Russia's invasion of Ukraine is the biggest European security challenge since the end of the Cold War, but Europeans have lost the opportunity to beef up their defenses, diplomats and experts say. The war increased the military dependence of Europe on the United States.. Stephen Erlenger writes about this in an article for The New York Times..

Washington led the response to the war, attracted allies, organized military assistance to Ukraine and provided the largest amount of military equipment and intelligence. The United States decided at every step which weapons Kyiv would receive and which not.

The indispensable role of the US was also evident in the recent decision to provide Ukraine with Leopard tanks and allow others to do so - a move that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz refused to take despite strong pressure from Poland and Britain unless the US provided some of its modern tanks..

“American leadership has been almost too successful for its own good, leaving no incentive for Europeans to develop leadership on their own,” said Liane Fix, a German analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington..

“It is believed that there is no real leader in the European Union, and the US is raising children in a helicopter with Brussels,” she said.. “This is a problem that could haunt the US again.”.

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European Union leaders visited Kyiv on Friday but offered President Volodymyr Zelensky nothing more than promises that his struggling country might one day join the bloc..

Meanwhile, the European Union has responded to the invasion with economic sanctions against Russia, significant bailouts and a fund - now 3.6 billion euros, or about $3.9 billion - to reimburse member states for their military contributions to Ukraine.. The total military contribution to Ukraine from member states is estimated at 12 billion euros, and the total assistance is almost 50 billion euros.

But French President Emmanuel Macron's goal of "

To a large extent, diplomats and experts say, this is because European countries are sharply divided over how the war should end, and even over their relationship with Russia and its President Vladimir Putin, both now and in the future..

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It is impossible to have true European defense without a coherent European foreign policy, says Charles A.. Kupchan, former Obama administration official and professor of international studies at Georgetown University. According to him, the Ukrainian war cuts both ways, prompting new unity among Europeans, but also new cracks..

“There is very little desire for autonomy if that means distance from the United States,” he said.. “Because the war highlighted the importance of the American military presence in Europe and the guarantees it provided to European allies after World War II.”.

Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the Baltic states and the UK, did not trust the promise of an autonomous European defense and worked to ensure that the US was involved in European security and in the NATO alliance.. For them, the American nuclear umbrella is seen as indispensable for containing Russia, which they saw as a greater threat than other allies such as Germany, France, Spain and Italy, especially after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014..

Whether Washington laments it or not, given its desire to return to China, Kupchan said "

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Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former NATO secretary general who proposed the plan to bolster Ukraine's security against Russia, said Macron "

“This raised suspicion in Eastern Europe and made it more or less impossible for Macron to create momentum for his idea of \u200b\u200bEuropean autonomy,” Rasmussen said..

Until major European states "

“The European dream has always been to have two main collective pillars, one fiscal and one defense,” said Guntram Wolff, director of the German Council on Foreign Relations.. Germany will secure the first and France the second.

“But the war in Ukraine changed the rules of European security a lot,” he said, “and Central-Eastern Europe immediately realized that they needed the US for their security, and Germany quickly decided the same.”.

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Despite a promise from German Chancellor Scholz about the Zeitenwende or a turning point in German security policy, details were lacking.. It now appears that the €100bn earmarked for rebuilding a meager post-Cold War German army will be spread over the lifetime of parliament. Bureaucracy made it difficult to start spending money, and the government was unable to budge the German defense industry..

Rheinmetall, a German weapons manufacturer, makes Leopard tanks and has about 200 tanks in stock and says it needs up to a year to refurbish them for Ukraine. But Germany could easily pay a company to prepare tanks 12 months ago, even for its own army..

“Germany has already missed a year,” Wolf said..

European countries tried to catch up with the necessary investments in defense, but nationally and fragmented, not coordinated by Brussels. This inevitably meant buying off-the-shelf products, which basically meant American rather than European weapons..

Germany angered France by immediately buying American F-35 fighters, instead of buying European ones or even waiting for the long-delayed Franco-German-Spanish Future Combat Air System project to compete with the proposed British-Italian-Japanese project.. one. But no project expects a working fighter until 2035 or 2040..

Similarly, concerned about its vulnerability to Russian medium-range nuclear missiles in Kaliningrad, Berlin shocked Paris by proposing the "

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France was not one of the countries involved and, as a sign of displeasure, postponed the annual meeting of the Franco-German government.

“In the long run, such decisions increase Europe's dependence on the United States,” said Liana Fix.. “People are now betting on NATO and the US, as well as on the equipment they already have.”.

That Scholz conceded to providing tanks to Ukraine with only affected Americans in Europe “shows that Europeans don’t trust each other after all, and for Central Eastern Europeans, trust and trust disappeared,” she said..

At the same time, Ms. Fix said, both Germany and France believe that the countries of Central and Eastern Europe underestimate the risk of a Russian escalation and need Washington to contain them..

“So everyone looks to Washington as the main arbiter,” she added, “and not each other.”.

Macron and Scholz, whose relationship is said to be cold, failed to provide the necessary leadership, separately or together, analysts say.

“France missed the opportunity to show what strategic autonomy is or can be,” said Bart Shevchik, a former Obama administration official who now works for the German Marshall Fund.. – Below the surface of the slogan. There wasn't a lot of resources, deployment, or even thought leadership."

When it came to reducing dependence on Russian energy imports, the Europeans took a big economic hit, quickly built liquefied natural gas terminals, broke rules, imposed sanctions, and agreed to cap the price of Russian oil..

Defense was another story.

“In terms of security and defense, he lost confidence,” Fix said.. “France could have used this war as an opportunity to invest heavily in Ukraine and Central Europe and say, ‘You can really rely on us,’ but that didn’t happen.”.

But both Paris and Berlin found it difficult, hoping for a short war, which this one, apparently, will not. So, for the time being, “strategic autonomy is dead,” Fix said, “and the French don’t like it at all.”.