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Secrets and Spies is a podcast that dives into the world of espionage, terrorism, geopolitics, and intrigue. This episode is presented by Matt Fulton and produced by Chris Carr.

Matt (00:36):
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Secrets and Spies. The Atlantic’s Shane Harris is back with us today. He recently returned from a reporting trip across Europe, talking with officials who are quietly preparing for a future where they may have to defend the continent without America’s help. We get into what that means for NATO, how Trump’s return has changed the conversation, and whether Europe’s newfound confidence can last.

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Matt (01:27):
Shane Harris, welcome back, my friend. Good to see you.

Shane (01:29):
Matt, it’s great to see you. Always nice to be here. Thanks again for having me.

Matt (01:34):
Of course. So the occasion this time: you had a piece out recently in The Atlantic recounting a recent trip to Europe, where you talked to a bunch of officials and got their sense of everything. So I thought we’d have a little debrief. Before we get into the details on that, what struck you most about the atmosphere on the ground when you were over there? Did it feel like a region finally confident in its own defense, or one bracing for a war they aren’t prepared to fight?

Shane (02:09):
Well, I think they feel confident that they’re increasing their defenses. Certainly, you hear this when you talk to officials — particularly in countries that have agreed to increase their defense spending to a higher portion of GDP, trying to hit that 5% target that Trump has set. They feel very good about doing that, and they feel that it’s extremely necessary for two reasons, which gets to your question. One is — and this has been true since Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago — that they feel Russian aggression is a direct threat to their sovereignty. They take this war in Ukraine as more of an existential matter. It’s something that Americans don’t often understand because this is a war on their doorstep. In some cases — particularly when you’re talking about Estonia, Poland; the Brits feel this as well.

(03:05):
So they feel that this increase in defense spending is necessary to fight a potential war with Russia. And they don’t have any illusions about Putin’s aims there. They don’t think he would just stop with Ukraine, putting aside how the war in Ukraine ends. The second thing — and this was the more acute and alarming piece — is that they’re not counting on the United States. It was very clear in my conversations with officials, experts, and people in the security communities in these countries that they’re not convinced Donald Trump is going to walk away from NATO tomorrow, although there are scenarios in which NATO might just break and not work anymore. But they’re not planning for a future defense in which the United States is the indispensable ally they can always rely on. They’re planning for a future in which the United States is not that reliable partner.

(04:04):
And that was pretty striking. I think their feeling is that it’s not unique to Trump. They see populist strains rising in the United States in both parts of the political spectrum — although it’s been more a feature of the political right in the United States for the past few years. They see the United States generally withdrawing in ways that tell them they need to plan for the possibility that they may have to carry a lot more of the burden themselves. That was striking. They seemed quite clear-eyed and, obviously, disappointed about that too.

Matt (04:41):
A lot of your piece talks about the Europeans’ response to the recent drone incursions over Denmark from parts of the Baltic, into Poland from the Russians through Ukrainian airspace, and they were quite confident in how they responded. Do you think when it’s the Europeans themselves pulling the trigger against these incursions, that carries a different message for Putin? Do you think he reads a European military response as more threatening than the U.S. swooping in to save them again?

Shane (05:15):
I would suspect he probably doesn’t see it as much of a threat as the United States, which has superior technology, obviously. But I think the Europeans want him to read it as a message: we are fully capable of defending ourselves; we will do so; we know what you’re doing; we have the capability. I think the Polish foreign minister, Radek Sikorski, said that pretty explicitly when he was speaking to the UN Security Council. His remarks are worth going back and reading, and I linked to them in the piece — where he says directly to the Russians: don’t come crying to us if one of your aircraft strays in accidentally. He made a point of laughing at the notion that it was an accident — into Polish airspace. Don’t come whining when we shoot it down. I think that was meant clearly.

