The World This Week: What we’re hearing across Europe about NATO and Ukraine

By Mike Froman President, Council on Foreign Relations

Writing from Rzeszów, Poland

This week, CFR Senior Fellow Charles Kupchan and I led a CFR fact-finding mission on NATO enlargement to Belgium, Finland, and Poland. We met with political leaders, diplomats, military officers, and civil society representatives. The trip had been planned long ago, but it couldn’t have occurred at a better time.

Everywhere we went, there was strong interest in what Donald Trump’s electoral victory means for NATO, for Ukraine’s fight against Russia, and for the broader transatlantic relationship. Afterward, Charlie and I sat down to share our impressions.

Froman: Charlie, one thing that struck me was just how focused the Finns were on the threat from Russia, not just since Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine but since the end of the Cold War. After the Soviet threat disappeared, the Finns left conscription in place, maintained high defense spending compared to the average NATO country, and continued to prepare a national civil defense against a potential attack from the east.

Finland might be a small country, but our meetings with politicians, ministers, and members of a special forces regiment made clear that the Finns are determined to contribute heavily to NATO as one of its two newest members.

What’s more, they and the Poles resent the fact that they are meeting or exceeding their NATO commitment—Poland is spending over 4 percent of GDP on defense, well above the 2 percent guideline—while larger, wealthier nations to the west (witness France, Germany) are spending substantially less.

Kupchan: I agree, Mike. The Finns had maintained national readiness and vigilance well before joining NATO. But the fact that both Finland and Sweden left behind decades of neutrality to join the alliance speaks to the degree to which Russia’s full-scale invasion was a game-changer for much of Europe—especially for countries on NATO’s eastern flank.

What had been a latent Russian threat turned into an existential Russian threat. That’s especially true for Finland, given Russia’s previous bouts of aggression and Finland’s long border with its eastern neighbor.

Finland and Sweden’s membership in NATO is a clear win-win. The two countries now enjoy the protection of NATO’s security guarantee, and NATO now enjoys the aggregate strength and strategic location of its Nordic members.

Froman: The war in Ukraine is not some abstract conflict for citizens of nearby countries; it’s front and center in their lives every day. Poland has borne the brunt of the influx of Ukrainian refugees. After the war started, there was an initial wave of several million Ukrainians crossing into Poland, and now more than one million remain.

These refugees get generous access to Polish healthcare, education, and social benefits. And while there certainly are some challenges—including bullying in the schools, which is driving many Ukrainian children to stay home and attend Ukrainian schools virtually—Polish society has been quite welcoming.

Sure, there are tensions as Poles, who originally invited Ukrainian families to live in their homes, run low on patience almost three years later, but it is a source of great pride across Poland that the country has shown such compassion and solidarity at such a critical time. At one point, Rzeszów, a city of two hundred thousand, hosted upward of one hundred thousand Ukrainians.

The vast majority of Ukrainian refugees are productively employed, contributing to the economy, and broadly accepted by the local community. Imagine that in other parts of Europe, let alone the United States.

Kupchan: As we expected, Poles are preoccupied with the impact of the U.S. election on U.S. policy toward Ukraine. As citizens of a frontline state that has gone to impressive lengths to support Ukraine and has had its own first-hand experience with Russian aggression and oppression, many of our Polish interlocutors were skeptical that Washington would be able to negotiate an end to the war on terms acceptable to Ukraine. Furthermore, they worried that any pause in the war would sooner or later give way to a renewed Russian effort to subjugate Ukraine.

We heard conflicting assessments of Russia’s staying power. Some saw Russia as facing increasing manpower and resource constraints, arguing that within roughly a year, Russia’s war effort would start to sputter. Others were less hopeful that time would work to Ukraine’s advantage. Like the Finns, the Poles see a pressing need to keep up the flow of aid to Ukraine. And they see limited, if any, options for a successful diplomatic endgame.

Froman: Security was top of mind for everyone we met. And what does security mean? Well, the ten thousand troops currently deployed to Poland create a lot of peace of mind for the Poles. In one briefing we received, a 12-year-old girl who had fled Ukraine was quoted as saying that safety means having a place to sleep, knowing where her parents were—and living under the NATO umbrella.

Ukrainians are coming to terms with the fact that they are unlikely to recapture by military force all the territory the Russians have taken, not just since 2014 but even since February 2022—particularly if the United States reduces military support, as seems probable. And so their focus is shifting to whether a rump Ukraine can be prosperous and secure.

Prosperity, they believe, comes with a meaningful, fast-track process toward EU accession. As for security, they have little faith in bilateral security guarantees to deter future Russian aggression, given the lack of credibility of prior such guarantees. Charlie, maybe the 12-year-old girl is on to something.

One more thing, Charlie: The Europeans are getting clever about recasting their message in ways they think might appeal most to President Trump. We heard repeated warnings that Trump shouldn’t let Ukraine become “his Afghanistan.” We also heard the argument that a failed state in Ukraine would weaken Europe at the very time the United States needs a strong and united Europe to support Trump’s efforts to stand up to China. Who knows whether these appeals will work. But one thing is clear: Europe is in for a bumpy ride. Buckle your seatbelts.

(Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

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