European officials advance contingency plans for "European NATO" as US support wavers, WSJ reports

European officials are advancing contingency plans for what the Wall Street Journal has described as a "European NATO" — a structure that could maintain deterrence against Russia if Washington withdraws troops, withholds support, or refuses to invoke Article 5. The talks are running informally on the sidelines of NATO meetings rather than as a replacement for the alliance, and focus on who would take over air and missile defence, reinforcement routes, logistics, major exercises, and nuclear credibility if the United States steps back.

Germany's reversal on European defence sovereignty has unlocked broader engagement from the UK, France, Poland, the Nordic countries, and Canada. The discussions are being shaped by a widening gap between two timelines repeatedly cited by NATO planners: a Russian threat assessed for 2029 and a European readiness target for 2035. The framing follows the divisions exposed in NATO's 2 May standoff over the Strait of Hormuz, when several European allies resisted joining a US-led naval initiative.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney made the most explicit public framing on 20 January 2026, calling for "different coalitions for different issues" and singling out Canadian cooperation with the Nordic-Baltic Eight. "We are no longer just relying on the strength of our values, but also the value of our strength," he said, adding that "nostalgia is not a strategy" and that middle powers had "the most to lose from a world of fortresses." Carney did not name the United States.

On 15 March 2026, Carney met the prime ministers of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden in Oslo. Their joint statement committed the six governments to "enhance defence industrial capacity to ramp up defence production, strengthen capabilities, respond to hybrid threats, build resilient infrastructure, and develop interoperable, innovative and dual-use technologies," and described Ukraine's security as "integral to European and Euro-Atlantic security" — language that diverges from the current US line.

The Joint Expeditionary Force, a ten-nation grouping outside NATO's framework comprising Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the UK, met in Helsinki on 26 March 2026 and agreed to maximise operational collaboration with Ukraine, including Ukrainian participation in JEF exercises. Ukraine joined the JEF as its first enhanced partner at a defence ministers' meeting in Norway on 5 November 2025. The JEF leaders' statement underlined that the force is "committed to contributing to credible deterrence in peacetime, and to reacting quickly and flexibly in close coordination with NATO" in crises that fall below the Article 5 threshold.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has openly pushed for an alternative bloc on three occasions in recent months. At the Munich Security Conference on 15 February 2025 he called for "a different form of NATO in Ukraine," arguing that Vladimir Putin had become "the most influential NATO member" because his actions effectively block alliance decisions. On 20 January 2026 he said Ukraine was "not opposed to joining a new military and political alliance in Europe if it wants to create it as a replacement or alternative to NATO." Commenting on reports of a possible US withdrawal on 9 April 2026, Zelenskyy proposed that the EU "join forces with Ukraine, the UK, Türkiye, and Norway" to create a bloc large enough to deter Russia, arguing that "without Ukraine and Türkiye, Europe will not have an army comparable to the Russian one. With Ukraine, Türkiye, Norway, and Britain, you will also control security at sea." He reiterated the proposal on 21 April 2026.

Finland's President Alexander Stubb has argued that reinstating compulsory military service will be essential as Europe takes on more responsibility for its own defence. Speaking at the Brookings Institution in Washington on 13 April 2026, Stubb said Ukraine's current military capacity was matched by no NATO country other than the United States: "I am just wondering whether instead of us thinking of American or European help to Ukraine as some kind of altruism, it's actually we that need Ukraine more than the other way around."

Hans Petter Midttun, a former Norwegian defence attaché to Ukraine and Non-Resident Fellow at the Centre for Defense Strategies, has argued the alliance "no longer deters Russia" and that NATO members already fear war with Russia by 2029, with the bloc paralysed by what he describes as a flawed decision-making process. The list of states he proposes for a Coalition of Like-Minded countries — Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom — overlaps almost entirely with the governments now appearing in the high-level side meetings.