PARIS — Europeans are “dreaming” if they think the continent can defend itself without the United States, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said in a meeting with members of the European Parliament on Monday, citing the costs of going it alone and the need to build up a nuclear capability.
“If anyone thinks here that the European Union or Europe as a whole can defend itself without the U.S., keep on dreaming,” Rutte said. “You can’t. We can’t. We need each other.”
Rutte’s remarks come as Europe questions whether the U.S. is still a reliable ally following tariff threats by President Donald Trump against NATO allies over Greenland and a national defense strategy prioritizing homeland defense and the Western Hemisphere. Last year’s U.S. National Security Strategy called on Europe to take primary responsibility for its own defense.
The NATO chief prompted pushback from France, the European Union’s only nuclear power, with Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot saying Europeans need to take their own security in hand through a European pillar within NATO.
Several security policy analysts said Europe has no choice, because the U.S. can no longer be trusted to come to its aid.
“No, dear Mark Rutte. Europeans can and must take charge of their own security,” Barrot said in a post on X. “Even the United States agrees. This is the European pillar of NATO.”
European Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius earlier this month called on countries to consider how they would create a European pillar in NATO if the U.S. does shift from Europe, and what would replace the 100,000-strong American standing military force on the continent.
“I would rather say Rutte should stop dreaming that the U.S. is willing to defend Europe and a reliable partner to do so,” said Gesine Weber, a senior researcher at the Center for Security Studies of ETH Zürich, in a post on Bluesky. “My analysis is that Europeans are not dreaming about that, they are assessing how to make it reality because there’s no other option.”
Rutte called a European pillar “a bit of an empty word,” saying it might create a lot of duplication, while countries would have to find the men and women in uniform. “It will be on top of what is happening already, and it will make things more complicated, I think Putin will love it,” Rutte said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“This is absurd,” said Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, in a response to Rutte’s comments on Bluesky. “Europe can certainly deter Russia and defend itself if it’s focused and determined.”
Bergmann said that while “perpetuating a sense of European helplessness may help Rutte bureaucratically,” doing so is wrong, prevents action and is “willfully blind: the U.S. ain’t coming to defend Europe.”
The NATO secretary general’s comments about duplication echo concerns of previous U.S. administrations, which encouraged Europe to spend more on defense, while pushing back on a European pillar that could duplicate NATO capabilities or weaken the alliance’s role.
If Europe wants to go it alone, “forget that you can ever get there with 5%” spending of GDP on defense, the current target for the alliance, according to the NATO secretary general, saying spending would be 10% instead.
“You have to build up your own nuclear capability, that costs billions and billions of euros, in that scenario you would lose the ultimate guarantor of our freedom, which is the U.S. nuclear umbrella,” Rutte said.
French President Emmanuel Macron last year floated the idea of extending France’s nuclear deterrence to cover European partners, and has said he plans to elaborate on an updated nuclear doctrine at the start of this year. Germany’s Vice-Chancellor Lars Klingbeil told Der Spiegel last week he was open to talks with France about extending the nuclear umbrella.
An autonomous European defense without the U.S. or other non-European allies would mean a “drastic increase” of defense budgets, said Theo Francken, Belgium’s Defence Minister, in a post on X. Creating and maintaining a nuclear umbrella would cost hundreds of billions, he said.
Rutte said the U.S. also needs the alliance to stay safe, by keeping the Arctic, Atlantic area and Europe secure. “So the U.S. has every interest in NATO, as much as Canada and the European NATO allies,” the secretary general said.
Not all analysts are convinced.
“The head of NATO can’t say in public that Europe must prepare for a world where the U.S. is no longer there to protect it,” said Noah Barkin, a visiting senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Berlin, in a post on Bluesky. “But it does – as rapidly and determinedly as possible.”
Meanwhile, Rutte said the flow of American military hardware to Ukraine and paid for by NATO allies and partners is “absolutely vital,” with no alternative. He called for flexibility on how the country can spend its €90 billion loan package from the EU, and for the bloc not to be “overly restrictive with buy-EU caveats.”
“Europe is now building its defense industry, that is vital, but it cannot at the moment provide nearly enough of what Ukraine needs to defend itself today, and to deter tomorrow,” Rutte said. “So, as you take this loan forward, please, I encourage you to keep Ukraine’s needs first in focus.”
The secretary general said that if Ukraine can buy equipment from Europe or its own defense industrial base, that’s “fantastic” or “great,” respectively, but that without the flow of weapons from the U.S.," we cannot keep Ukraine in the fight,’ with the Americans providing essential interceptors for air-defense systems.
Rudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He started his career at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.
