NATO’s Future: Enlarged and More European?

FIX: Oh, welcome, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you enjoyed your lunch.

So thank you very much for joining us onsite and for joining us online for this CFR meeting on “NATO’s Future,” of course, on the occasion of the upcoming NATO summit in Washington, D.C. We will have two panels today and we’re going to discuss the likely outcomes of the meetings as far as we already can preview those, and we are also going to discuss how can we future-proof the alliance and will this be a(n) enlarged and a more European NATO in the future.

So I’m more than delighted to have Ambassador Michael Carpenter with me today. He is special assistant to the president and senior director for Europe at the National Security Council. He was also the U.S. ambassador to the OSCE—to the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe—in Vienna, in beautiful Vienna, but at a time—a crucial time for transatlantic unity in the runup and during Russia’s war against Ukraine.

My name is Liana Fix. I’m a fellow for Europe here at the Council. I will be presiding over this event.

Let me remind you that this is not for attribution. And since we only have thirty minutes for this conversation, I will dive right in.

So thanks so much again for joining us, Mike. First, I would be curious to hear from you how was being in Europe at the time during the war different from being now back at the White House in terms of the European perspective there? And also, secondly, how relieved are you that twenty-three NATO members are actually going to show up with 2 percent of defense spending at the NATO summit, especially given that the NATO summit, as we all know, takes place just a few days before the Republican Convention?

CARPENTER: Well, so first of all, in terms of differences, I actually had a life when I was in Vienna—(laughter)—and now I don’t. Some of you in the room probably know from your service in government.

But in all seriousness, the time I spent at the OSCE was a time where we really galvanized our partners—not just our NATO allies, but some of our partners beyond NATO, to include some of the Central Asian countries—to arrive at a common picture of the threat posed principally by Russia. PRC and the associated threats from PRC entities was a little bit slower in crystalizing, but I see that shifting now as well. So just maybe a few seconds on this.

At the OSCE in the runup to the war, when we had the intelligence already that Russia was going to move against Ukraine, we launched something called the European Security Dialogue with our partners in the organization, which many of our allies on the eastern flank especially were reluctant to do. Why engage with Russia in dialogue and diplomacy if you think they’re about to go to war? And our response was: All the more reason why we have to do this, to show that we are extending an offer to engage in diplomacy and to try to leave no stone unturned as the intelligence was coming in on Russian intentions.

And I have to say it was—it was very successful. We proved that Russia had no intention of engaging in diplomacy. We brought some of those reluctant allies onboard to impose costs very quickly after Russia moved. And we really arrived at sort of a common view of the threat posed by Russia, and more importantly what we should do about it collectively. So that was—that was one of the more heartening sort of episodes or periods in my time at OSCE.

Now we see an alliance that I think is fairly united around the Russia threat. A little less so around the PRC, but as I said earlier converging around an understanding that the PRC’s support for the Russian defense industrial base—including, you know, 70 percent of the nitrocellulose that Russia receives from all sources around the world is coming from Beijing, 90 percent of the machine tools, et cetera, et cetera. We’ve been making that point. I think some of our European allies have also been converging around that.

And so in—as we prepare for the summit now in a couple weeks, I think we have—we’re in a good place in terms of the threat perception. We’re in a good place in terms of the response plans and some of the hard-power force that’s being deployed to deter and defend. We’re in a reasonably good place on Ukraine; still some different opinions around what membership looks like and when. But I think we’re fairly united.

And then lastly, to your point on the burden-sharing piece, when President Biden took office we had nine allies at 2 percent. Now we’ve got twenty-three, or will have at the time of the summit. So that is a tremendous turnaround. And we see that momentum, I think, continuing into the next twelve, eighteen months as a number of allies have plans in place to get to 2 percent in the near future.

So we can’t let up. It’s vital that our European partners have an equal stake, if not a greater stake, in what’s happening on their continent, but of course we’ll be heavily invested as well.

FIX: Mmm hmm. It’s good to hear that that was useful in the OSCE because the OSCE is, obviously, questioned right now: Is it useful at all? So that’s a good success story to hear.

Just because you mentioned China, do you think the response of the Europeans to China’s basically escalating support for Russia is sufficient? I mean, we’ve seen Scholz travel to Beijing, the German chancellor; we see Macron welcoming Xi Jinping; and all issuing warnings but without saying what will happen if China doesn’t follow these warnings. So what would you like to see more there? And as a quick second follow-up, should the Europeans prepare for 2.5, 3 percent? How much do you want?

CARPENTER: Well, I think we clearly have to raise the amount of spending given the threat profile that’s out there. So whether it’s 2.5 or 3 (percent)—I mean, I think right now if you tried to put a number on it I think there would be a lot of discontented allies. We need to continue to push. There’s some allies like Poland, Greece, Turkey that are spending a lot more than 2 percent, up to 3-4 percent; and others that, you know, still fail to meet the 2 percent threshold. So I think we continue to press, but I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t put a figure on it right now.

In terms of PRC, so a couple things. I mean, on overcapacity, that’s one set of issues. You’ve seen the EU take action. I think they take this very seriously. We certainly do, and we need to continue to remain aligned on this.

They also understand very clearly what I said earlier about the Chinese support for the Russian defense industrial base. The question is: How tough will the message be? When the message is delivered to Xi Jinping or any other Chinese interlocutor, then comes the question of: If you keep doing this, there will be, dot-dot-dot, what? What is going to be the consequence for this behavior?

And that’s where, you know, I think it’s pretty clear that a lot of our European allies have close relationships economically with the PRC, want to maintain that market access. I mean, German autos do very well in China, but a number of other countries sell significantly to the PRC market. And so that’s where we need to make sure that we’re really aligned on delivering a message that this cannot continue. Because it’s not just that this buildup of Russia’s defense industry is being used to allow Putin to subjugate Ukraine; it’s creating a base that will then for decades threaten European security writ large from the Baltics down through the Black Sea and beyond. And you look at some of the novel systems that the Russians are fielding, and it’s thanks to this. It’s thanks to Chinese support that they’re able to field these new systems.

So we really have to continue to work at this. I think we have seen the messaging get a lot tougher, but I’m not satisfied that right now Beijing truly understands the consequences of continuing down that path. I think we have to message more aggressively, harder, and with a broader array of partners delivering the same talking points.

FIX: Mmm hmm. So that’s where European—

CARPENTER: It’s a classic collective action problem. I mean, if—you understand the problem, but does your country want to be the one that delivers that tough message to Xi Jinping?

FIX: Sure. Just my colleagues have been kind enough to pass me a note. I’m so used to saying that the meetings at CFR are off the record that I apparently misspoke. So this is on the record. So whatever you were going to add on—

CARPENTER: Uh-oh. I better—I better watch out.

FIX: —now it’s too late. (Laughs.)

CARPENTER: All right.

FIX: Just to clarify, I misspoke. This is, obviously, on the record—on the record, this meeting.

Let’s talk about Ukraine’s membership perspective and its path towards NATO, and you mentioned this already. So there are going to be—and sort of the deliverable that we have at NATO. So, first of all, can you a little bit clarify NATO’s sort of greater role in supporting Ukraine? I mean, there’s a lot floating around, right—NATO mission, NATO leading the Ramstein Group, 40 billion, a hundred billion. And do we have—sort of have all concerns about a greater role for NATO disappeared? Is it all about sort of Trump-proofing Ukraine support by bringing it under the NATO umbrella?

And then, also, so we just had a trip to Europe, and you hear from many European capitals that they would like to see at the NATO summit a Vilnius-plus, a Vilnius-plus-plus, or a Vilnius-plus-plus-plus.

CARPENTER: Yeah.

FIX: And many of those allies, apart from Berlin, perhaps, here say that it is actually Washington and Berlin that are not pushing hard enough, are sort of most reluctant on giving that plus-plus-plus, which is sort of short of an invitation but something stronger, and that the United States wants unity at all costs, let’s not repeat Vilnius Summit rift, otherwise we will play into Putin’s and Trump’s hands. What would be your response to that?

CARPENTER: So we all want unity. I mean, I think that’s clear. The only countries that benefit from disunity in the alliance are Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, et cetera. So we want unity.

