Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon will conduct a six-month review of U.S. forces in Europe and will link U.S. NATO contributions to allied defense spending. He said the review will examine the actual benefits of having U.S. military in Europe and is meant to push NATO toward Europe taking primary responsibility for its own defense.
“Where other allies do not spend with urgency, our dues, contributions will go down. Nato will be a two-way street,” Hegseth said overnight. He also said, “America cannot care for or pay more for Europe’s defence than our allies do.”
Pete Hegseth and NATO spending
Hegseth said the department will be “doubling down” on efforts to get allies to spend what they need to spend. He said the six-month review will be “a real review” and “will be designed to ensure that Nato is moving fast and irreversibly toward Europe leading, stepping up to take primary responsibility for the defence of Europe.”
The warning puts a spending condition on a core U.S. commitment inside NATO. Hegseth said U.S. dues to the NATO budget will depend on other countries meeting their defense-spending targets, and that U.S. dues and contributions will go down where allies do not spend with urgency.
Europe forces review
The review will look at the actual benefits of having U.S. military in Europe, but Hegseth did not give a final judgment on the force posture. The six-month review is the clearest next step now: the Pentagon will spend that period examining whether the current U.S. presence matches the role allies are expected to play.
That comes as the source also describes wider pressure around Europe’s security, including a jump of about 20% in Russian intelligence drones seen by troops operating along Ukraine’s border since January. It also says Russia has built five new drone bases near its shared border with Belarus.
Moscow drone strikes
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said overnight after scores of drones targeted Moscow that “if Ukraine burns, your Moscow will burn.” He also sent reporters a voice message saying, “We don’t want this war, we never did, and everyone knows it, and our partners know it,” after the capital’s oil refinery was hit for the second time this week.
Local authorities in Moscow said the supply of petroleum products and the operation of petrol stations were proceeding as normal after the attack. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said the latest strikes set back the prospect of any direct contacts between Vladimir Putin and Zelenskyy.
