SIPRI<\/a>), the United States spent $954 billion on defence in 2025, accounting for 33% of global military expenditure. China ranked second with an estimated $336 billion, while Russia spent approximately $190 billion. Together, the three countries accounted for more than half of global military spending.<\/p>\n![\"Can](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/c9290cfc-75a8-4e66-a82e-7c0494ce82cb.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Source: The Times<\/p>\n
Despite the size of the US defence budget, resources are not unlimited. Washington increasingly believes it cannot maintain Cold War-style commitments in Europe while simultaneously preparing for a high-intensity conflict in the western Pacific and remaining militarily engaged in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Russia remains a serious threat, but primarily to Europe. China, by contrast, is seen as capable of challenging the United States itself across military, technological and economic domains.<\/p>\n
That distinction is increasingly shaping American force planning.<\/p>\n
Europe is already spending much more<\/p>\n
Washington\u2019s demand that European allies assume greater responsibility is not being made against a backdrop of European disarmament. On the contrary, Europe is experiencing its fastest military build-up in decades.<\/p>\n
Military spending across Europe increased by 14% in real terms in 2025 to $864 billion, according to SIPRI. The 29 European NATO members alone spent approximately $559 billion, while Russia spent around $190 billion.<\/p>\n
This comparison is politically important for Washington. European NATO countries collectively have an economic and financial base capable of supporting much higher defence spending than Russia. The American argument is therefore straightforward: if Russia is primarily a European security problem, Europe should eventually be able to field most of the conventional forces needed to contain it.<\/p>\n
Individual figures are equally revealing.<\/p>\n
Germany increased its military spending by 24% in 2025 to $114 billion, making it the world\u2019s fourth-largest military spender. Poland spent approximately $46.8 billion, up 23%, while Spain increased its spending by an extraordinary 50% to $40.2 billion. Britain spent around $89 billion and France $68 billion.<\/p>\n
These are no longer marginal defence budgets.<\/p>\n
What Washington wants now is for that spending to translate into actual military capability.<\/p>\n
The 5% NATO target changes the equation<\/p>\n
At the 2025 NATO summit in The Hague, allies agreed to a dramatically higher long-term spending target: 5% of GDP annually on defence and security-related priorities by 2035.<\/p>\n
At least 3.5% is earmarked for core military requirements, while up to a further 1.5% can be allocated to areas including military infrastructure, cyber defence, resilience and defence-industrial capacity.<\/p>\n
European allies and Canada increased their combined defence spending by nearly 20% in real terms in 2025 alone.<\/p>\n
For Washington, however, the issue is no longer simply whether European governments announce larger budgets. The Pentagon wants to see brigades, divisions, artillery ammunition, air defence systems, long-range missiles and logistics networks capable of sustaining a major war.<\/p>\n
This helps explain why troop reductions can also serve as political leverage.<\/p>\n
As long as European governments assume that tens of thousands of additional American troops will automatically arrive in a crisis, there is less urgency to develop expensive capabilities domestically. Reducing that certainty changes the calculation.<\/p>\n
America\u2019s military footprint is bigger than the headline number<\/p>\n
Another important point is that the US military presence in Europe cannot be measured simply by counting troops.<\/p>\n
At the end of 2025, approximately 68,000 active-duty personnel were permanently stationed in Europe, excluding rotational deployments. Germany alone hosted 36,436, followed by Italy with 12,662, Britain with 10,156 and Spain with 3,814.<\/p>\n
Even more significant is the infrastructure supporting those forces. The United States operates or uses approximately 31 permanent bases and another 19 military sites across more than a dozen European countries. This helps explain why Washington could reduce troop numbers without actually withdrawing from Europe.<\/p>\n
Ramstein Air Base in Germany, for example, is not merely part of the defence of Germany. It is one of the most important US logistics and air power hubs outside the United States, supporting operations extending into the Middle East and Africa.<\/p>\n
![\"Ukraine,](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Europe-Defense-GettyImages-2199867061.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Source: The Times<\/p>\n
Italy provides access to the Mediterranean, while Britain is crucial for intelligence and air operations. Spain links American military power to both the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n
The Pentagon could therefore reduce its ground forces while retaining bases, air power, intelligence infrastructure and logistics capabilities.<\/p>\n
In strategic terms, fewer American troops would not necessarily mean reduced US access.<\/p>\n
Washington is also judging allies by what they provide<\/p>\n
The current Pentagon review has another unusual feature.<\/p>\n
According to Reuters, NATO governments are being evaluated not only on defence spending but also on what the US military calls access, basing and overflight, or ABO.<\/p>\n
Washington wants to determine whether it can reliably use allied territory, military bases and airspace, including for operations extending beyond Europe. The review is also examining allies\u2019 support for US foreign policy operations and potential obstacles to defence-industrial co-operation.<\/p>\n