I mean, to level-set here, there won’t be an invitation to Ukraine at the—at the summit. I think that’s been telegraphed very clearly. However, what we intend to do with the Ukraine deliverable that gets unveiled at the summit is to provide Ukraine with the institutional bridge to NATO membership so that when Ukraine does receive an invitation, when there is the political will among all thirty-two allies to admit Ukraine into the alliance, that they are ready, capable, able to plug and play with the rest of the alliance on day one; that there’s as little of a lag period because they need to do additional reforms or they need additional NATO interoperability or whatnot. This deliverable is designed to get them absolutely ready so that, like a—like a Finland or a Sweden, the accession process will be solely based on ratifications and politics, and it can happen as quickly as humanly possible.

So what does that mean in practice? Support for training and equipment, coordination, logistics, force development, defense institution building to include the NATO interoperability piece, support for the mobilization and manpower element of what Ukraine is now contending with on the battlefield. Which is one of their biggest challenges, is how to bring civilians into the military, train them, get them to the frontlines, demobilize those who have served their time on the frontlines so that they can rest and refit, and ensure a sustainable process with veterans benefits and medical support and all the rest that goes into a well-honed military personnel or military manpower system. Ukraine does not have that right now, and so we need to assist them. And NATO will be doing this.

There will also be a political component to this where there is a senior NATO official that is guiding the process politically with the Ukrainians. And I think Secretary General Stoltenberg has spoken to that.

And then there is a financial piece. And the financial piece at this point is still being worked, but it will essentially build off of the commitments that we have made to Ukraine as an alliance over the last couple years. It averages roughly 40 billion euro per year, and we’ll look to maintain sustainable levels of funding for Ukraine.

Now, we don’t—nobody wants or necessarily projects that this will be a forever war. We want to ensure that Ukraine is able to prevail. But we also have to have the sustainable funding, which brings me to another point, if you don’t mind, that wasn’t in your question.

FIX: Mmm hmm. Please.

CARPENTER: But a critical piece of what we’re doing is also not just the NATO piece, but the collective bilateral security agreements that we’ve had with Ukraine. So we just signed one on the margins of the G-7 summit in Italy. A number of other countries—in fact, all of our G-7 partners have signed bilateral security agreements, and we’ll have roughly twenty-two, twenty-three of these by the time of the summit, which we will celebrate, hopefully, at the summit. And then we’ll continue to look to build additional agreements from other partners. And these are typically ten-year agreements, so they’re sustainable and they’re over the—sort of the medium, getting into long term type of support, again, for building up Ukraine’s future force for economic, humanitarian, energy, reform, sustainment, et cetera.

So all of this taken together, I think, gives Ukraine really sustainable support across all domains for the foreseeable future.

FIX: Right. I think critics would probably say, well, Ukraine is not Finland and Sweden, right, and NATO’s not outlining the conditions sort of at which state does that the war has to be for Ukraine to become as quickly a NATO member as Sweden and Finland after the fighting has ended. And the security commitments—the bilateral security commitments, obviously, are also not guarantees. So that’s probably the criticism that will come. I will spare you all the wordplays with bridge over troubled waters, bridge to nowhere that journalists will certainly make. But is it going to be, in the end, in the communique a bridge or an irreversible path for Ukraine?

CARPENTER: Well, I think we want to have strong language. And, obviously, I can’t announce to you what that language will look like now because it’s still under discussion in Brussels. But we’re going to strive to have strong language that goes a step further than we had in Vilnius that does—I mean, some people don’t like it; I like the bridge to NATO metaphor because I think it’s exactly what we’re trying to achieve. I mean, critics and journalists can come up with all kinds of stories around that, but it’s what, most importantly, not what I think is right but what President Zelensky says he wants. He wants a bridge to NATO membership, and so that’s what we’re going to deliver.

And, yeah, so I think we’ve got a meaty, substantive deliverable. There will always be critics. But we’re also very cautious about how deeply engaged NATO is in Ukraine. I think we’re going to get quite engaged with this deliverable, but there’s always, you know, we need to balance.

FIX: Mmm hmm. OK.

Let me open this up for questions from the audience and from the—from online. Let me repeat again this is on the record for everyone asking questions. And we will start with a question here from Washington, D.C. So over there.

Q: Hi. Thank you so much. Mirna Galic from the U.S. Institute of Peace.

There was a big conference here yesterday on China, and a question that kept coming up is how important is Ukraine in terms of signaling to China on Taiwan. And certainly, our Indo-Pacific partners seem to see that connection quite strongly. But I’m curious, how strongly do you think our European partners see that connection more than just being a talking point that they deliver to other countries to get their support? Thanks.

CARPENTER: Thanks. I think it’s something that our European partners see quite clearly, but no one said it better than Prime Minister Kishida when he said that what’s happening in Ukraine could be replicated soon in East Asia. So our East Asian partners, our Indo-Pacific partners certainly understand that Beijing is watching very closely, but not just Beijing. Other capitals are watching. Authoritarian states generally are watching to see how Russia comes out of this war and will adjust their policies vis-à-vis weaker neighbors appropriately depending on what they think they can get away with. So for us, I think it’s imperative that—you know, some people don’t like the strategic loss framing, but it is crucial that Russia walk away from this war over an extended timeframe understanding that this was strategically a failure or a loss—pick your word—and was not successful, ultimately, for them in terms of the price they paid.

FIX: Do we have a virtual question? Oh, yeah, let’s pick one here.

Q: Hello, Ambassador Carpenter. Good to see you. Ariel Cohen, the Atlantic Council.

Mike, I worked on a report looking at Russian strategic vulnerabilities for the Council, and one thing that is clear is Russia is firing on all cylinders right now in terms of military production whereas Germany, France, Italy, and others—the Netherlands—have a tremendous economic potential—so do we; so does South Korea, Japan—that in a pitched, prolonged battle of—war of attrition Russia cannot win even if China continues at this level. And if the West collectively applies sanctions at a higher level to the Chinese industry and business, they may reconsider the level of support to Russia. To what extent the Europeans are getting onboard? I know the Rheinmetall just got 8 billion euro order for something or rather—for ordnance, I think. To what extent they are willing to build up the industrial military capacity that will be necessary in this war in Ukraine and, God forbid, in other theaters, be it in East Asia or the Middle East vis-à-vis Iran? Thank you.

FIX: And is the United States willing to give away some leverage over defense industrial base, weapons contracts, and so on to the Europeans?

CARPENTER: Yeah, it’s a great question. I think we have to see how this plays out.

We have seen that some countries—generally, those that are closer to Russia’s periphery—are investing more and are coordinating their investments with us in a way that makes sense, and we just opened up a munitions factory in Texas with our Turkish allies. But there are others that clearly are underinvesting and are not taking the threat to Europe’s security seriously. And so it’s a problem set that we’re going to have to continue to work through in the coming years.

I don’t have a simple answer to the question. It is a great question. It is the key question. We have used the Defense Production Act a number of times. We’ve got a good-news story on certain critical needs like 155 munitions, but we have not done as well with other capabilities. So, for example, with the 155 ammunition, since the beginning of the war we’ve doubled production. We’re going to double it again, from essentially this month through the end of the year. That’s great. We’re not—we’re not there with ATACMS or with some other systems. So collectively we have to work through this.

But then the challenge also—in addition to sort of lighting a fire under our European friends’ feet—is what you raised. The other challenge is: How do we get the Europeans to build up their defense industrial capacity in a synergistic way with our defense industrial base? And here you’ve seen some proposals, and there’s a European defense industrial plan that we’re talking to our friends about. And I think it just depends who you talk to. I think some will say of course this absolutely cannot be siloed, it has to be—we can’t have different—to take—go back to 155 ammunition, there are different standards of 155-millimeter ammunition. That’s not acceptable. We need to have a combined, single, unitary standard across the alliance and with our European friends.

And so we’re going to have to work at this. Some countries perhaps would like to see a siloed sort of industrial policy to protect their national champions, but others are more open to having this be a transatlantic effort. And we need to lean in heavily in favor of the latter.

FIX: Because if I were French—which I’m not—(laughs)—I would say the United States wants to have the cake and eat it, right, I mean, because they want the Europeans to take on more responsibility for their own security, build out the defense industrial base, but they still want the Europeans to buy American on many issues.