(06:10):
It was explicit to the Russians: we have the capability to do so. Notably, they only shot down about four drones that came in because the Poles were sending aircraft against those drones, not missiles and missile-defense packages, which is what Sikorski has been advocating — a kind of drone shield more akin to how we think of a Patriot missile-defense system or Iron Dome that shoots things out of the sky. So they’re sending up planes to shoot these things down, which is not a great use of resources, but it sends a message — and they want to send that very clearly.

Matt (06:46):
You also write about their sense that these incursions actually backfired on the Russians. You mentioned Operation Eastern Sentry — bolstered air defenses on the eastern flank, a sort of drone wall. More specifically, why do they feel those incursions backfired on the Russians?

Shane (07:09):
The officials and experts I spoke to think Russia is, in part, doing these incursions to divide the alliance and split the United States off from NATO allies in Europe. They felt that is not happening — at least not now. We should always caveat this by saying that Donald Trump could change his mind tomorrow. In fact, he seemed to switch his position on Russia and Ukraine the day after my story was published, and then a couple of days later he seemed to switch back — in terms of whose side are you on here? I’m speaking very broadly, but he’s taken so many different positions that the NATO allies look at him and say he’s not consistent in his support for us. For the moment, he seems to be on side with us.

(07:58):
So they were reading the Russian incursions as backfiring in that they did not result in Donald Trump coming out and saying, oh, this terrible war in Ukraine has caused all this mess in Europe and that’s what these incursions are. He’s not praising Putin for violating the sovereign airspace of NATO allies. In fact, he’s saying the opposite — he’s saying it’s not a good thing. You would hope for a more forceful response from an American president, but for Trump they see him coming out in support of the allies and, not exactly condemning these violations of airspace, but saying that NATO allies have a right to defend themselves. They consider that a win, given who they’re dealing with.

Matt (08:47):
To that point, how do you think European leaders are handling their relationship with Trump right now compared to the first term?

Shane (08:53):
It’s so interesting. Some colleagues of mine wrote a piece around this earlier in the year. It’s almost as if every major European leader has figured out the special sauce they have that helps them work with Trump and get more of an in with him directly, because what they all want is a personal connection with him — that’s very important. For the French, it’s the splendor of France — the Versailles of it. When he comes over, they’ve brought out all the bells and whistles. He loves that. For the Brits, Keir Starmer, the prime minister, and he are openly very affectionate to one another and both say they have such a great relationship. That may be partly Starmer flattering him. I’m sure it’s also doing things like showing up with a letter from the King for the President.

(09:44):
He likes that the Finnish president is a really good golf player, and they play golf together. It’s almost like every one of these leaders is trying to find the in, and then sharing the information they’re gathering with each other. I was at a conference in Estonia earlier in the year, and they were kind of talking around this but hinting at the fact — a number of these world leaders — that we all figure out what we can from him. We then share it with each other. We talk. I think they have realized you have to have personal relationships with him, and that they might be transactional because Trump is not saying NATO is the bedrock of our relationship. He’s saying, my relationship with your country is based on my relationship with you, the individual leader.

Matt (10:40):
Yeah, it’s entirely personal and transactional, and it’s a game you unfortunately have to play — from their perspective. Someone who has taken a really interesting approach to that, that stood out to me at least, is the new-ish Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, former Dutch prime minister. Trump, of course, posted a screenshot of a text message from him while Trump was on his way to the last NATO summit — just fawning: congratulations on your biggest victory ever; this is all for you; we got the defense spending up. Very, for a lot of people, I think eye-roll-inducing and just, please don’t debase yourself. But I looked at it and thought: Putin and these bad actors manipulate him for evil all the time, so why not manipulate him for good in this case? I don’t know if you’ve gotten a sense of how that relationship is working and how that’s maybe holding the alliance together somewhat.