This points to the increasingly transactional nature of Washington\u2019s approach.<\/p>\n
An ally is no longer judged simply on the basis of NATO membership. The administration is effectively asking: what strategic value does each country provide to the United States?<\/p>\n
Can American aircraft use its bases?<\/p>\n
Will it permit rapid overflight?<\/p>\n
Does it support US military operations?<\/p>\n
Does it spend enough on its own defence?<\/p>\n
That approach could ultimately influence where American forces remain concentrated.<\/p>\n
Eastern Europe faces the greatest risk<\/p>\n
Poland, Romania and the Baltic states are particularly concerned because American troops serve a function that goes far beyond their numbers.<\/p>\n
Several hundred US troops could not defeat a major Russian offensive on their own. Their importance lies instead in the political consequences of any attack against them.<\/p>\n
Russian forces striking American personnel would risk triggering an immediate direct confrontation with the United States.<\/p>\n
This is the classic \u201ctripwire\u201d function of forward-deployed forces.<\/p>\n
For eastern European NATO members, therefore, 500 American troops can sometimes have greater deterrent value than several thousand national troops.<\/p>\n
That is why reductions on NATO\u2019s eastern flank would be far more sensitive than personnel cuts at rear-area facilities in Germany or Italy.<\/p>\n
The biggest risk is the transition period<\/p>\n
There is a strong strategic argument for Europe doing more to defend itself. The real problem is the timing.<\/p>\n
Increasing a defence budget can be achieved with a single parliamentary vote.<\/p>\n
Creating a combat-ready division can take years.<\/p>\n
Building new ammunition factories, training air defence crews, producing missiles and establishing military logistics networks cannot be accomplished overnight.<\/p>\n
Europe is spending far more money, but money does not automatically translate into combat capability.<\/p>\n
This creates the main risk of the American strategy: Washington could reduce its presence faster than European states can replace the capabilities being withdrawn.<\/p>\n
If that happens, NATO could enter a temporary period in which American deterrence has weakened but European military autonomy is not yet sufficiently developed.<\/p>\n
Moscow would almost certainly seek to exploit such uncertainty politically, even if it had no intention of testing NATO militarily.<\/p>\n
Would Russia really benefit?<\/p>\n
Russia would undoubtedly portray any reduction in the US military presence as evidence that the transatlantic alliance is weakening.<\/p>\n
But the long-term military consequences are less clear.<\/p>\n
European NATO members already spend $559 billion annually on their militaries, compared with Russia\u2019s estimated $190 billion. If Europe succeeds in converting its much greater financial resources into usable military capabilities, the result could eventually be a more autonomous and heavily armed European pillar of NATO.<\/p>\n
The capabilities Europe will struggle most to replace are not necessarily infantry formations. They are areas in which the United States has unique advantages: satellite intelligence, strategic reconnaissance, air-to-air refuelling, missile defence, long-range strike capabilities, command-and-control systems and global logistics.<\/p>\n
If Washington retains those assets, even a smaller American force could remain militarily decisive.<\/p>\n
A new NATO model is emerging<\/p>\n
The Pentagon review is therefore about much more than whether the number of US troops in Europe falls from 80,000 to 75,000 or 70,000. It concerns the future structure of the transatlantic alliance.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/The-Atlantic-Alliance.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Source: perconcordiam<\/p>\n
The old model could be summarised as follows: the United States provides much of the military power, while Europe provides territory, infrastructure and political support.<\/p>\n
Washington increasingly wants a different arrangement: Europe would provide most of the conventional forces needed to defend the continent, while the United States would supply strategic capabilities, nuclear deterrence and the ability to intervene rapidly when necessary.<\/p>\n
For Washington, this would free up resources for the Indo-Pacific.<\/p>\n
For Europe, it would mean assuming a level of military responsibility that it has not shouldered for decades.<\/p>\n
For Russia, it could eventually mean facing a more heavily militarised and strategically independent European NATO.<\/p>\n
And for the alliance itself, it would represent one of the most significant changes in burden-sharing since the end of the Cold War.<\/p>\n
The United States is therefore not simply asking whether it should keep tens of thousands of troops in Europe.<\/p>\n
It is asking a much more consequential question: if European NATO members collectively spend hundreds of billions of dollars on defence and have committed to spending far more, how much of Europe should still have to be defended primarily by American troops?<\/p>\n
By Murad Samedov<\/p>\n
News.Az<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pentagon is conducting one of the most consequential reviews of the US military presence in Europe since…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[847,47,7,387,20,4254,188],"class_list":["post-12019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-america","tag-europe","tag-nato","tag-nato-territory","tag-russia","tag-united-state","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}