NATO got PURLed yesterday
Eastern and Northern European defence ministers have agreed to an extortionate American demand to pay to be middlemen in Ukraine arms delivery—further locking in Europe's military dependence.
When Donald Trump took office nine months ago, he came in saying he would end what he and MAGA considered to be exorbitant amounts of US military aid to Ukraine. He first claimed he would end the need for aid because he would negotiate a peace in 24 hours. When that didn’t happen, he began months of turning the military aid taps on and off. Now the direct tap is being definitively turned off, but a pipe is being diverged carrying the weapons through EU countries before they get to Ukraine. And the EU countries have just agreed to pay for the privilege of transiting them. It has left the rather gross impression that America is profiting from the suffering of Ukrainians.
Before leaving office, the Biden administration did everything it could to max out and lock in aid for Ukraine that would last into the Trump term. $34 billion was drawn back from existing US inventories using presidential drawdown authority and the Congress passed a $33 billion Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. All of that money rolled into Trump’s term. But MAGA has been determined to end this funding one way or another, resulting in several halts on all aid delivery, the latest one on 1 July. Trump had to find some way of delivering the MAGA pledge that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskyy was going to “lose his allowance.”
At the humiliating Hague Summit in June, NATO leaders agreed to give the US president a way to do it. In exchange for Trump staying nominally supportive of Ukraine and not pulling the US out of NATO, the European leaders agreed to buy the US weapons destined for Ukraine themselves, and then give them to Kiev. So the US weapons will still go to Ukraine, but not directly. EU countries will pay to buy them and then transfer them. Trump gets to keep his campaign promise while at the same time extorting more tributary payments from the Europeans in the process. The scheme created to administer this system is called PURL (Priority Ukraine Requirements List). And all this is on top of the nonsensical 5% GDP spending target (higher than what the US spends) agreed to in The Hague.
North and East refuse to buy European
Yesterday, at a defence ministers meeting here in Brussels, about half of NATO’s members signed up to this scheme—mostly from Eastern Europe and the Nordics. But it has not been joined yet by the British, the French or other Western European countries. Privately, French officials say that aside from the questionable ethics of paying simply to transfer American weapons, it is locking European countries into even deeper military dependence on the US—by locking in spending contracts that go much further than just the Ukraine War.
France has been pushing for European countries to buy from European weapons providers, not American companies, in order to increase Europe’s autonomy and reduce American dependency. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, the most defiant NATO member resisting the American extortion (while pushing for an EU army), announced today that instead of sending money to America via PURL, they will give loans (mostly) to the Spanish defence giant Indra. Not so for the Germans, Dutch, Finns and Swedes, who will see their tax money flow to the American military-industrial complex.
As distasteful as this is, it is undeniable that Ukraine urgently needs weapons and delivery has plummeted since Trump stopped delivery. Western military aid fell by 43% in July and August compared to the first half of the year, according to Germany’s Kiel Institute. European countries, who are facing a depletion of their own weapons stocks, have not picked up the slack. So the choice was being made clear: If Ukraine has any hope of not losing this war, then European taxpayers need to pay America for the privilege of keeping Ukraine defended. “We know what Ukraine needs to stay strong in the fight and some of that stuff only the US can provide,”NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told reporters yesterday.
US pressure
In the lead-up to yesterday’s summit, the US Department of War was reportedly putting major pressure on European countries to make PURL purchasing commitments, with War Secretary Pete Hegseth angry that until yesterday there had only been limited appetite from European countries to sign up to these extortionate commitments to purchase US weapons. Going into yesterday’s summit, only six countries had made commitments (the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Canada and Germany). “Our expectation today is that more countries donate even more,” Hegseth scolded them at the start of the meeting. “Now…is the time for all NATO countries to turn words into action in the form of PURL investments. All countries around this table, no free riders.” By the end of the day, Rutte (who has come to be viewed as Trump’s errand boy in Brussels) announced that half of NATO members had signed PURL purchasing promises. And Germany made a new commitment of a of €2 billion for anti-tanks weapons and Patriot air defence systems.