Shane (11:43):
Yeah. This is Rutte famously calling him “daddy.” It’s a bit over the top and cringey, but it might be working. You’d think Trump is not unaware that these leaders — he’s even used the phrase before — are all kissing my ass. He knows they’re doing it, and that’s fine with him. It’s both because he is so susceptible to flattery and because it’s a transaction. He wants to get things from them, and he does see more NATO countries hitting that 5% GDP goal — there’s some funny math there — but a significant increase in spending. He sees that as a result of his strong-arming, and NATO members go out of their way to credit him with it, which is another way of saying you’re so strong and so powerful. Many of them also say, we should have been doing this a long time ago, and he’s not wrong. Other American presidents have pressured alliance members to spend more. I think most people I talk to roll their eyes at the Rutte comment and say it’s over the top. At the same time, I don’t hear anybody saying it’s completely unnecessary either. This is the bargain they’ve struck, and some are more obsequious than others. You don’t really see — I’m trying to think — there’s not really a NATO member out there being the foil to Trump.

Matt (13:22):
Spain or?

Shane (13:23):
Maybe, yeah, maybe. But there, too, the spending is not that high. I’m sure these leaders would rather not see the secretary general tripping over himself to praise President Trump. But it seems to be working largely in the sense that the United States has not abandoned NATO, and there still seems to be a moment of opportunity for keeping Trump on side with the allies when it comes to Ukraine. What they don’t want to see is him turn his back on Ukraine or sell out Ukraine to Russia. If that’s keeping things tenuously together, then I suppose they have to live with it.

Matt (14:16):
What do you think Pete Hegseth’s role in all this has been? He seems more concerned with extracurriculars than the meat and potatoes of these relationships. How much of a factor has he been?

Shane (14:29):
I don’t think he has been a big factor. You don’t hear about or see Hegseth getting deeply involved in policy — certainly not international policy and allied relationships. That’s really been more Marco Rubio’s area, and there you do hear from foreign leaders and officials who say they interact with Rubio quite a lot, and they’re glad to because they feel he’s a sophisticated thinker — or at least one of the figures more committed to traditional goals and alliances in the administration. That’s not to say he’s on a different page than the president — he’s very much aligned with the president — but he’s somebody they feel they can deal with. You just don’t hear Hegseth popping up in those conversations.

Matt (15:25):
To that point, I find it interesting that Rubio was one of the sponsors of the bill during Biden’s term that was passed to require Senate approval for the U.S. to withdraw from NATO.

Shane (15:36):
And was also part of the push to get Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader, the Nobel Prize, which —

Matt (15:43):
That’s awkward.

Shane (15:43):
— Donald Trump wanted. There are so many ways in which Rubio is such a fascinating figure in this administration because there are so many things he has stood for and talked about in his previous life as a senator and presidential candidate that are not neatly aligned with Trumpism and that foreign policy, and yet he has made himself one of the more valuable players in the administration. When you talk to administration officials, they seem thrilled with Rubio. The White House seems to love him. He’s doing — what — six jobs now? He’s kind of the Energizer Bunny in this administration and obviously has presidential ambitions. He’s run for president before; I don’t think those ambitions have abated. So he’s doing some things that are clearly not aligned with what he said in the past, and some that seem quite aligned. You can read what’s going on in Venezuela — with both the shooting up of the drug boats and the possible military action to unseat Maduro — as Rubio’s war, in a way.

Matt (17:00):
That’s a hundred percent him.

Shane (17:01):
That’s him, and he’s driving that foreign policy. Trump doesn’t do policy. Trump doesn’t have a strategy. To the extent he has a view of the world, it’s largely shaped by people like Rubio and a sense — I’m kind of projecting into how I think he thinks, but also what we see happening — that Trump sees the world more as spheres of influence. He sees a world in which China has its role, Russia has a role, and we have a role. He is pursuing a strategy geared much more around our hemispheric interests: talk of making Canada the 51st state; say, a trade war with Canada; talk about acquiring Greenland; activity in the Caribbean; efforts possibly to unseat governments in South America. He seems more concerned right now with things in our own backyard and with trying to stabilize relationships with China and Russia. But Donald Trump is not going to beat the drum for spreading democracy through the Global South or launch some huge, ambitious project you might expect from an American president who believes in multilateral alliances and the U.S. as a force for leadership in the world. I don’t think that’s how he views things. He thinks we’ve been taken advantage of for a long time and have been ignoring things at home in favor of people abroad.

