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A top Pentagon official has called on NATO’s European members to assume primary responsibility for their own conventional defense as the United States refocuses its military priorities toward China and the Western Hemisphere.
Getting into it: During a meeting of NATO defence ministers in Brussels, Elbridge Colby, the US under secretary of defense for policy and the Pentagon’s chief policy official, pressed allies to rethink their role in the alliance. He argued that the current model was “no longer fit for purpose” and called for “clear-eyed realism and fundamental adaptation by all.” Europe, he said, must go “beyond inputs and intentions toward outputs and capabilities,” prioritising real war-fighting strength over what he described as “bureaucratic and regulatory stasis.”
Colby framed the shift as necessary because US strategy is increasingly focused on deterring China and protecting interests in the Western Hemisphere. He described the change not as a retreat but as “an affirmation of strategic pragmatism and a recognition of our allies’ undeniable ability to step up.” The most consequential US interests, he said, lie elsewhere, meaning Europe would have to “take the lead for its conventional defense.”
While urging Europe to shoulder more of the burden, Colby stressed that the United States would not abandon the alliance. He said the US would continue to provide its extended nuclear deterrent and would “in a more limited and focused fashion” contribute to NATO’s defense, as well as “train, exercise, and plan alongside our allies.” At the same time, he made clear that the US would “continue to press, respectfully but firmly and insistently, for a rebalancing of roles and burdens within the Alliance.”
This all comes as the United States still maintains a substantial military footprint across Europe under NATO, with roughly 85,000 troops stationed on the continent.