CARPENTER: But there’s—well, look, there’s plenty of examples of win-win in this space. So you can set this up as an adversarial type of equation, but truly there’s a lot of joint production. And there’s a lot of European investment in capabilities where we’re maybe investing less, and it’s fine. That’s good. Those capacities and those capabilities can surge to where they’re needed, and we can do this in tandem. We just need to coordinate and make sure that our defense industry is speaking with its European counterparts, and that our governments are also playing a role in this.

FIX: Mmm hmm. OK.

Let’s take a virtual question.

OPERATOR: We’ll take the next question from Heidi Hardt.

Q: Hi. My name is Professor Heidi Hardt. I hope you can hear me OK. Thank you so much for your comments.

FIX: Yes.

Q: I’m wondering if you could talk to us a little bit about the new force model. So this was agreed back at the 2022 Madrid Summit. Are there any updates that we can look to, especially as we’re still in the leadup to the summit? Thank you.

FIX: Good question.

CARPENTER: Yeah. So this has been an evolution in NATO together with some of the command structures that are in place, now especially that we have Finland and Sweden in the alliance. And our new force model is better adapted to the type of warfare that we’re seeing now playing out in Ukraine, and we’ll need to continue to adapt because every month we’re seeing new innovations in terms of how the Russians are prosecuting this war, and we need to continue to do the same. And we need to have a C2 structure in place that is—affords the authorities to NATO commanders to be able to do what’s necessary in the event of a crisis.

So, since we’re on the record, I’m not sure how much detail I’m allowed to go into on this topic. I can say that this is, I think, one of the good-news stories that a lot of our allies are applauding that will come out of this summit. A few—a few issues still to work through, especially in terms of some of the commands and the seams between different commands, especially Norfolk-Brunssum. But we’re working through all of it with a new force model, and I think it’s going to have great effect when it’s finally implemented.

FIX: Great. Thanks.

Let’s take one more question, from Anders Åslund.

Q: Anders Åslund, Georgetown University. Lovely to see you back in Washington, Mike.

My question is big: What is the strategy of the U.S. in Ukraine? The new Ukraine Support Act asked the administration provide a strategy. I was happy to hear that you said prevail, that Ukraine must prevail, and not only that we will support Ukraine for as long as it takes. But I would like to see it go a bit further, that Russia needs to be defeated, which is a step further.

And also, for the financing of this, you mentioned the 40 billion euro a year in military support for Ukraine. Probably twice as much is needed in order for Ukraine to win. Do you see any possibilities of this happening going ahead? We have the $300 billion of Russian sovereign assets that could be used for this purpose. Thank you.

FIX: Please.

CARPENTER: Yeah. So great question, Anders.

On the—on the second piece, in terms of funding, I mean, look, this is ultimately a political question and I can’t—I don’t have a crystal ball. I can’t—I can’t tell you what the funding picture will look like in 2025. What I can say is that there was—as you all know in this room, there was broad bipartisan support for the supplemental when it passed. And in certain European countries that consensus is also there, but it’s not uniform across the continent. And so that’s why it’s important for us to look for every possible means at our disposal that we can bring to bear to support Ukraine.

And the 50 billion that we’re bringing—which is a very, I think, creative solution to bring that forward as a loan that essentially will function as a grant for the benefit of Ukraine using the proceeds of assets that are immobilized, primarily in Europe but generally speaking outside of Russia—that is one creative solution, but there has to be more. And we need to—right now in the G-7 there’s absolutely no consensus on what to do with the principal. But we need to continue to have the conversation around how we can support Ukraine because, obviously, at the end of the day this is—this is partly an economic equation.

And when it comes to Russia, I think one of the things that we have—and I’ll get to your strategy question in a second—one of the things that we have failed to adequately forecast, to be a little self-critical, is the sustainability of the Russian economy and its resilience. And it has proven rather resilient over the course of the last two-and-a-half years. And so we need to look to additional measures to inflict more costs on Russia for what it’s doing.

In terms of strategy, the president has spoken to strategy quite a few times. I will tell you that what we aim to do this year is to support Ukraine with all these initiatives that I’ve just laid out so that they can, essentially, hold the lines, build better defensive fortifications currently, use a smarter active defense to degrade Russian forces, so that into the back half of this year and into next year they can liberate additional territory. Our goal is for Ukraine to be sovereign, independent, democratic, with its territorial integrity restored.

But you know, we have to—we have to also be smart on the tactics. We’ve seen how the counteroffensive from last year was not effective because, frankly, offense is a lot more difficult, especially with dug-in positions. And that’s where someone like a General Surovikin was actually very adept at positioning Russia to be able to degrade Ukrainian forces.

So we think that Ukraine’s best strategy now—and we’ve seen this in Kharkiv. The losses in the Kharkiv offensive are rather staggering on the Russian side. And so if Ukraine can take advantage of Russian forces being overextended to be able to degrade those forces, then it can have more of an effect on the battlefield than if it were to employ a sort of standard mechanized, you know, combined-arms force that tries to punch through the forward line of troops. That is less likely—less likely to succeed, in my view.

FIX: There would be many questions to follow up on that, including a long-term vision for NATO, but I think we are, unfortunately, running out of time, Mike. So let me thank you very much. Thank you, our participants, for joining us. A round of applause to you. (Applause.) We wish you all the best and success for the NATO summit. And for everyone here, we’ll have a fifteen-minute coffee break and then return with a second panel with my great colleague Charles Kupchan, Tom Wright, Emma Ashford, and Camille Grand. Thanks so much, and see you soon again.

CARPENTER: Great.

FIX: Thank you.

CARPENTER: Thank you.

(END)

This is an uncorrected transcript.

KUPCHAN: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Charlie Kupchan. I’m a fellow here at CFR. And we’re going to proceed with the second portion of our Council session on NATO and the upcoming summit.

And for this session we have Emma Ashford from the Reimagining U.S. Grand Strategy Project at the Stimson Center.

Joining us from Paris, I presume, is Camille Grand. And welcome, Camille. Nice to see you. Camille, former assistant secretary-general at NATO, currently with the European Council on Foreign Relations.

And then to my far left is Tom Wright. Tom is currently special assistant to the president and senior director for strategic planning at the National Security Council.

Thanks to all of you for joining. As Liana said at the beginning of the first session, we are on the record. C-SPAN is here. Welcome, C-SPAN viewers. And we’re going to get going. We’ll talk for about thirty minutes or so among the panelists and then open it up to all of you.

Let me begin by picking up on a question that in some ways ended our first session with Mike Carpenter and that Anders, who’s sitting in the—still in the room, really opened. And that is, what’s the strategy here? And to put it in the form of a provocation, let me posit that we have a good policy toward Ukraine, but we don’t necessarily have a strategy, if strategy means a set of war aims that are in equilibrium with available means. And I want to ask each of you whether you would agree with that, and whether, ultimately, we don’t need to envision an outcome in Ukraine that may not in the near term in lead to territorial integrity, but that defines success in terms of the defense of the eighty-plus percent of Ukraine that is still under Kyiv’s control, turning that part of Ukraine into a success story, and then deferring to a later date when and how Ukraine is able to achieve territorial integrity? Given problems of mobilization, given constraints on the ability of the United States and its key allies to continue to provide aid at the levels that may be necessary, is it advisable to redefine success in those terms if we want a strategy that balances ends and means?

Emma, why don’t you get us going?

ASHFORD: Sure. Well, thank you so much to the Council for organizing this today. I’m really pleased to be here to talk about this. I mean, I think you’re putting your finger on the right point here, which is: Our approach to the war in Ukraine has been fairly effective. Has been a good, relatively coherent, approach. I think it had a clear goal, which was to put Ukraine in the best possible position at the negotiating table. But I think that as time has gone on, and we have learned some realities from what has happened on the battlefield, we’ve seen the politics of the war develop in the West, develop in other countries, we have, I think, learned the limits of what that best position can be.