Matt (18:30):
Let’s take a break and we’ll be right back with more.

(18:49):
So countries like Poland and Germany are pouring a lot of money into their defense production now. Olaf Scholz calls this the Zeitenwende. But that kind of spending eventually collides with domestic politics, Europe’s social safety net, their programs to that effect. Are leaders worried that this buildup just isn’t sustainable if a deal in Ukraine is reached and the immediate fear of Russia subsides?

Shane (19:15):
In talking to people in Europe, it’s interesting. I’m sure they must be worried, and I’m sure at the domestic political level there’s much more debate about this, but you hear a lot of people saying it’s great that we’re spending all this money without necessarily talking about how they’re going to pay for it. Maybe that’s because they know they have to, they have the capacity, and they’ll raise the money somehow for all these other programs. But it’s obviously a strain on budgets. Interestingly, what they also see as an opportunity here — and maybe this isn’t what Trump had in mind — is to start building up their own defense industrial base. I think many of these countries would prefer to buy European weapons systems rather than American ones if they were good enough, because why not keep the jobs in Europe and boost their own economies that way? But these countries aren’t accustomed to spending this much on the military. It’s hard for Americans to fathom, but take a country like Denmark: if Donald Trump decided tomorrow that we’re going to annex Greenland and just take it, he wouldn’t even have to take it by force because there’s nothing the Danish military could do to stop him.

Matt (20:39):
No.

Shane (20:39):
They don’t have the capability. Even when there were the Russian MiG fighters flying over Estonia, those were NATO jets on patrol from the Italian Air Force that intercepted them because it was Italy’s turn in the rotation to be doing air patrol. These countries depend on one another to a degree because many of them don’t have indigenous capability. So spending this kind of money — because we’re going back to a kind of Cold War mentality — I’m not even sure they spent that much during the Cold War. This is a real change in how they think about priorities for their countries. I presume that will run up against social policy at some point, and probably already is in some places.

Matt (21:31):
Macron has talked about extending France’s nuclear umbrella over Europe as a more independent deterrent. I believe he discussed this with Germany recently. At this point, do you know if that’s a serious idea or just more aspirational? Are they putting stuff in place to do that?

Shane (21:46):
I don’t know. I’m not sure about that. And it’s interesting — this isn’t quite your question — but Trump, just yesterday before his meeting with Xi Jinping, said he wants to start U.S. nuclear weapons testing again.

Matt (22:04):
There are a lot of factual issues with how he announced that, but yeah.

Shane (22:08):
Yeah. But I’m not sure Trump would necessarily be opposed to countries extending the nuclear umbrella that way. It’s not something we’ve had to contemplate, but the fact that European countries are talking about it openly is illustrative of what we were discussing at the beginning: they’re not counting on the United States as the stabilizing force it has been. They’re planning for a future in which that relationship is different — how altered depends on who’s in the White House. It underscores the threat they see from Russia and their belief that they cannot count as deeply on the United States as they have for decades.

Matt (23:04):
And we’ve also seen — since your piece was published; you noted there was a rapid flip-flop with Trump’s posture toward Ukraine as soon as it came out — these coordinated U.S. and European sanctions on Russia’s oil industry while Trump has declined to send Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. His meeting with Putin in Budapest isn’t happening now. Not sure what happened there. How’s that being read over there? Have you heard?

Shane (23:35):
I haven’t had a chance to talk with anybody about all those machinations, but in the broad sense what Europeans are trying to do is ensure that the United States does not pressure Ukraine into taking a bad deal. For years, talking to folks about the war in Ukraine, nobody I know thinks that Russia is going to be entirely expelled from Ukraine. There may have been a moment when, if NATO countries and the United States had committed more forcefully to repelling the Russians, maybe they could have kicked them out — maybe even saved Crimea. But nobody’s thinking in those terms now. It’s always been: we’re going to arrive at a settlement somehow — what does that look like? NATO members are trying to keep Trump from striking a deal that gives Russia the whole of the Donbas, which Ukraine obviously finds unacceptable and won’t do.

