Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told NATO defense ministers in Brussels on Thursday that the Pentagon will conduct a six-month review of American forces stationed across Europe, and warned that some allies will fail the test. The announcement, delivered at NATO headquarters during Hegseth's first visit to the alliance this year, paired a concrete policy action with a blunt message: Europe must take primary responsibility for its own defense, or face the consequences of American rebalancing.
Hegseth did not hold back. He criticized European allies for years of defense austerity, for redirecting military priorities toward what he called "gender equity and climate change," and for denying U.S. forces access to bases needed to strike Iran. He left the gathering before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived to press allies for more weapons.
The review caps a series of escalating moves by the Trump administration to force NATO's 32 member nations into shouldering a larger share of the alliance's defense burden, and to free up American military assets for a potential confrontation with China in the Indo-Pacific.
Hegseth framed the review as a pass-fail exercise for allied nations, telling NATO defense ministers that it will assess whether the U.S. has full access and overflight rights "when we need it."
"This will be a real review. It 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."
He added a sharper edge at Brussels airport before flying home:
"It was great to hear country after country say, 'We're going to meet our target. We're going to meet our target.' There are still a few outliers, and we will be clear with them as we do this review."
The review arrives against a backdrop of concrete American drawdowns. On June 3, the U.S. signaled it would no longer supply an aircraft carrier and support ships, aerial refueling planes, and dozens of fighter jets to the NATO Force Model in a crisis. Weeks before that, the Trump administration stated it would no longer provide as much military support should any NATO member come under attack.
The Pentagon has already begun ordering thousands of U.S. troops out of Germany, a move that underscores how rapidly the strategic landscape is shifting for European capitals that spent decades relying on American power projection.
The Defense Secretary's speech went well beyond spending targets. He accused unnamed European allies of putting American service members at risk by refusing base access and overflight rights for operations against Iran.
"These allies, they put America's sons and daughters, our sons and daughters, at risk by denying them the predictable access, basing and overflight that never should have been in question at all."
He then broadened his critique to what he described as a civilizational failure of priorities across the continent:
"Instead of tanks and fighters and air defenses, the focus has been on gender equity and climate change and defense austerity. Europe's borders flew wide open, welfare states expanded, defense budgets cratered, along with Europe's belief in itself and its civilization."
That language echoed remarks Vice President JD Vance made in February that angered many European leaders. Hegseth skipped a NATO defense ministers meeting that same month, making Thursday's appearance his first engagement with the alliance this year.
The speech landed in a room full of defense ministers and senior military officers, including NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Alexus Grynkewich and Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, chair of the NATO Military Committee. Grynkewich has been working on backup plans to defend Europe after the U.S. signaled its reduced commitments.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz offered a measured reply, saying allies have long known the U.S. would eventually pull forces from Europe. "We know that we must do more and we are doing it," Merz said.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte pointed to a $90 billion increase in allied defense spending last year, a 20 percent jump over 2024, and sought to play down the impact of the American drawdown on the NATO Force Model. But his comments also revealed the underlying anxiety.
"If war breaks out, we will all max out what we need to do to make sure we can fight the war. In the planning phase, it is important to know what we can count on. What is in theory there."
That distinction, between what allies promise in peacetime and what actually materializes under fire, sits at the heart of the tension Hegseth is exploiting. For decades, European governments treated the American security umbrella as a given. The review is designed to make that assumption uncomfortable.
Hegseth has been reshaping the Pentagon at a pace that has drawn both praise from supporters and resistance from entrenched bureaucracies. He recently forced the Army chief of staff into immediate retirement as part of a broader institutional overhaul.
One outcome of Thursday's meeting drew less attention but carries significant weight. NATO's Nuclear Planning Group issued its first statement in 19 years. The group "recalled that the strategic nuclear forces of the Alliance remain the supreme guarantee of Allied security and underpin NATO's extended deterrence architecture." Ministers also "agreed to continue enhancing NATO's nuclear deterrence mission by modernizing NATO's nuclear capabilities, strengthening its nuclear planning capacity, and adapting to achieve its security interests."
The statement signals that even as the U.S. recalibrates its conventional force posture in Europe, the nuclear guarantee remains intact. Hegseth made clear the U.S. does not intend to withdraw its nuclear weapons from the continent.
That distinction matters. The review targets conventional assets, the carriers, fighters, and refueling planes that Europe has relied on to compensate for its own underinvestment. The nuclear umbrella stays. The message to allies: you can still count on the ultimate deterrent, but you need to build the conventional forces to defend your own territory.
The Trump administration has stated openly that it needs to plan for two simultaneous conflicts and wants more military resources positioned for a potential clash with China in the Indo-Pacific. That strategic reorientation has been building for years across multiple administrations, but the current White House is moving faster and with less diplomatic cushioning than its predecessors.
The $25 billion price tag for recent Iran operations has only sharpened the administration's argument that European allies who refuse basing access for such missions cannot expect the same level of American commitment in return.
Hegseth's complaint about denied overflight and base access is pointed. He did not name the specific countries involved, but the implication was clear: allies who benefit from the collective security guarantee of Article 5, which pledges that an attack on one is considered an attack on all, cannot selectively block American operations and then expect full American protection.
Article 5, notably, does not oblige member nations to provide military support. It requires only that each ally take "such action as it deems necessary." That legal ambiguity has always been the fine print beneath the alliance's grand promises. Hegseth is now reading the fine print aloud.
A NATO leaders summit is scheduled for July 7, 8 in Turkey, where the results of the review and the broader question of burden-sharing will almost certainly dominate the agenda. Zelenskyy's push for more weapons, which he was set to make Thursday after Hegseth departed, adds another layer of pressure on European capitals already scrambling to recalculate their defense postures.
Hegseth has also been active on the domestic political front, recently stumping for a Trump-backed congressional challenger in Kentucky, a sign that his portfolio extends beyond the Pentagon's walls.
The open questions are significant. Which countries does Hegseth consider "outliers"? What criteria will determine who passes and who fails? What happens to the alliance's defense planning if the review concludes that Europe is not moving fast enough? None of those answers came Thursday.
What did come was a message that European leaders have heard before in gentler forms, from Obama, from Trump's first term, from defense analysts on both sides of the Atlantic. The difference now is that the message arrived with a timeline, a formal review mechanism, and a series of concrete American withdrawals already underway.
For three decades, European governments treated American military presence on the continent as permanent furniture, always there, never questioned. Hegseth just told them the lease is up for renegotiation, and the landlord is no longer in a generous mood.
