Starmer to urge UK & Europe to step up commitments to Nato: Is it a rebuttal to the US?

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that his country and Europe need to step up their commitments to the Nato to avoid the risk of being overly dependent on the United States for defence. On Saturday, Starmer shared his main planks of foreign policy as he prepares to speak at the Munich Security Conference.

While sharing his take on the ongoing transatlantic tensions, the British premier is expected to warn against the idea of the UK turning inwards on security, instead calling for a focus on what he will call the “sleeping giant” of shared European defence capabilities, The Guardian reported.

The speech also warns that the voters need to be primed to expect greater spending on defence, and to be told the reasons why, or face the “peddlers of easy answers” such as Reform UK and the Greens risking national security. Speaking to reporters ahead of Starmer's address at the conference, Downing Street officials stress that Starmer’s call is not being made over fears that the US is no longer committed to Nato.

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They noted that the call is more a response to the demands from Washington that European nations commit more to defence. However, the speech is generally seen in the context of last year's main American address to the conference in Germany by US Vice President JD Vance.

American pressure

Last year, Vance used his speech to slam European leaders for supposedly blocking free speech and being soft on migration, questioning whether such values were compatible with a US guarantee of mutual security.

Meanwhile, Trump has often questioned the value of Nato, including the claim in January that European nations “stayed a little back, a little off the frontlines” while supporting US troops in Afghanistan, comments that prompted a rare direct rebuke from Starmer. In extracts of the speech released in advance by No 10, Starmer said he was setting out “a vision of European security and greater European autonomy that does not herald US withdrawal, but answers the call for more burden-sharing in full, and remakes the ties that have served us so well”.

The British prime minister called for better cooperation on defence procurement. The speech says the UK should help create a new era for the continent. “As I see it, Europe is a sleeping giant. Our economies dwarf Russia’s, 10 times over,” Starmer will say.

“We have huge defence capabilities. Yet, too often, all of this has added up to less than the sum of its parts. Across Europe, fragmented industrial planning and long, drawn-out procurement mechanisms have led to gaps in some areas – and massive duplication in others.”

“Because, if we don’t, the peddlers of easy answers on the extreme left and the extreme right are ready. They will offer their solutions instead. It’s striking that the different ends of the spectrum share so much. Soft on Russia and weak on Nato – if not outright opposed," he will go on.