NATO Is Finding What Goes Around Comes Around

On June 18, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, addressing the NATO Defense Ministerial in Brussels, applied some tough love to the Alliance. When certain Alliance nations refused to help the US in its conflict with Iran, what did they think would happen?

NATO Defense Ministers Have Received A Consistent Message

Following the end of the Cold War, NATO “no longer focused on defending Europe,” said Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. “NATO 2.0 drifted toward out-of-area operations and things that had nothing to do with warfighting at all. Instead of tanks and fighters and air defenses, the focus had been on gender equity and climate change and defense austerity.” Consequently, the US Department of War has been consistent “and so candid to restore NATO’s core military role and character.” To achieve this objective, explained Hegseth, a post-Cold War NATO needs to transform the organization “back into a real military alliance that’s focused on hard power and real deterrence, a NATO 3.0 modeled on the NATO 1.0 that won the Cold War, with our allies actually taking the lead in Europe’s conventional defense.” Hegseth cited the direction he and President Trump are taking as evidenced by the return of “US troop levels in Europe to pre-2022 levels with the redeployment of a brigade combat team last year and further reduction of 5,000 forces earlier this year.” 

The 2025 Hague Summit was the first shoe to drop, indicating a new relationship between the US and NATO was on the horizon. Getting the Alliance members to agree to increase defense spending from 2% to 5% was a first step. Additionally, it should have been apparent that the US was embarking on a new type of partnership within the organization when both the National Security Strategy and the National Defense Strategy explained that the US would provide critical but limited support to NATO. The US would not carry a disproportionate level of the European defense burden.

Secretary Hegseth explained to the NATO defense ministers, invoking the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower from his days as the supreme Allied commander, “If in 10 years all American troops stationed in Europe for national defense purposes have not been returned to the United States, then this whole process will have failed.” That was in 1951.

Hegseth’s remarks to the Defense Ministerial “came a few weeks after the United States told its allies that it would no longer supply certain warships and aircraft if one of them comes under attack,” explained NBC News. Again, this move is consistent with the US’s global security measures, which put its military resources where they will do the most good for the “America First” strategy and Trump-era realism. To ensure that the US is using its military capability most effectively and efficiently to support Europe while addressing the War Department’s responsibilities around the world, Hegseth told the defense ministers that his department was undertaking a six-month review of the US military “posture and basing” in Europe. 

It’s clear that Hegseth and President Trump want NATO to return to NATO 1.0, in which Europe accepts responsibility for the preponderance of its own defense. “This review will be conducted with the benefit of inputs from the United States military, from European command; it will involve consultations with the US Congress and with our allies, but make no mistake about it, this will be a real review,” Hegseth explained. Secretary Hegseth directly addressed recent concerns about NATO’s support for the US. He asserted:

“[The review] will be designed to ensure that NATO is moving fast and irreversibly toward Europe leading, stepping up to take primary responsibility for the defense of Europe, stepping up to ensure our forces are postured for America’s global needs, and stepping up to make sure that our access, basing, and overflight are clearly delineated and assured any other country would do the same at the same time.”

As NBC News noted, “The Trump administration insists that it needs to be able to plan for two simultaneous conflicts and wants more military resources at hand should a conflict break out with China in the Indo-Pacific region.”  

Current Announced Review Does Not Include Nuclear Weapons

The review and follow-on policy decisions are focused on conventional military capabilities, not on the nuclear umbrella the US provides to Europe. As the under secretary of War for Policy, Elbridge Colby, told an earlier February 2026 NATO Defense Ministerial, “Thus, for the United States, our responsibility is to be clear, candid, and consistent. We will continue to provide the U.S. extended nuclear deterrent.”

When the results of the NATO 3.0 review are revealed, there will be a much better understanding of where the US will head with its NATO force posture. What is fairly certain is that there will be fewer US troops stationed in NATO member nations.

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The views expressed are those of the author and not of any other affiliate.