BRUSSELS – European countries must rebuild their defenses further and faster as they face an increasingly hostile Russia and a potential Donald Trump presidency that could see the United States withdraw from Nato, a senior EU policymaker said.

Philippe Lambert, an influential Belgian MEP, said that while most European countries, including Britain, were protected by NATO’s security umbrella, they should not include them given Trump’s antipathy toward the alliance. Guarantees are taken for granted.

“If Russia were to confront NATO now, we would be a match,” he told I. “But that doesn’t mean we should be complacent because the Russian army is more battle-hardened than it was at the start of the campaign. But this cannot apply to all European armies.”

Lambert, co-leader of the Green Alliance in the European Parliament, pointed out that although all NATO countries are increasing their defense budgets, the real challenge facing European armies is the duplication of defense.

“The first thing we need to do is get more return on investment,” he said. “In the EU we have 27 different ways of spending, we have 27 defense agencies, so the money is not going into stockpiles. We are not where we need to be yet.

“We’re too dependent on others – if you can’t count on the Americans, then you have to rely on domestic capabilities. And we’re not where we need to be.”

Although the UK is Europe’s largest military power in Nato, along with France, Lambert, a former co-chair of the UK parliament’s Brexit steering group, said the UK was also lagging behind.

“Although it has one of the largest armies in Europe, it is still overextended. Its strength has never been the British Army, but the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. You can see that they are stretched very thin. In recent exercises, the British Having two new aircraft carriers … but they are both plagued by problems,” he said.

Last week, the European Commission unveiled a strategic plan for the European defense industry to spearhead initiatives such as the strategic stockpile, with officials saying that as it enters its third year, the bloc is facing a “security paradigm” in which an expansionist Russia operates War economy. Conflict with Kiev.

Announcing the move, EU Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton said: “In response to another high-intensity war on our borders, we have decided to step up the pace.

However, simply raising the budget is not enough, said Elizabeth Blau, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C.

“NATO is committed to defending the territories of its members, which it has done for 75 years. But we are not ready for a conflict with Russia, that is in the non-military field.” She added that for cyber attacks, falsehoods We are barely prepared for conflicts in the “grey areas” of hybrid warfare, such as information or infrastructure attacks.

“The reason the gray area is so difficult is that it’s hard to predict what the other side will do. When that happens, if the other side launches a massive cyber attack or blows up infrastructure, it’s completely unclear how we would respond or retaliate,” she says.

Ms Blau added that European countries, including Britain, needed to be more honest about the risks.

“We need to be more open and transparent with the public about threats. Because if our government has the best intentions and doesn’t tell the public about it, then the public is going to think everything is fine.”