| | | |  | | By Robbie Gramer, Paul McLeary and Eric Bazail-Eimil | | Presented by |  | | | | 
Vice President JD Vance made it clear today that Europe shouldn’t count on the U.S. as a partner if it fails to address migration and “threats” to free speech. | Tobias Schwarz/AFP via Getty Images | With help from Daniel Lippman, Connor O’Brien and Kelsey Tamborrino Subscribe here | Email Robbie | Email Eric PROGRAMMING NOTE: We’ll be off this Monday for Presidents Day but will be back in your inboxes on Tuesday. MUNICH — Europe's had a lot of "wake up call" moments since the rise of President DONALD TRUMP began a decade ago. Is today the day the continent stops hitting the snooze button? For years, European officials have been describing major geopolitical shocks to the system — Trump’s first election, the war in Ukraine and Trump’s return — as a wake up call for Europe to take its own security seriously. It was a common refrain in speeches at elite gatherings like Davos and the Munich Security Conference. Followed by the inevitable complaints that these rousing calls to action weren’t actually followed by any action. That could, maybe, finally … possibly change after the Trump team’s raucous debut to European allies this weekend. Vice President JD VANCE made it clear today that Europe shouldn’t count on the U.S. as a partner if it fails to address migration and “threats” to free speech. In moments that particularly rankled Europeans, Vance compared EU leaders to Soviet commissars because they had criticized far-right leaders and said point-blank: “If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you.” That came on the heels of Defense Secretary PETE HEGSETH’s polemical comments in Brussels on Wednesday suggesting, among other things, that the U.S. could look to reduce its military presence in Europe and rule out allowing Ukraine to join NATO as part of a peace deal to end the war with Russia. At this point, European officials are hoping the fiery MAGA messaging hitting Munich actually jolts the continent out of its rut of laggard defense spending and flimsy geopolitical power. “How nervous am I about the U.S. right now? Honestly, I'm worried about Europe,” said GABRIELIUS LANDSBERGIS, former Lithuanian foreign minister. “We cannot stay focused solely on what is happening with the U.S., what President Trump or others on his team have said. We are three steps behind anyway. The question is, what are we going to do about it?” The biggest and most visible litmus test is NATO defense spending. NATO’s current benchmark is for allies to spend 2 percent of GDP but Trump — and other defense hawks in Europe — say that’s too low. “If you stick with the numbers, we will not get there, we will not be safe in 4 or 5 years,” NATO Secretary General MARK RUTTE told reporters on the sidelines of the conference today. “So we don't only have to do this because it is fair to the Americans who want us to do more, to take a bigger share of the burden, but also because we have to make sure that we can protect ourselves collectively.” Top Republican lawmakers who support NATO and Ukraine were blunter with the message. “Hopefully the Europeans will recognize that their free ride on the coattails of America has come to an end,” Sen. JOHN CORNYN (R-Texas), told NatSec Daily after Vance’s speech. “They’ve had it pretty good, and those days are over.” Part of Europe — namely the parts close to Russia — already get it, analysts contend. Poland, for example, supports boosting NATO’s defense spending benchmark to 5 percent of GDP (Warsaw spends 4.7 percent of GDP on defense, making it the closest NATO member to hitting such a target). Other major allies — the United Kingdom, Germany and France at the top of the list — aren’t so sure about that. “Half of Europe is asleep, paralyzed into shock and another part is taking security seriously and mobilizing like the Nordic and Baltic countries. But will that be enough?” said ALINA POLYAKOVA, head of the Center for European Policy Analysis think tank. There are some signs of broader action. European Commission President URSULA VON DER LEYEN rolled out a new proposal today to trigger an emergency clause in EU rules to massively boost EU defense spending and circumvent strict budget deficit rules. Missed your flight to Munich? Chose Valentine's Day over a national security confab? Never fear — you can get your play-by-play of everything that happens in Munich this weekend from our friends at Global Playbook. And if you want to be a part of the action in real time, remember POLITICO Pub will be livestreaming insightful conversations between members of our global security squad and the biggest movers and shakers on both sides of the Atlantic.
