By Mike Nelson
Wednesday, July 22, 2026
Before entering office and in the year and a half since,
officials comprising the second Trump administration’s defense and foreign
policy establishment have been sending a clear message to our NATO allies in
Europe: The United States is no longer putting as much of an emphasis on the
alliance nor on the defense of the European continent. This message has been
sent directly and indirectly.
Individuals appointed to key Pentagon positions have for
years advocated for a diminished American presence in Europe. Vice President
J.D. Vance—both in statements intended for public consumption and those
revealed to the public through the administration’s incompetence—has
characterized Europeans as freeloaders whose security is no longer a primary
American interest. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered a reduction in
Army forces present in Germany and Poland and—on the anniversary of D-Day, of all
times—chose to demean, berate, and scold our
European partners about their domestic politics. And Elbridge Colby, the
undersecretary of defense for policy, has intervened to halt approved aid to
Ukraine, denied support for Ukrainian deep strikes using U.S.-supplied
munitions, and recently championed “NATO 3.0,” wherein reduced U.S. support for the
alliance would be explicit.
Perhaps most concerning to the allies, however, are the
messages from the man leading the administration. President Trump, who has for
years harangued our European partners for not providing enough for the common
defense—about which he was correct—seemed to believe these countries were in
arrears in membership dues that the United States was covering and, therefore,
that the United States deserved repayment—about which he is incorrect. The
historical under-contribution by European allies was rather a failure to meet
promised spending goals on their own militaries as a percentage of GDP.
This historical deficit is being, or in most cases
already has been, corrected. The historical goal of 2 percent of GDP spent on
defense, codified in 2014 at the NATO Wales summit, has since been reached by
all member states. The allies have further expanded this goal to 5 percent of
GDP, to be reached by 2035, with Poland currently leading the way with 4.48
percent of its GDP spent on defense in 2025. (The U.S., meanwhile, is actually
spending a lower percentage of its GDP on defense now than it did in 2014.)
The president deserves a large share of the credit for
this shift. The world’s liberal democracies had grown comfortable and
complacent, like the eponymous character at the beginning of Rocky III,
while the tyrannical, authoritarian, and malign regimes (the Clubber Langs of
the world, if you will) grew stronger and more prepared.
Ironically, the president must share some of the credit
with Russian President Vladimir Putin—a man for whom the prospect of
diminishing NATO is a primary motivation. Europe's rearmament has come about
largely in response to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, as did the
expansion of the alliance to include two previously nonaligned powers: Finland
and Sweden.
But President Trump has continued to suggest that the
United States—the most powerful of NATO’s member nations—might not support its
fellow members if they were attacked. Trump has even suggested that the United
States might be the country doing the attacking.
The Danes took his threats against Greenland so seriously that they deployed
their special operations forces to the territory in preparation for an American
offensive.
The message is clear, through both the Trump
administration’s words and actions: Europe should not count on the United
States. The nation that had once been the stalwart ally might, in the near
future, be a neutral observer at best or an adversary at worst. Even if the
Trump administration does not progress further down this path, the idea that
America may be fickle about commitments in which we had previously been
resolute is not a concern that can be ignored. Europe now has to consider the
possibility that the indispensable nation may choose to be dispensable in the
future of European security.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that defense
officials in capitals throughout Europe may start planning and implementing the
steps necessary for a post-American Europe; not as a preference, but as a
matter of necessity.
Europe is expanding its defense industrial base, and NATO
countries are weighing a shift away from traditional arrangements of purchasing
American-made or designed equipment. Canada, after witnessing America shutting
off certain targeting capabilities in the GMLRS missile guidance systems
provided to Ukraine, is considering building its future air force footprint
around the Gripen fighter instead of the F-35, not because the Gripen is
superior, but because it is not reliant on the continued approval of a mercurial
American government to perform after purchase. German arms manufacturer
Rheinmetall and Sweden’s Saab, maker of the Gripen, are expanding in
preparation to fill European demand created by a reduction in orders for
American weapons and, ironically, by the increased spending the president
demanded.
It is realistic and rhetorically clear that if the United
States keeps banging on the table demanding that Europe become less dependent on
us, the result would be for it to become more independent from us. The
result of the Trump administration pushing Europe to the side is Europeans
adapting to that reality. Yet Colby seemed perturbed at the effect for which
his policy was the cause when he posted
a condemnation of Europe’s plans on X last week, saying that a “‘middle
powers’ strategy”—the idea that second-tier powers would align independently
and in prevention of aggression by the great powers—is not “a serious
possibility.” In a demonstration of the underlying problem, Colby condemns
Europeans who consider procuring weapons elsewhere, but then reminds them that
“access to the American DIB (defense industrial base) is a privilege, not a
right.” How dare you consider looking elsewhere for weapons, but also
remember we might cut off your access to them, fail to fulfill already paid-for
orders, deny software integration that makes the weapons usable, or deny you
access to repair parts. Gee, who would want to build a hedge against that
unreliable supply chain?
Colby seems to want inelastic European demand for a
product for which we are specifically threatening to cut off supply. It’s an
extension of the larger issues at play between the administration and NATO
allies over Iran. The administration doesn’t feel the need to share its plans
with or get input from European allies, but begins clutching its pearls when
those allies don’t jump to join our rudderless conflict.
In other words, the administration seems to want Europe
to provide more for their interests, but as we determine their interests to be.
It’s an overcorrection. Rather than building on the legitimate win of reviving
NATO defense spending and capabilities, this rhetoric is creating cracks that
can spread into full fractures in the alliance. Colby is correct that
developing a middle powers strategy is not the best option for Europe; but
neither is America receding from its role as the leader of the free world. And
the administration doesn’t seem to grasp that the former flows from the latter.
Without a strengthened transatlantic alliance, the world
will become less advantageous for liberal democracies and more favorable for
those rising powers looking to fill the empty space created by the gaps in the
alliance. There are some who convince themselves America has no business
maintaining interest in, or benefiting from the liberal world order and instead
recommend a withdrawal
to behind the walls of an American-dominated fortress of the Western
Hemisphere. But history demonstrates
that the storms that gather around the world eventually spread to those who
seek refuge in isolationism.
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