The United States has demanded that NATO return to being a “hardline” military alliance capable of taking on the conventional defence of Europe, warning that Washington would single out in public those members that still spend too little.
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth issued the call on June 18 as he arrived at a meeting of NATO defence ministers in Brussels, framing the shift as a move towards what he termed a “NATO 3.0”.
He said the alliance needed to become a serious military bloc again after the Cold War, with real powers of deterrence, and praised NATO secretary general Mark Rutte for urging European allies to take the lead on the continent’s conventional defence.
Hegseth recalled the pledge by all 32 member states to raise defence investment to 5 per cent of GDP, agreed at last year’s summit in The Hague.
Many countries were meeting that target while some still needed to do more, he said, adding that the Trump administration would be frank about it in private and in public.
Washington would hold each country to account on its spending commitments, Hegseth said, arguing that being honest with friends was a way of making sure they could measure up.
He cast the wider reshaping of the US military presence in Europe not as a retreat but as a demonstration of leadership by US President Donald Trump.
The remarks followed a decision, communicated to allies in May, to reassign a significant part of the US forces stationed in Europe and Canada to other regions, including the Indo-Pacific.
That move would reduce the American contribution to the NATO Force Model, the framework that sets out the troops and resources available in the event of an attack or conflict.
European allies are already working to replace the departing US forces, a process expected to involve Spain, Germany, the Netherlands and several other states, according to sources cited by Europa Press.
Some governments, among them Spain, have balked at the 5 per cent figure on cost grounds.
Those sources stressed that the realignment should not be confused with the withdrawal of 5,000 US troops from Germany, which the Pentagon ordered in May.
Trump had announced that drawdown after a clash with German chancellor Friedrich Merz over Berlin’s criticism of the US war on Iran.