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| | | | | RUSSIAN DRONE STRIKE: Russia may be claiming it’s ready for peace talks, but on Friday its military attacked the mother of all sensitive and risky targets in Ukraine. Ukraine said today that Russian drones hit the steel structure protecting the highly radioactive remnants of the imploded Chernobyl nuclear reactor, causing a fire. The International Atomic Energy Agency said they found “no indication of a breach in the NSC’s inner containment” and that radiation levels were normal inside and outside the structure. That assessment was shared by the Ukrainian government. But it’s just the latest of many close calls with a Ukrainian nuclear facility over the course of the nearly three-year war in Ukraine. Russian forces were widely condemned for their assault on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine, Europe’s largest, and Russian troops have menaced the infamous exclusion zone around Chernobyl previously in the war. RUBIO’S TRAVEL TROUBLES: Secretary of State MARCO RUBIO missed his chance to meet with Zelenskyy and Vance at Munich today, all thanks to a cracked windshield. Ninety minutes after taking off from Joint Base Andrews, pilots spotted a crack in the windshield of the plane and they were forced to return to Washington. That setback, which forced the entire coterie of staffers and reporters to switch planes, caused a major delay in Rubio’s packed schedule of events in Germany and meant he missed the consequential meeting. The Zelenskyy meeting aside, the rest of Rubio’s schedule seems unaffected and the secretary is still expected to travel to the Middle East after the Munich conference. DRINKS WITH NATSEC DAILY: At the end of every long, hard week, we like to highlight how a prominent member of the national security scene prefers to unwind with a drink. Today, we’re featuring MICHAEL HOROWITZ, who most recently was deputy assistant secretary of defense for force development and emerging capabilities (yeah, it’s a mouthful) and is now director of the Perry World House and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He tells our Daniel Lippman that his go-to drink is a gin martini "because the platonic form of vodka is to taste like nothing, and what’s even the point of that?” He has a half dozen types of gin at home and says he also frequently makes rum drinks. During the pandemic, he and his wife once even made every single drink in the book “Smuggler’s Cove: Exotic Cocktails, Rum, and the Cult of Tiki.” Asked for his favorite drink spots, Mike said the martini service at the Silver Lyan at the Riggs Hotel in D.C. can’t be beat and the Intercontinental in Geneva “makes unbelievable smoked drinks that really changed my view of what was even possible.” All our Geneva diplomat readers, take note! And cheers, Mike! IT’S FRIDAY! WELCOME TO THE WEEKEND: Thanks for tuning in to NatSec Daily, on Valentine’s Day no less! We have no truer love than you, our readers. This space is reserved for the top U.S. and foreign officials, the lawmakers, the lobbyists, the experts and the people like you who care about how the natsec sausage gets made. Aim your tips and comments at rgramer@politico.com and ebazail@politico.com, and follow Robbie and Eric on X @RobbieGramer and @ebazaileimil. While you’re at it, follow the rest of POLITICO’s global security team: @dave_brown24, @HeidiVogt, @jessicameyers, @RosiePerper, @nahaltoosi, @PhelimKine, @ak_mack, @connorobrienNH, @paulmcleary, @reporterjoe, @JackDetsch, @samuelskove, @magmill95, and @johnnysaks130
| | | | We’ve re-imagined and expanded our Inside Congress newsletter to give you unmatched reporting on Capitol Hill politics and policy -- and we'll get it to your inbox even earlier. Subscribe today. | | | | | | | GRENELL’S CALIFORNIA DREAMING: Special envoy (and newly-minted Kennedy Center chief) RICHARD GRENELL apparently has another job on his radar. As our colleague Irie Sentner reports, Grenell told reporters in Munich that he’d run for California governor if former Vice President KAMALA HARRIS jumps into the open race to replace GAVIN NEWSOM. “I believe that she has such baggage and hundreds of millions of dollars in educating the voters of how terrible she is, that it’s a new day in California, and that the Republican actually has a shot, and I wouldn’t say no,” he said. It’s unclear if Harris, who is said to be mulling her next move, will actually enter the race (though she’s seen as a frontrunner and would clear the field if she decided to run in 2026). Grenell flirted with challenging Newsom during a 2021 recall, but opted against running a day before the filing deadline. There is no word yet on whether he’d have to give up his role as special envoy for special missions if he enters the race.