And my concern is that, you know, we had a strategy. I’m not sure we do anymore, because I think we no longer have any consensus among the Western allies, or even frankly here in Washington, about what those end goals for Ukraine should be. At some point, we have to start talking about those difficult choices, right? Are you prioritizing territory? Are you prioritizing sovereignty? Are you prioritizing economic viability? We’re not having those conversations. We’re just sort of kicking the can down the road and saying, you know, the best possible position for Ukraine, and it will come at some point. So for me, I find that quite problematic.

KUPCHAN: Camille.

GRAND: Well, I guess, so—first of all, it’s great to be there. Just regret to do this remotely. But let me—I think the strategy was initially relatively clear, prevent the collapse of Ukraine. And we’ve done that incredibly successfully if you—if we reflect on where we were in the early days of the conflict and what were the assumptions that guided our policies. I think now we have to maybe clarify what is it that we mean by a defeat of Russia in Ukraine, which is becoming the standard wording that is being used by the leadership of NATO and our various countries.

And I guess framing it in strictly territorial terms can be misleading, because what we really need to do is to think also in terms of having a sovereign Ukraine, to make sure that Ukraine doesn’t become Belarus, to make sure that Ukraine can choose its future, to make sure that Ukraine’s security—including joining NATO and the EU. To make sure that Ukraine’s security is guaranteed in the long term. And I think this is—really should be those elements framing your strategy. And then, the territorial element is more a sort of tactical element in this effort than the end goal of everything, you know? And judging success of Ukraine only based on how much territory it controls is, in my view, somewhat misleading, and creates false expectations.

The second thing I would add, in ten seconds, is I think that what we don’t have is a Russia strategy in that context. What is it that we want to do with Russia? And how do we handle the fact that Russia has become very adversarial, very confrontational? And I think that, as NATO, we really need to add to our efforts—and as the West—to our effort to support Ukraine a genuine Russia strategy.

KUPCHAN: Tom, the perspective from the White House.

WRIGHT: Yeah. Thank you. And it’s great to be here. And, Charlie, I know you just heard from Mike as well, so I don’t want to just repeat what I’m sure he already said also.

But let me start maybe by just looking at what are the assumptions, I think, of the question, and then trying to answer it directly. Because I think the way you set it up is totally fair, but it sort of assumes, in a way—and there is, I think, a discourse out there that says, you know, we’re trying to get Ukraine back all of us territory, and sort of a full, you know, status quo ante of February 23, 2022. But what we should be doing is sort of accepting something short of that, potentially, you know, that would, you know, guarantee the freedom and prosperity of most of the country, 80 percent of the country, whatever it is that’s under Ukrainian administration. And they would integrate into the West.

And I think the core assumption of that is that that deal is somehow attainable, but it is not. I mean, if you look back a few weeks ago, or two weeks ago, just before the peace summit in Switzerland, Vladimir Putin, you know, gave remarks in which he laid out his preconditions—his preconditions for negotiations with Ukraine. And those preconditions included Ukraine withdrawing from additional parts of its country and recognizing Russian sovereignty over what Russia occupies and the additional parts that Ukraine would leave.

Secondly, Ukrainian neutrality, by which we think he meant not just no NATO but also massive constraints on what Ukraine could do in its own defense after the war. So serious limits. That’s probably serious limits on what we could give them, serious limits on any training or interaction they could have with Western forces. So really, neutering Ukraine into the indefinite future. And the final part was full sanctions relief for Russia. And those were his sort of preconditions.

And I think even if you think that’s just sort of an opening bid, I think what it does sort of show is that his objective remains like the full subjugation of Ukraine, right? That’s what he wants. And I don’t think he will be satisfied with a situation where the parts of Ukraine, at the moment, that are free, that Ukraine could sort of integrate into the West, you know, recuperate, become a modern sort of Western democracy, prosperous part of the EU, you know, part of NATO—or even short of NATO in the intermediate term, you know, fully integrated with the West military. That is not something he’s given any suggestion of desiring.

So I think we just—it’s important to start there, I think, because we do not have—I mean this—you know, this is up to the Ukrainians. These are sovereign decisions that they need to make. We’ve always said that. But it is also true that neither they nor we have full agency over this. Like, we are responding to a Russian invasion of Ukraine. They get a significant vote. They have sort of doubled down and tripled down, you know, as they have gone into this. And so our strategy is designed, you know, with that in mind.

And I think it also tries to recognize sort of battlefield, you know, realities as well. Which is that, you know, the lines have been fairly—I wouldn’t say—stalemated, I think, is the wrong word. But they’ve been difficult to sort of move along the territorial line of control for some time. There are many reasons for that that we can go into. And so I’m guessing what Mike said when he was here, and I would just briefly repeat it, is we essentially have a three-part strategy, you know, at the moment.

Which is, this year it’s incredibly important that Putin cannot take additional territory, or at least significant amounts of additional territory. And any effort that he makes in that regard, he needs to pay a heavy price for that. So we need sort of Ukraine to be able to defend their lines and to impose a heavy price on Russia for any future offensive operations. I think that’s gone reasonably well in the recent past. So those have stabilized a little bit over the last three or four weeks, or so.

And the second part of it is that Ukraine should be taking the initiative, as they have in the Black Sea, denying Russia really use of the Black Sea. And they need to be able to hold Russian forces and assets at risk. Some of that in Ukraine, including in Crimea, they’re doing that with the long-range strike that we have given them. Some of that they’re doing themselves with indigenous capabilities. But that shows Putin that there is a real cost to his military of continuing this war.

And then the final part is that we need to help build their strength this year. That includes mobilization, but not just that. Also, you know, training, and new weapon systems, and the like, so they will be in a position next year to be able to retake territory. That’s not saying just to repeat the counteroffensive, you know, of last year. But it is to say that we need to work on those offensive capabilities.

And I would just finish by saying, you know, if we have—if all of those things succeed, and those all are ifs, you know, and if Putin believes that the U.S. is in this for the foreseeable future, either because, you know, there’s a second term for us or if the other, you know, party wins and decides to support Ukraine, you know that he would believe that this is going to continue and that the cost for him will continue. Maybe in those circumstances we will be able to get a more realistic position from him on negotiating a settlement in line with the U.N. Charter.

But I don’t mean to—I’m not trying to be sort of pollyannaish or overly, you know, optimistic, saying that, you know, this is, you know, all likely to lead to, you know, everything that Ukraine and we want to the next six months. I think it’s much more, you know, difficult than that. But we are grappling with a reality of a thinking, sort of, active adversary of Ukraine that has—you know, he has his own intentions here.

KUPCHAN: Let me drill down on the strategy piece and pose a question that’s more about tactics. And that is, regardless of whether Ukraine focuses on defense or also on the retaking of territory currently occupied by Russia, it is going to be taking actions in the Russian rear—hitting Crimea, hitting places in in southern Russia. And so the question I want to ask is, how worried are you about escalation? It appears that the Biden administration over time has deemed the risk of escalation to be lower, which is why, over time, we’ve seen more readiness to provide high-end weaponry and to hit targets inside Russia.

Are you comfortable with where we are? Do you believe that there should be further loosening of restrictions? That U.S. weaponry, that British weaponry should be used to target deep into Russia’s rear, including on Russian territory? And also, I might—one thing I’ve wondered about in the last year or so, why has Ukraine not hit again the Kerch Bridge? Is that deliberate, or is it just that the Russians have done a good job of defending it? And do you think that that should be a target of the Ukrainian military?

Camille, why don’t we start with you?

GRAND: Yeah. On this, I think we’ve been extraordinarily cautious for the first two years of this conflict. Those policies have been relaxed, but there was a very deliberate effort to not give any signal of escalation. But I think we’ve reached a different moment. First of all, to a large degree—

KUPCHAN: Do you think we were too cautious? Were we too cautious?

GRAND: I think we’ve been a bit—yeah. I think we’ve been a bit too cautious. And because what we realized is that, first of all, we’ve, in a way, boiled the frog. You know, Putin has said that delivery of a fancy weapon would be an act of war, that delivery of major weapons would be an act of war, delivery of long-range systems would be an act of war. And he knows—and this is the strength of NATO—that any horizontal escalation would be a terrible mistake. So altogether, I think his threats have partially deterred us from escalating the conflict or adding too many capabilities. But I think we’re past that point now.

