The defense ministers of several NATO states, including Germany, Norway, and Poland, have stated that the West needs to prepare for war with Russia. Their warnings are intended to draw attention to three realities: that Europe can no longer depend on the United States, especially if there is a second Trump presidency; that Europe itself remains militarily unprepared; and that Ukraine conceding any territories to Russia will embolden Moscow to confront NATO directly.

Before the 2024 U.S. election campaign, most European officials ignored former President Donald Trump’s idea of making a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin over Ukraine. They also failed to take Trump’s threat to scale down U.S. involvement in NATO seriously. They calculated that saner voices would prevail in a second Trump administration, as they did in the first. However, the blockage of any military assistance to Ukraine by Trump loyalists in Congress is having a sobering effect among U.S. allies.