(24:37):
So that’s one. The other component is they’re clearly preparing for the possibility — and maybe even the likelihood — that they will have to pick up the slack from U.S. weapons provisions and assistance to the Ukrainians. Trump has said we’re not going to give any more weapons; we’ll sell them — happily — but we’re not giving any more to Ukraine. So the Europeans see a bigger role for themselves in providing for Ukraine’s defense. That doesn’t necessarily get you to a settlement. What would the ideal settlement look like? I don’t know. But it’s clearly not the ones Trump has been floating — “let’s have a ceasefire.” Up until now he’s been pretty good at echoing Russian talking points, and the Ukrainians and Europeans seem to have done a good job of getting him to back down from that. But he vacillates so much that it’s hard to keep track of where he is on a given day.

Matt (25:41):
Do you think with Ukraine itself — and the war well into its third year now — there’s any genuine end in sight? There have been recent moments when it felt like we might be nearing a turning point, maybe the beginning of the end, but now I really have no idea. What’s your sense?

Shane (26:00):
I don’t think so. I don’t hear anyone talking in near terms. They’re talking about 2026 and what needs to happen to bolster Ukraine, and that’s why people are getting excited about the Tomahawks — maybe we give Ukraine the ability to pressure Russia even more with deeper strikes. But that won’t fundamentally change the fact that Russian troops are in Ukraine and Ukraine can’t push them out. Maybe eight months ago I was listening to a senior Western official who said Russia and Ukraine are both losing — it’s a question of who’s losing more quickly. That gives you a sense that “stalemate” may be too strong a word, but there’s nothing fundamentally shifting momentum toward Ukraine or Russia. We’re stuck in this. Going into 2026, does Putin want a deal?

Shane (26:59):
He says he does. Is he willing to keep feeding troops into a meat grinder? If he had to do a general conscription and suddenly it’s the sons of well-to-do families in Moscow and the Russian middle class — rather than soldiers from the hinterlands — being called up, maybe public attitudes would change. That doesn’t seem to be happening either. So it seems like we’re heading for more of the same. What Trump would obviously like is both for his friend Vladimir Putin to do him a solid and end this, and for Ukraine to go along with it. There was a report from his last meeting with Zelensky in the White House — which wasn’t on camera like that famous blow-up — with Vance. Yeah. From reports, it sounds like it was equally contentious, with Zelensky showing him maps with troop positions and Trump reportedly taking the maps and throwing them, saying, “F the maps. You need to make a deal.” Trump has kept that temper a little cooler publicly, but that probably gives you a sense of how thin his patience is. If he doesn’t see the sovereignty of Ukraine as the mission here, that’s not what he’s after. So you think years, not months, left to go? I’d hesitate to predict that, but I don’t see it happening in months. Then again, who knows? Trump has taken so many different positions in the past couple of weeks. You could debate whether providing Tomahawks would be a game changer. Maybe it wouldn’t. But the fact that he openly flirts with “maybe I’ll give more weapons” just tells you I’m not sure you can bet with time specifics on what’s likely to happen. He has often said to Zelensky, “You don’t hold any cards,” and Trump holds a lot of cards. There’s a lot he could do.

Matt (29:13):
Yeah, for sure. Overall, your piece strikes a note of cautious optimism, which is why I was drawn to it and wanted to talk to you. Europe’s response has been impressive, I think. But the real test is whether it lasts. After this trip — talking to everyone you talked to — are you more confident or more skeptical that, over the long term, NATO can meet the moment, whether that’s with Ukraine and Russia or with Trump himself?

