By Kenneth R. Weinstein
For much of the Cold War, the transatlantic alliance was an quasi-theological in importance. NATO was an article of faith: a united and free West standing against Soviet communism, with America serving as Europe’s permanent guardian. Conservatives from Eisenhower to Reagan were among its most devoted believers, and rightly so. But after the Cold War, this unexamined faith bred complacency. By the 2010s most European allies spent well under the 2 percent of GDP they had pledged to defense, while summit communiqués celebrated “shared values.”
Donald Trump broke the spell. He treated the alliance not as a creed but as a partnership that must serve concrete interests on both sides of the Atlantic. For all the turbulence, the result is a stronger alliance. At The Hague in 2025, allies pledged 5 percent of GDP for defense and security by 2035. European allies and Canada raised core defense spending by nearly 20 percent in 2025. Germany loosened its debt brake to rearm and is emerging as a serious defense provider. Europe is building real military power for the first time in a generation.
American conservatism contains at least three foreign policy strands
This shift will outlast Trump because it reflects a broad conservative consensus, well beyond one man’s temperament. American conservatism contains at least three foreign policy strands, and they disagree on much.
The restrainers, rooted in the populist and national-conservative wing, distrust open-ended commitments and believe Washington has subsidized wealthy allies at the expense of American workers. The prioritizers see China as the defining challenge of the century and want Europe to bear the burden conventional defense against Russia so American power can shift to the Indo-Pacific. The Reaganite internationalists still prize NATO as history’s most successful alliance and see American leadership in Europe as indispensable.
“And none expects a return to the Atlantic world of a Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush.”
What is striking is where these strands converge. All three want a Europe that defends itself. All three judge alliances by what they deliver, rather than what they proclaim. And none expects a return to the Atlantic world of a Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush. The GOP’s center of gravity has moved to working-class voters wary of distant entanglements. Even Democrats, under Jake Sullivan’s “foreign policy for the middle class,” absorbed much of the same logic. Europeans hoping to wait out Trump for a restoration are deluding themselves.
The conservative vision is not retreat. It is partnership among capable nations, each clear about its own interests, reinforcing the alliance through enhanced capabilities. Many European conservatives share that vision, understanding that sovereignty begins with the ability to defend oneself.
But partnership cuts both ways, and here Europe risks making a serious mistake. Having accepted responsibility for its own defense, Brussels seems to be trying to wall out American industry. The EU’s €150 billion SAFE defense loan program requires roughly 65 percent European content, and a “tech sovereignty” push would steer public cloud and AI contracts toward European providers. Washington has already warned it will review the waivers that let European firms sell into the American defense market.
Co-production and joint ventures, not protectionism
This is self-defeating. Europe’s new money should buy the most capability in the shortest time, and in missile defense, advanced aircraft, space and secure cloud and AI, American firms often deliver what no one else can. Shutting them out hands ammunition to those in Washington who say Europe wants American protection without American partnership; every strand of conservatism would read a “Fortress Europe” the same way. And the real beneficiary of a fragmented Western defense and technology base is Beijing. The answer is co-production and joint ventures, not protectionism.
The alliance has lost its theology. It has gained something sturdier: a hard-headed partnership grounded in shared interests. Conservatives of every stripe can champion that alliance, provided Europe stops mourning the past and stops building its future by shutting out its most important partner.
About the author: Dr. Kenneth R. Weinstein is the Japan Chair at Hudson Institute, where he served as CEO from 2005-2020.