Rasmussen urges European defence coalition including Ukraine as US commitment wavers

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who ran NATO from 2009 to 2014, has thrown the weight of his authority behind a radical restructuring of European security. Speaking at a seminar on European defence on Monday, the former Danish prime minister argued that the United States' attitude towards the defence of Europe has changed permanently and that a new coalition of the willing, this time encompassing the continent as a whole, with Ukraine as a full participant, must be built as insurance against a sudden American withdrawal.

From Ukraine-specific force to continental shield

The concept of a coalition of the willing is not new. A grouping of 45 states has already been sketched out as a reassurance and training force that could deploy inside Ukraine once a peace settlement with Russia is reached. Rasmussen's proposal is to adapt and expand that framework so that it becomes the backbone of European security more broadly. The force would be led by the continent's two nuclear powers, France and the United Kingdom, and would operate as a European pillar within NATO rather than as a rival to it.

The timing is deliberate. On Wednesday, defence ministers from five leading European powers, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Poland, meet in Berlin to hammer out a common defence strategy ahead of the NATO summit in Ankara on 7 July. That summit is being framed as a demonstration to Donald Trump that Europe has heeded his demand for higher defence spending. The alliance is preparing to announce an additional €70 billion for Ukraine over the next two years, with the contributions counting towards a new target of 5% of GDP on defence by 2035, a substantial increase from the long-standing 2% guideline.

The spending target and its political purpose

European defence officials acknowledge that the 5% target serves a dual purpose. It signals resolve to Washington, but it also casts a spotlight on how concentrated the burden of supporting Ukraine has become. Five states, Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands, provide the overwhelming share of military aid. A higher collective target is intended to broaden that base, though sceptics note that many NATO members have yet to meet the existing 2% commitment consistently.

At the military level, officials express confidence that any US drawdown will not be so sudden as to leave Europe exposed. Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, has announced a review of troop numbers in Europe, but the Pentagon's planning horizon remains measured. Rasmussen, however, argues that reacting to each twist in Washington's thinking is a strategic error. He said the G7 summit in Evian last week showed a detectable shift in Trump's attitude towards the war, but insisted that Europe must now make its own decisions without calculating how Trump might respond.

Ukraine as asset rather than liability

The most striking element of Rasmussen's argument is his reframing of Ukraine's role. For three years, the dominant narrative in Western capitals has been that Ukraine needs help. Rasmussen does not dispute that, but he insists the balance has shifted. Ukraine's armed forces have absorbed and adapted NATO equipment, doctrine and intelligence at a scale and speed no other European military has been tested on. They have developed indigenous capabilities, particularly in drones, electronic warfare and long-range strike, that now exceed what most European armies can field.

"Usually we look at Ukraine as a country that needs our help," Rasmussen said. "That is still right, but more and more we should look at Ukraine as an asset, a country that can actually contribute to European security." He described Ukraine as "militarily the strongest nation in Europe" and "battle tested, battle hardened." That assessment, coming from a former NATO secretary general who has advised Zelenskyy directly, carries weight in capitals that have grown accustomed to viewing Ukraine through the lens of vulnerability.

Industrial integration and the licensing push

Rasmussen welcomed indications that Ukraine will receive licences to manufacture US-designed weapons on its own soil, including interceptor missiles and long-range missiles. Ukrainian defence leaders have been lobbying for the removal of European bureaucratic constraints that prevent their fast and cheap defence industry from integrating with the continent's established prime contractors. The argument is that changing the defence ecosystem, allowing Ukrainian firms to plug into European supply chains, share data and co-develop systems, matters more than propping up individual national champions.

This push reflects a broader recognition that Europe's defence industrial base is fragmented, slow and expensive. Ukraine's wartime innovation cycle, weeks from concept to battlefield deployment, has embarrassed procurement agencies in Berlin, Paris and London where comparable programmes take years. Integrating that agility into the European defence technological and industrial base (EDTIB) is now a live policy discussion in Brussels and national capitals.

The nuclear umbrella and the leadership question

Rasmussen's vision of a coalition led by France and the United Kingdom rests on their status as Europe's only nuclear powers. Both have signalled a willingness to extend their deterrents to European partners, though the practical mechanics, command and control, decision-making thresholds, burden-sharing, remain unresolved. The Berlin meeting on Wednesday is expected to address how a European pillar within NATO would function in a crisis where Article 5 is invoked but Washington hesitates. The Ankara summit will test whether the 32 allies can agree on language that reassures eastern members without alienating a US administration that has questioned the alliance's value.

Negotiating with Russia: strength first

Rasmussen also sounded a cautionary note on the idea, debated at the last European Council meeting, of appointing an EU negotiator to deal directly with Moscow. "Before even thinking about appointing someone to negotiate on behalf of Europe, we should ensure that he or she will negotiate from position of strength," he said. The implication is clear: a negotiation preceded by a credible military coalition, integrated Ukrainian capabilities and a demonstrable European defence industrial effort would look very different from one launched from weakness. The Iran-US conflict, in which Russia openly backed Iran, may have sharpened thinking in the White House about Moscow's reliability, but Rasmussen dismissed the idea that a post-Trump administration would revert to the pre-2016 status quo. "It's wishful thinking to believe that after Trump, the situation might return to business as usual. It won't. The world has changed. The American attitude has changed."

What the Ankara summit must deliver

The Ankara summit on 7 July is the first concrete deadline. NATO leaders need to show not just a headline spending figure but a credible plan for turning money into capability. That means addressing the procurement bottlenecks that have left 155mm artillery shell production below Ukrainian consumption rates two years into the war. It means agreeing on a European air defence architecture that does not rely solely on US Patriot batteries. And it means deciding whether Ukraine's integration into the coalition of the willing is a political declaration or a military planning assumption with force generation targets, command structures and logistics chains.