Shane (29:45):
I think I’m more confident, both in terms of the actions you’re seeing and the confidence in the way they talk. I interviewed the Estonian Prime Minister, and he probably said 10 times, “NATO is working.” I think you could argue that’s right — it is doing what it should be doing right now. It’s not perfect. I didn’t put this in the piece, but there was some reporting that when Estonia wanted to invoke Article 4 — which is not the mutual self-defense part, Article 5, that people are more familiar with, but essentially forces NATO to meet and decide what to do about the MiG incursions — there had been reporting that Rutte and the Prime Minister of Estonia were privately fighting about this, and Rutte basically said you can’t call Article 4 every time something like this happens; it’ll dilute its power. What Michal, the Prime Minister, told me was those reports weren’t accurate — we didn’t have this fight. And at the end of the day they did declare Article 4, they met, and they beefed up the presence. The people in favor of being more aggressive with Russia — of flexing NATO’s muscle — are the ones who are ahead right now. It’s Sikorski at the UN, it’s the Prime Minister in Estonia. It’s people leaning in, to use that phrase, to the power of NATO and trying to show the president there’s a way forward here: this thing has worked, and we need you to be part of it. The alliance is strong. That was heartening, but my overall mood, generally, is pessimistic when it comes to the U.S. role in the world.

Matt (31:45):
Fair.

Shane (31:46):
But it’s a shade less pessimistic after that trip. I’m also well aware this could shift, and my pessimism meter could go all the way to the max at any moment. But it was heartening to hear this, and that’s one reason I wanted to write the story.

Matt (32:07):
Oh, that’s good to know and definitely why I wanted to talk to you about it here. I know you have to go soon. Anything else you’d like to cover that we haven’t gotten to?

Shane (32:15):
No. Another thing I would flag for listeners, in terms of European security and the NATO alliance, is: don’t forget about Greenland. Greenland has been in the news off and on with Donald Trump talking about wanting to acquire it and how we need it for international security or for our own security — which I think is a hollow argument. There are rare earth minerals in Greenland he might like to have. I do think he would like to expand the physical territory of the United States at some point in his last term in office. That is still very much on the table. There’s a newly confirmed U.S. ambassador in Copenhagen. The Danes are very — I talked to a lot of people in Denmark about Greenland, and they are nervous that once Trump is, as they put it, done with dealing with Gaza and Ukraine, he’ll turn his attention back to Greenland. Don’t sleep on that. If Trump decided to take Greenland by force and effectively make it part of the United States, you could argue NATO would cease to exist in that moment, because one member state can’t seize the territory of another. Are the other NATO members going to send troops to Greenland to defend it? I doubt it. That would be a historic turning point if it happened.

Matt (33:50):
I agree. Yes. I think that’s probably where those personal relationships with European leaders come in really handy.

Shane (34:01):
Yes, yes. I would imagine that if that starts to heat up again, you’ll start seeing European leaders suddenly flying over to Washington to go golfing with the President.

Matt (34:13):
And I can’t imagine Rubio doesn’t see the insanity in that proposal of taking Greenland. Yes, there are real U.S. security interests in Greenland, and can we bolster our defenses and our presence there? Yes. You don’t need to annex it by force to achieve those things.

Shane (34:29):
No, not at all. In fact, most people I talked to in Denmark made a point — unprompted — of saying, look, if it’s more bases the President wants, have them. We’ll help you build them. Great. We have security agreements with Denmark now that allow us to do that. And we have the space base up above the circle, which is really about —

Matt (34:49):
Thule.

Shane (34:49):
Yeah — about missile defense and watching for those things coming from Russia. But I don’t think it’s about security. I don’t think that’s why the President wants it. I think he looks at a map and sees this big chunk of territory next to Canada that’s part of North America and says, why don’t we have that? Why does Denmark have that? What’s Denmark?

Matt (35:12):
It’s very Stalinistic.

Shane (35:12):
Yeah. Well, here we are. So keep your eyes on Greenland.

Matt (35:16):
Will do. Alright, well thank you, sir. Always good to have you on.

Shane (35:19):
Matt, thanks for having me.

Matt (35:21):
Yep. Always.

Shane (35:21):
Talk to you soon.

Matt (35:22):
Bye-bye.

Shane (35:22):
Bye.

Announcer (35:54):
Thanks for listening. This is Secrets and Spies.