We are very committed to the support for Ukraine. We are delivering a lot of long-range capabilities. There are European F-16s that are going to be soon flying in the sky of Ukraine that have been donated to Ukraine by four European countries. So the notion of should we really deliver tanks, or planes, or long-range fires is behind us. Now the issue is how do we create dilemmas for Putin? And the dilemmas can be through offensive capabilities provided by—to the Ukrainians, that make the work of the Russian Armed Forces much more difficult on theater. And from that perspective, I would not—I would caution against too many restrictions on the use on Russian territory, because a lot of Russian logistics is on the Russian territory. So therefore, you know, it’s a bit like asking Ukrainians to win the match with only being able to play in half of the of the playing field.

The second thing is we—I think we need to display strategic patience. And there, I’m sort of following up on Tom’s earlier point. on saying, you know, if we demonstrate that we’re in the long game in this, and that our support for Ukraine is here to last, this is where we will create a debate for Putin. Altogether, Russia has lost a third of the Black Sea Fleet, probably somewhere in the realm of somewhere between 350 and 500,000 casualties. Its land forces are massively diminished. So I think there is a moment there, and in an attrition war this is all about patience—patience from an industrial point of view, but also patience from political will point of view. And Putin assumes that he has the strongest hand, certainly, on political will.

So this is where we need to do this. And the best way to do this is to create the dilemmas and complicate the war that is waged on Ukraine by not being too restrictive in what we do. Of course, there are probably limits that do exist in terms of striking this but, you know, as an example, there was a Ukrainian strike on a bomber facility in Arkhangelsk last winter. On the one hand, you could say, oh, this is escalatory. This is really outside the theater. But if Russia is using strategic bombers to destroy Ukrainian cities, this is a legitimate target, from my perspective. So I’ll stop there, but, bottom line, create dilemmas and strategic patience.

KUPCHAN: Tom, do you expect restrictions to loosen over time? Or do you think we’re at the outer edge?

WRIGHT: Yeah. Look, I think we’ve always said that—you know, that things are evaluated, you know, as we go. And I think, you know, as an example of that—and I want to go back a little bit and just look at the role of escalation in the conflict in general. But just to answer the specific question, as an example of that if you look recently at the revision of guidance for striking inside of Russia, you know, what happened there was that Russia opened a new front, you know, along its border against sort of Kharkiv, and was sending forces over fighting Ukrainian forces. And what we witnessed was basically, you know, Russian forces standing on one side of the line, are putting stuff on one side of the line, and then claiming immunity, essentially, from Ukrainian forces, as they were essentially engaged in a firefight.

And that was, obviously, completely absurd. That was something Russia chose to do. It chose to open that new front. And, obviously, it’s only common sense that Ukraine should have the right to sort of fight back against those forces. And so a revision was made. You know, and that also applies to similar instances that could occur, you know, also along the border of Russia to open new fronts. There’s only one or two real cases of where that could happen, I think, but that’s sort of the reason for it.

So when we sort of say, you know, the policy guidance is continually reassessed on the basis of what Russia does, I think that sort of encapsulates, you know, why we say that. It’s not that there’s sort of a revision or a U-turn on policy, or, you know, that we were sort of afraid of escalation, and then weren’t. I think it’s a dynamic conflict. I do think, as I think about escalation in the conflict over the last two and a half years or so, I’d just sort of make a few points.

I think in the very early period I think it was quite a concern, because everyone on both sides—because I think everyone was sort of feeling around the dark a little bit for this new situation, this new conflict, not quite sure what it would look like. I don’t think that lasted, you know, for all that long. I think we have been maybe less concerned about escalation than many people in the external debate think we are. Sometimes things that are withheld for other reasons are confused that they’re being withheld for escalation reasons, right? There’s many things that go into the decision on what is given to Ukraine.

We have, as you know, two different mechanisms, basically USAI and PDA, so procurement and drawdown, to give stuff to them that’s in a fixed amount. They are large amounts generally, but they are finite. And we have to decide what it is they need at that precise point in time. And the one consistent thing throughout is the priorities have been pretty clear, they are air defense ammunitions, right? And those are the things they need most of. And other things, you know, we try to rack and stack in terms of what they need in the battlefield at that given point in time. So sometimes it’s that.

Other times it’s readiness. Like the ATACMS debate that went on for a very long period of time I think was a classic in the genre of us being sort of told that we weren’t sort of doing this because we believe that if we gave them to Ukraine that there will be serious escalation risk. Whereas, for most of that time it was sort of a readiness concern. There was a concern in parts of the government about the scarcity of these—of these missiles, and that if we were to give them to Ukraine it would compromise readiness elsewhere. There isn’t a huge overlap between the weapons that Ukraine needs and some of the other key theaters, but there’s a few. And ATACMS is one of those.

And we worked really hard to try to resolve that concern, and figured out that there were some coming off the production line that were being exported. And we sort of, you know, put Ukraine to the front of the line in that, and got them in a sort of a number that we could give to Ukraine. So all of that is to say, you know, that I think it’s not quite the feature that that it’s sometimes made out.

Two other really brief points. There are some times where we have escalation concerns, like on nuclear use—which I think was a real concern in the fall—late summer and fall of ’22. And our answer to that was not restraint, right? It was not to pull stuff back, because it was connected to the—basically, if Ukraine was making significant advances, you know, and likely to lead to a collapse in Russian forces or something, we thought this could happen.

And so our way of dealing with that escalation risk, which was, I think, you know, significant, was deterrence. So we leaned into sending private messages to Russia, and also public messages. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan went on one of the Sunday shows and warned of catastrophic consequences. You may remember that. That is an escalation management strategy, right? Deterrence is a means of managing sort of escalation. So that is another component that I think is finding—is sometimes missed.

So the final thing I would say is, yeah, I mean, there are things—I think you in a war like this, against an adversary for Ukraine—a Ukrainian adversary like Russia, which is a very capable power, I think it would be irresponsible not to think of different contingencies and different things that could go wrong. So we work on those constantly. But I think it is not this sort of—it is not the overarching constraint, you know, on policy that I think is—sometimes it’s made out to be.

KUPCHAN: Emma, thoughts on targeting and escalation?

ASHFORD: Yeah, no, I mean, it’s—there’s not a lot to add here. But let me try to add a few points. So, you know, I agree, I think, with both Tom and Camille that the current situation is not too bad in terms of escalation risk. Partly that’s a function of we have reached a relative equilibrium with Russia, where I think both sides understand the limits of what we’re trying to do. But I think also it’s partly a reflection of the fact that Ukraine is not doing as well as they have been. And so there’s this inherent tradeoff between how well Ukraine is doing and the escalation risk.

Where I think we need to start thinking of escalation risks is in more qualitative terms. That is to say, in terms of things that will shift the strategic dynamic or shift the dynamic in Ukraine to a completely different kind of conflict. And so by this, what I mean is I’m not at all concerned by the recent expansion of permission to allow the Ukrainians to use weapons near the border in Kharkiv, right? To me, that keeps the conflict the same as it has been, right? Russia and Ukraine are fighting over sections of territory. You know, near the border, sure, but this is not a change in the actual conflict.

But some of the proposals for escalation that we’ve seen over the last few months, particularly coming out of capitals in Europe—things like sending advisors, sending NATO troops behind the lines to perform support duties, using air defenses inside NATO countries to help to defend Ukraine, extending an umbrella—to me, those are things that qualitatively change the conflict that we are actually talking about and have the potential to escalate horizontally into a broader Russia-NATO war.

And so that’s what concerns me, I think, particularly because, as Camille alluded to, we have sort of run out of runway on the escalatory potential of weapons, right? We’ve run all the way up every system that we can possibly send to Ukraine. There’s almost nothing left, unless we’re going to send F-35 next week. And so we’re talking about other means of escalating things to help Ukraine. And that’s what I think is dangerous.

KUPCHAN: Let me turn to a slightly different angle here. And that is the sort of domestic politics of support for Ukraine. And I want to ask each of you to comment on both sides of this. That is to say, do you think that the war, its continuation, the allocation of funding to support Ukraine, is affecting in a significant way domestic politics in our countries? For example, Camille, do you think that the National Front, National Rally, has been surging in part as a response to the position on Ukraine taken by Mr. Macron? Or are they unrelated? And do we need to pay more attention to the blowback effects of the war at home, in particular in fueling illiberal populism?

