BERLIN — The United Kingdom signed a sweeping bilateral defense pact with Germany this morning as part of the new Labour government’s broader diplomatic push with the European mainland post-Brexit.

The agreement, ahead of the American presidential election, will fortify both countries’ defense industries to give them an edge over Russia — and calm jitters at London and Berlin about a second Trump term and America’s reliability within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

With war raging unabated in Ukraine, the prospect of another NATO-sceptic Trump term, and pivoting American attention to China and Taiwan, Berlin and London are keen to cooperate on weapon development and procurement.

It’s part of an effort by the United Kingdom’s new Labour government to deepen economic ties with the continent and also to seek deals on energy and migration. The deal would benefit both parties, but Germany, in particular, stands to gain.

Despite its position as the continent’s largest economy, Germany teeters on the edge of a recession, with growth numbers for this year below half a percentage point. The forecast for next year is slightly better but leaves economists grim.

The economic slump is aggravated by the country’s debt brake, a constitutional clause that prevents German government borrowing in excess of 0.35 percent of gross domestic product.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged to revamp and refurbish Germany’s military, the Bundeswehr, following Russia’s invasion in 2022 of Ukraine using a special one-off 100 billion euro fund.

That pot allowed Germany to reach NATO-specified spending targets that fell after the Cold War. However, finding long-term funding solutions for when that pot runs out in light of the country’s poor economic outlook is questionable.

This week’s bilateral treaty is not without precedent. The British government signed a similar deal with the French in 2010, the Lancaster House Treaties, under the prime minister at the time, David Cameron.

That pact tied the British and French defense industries closer together and covered joint weapon development and procurement, but also included a clause covering collaboration on both countries’ nuclear stockpiles — an aspect the British-German agreement won’t cover.

Berlin and London are already treaty allies within the auspices of NATO, but the impetus for this fresh agreement is not just a dubious economic forecast nor reestablishing old economic ties.

Much ink has been spilled in Europe on how to “Trump-proof” NATO, given the open skepticism Mr. Trump brought to the alliance during his first presidential term. 

While a measure signed into law by President Biden purports to bar future presidents from pulling out of the alliance, fears on the continent are that having a NATO skeptic in the Oval Office would encourage Russia to pounce on parts of Europe, unchecked.

Though Germany and the United Kingdom together wouldn’t be able to confront a hypothetical Russian military incursion into NATO territory, the agreement would help shield both countries if needled again by Mr. Trump about defense spending levels.

Few NATO allies met their pledged two percent of GDP on defense targets before the Russian invasion, a trend now reversed. However, Russia is expected to spend 6.3 percent of its GDP on defense next year.

In a nonbinding declaration signed by Berlin and London over the summer, both countries signaled their intentions for the finalized defense pact, stressing the need for interoperability and joint development and procurement of weapon systems.

Europe threw open its arsenals to Ukraine in the aftermath of the Russian invasion but has largely failed to ramp up the production of weapons and weapon systems. That production shortsightedness, particularly of the artillery ammunition that has proven invaluable to Ukraine’s defense, has left stockpiles across Europe depleted — and Ukraine under-supplied.

Last year, Europe pledged a million artillery shells to Ukraine but fell woefully short of that target. It was an embarrassment, exacerbated when North Korea managed to get a million shells to Russia in just a couple of months.

Joint artillery shell production to satiate Ukraine’s shell hunger will almost certainly be one of the pact’s key provisions, besides the air defense ammunition Kyiv relies on in lieu of a sufficiently large air force presence.

One of the areas of collaboration will be developing a “deep precision strike” capability in tandem “with other partners,” though who those partners will be is not specified.

While the United Kingdom has donated sizable stockpiles of its Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine, Germany has repeatedly rebuffed appeals from Kyiv for its longer range and more sophisticated Taurus cruise missiles.

The timing of this agreement is not a coincidence. Instead, it’s a tightly hedged bet on Europe’s future, with or without the backbone of the NATO Alliance.