| | NUKES ON NOTICE: Staff at the Department of Energy working on nuclear weapons and safety has been dealing with a whammy of DOGE-related disruptions, including devastating cuts to staffing. Layoffs at the National Nuclear Safety Administration, which in part oversees America’s nuclear deterrent, did not spare its defense program. Three current and former Department of Energy officials confirmed to Eric and our colleague Kelsey Tamborrino that more than 300 employees on probationary status were let go from the agency’s teams directly tasked with managing the nation’s nuclear stockpile and combating the proliferation of nuclear weapons worldwide. Asked about the cuts, SCOTT ROECKER, a former senior official at NNSA who worked on nuclear threat reduction issues at the National Security Council, told NatSec Daily that the cuts will hinder the already thinly stretched agency’s ability to keep Americans safe from nuclear threats from rogue actors, including terrorist groups. “The U.S. cares about this in a way that other countries don’t, and if we just cede that leadership by reducing our workforce and reducing our impact, we’re just letting go and other countries will fill the void and the results could be disastrous,” said Roecker, now a vice president at the Nuclear Threat Initiative think tank in Washington. The moves follow the arrival of DOGE staffers at the agency last week. Energy Secretary CHRIS WRIGHT revealed on CNBC on Feb. 7 that three DOGE staffers were working at the department. Wright said the staffers didn’t have security clearances or access to classified nuclear weapons materials But the DOGE presence clearly caused headaches. As our colleagues wrote in today’s Morning Energy (for Pros!), DOE staff have been instructed to keep DOGE members who don’t have proper clearances from accessing secure facilities without permission. “Given the sensitive foreign nuclear intelligence information we are entrusted to protect, we must balance our need to cooperate with DOGE personnel and protect said information,” wrote JAY TILDEN, the director of the Department of Energy’s Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, in a Feb. 6 email explaining the new restrictions.
| | FULL-YEAR FUNDING PUSH: The Aerospace Industries Association, one of the most important groups advocating on behalf of defense and aerospace companies, is urging congressional leaders to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year ahead of a mid-March shutdown deadline. As it stands, Congress is struggling to pass a bill providing for a full year of government spending. Appropriators haven’t yet achieved a deal for defense and non-defense toplines to help craft full-year spending bills. Outside the annual appropriations process, Republicans are also separately weighing their own party-line package of border and defense spending and tax cuts. AIA President and CEO ERIC FANNING penned a letter to Republican and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate warning against another stopgap funding measure, warning lawmakers that keeping spending for the Pentagon and other agencies on autopilot for the first half of the 2025 fiscal year has resulted in "outdated funding level" and kept "innovative new programs on the table for months."
| | | | A new era in Washington calls for sharper insights. Get faster policy scoops, more congressional coverage, and a re-imagined newsletter under the leadership of Jack Blanchard. Subscribe to our Playbook Newsletter today. | | | | | | | WICKER LASHES OUT: Sen. ROGER WICKER (R-Miss.) didn’t hide his disappointment with Hegseth’s controversial Ukraine and NATO comments. “Hegseth is going to be a great Defense secretary, although he wasn’t my choice for the job,” the Mississippi Republican told POLITICO on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. “But he made a rookie mistake in Brussels and he’s walked back some of what he said but not that line.” He added he was “puzzled” and “disturbed” by the remarks made at a meeting of NATO defense ministers on Wednesday. “I don’t know who wrote the speech — it is the kind of thing TUCKER CARLSON could have written, and Carlson is a fool,” Wicker said, alluding to the former Fox News host who has often parroted Kremlin talking points about the war in Ukraine. Wicker’s comments signal that even Republicans who backed Hegseth felt stung by the unexpected remarks in Brussels on Wednesday, which prompted some worries that the U.S. prematurely forfeited leverage over Russia ahead of proposed peace talks to end the war in Ukraine.
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