And then the flip side is, were there to be a significant change of government, would the steadiness of our policy toward Ukraine be affected? If, for example, the National Rally wins this snap election, Camille, do you think it will affect Macron’s ability to take a tough line on Ukraine? Maybe we’ll start with you, since your country is about to have parliamentary elections.

GRAND: And complicated parliamentary elections, indeed. Now, the—first of all, I would say, for the Europeans I’m quite struck, and I wouldn’t necessarily have bet on that two years ago, at the robustness of the support. Public opinions remain pretty firm on supporting Ukraine, on doing more for Ukraine. And in spite of the energy crisis, in spite of Russia’s hybrid campaign, that support remains fairly high across Europe. And the pro-Russia parties did do sometimes well, but I don’t think it was associated mainly with Ukraine. Interestingly, the National Rally in the French election is toning down its pro-Russia stance as it’s coming closer to power. And it’s trying to—and it’s trying to mainstream to look good. We’ve seen that in Italy as well, when the far-right came to power. So we do have a situation where I wouldn’t bet on the rise of populism to mean that the support of Ukraine is going to die out.

Having said this, I would of course be a little—add a caveat. Which is that, of course, these parties usually use a sort of a big Russian propaganda rhetoric on non-escalation, we need to create options for peace and so on, even if they don’t—no longer take a clearly pro-Russian stance. So what I would expect, should the National Rally come to government—not exactly to power. We have a system where the French president still has a lot of the upper hand when it comes to foreign and security policy, but is less enthusiasm to do more, to take risks. We were mentioning sending advisors, or the decision to send fighter jets. You know, those could be called into question.

What I foresee is some debates about is—are we not spending too much money on that? Are there not better priorities, and so on? So not necessarily a dramatic shift or a France that would start blocking EU assistance or NATO assistance. But certainly a government that will be—will fall more in the camp of those with the coldest feet, if I may put it this way, when it comes to supporting Ukraine, both in terms of amount of equipment and money donated but also in terms of being at the forefront of the debate, as President Macron has been in the last few months.

KUPCHAN: Emma, your thoughts on the domestic politics of the issue?

ASHFORD: Well, I certainly would not venture to predict the French election. (Laughs.) But I think the question of support for Ukraine is—as Camille says, is not necessarily driving the electoral dynamics today. But I think we should probably take a step back and consider whether the decisions made over the last couple of years have helped to bring us to where we are today. And I think the economic space is perhaps the most notable here. You know, much of the economic doldrums and impact that we are seeing in Western Europe, some of it is to do with the COVID pandemic. Some of it is to do with decoupling from Russian oil and gas. Some of it is to do with sanctions. And some of it is completely unrelated, due to global factors. But the war in Ukraine has played a role in worsening the economic situation in Western Europe. Voters react to that. Voters react to that here at home as well. We know that. The problem is, that doesn’t really provide any answer for policymakers going forward. Because I think that that cake is baked. We have made those decisions. And if the question of support for Ukraine is not perhaps a salient one in elections, there’s not a lot that politicians like Mr. Macron can do.

One final point here, though. I think this is something—the question of how much European populations are willing to contribute in Ukraine, how much they’re willing to spend on defense, I think we may end up seeing over the next year or two more questioning of the concrete tradeoffs between support for Ukraine and support for building up homegrown defense in European states. Thus far, Western European states have mostly focused on support for Ukraine. A few states closest to the conflict have done both. They’ve built up their defense—like the Poles or the Balts, they’ve built up their defense and provided lots of support to Ukraine. But not every public in Europe will sustain that or will be willing to tolerate that. And you may find that we start to see this tradeoff problem, where continuing the war in Ukraine may actively undermine what governments can spend on defense in general. Depending how politics here goes, that could be a problematic issue for them.

KUPCHAN: Tom, you don’t do a lot of domestic politics, but having watched Congress delay seven months on the 61 billion (dollars), are you confident that regardless of who wins in November, we can get more large packages through Congress?

WRIGHT: Yeah, so, obviously, I can’t comment on the politics piece of it or the election piece. But I would make sort of two points. One, coming out of the sup sort of experience, which I think, obviously, was very painful and worrying in terms of how long it took. I think when you—as everyone knows, when you examine why that delay took place, I think it had to do with the very sort of, you know, House-specifics of how the legislation has moved, and just the wafer-thin majority, rather than sort of broad-based opposition, you know, to supporting Ukraine.

But our sort of experience of that, really from the day it became apparent that that was an issue, in dealing with the speaker in many different sort of sessions, particularly that Jake had, but also others on the team had, was that, I think, he, the speaker, and, you know, his colleagues did engage in good faith. And I think they had some legitimate questions at the beginning about strategy. I think those were largely addressed. I think then they essentially said they wanted to support Ukraine, but they had questions about the border initially, which they also felt needed to be worked on. So, obviously, we did that. And then that turned out the way it did in terms of the proposal being pulled. We worked on that. And then there were other sort of concerns.

But throughout that entire period, I think the speaker and the Republicans, I think, were fairly sort of sincere and serious about trying to understand the actual problems there. And I think one of the key moments came in around January/February, when, you know, we and the intelligence community laid out a timetable of what was likely to happen if the stuff did not go through, sort of spelling out exactly when, you know, Ukraine will face shortfalls in different areas, and when Russia will be able to take advantage.

And I think he took that incredibly seriously. And, you know, they acted in time to preempt, you know, some of those scenarios from coming into being. So, you know, I don’t know what will happen after the election, if Republicans win. You know, no sort of particular comment to make on that. But I do think, you know, there is broad-based bipartisan support for Ukraine. Whether or not that can manifest itself in, you know, any given administration I think is a different question.

The other point I would just make is I think if it comes to the point where people are fundamentally reassessing whether or not to continue to support Ukraine, I think the thing we started on will have an impact, which is the consequences of not doing so, right? Like, that if Putin—if there is no sort of nice sort of deal on offer, and actually Putin retains his maximalist objectives, and the alternative is to give those to him, or to live with the consequences of a full-scale Russian victory in Ukraine, I think that will be very sobering for people, and for politicians, and others, you know, as they look at that. And that will affect the debate too.

So I think there’s a—I would not be fatalistic about this. Obviously, we have a very clear, you know, position. The president has a very clear position about supporting Ukraine. But I think it is fairly deeply rooted in the—in the country, broadly speaking.

KUPCHAN: We’re going to open it up now to questions both from the floor here and also online. I think I’ll take two at a time, because we don’t have a lot of time. Let me start with Steve Flanagan and then Peter Galbraith.

Q: Thanks. Steve Flanagan from RAND and Georgetown.

I have a question for Tom and for Camille about where you think we are in the development of a transatlantic strategy towards the broader Black Sea region. Tom, you in your comment alluded to Putin’s preconditions for negotiations on Ukraine, which were, of course, a very hardheaded reminder of what his strategy is, which is to recreate, of course, this exclusive sphere of influence along this periphery. You look at the pressure on Moldova, on Georgia, Armenia, other countries in the region. The administration did present a strategy to the Congress earlier this year on Black Sea. I understand there’s an interagency one under development. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit more about where that is and how you think it’s sustainable.

And then for Camille, obviously, with the EU now beginning accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova, is there—is the European—and the strong commitment to Ukraine assistance—is the European Union also turning a corner in terms of really making its eastern partnership more of a reality? Thank you.

KUPCHAN: Peter.

Q: Well—(coughs)—excuse me. I hope we’re not whistling past the graveyard in this discussion, because the—one of the two major party candidates for president of the United States, who has a slight lead in the polls, is quite clear that he’s deeply skeptical of NATO. He said, if countries don’t pay up the Russians can do whatever they want. And that isn’t a one-off thing. That is repeated. So my question is—and going back to the title, “NATO’s Future: Enlarged and More European?”—is Europe capable of maintaining an alliance without American leadership, without the kind of role that has been discussed here so far?

KUPCHAN: Tom, I’m sure you want to answer the second question, but maybe you could start with the Black Sea.