“We all support the United States-led effort to end the war against Ukraine and secure a just and lasting peace,” Rutte said. “We are providing Ukraine with critical American equipment through PURL. This provides Ukraine with the American weapons it really needs to protect its people and hold the front line. We started strong, in fact, when six member states financed the first PURL packages. And today we have heard from one ally after another about new contributions. More than half of NATO member states have already signed the agreement, ensuring this important stream of support for Ukraine.”
But here’s the obvious question: how can Ukraine’s defence still be said to be “US-led” when the US has just washed its hands of giving Ukraine any more military aid? If Europeans are expected to now be 100% financing this effort, then why shouldn’t Europeans be running it? And why shouldn’t they be doing so, as much as currently possible, with their own weapons? By using the American weapons they are running the risk that at any moment the MAGA regime is going to change their minds and forbid their weapons from being used in Ukraine (which they are already doing for the Tomahawk missiles the US is selling the Europeans). By signing up to these US purchasing commitments, they are stymying the development of European weapons production.
But this is exactly what the Trump regime wants, both with the NATO 5% spending target and with these PURL commitments. This isn’t about Europe gaining sovereignty over its own defence. This is simply about Europeans handing over even more of their money to the American military-industrial complex while still ceding all command and control power to Washington. Europeans are not getting serious about their own defence. They are being extorted into sending tributary payments to Washington in order to maintain the American security umbrella. That’s what the 5% target is, and that’s what PURL is.
Finland also made PURL commitments today, after hesitating at first. “We think it is very important that Ukraine receive critically needed weapons from the United States,” said Finnish Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen. It is, and it has hurt Ukraine that the US stopped delivering them. And now European countries are being told that the only way that Ukraine can still keep receiving these critical US weapons deliveries is if Europe pays.
Europe pays, US leads
In the short term, you might be tempted to say ,’fair enough, this is a war on Europe’s continent, Europe should be paying to solve it.’ But that argument ignores the fact that Europe has been paying to solve it, and it buys into Trump’s lies that the US has given much more than Europe to Ukraine. The Europeans have been doing their part, but their mistake has been sitting back and letting the United State coordinate this effort (and this money). Because the way Ukraine’s defence has been set up, it is entirely dependent on the US being on board. And so now Europe is in the situation of being extorted by Trump into making these payments on order to keep the US and board (and, we’re told, this is also the reason Europe had to make its trade war surrender). Europe shouldn’t just be paying for Ukraine’s defence, it should be running the aid effort. But that effort is still being run by the Americans, who are now being paid for it.
So what’s the Eastern and Nordic countries’ bright idea to rectify this situation? Locking themselves into long-term US weapons purchasing commitments. Meanwhile, they are blocking France’s efforts to insert a ‘buy European’ clause into the EU’s new military spending programme. It now looks near-certain that Macron is going to lose this battle because he has such diminished political capital in Brussels due to his domestic political difficulties (which I discussed in my Substack Live with Julien Hoez this week).
European countries are not taking the hard step of boosting their own weapons producing capacity in order to free this continent from American hegemony. They are taking the easiest route: giving in to Trump’s extortion commanding them to send more money to the American military-industrial complex. And once again we are learning how badly Europeans want to be fooled as they are using Trump’s momentary flight of fancy (while he is irritated with Putin) to convince themselves that he is in it for the long haul to support Ukraine.
The European ministers and journalists were all very excited in Brussels today by War Secretary Hegseth’s tough talk. The US will “impose costs on Russia for its continued aggression” if the war in Ukraine does not come to an end, he said. “If we must take this step, the US War Department stands ready to do our part in ways that only the United States can do.” This from the same man who just eight months ago said in the same room that Ukraine will not be allowed into NATO and should give up any hope of getting its territory back.
Who honestly believes they can trust this man and this regime? How can our European politicians be so continuously naïve? They have no courage, no ambition and no ideas. They cannot think of any course of action except to keep giving in to Trump’s demands, sending bucketloads of money to America and hoping for the best.
We all deserve better than this.