That means European countries will have to shoulder much more of the burden on defense spending and in supporting Ukraine.
Rasmussen’s think tank, the Alliance for Democracies, has prepared a report calling for NATO to double its defense budget target from the current 2 percent of GDP goal, as well as to mobilize about €400 billion in public and private funds to boost military spending.
It’s part of a rush of similar initiatives as European countries look to revive a military industrial complex that has been starved of cash since the end of the Cold War.
Trump’s impact on the Western alliance might even lead to a rethink of how democracies band together, Rasmussen said.
“Now that the U.S. has apparently retired from the role of leader of the free world,” he said, that might create a new “D7” grouping of democracies including the EU, U.K. and Canada as well as NATO’s Indo-Pacific partners of Australia, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.
They would combine into a “formidable force to resist coercion from China or the United States,” he said — an extraordinary comment for a former NATO chief and Danish prime minister.