WRIGHT: Yeah, no, happy to address both. And, Steve, good to see you.

Yeah, that strategy, I think, continues to be worked on. But I think we are, obviously, concerned, and have been for some time, you know, by Russian sort of intentions in those countries. You mentioned Moldova, Armenia, and others. And I think are looking for ways to, you know, help those governments strengthen their resilience and their means of combating that so that—we continue to work on that with partners as well. I don’t have anything to say in terms of, you know, dates or when that will be, or when that will come to fruition.

I think more broadly, I think Ukraine strategy in the Black Sea I think is a big sort of bright spot of the—of the conflict to date, in terms of what they were able to accomplish there. Which I think shows, you know, that they are able to impose a significant strategic cost, you know, on Russian forces and on the Russian Navy, and what they can do. And I think it’s very important that people don’t—I know you don’t—but it’s important people don’t lose sight of that when they sort of see a territorial line of control that seems relatively hard to move.

And on Peter’s question, look, you know, as I said, I can’t sort of comment on the election. But what I would say on the substance, you know, of it, I think it’s very sort of clear to us that a leading sort of American role in Europe is absolutely vital to the future of the transatlantic alliance. I would also say that if you look at the last sort of three and a half years, I think we have seen—because of that commitment to the alliance, I think we’ve seen an extraordinary increase in burden sharing from Europe, right?

On Ukraine, it is the alliance with the United States that I think has made European countries feel a little less vulnerable and a little safer, more secure, to be able to give many of their weapons systems to Ukraine. They would not have done that if it was everybody for themselves and they had no alliance with us. On the spending side, you know, as secretary-general said the other day, there are twenty-three countries now at 2 percent. The alliance as a whole, non-U.S. NATO collectively is at 2 percent. And we’ve seen a very dramatic increase in annual defense spending.

I think if you compare this year to the year before the president took office, it’s an increase of over $180 billion a year. So I think there has been very dramatic sort of changes, which I think are rooted in sort of a solid sort of transatlantic alliance and U.S. commitment to it. And if that were to change, you know, I think the consequences, you know, would be very severe and damaging to the U.S. national interest.

KUPCHAN: Emma.

ASHFORD: I think—so, to Peter’s excellent question, I mean, I think any European leader that at this point is not planning for some form of U.S. retrenchment from the continent in the next decade or so is a fool. That is something everyone should be planning for. But we’re very focused on the Trump question, and this idea that he’s going to snap his fingers on January 20, and the U.S. will leave NATO, and that’s the scenario that we should be thinking about. I think what we need to be thinking about is there are different ways in which U.S. retrenchment from Europe might occur.

Now, perhaps—you know, perhaps Tom is right. Perhaps the U.S. will manage to pull it all together and stay in Europe forever. But I think there are a variety of reasons why the U.S. might go back. Trump is one of them, but an Indo-Pacific contingency is another, that would pull away resources from Europe. You could see the slow hollowing out of U.S. defense capabilities as we swing them to other problem areas. There are—there are different ways that you could see this unfold and different ways that European states could respond.

And from my point of view, one of the more worrying concerns is that I think the more abrupt and violent this transition, the more European states may actually be to come together in some kind of overarching common defense, right? We have seen the European Union in the COVID pandemic, you know, admittedly slowly, but eventually in the euro crisis, they come together—when there is a big crisis and they’re forced to do it. They are not so good in slow boil situations like immigration, where something goes on for years and years and the problem doesn’t get resolved.

So, you know, from my point of view, thinking about how fast a U.S. retrenchment is might give us some clue as to whether Europe is actually able to respond. And, again, I agree with Tom, European states have taken significant steps in the last three years. European defense spending overall is up by, like, a quarter. It’s not enough. They still need to do more. And particularly if they are going to be able to step in, if and when the U.S. has to pull back, they definitely need to do more.

KUPCHAN: Camille.

GRAND: Well first of all, on where the Europeans are, I think Tom really is right to stress that the Europeans have turned a corner. They are spending 150 billion (dollars) more per year than they were spending in 2014. That is really a lot of money. And now it’s really make a difference when it comes to the ability of the Europeans to defend themselves, to contribute more to NATO. And with, you know, twenty-three allies over 2 percent, you know, who would have said that? It was three, including the U.S., in 2014. So the Wales commitment is really being implemented.

Having said this, I think there is a—and there. I’m very much with Emma on the notion that I think the Europeans have to prepare, not necessarily only for Trump presidency but for a general trend, which is the Indo-Pacific being a priority. domestic politics complicating the ability of the U.S. to act, resource constraints, constraints in the U.S. that make the role of allies more important in the defense of any theater, including Europeans theater. So all these things, I think, are sinking in. The Europeans are not necessarily comfortable with that.

Some of them still fear having a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy thing. But I think on the whole, we see a move that is quite substantial, and that would probably lead to a more European NATO where the Europeans carry a much larger share of the burden, but also a larger share of responsibilities. And that will be maybe the best chance to keep a strong and vibrant transatlantic alliance, rather than having sort of constant frictions over burden sharing. And all of this is, you know, healthy, if it’s done properly. And there, I very much like Emma’s dilemma between, you know, do the Europeans need a real crisis to take a to take a turn, or can this be done in an orderly fashion and in a very coordinated fashion?

There’s a Ukrainian dimension to all of this. And that brings me to Steve’s question. Ukraine is perceived as existential by the Europeans. And from my perspective, the biggest looming crisis with a potential Trump administration is not so much a withdrawal from NATO. That is—remains unlikely. But an administration that would pull the plug on Ukraine when the Europeans genuinely believe this is existential for themselves, this is critical for their security.

And there, the Europeans have a challenge, which is to demonstrate that the rise in their support to Ukraine can become really—that they can carry that burden massively. This is fiscally sustainable. The assistance to Ukraine is 10 percent of the bill for the energy crisis that has been paid by our government in Europe. It’s 10 percent of the COVID bill. So if this is existential, we can certainly do better on this and pull our act together.

Finally, on the Black Sea situation and the EU, just to end on an optimistic note, I believe the EU has gone more—much more geopolitical in the way they view enlargement. And the EU has understood that opening negotiation with Moldova and Ukraine was really important, and was a very strong signal. Also because the process of joining the EU, contrary to the NATO, one, is not a binary. As the you start negotiation, you start joining policies, you start really—and, for instance, in the case of Moldova, being connected into the energy grid is really something critical where the EU can make a massive difference.

On the NATO front in the Black Sea, I think we are a bit short of that. Partially because of the constraint associated with the maritime convention that don’t allow a maritime strategy in the Black Sea. But I think we—I would also, as Tom, give a lot of credit for the Ukrainians for creating, in fact, a much worse situation for the Russian Navy than it had before the war, which is kind of a paradox if you think that the control over Ukraine was really meant to enable the Russian Navy to have access to the warm season, traditional geopolitical terms.

KUPCHAN: Let’s collect a few more questions. And we’ll start with an online question.

OPERATOR: We’ll take the next question from Cynthia Roberts.

Q: Thanks very much for doing this, organizing this, and all three panelists.

My question goes back to the escalation issue. And I’d like to focus first on Tom, Tom Wright, who said, if I heard this correctly, that they focus more on what Russia does in the nuclear area than what Putin and others might say. So, more on what they are doing than what they’re saying. That would, you know, obviously, be muscle movements, if they started mating warheads with platforms, or had more serious exercises. There have been a number of nuclear exercises. And less concern or focus on—if I’m reading this correctly—on what Putin says, the messaging, the threats, bringing Karaganov into the Kremlin, talks with North Korea—although, what they do with North Korea presumably is of concern.

So my question is, is the administration now basically ignoring what the Kremlin’s messaging is in terms of what people say and focused more only on what they do? And for Camille Grand, in—interesting, Stoltenberg in NATO has taken up the bait and suggested that now NATO needs to remind everyone that we are a nuclear alliance, and do more. And also, I would ask you about France. Are you—is Paris also focusing more on what Russia does in the realm of nuclear tasks than what it says? Thanks very much.

KUPCHAN: Front table over here, and then Mike, and then Ariel.

Q: Hi. My name is Alex Lennon, and I run the Washington Quarterly at GW. Thanks to all three of you for doing this, and good to see you.

