move towards a consolidated warpath.  It means convincing entire generations that this is their fight.  It means spending ‘gold for iron’ today to avoid spilling blood for freedom tomorrow.  Finally, it also means reconstituting European forces now, rather than being forced to send untrained conscripts into the meat grinder later.  Europe needs weapons, civilian defence, hardened infrastructure, and a high state of force readiness – on a massive scale. 

Conclusion

Will Europe ever be as powerful as it was with U.S. support?  No, probably not.  That is why one can only hope NATO still has a future – even as we prepare for the worst.   But if Europe acts with determination and unity it can avoid the political and military crisis it currently faces.  It can rebuild the dominant, highly integrated military systems necessary to deter or decisively defeat any Russian aggression.  The challenge, therefore, is not whether Europe can fight effectively without the United States – it can, and it might soon have to.  The real question is whether Europe will invest today, while it still has the choice of how it wants to fight before circumstances dictate the way it has to.

 

Main picture – German Leopard tanks (image courtesy of Free Malaysia Today (FMT) 20 June 2023)