I actually had a question on the escalation bit as well. What might or has China done in restraining the potential for Russia to go nuclear, to use either nuclear weapons on the battlefield or to use nuclear threats? Is there a common interest with China in seeing and ensuring the war with Ukraine does not go nuclear?

Q: Michael Mosettig, PBS Online NewsHour.

I know that you folks are not economists, but to what extent are you consulting with your economic colleagues on what seems to be a new situation. Not only are there limits to spending, we’re in a situation where there may be limits to borrowing. The United States is close to 100 percent debt versus GDP. France is approaching 110 percent. What happens—I mean, there’s a lot of demands to spend money. How long is this—can this go on? Or is there going to be—I mean, even Gideon Rachman, a very serious fellow, talked today about France having to go to the IMF for a bailout.

KUPCHAN: Take one final question from Ariel.

Q: The question to the panel, but especially to Mr. Grand. How do you envisage coordination of military industrial production? Inside Europe we have a number of fighters, a number of tanks, duplicate systems, which are wasteful, and we have insufficient production. And the second question, if I may, there’s a lot of noise about Russia, if successful in Ukraine, threatening other parts of Europe, in particular the Baltic states. How seriously are you taking that? Do you think this is just an intimidation, ala Karaganov and nuclear? Or we need to do something about it in terms of more, bigger trip wires and deployments, and stuff like that? Thank you.

KUPCHAN: We’ve got four questions on the table. Each of you has two minutes. So pick and choose. And we’ll start with Emma.

ASHFORD: Sure. Yeah, so I will pick two. So I think on the question about a Russian threat to the Baltics, or this notion that if Russia is not stopped in Ukraine it will immediately come for other NATO states, I find that to be an incredibly problematic assumption. Because the thing that we have seen over the last two years is that Article Five does seem to have significant deterrent power. The Russians have taken practically every step they can to avoid accidentally getting involved in direct conflict with NATO member states. Now, that doesn’t mean that there might not be meddling around the edges, that there might not be things coming out of Kaliningrad that impinge into other spaces. But in general, what we have seen is that the Russians are very wary of direct conflict with NATO countries. To me, that’s a very good sign, because it implies that there is a qualitative difference to the Russians between Ukraine, which is a NATO partner, et cetera, but is not an ally, and allies covered by Article Five. So I actually find that fairly reassuring, not something that’s concerning.

Then to the question about limits to spending or borrowing, again, I leave much of that to the economists, but I do think, you know, we are already in a situation where, you know, in the U.S., let’s say, where polling shows that about two-thirds of the population think that the U.S. should do the same or less going forward for Ukraine, and that we should be encouraging European states to spend more, the proportions are about the same. You know, if you then start to head into an environment where spending is even more constrained and where you’re talking about pitting those priorities against something like social spending, I suspect that you will see public support for that spending decline precipitously. So again, I think this is another one of those scenarios that I talked about where, you know, you may see the U.S. pull back, try to burden shift to allies in Europe. And spending could be one reason for that.

KUPCHAN: Camille.

GRAND: Well, let me maybe start with the threats to the Baltic states. I very much agree with Emma that Article Five does work, and is working very well, in fact, as we’ve seen no sign of horizontal escalation. Where I’m more worried about, in the sort of five, ten years horizon, is once the Russian forces are reconstituted, is testing. Testing whether Article Five works. You know, with a different administration, with a more disunited Europe, how does that work? So that’s the sort of scenario where we need to demonstrate constantly both political and military solidarity of the alliance. And for that, the exercise in planning works.

Second, on the nuclear issue, I would say I tend to agree that with Russia we see more nuclear saber rattling than actual moves. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pay a lot of attention to the actual moves when they happen, but I think Russia has been losing ground on that because, you know, having Medvedev tweeting every day and Putin talking about nukes twice a month doesn’t really help having a clear deterrence messaging. So I think we have to be constantly watching this. But I’m not—I think there’s a lot of loose talk on the part of Russia that is unfortunate, and then we need to watch, but not to be too worried about.

And part of it is because we are in a nuclear alliance, hence the comments by Stoltenberg, hence the reminder by Macron that France is a nuclear weapon state, because I think it’s important to remind everyone that the nuclear shadow works both ways. Yes, Russia being a nuclear weapon state prevents certain types of action, invites to caution. But it works the other way around. And, of course, Russia would not tolerate a massive of assisting Ukraine if it was not on NATO territory, not itself protected by nuclear deterrence.

On China and India, just in one word, I think they played a very positive role in the fall of ’22 when there was the first surge in Russian nuclear rhetoric. I think China and India—really that took place at the summit in Kazakhstan—were quite clear, vis-à-vis Putin, that would be something of a red line. And combined with a clear message from the West that prevented any temptation to go further.

Finally, on the economics and the situation in the EU on military production. On the economics, I think we’re not quite yet at the butter versus guns type of situation. The bailout situation, the scenario that Gideon used, is really associated with the scenario of a bizarre government taking control and having a sort of debt crisis. But I don’t think that any of our countries—we are all very wealthy countries, and we devote somewhere between 0.2 and 0.5 of our GDP to the assistance to Ukraine. So the notion that it is unachievable or fiscally unsustainable seems to me a little far-fetched, even if proper prioritization might be needed. But that’s not dramatic prioritization.

Finally, on the EU production, we’re not there yet. Obviously, there is a big effort to rebuild the European defense and industrial base. The EU is, for the first time, putting a big effort into this. Not yet a lot of money, but that will be important. Also in the context of transatlantic relations, I do think that it’s important that the Europeans are capable of delivering their own equipment, if only because the U.S. might have to prioritize for other theaters at certain moments. And therefore, having a robust industrial base in Europe is really important, and could enable the Europeans to deliver a bigger bang for their euro. Thank you.

KUPCHAN: Tom, you got the last word.

WRIGHT: Yeah, I’ll try to be super-fast. Just on Cynthia’s question, I may have been unclear my initial remarks, but I don’t think I said that we didn’t pay attention to what Putin says and only look at what he does. I think we pay attention to both. You know, of course especially on the nuclear arena.

On Alex’s question, we don’t have any reason or sort of evidence, I think, that China told Russia that this was a red line, you know, that there will be consequences, you know, from them if Russia was to go ahead and use nuclear weapons. Since, I think they have said, you know, that they believe nuclear weapons shouldn’t be used. But I think one sort of question to look at is whether or not—you know, is the but, then. You know, if they do, you know, would China sort of impose a cost on Russia? I think we’ve seen pretty consistent, you know, PRC support for Russia throughout this conflict. It’s evolved a bit. I think they avoided giving them lethal assistance. But as we warned sort of recently, we are worried that they are helping Russia reconstitute sort of its military industrial base and military systems sort of faster than otherwise would have been the case.

And I think that does—to circle to the last sort of question—I think that does sort of destabilize sort of European security, you know, over sort of a five-, ten-year period, because it means, you know, that Russian forces will sort of pose more of a threat not just to Ukraine, but I think also persistently in Europe. And that’s why we’ve worked closely with European allies and partners to send a very clear message to China that they should stop doing that.

Just the final thing I would say, just on the economic limits, Mike’s question on economic limits to spending. You know, what future congresses and administrations do on supplementals and funding, I think, you know, we don’t know the answer to that. But what I would say is that this—you know, the funding that we have given to Ukraine is sustainable. Most of that funding is basically spent sort of on U.S. production of weapons that are used to—you know, to backfill sort of the U.S. military for older sort of weapons and systems that we give to Ukraine.

So this is not money that is given in sort of a lump sum or a check to Ukraine. It’s given in sort of weapons, and in munitions, and in other sort of goods to Ukraine. But the money largely stays in circulation here. And the president has made that point repeatedly, I think, including in many of his speeches, because sometimes it’s misrepresented as sort of a large transfer of funds where, in reality, it’s more sort of funds that are spent on modernizing and, you know, increasing the stocks and supplies for the U.S. military in exchange for those supplies that go to Ukraine.

KUPCHAN: Please join me in thanking Emma, Camille, and Tom for a great conversation. (Applause.) Thank you, Camille.

GRAND: Thank you.

(END)

This is an uncorrected transcript.