European NATO allies are racing to compensate for cuts announced by the United States to certain air and naval assets provided to European allies in case of a conflict.<\/p>\n
“We can take on what is to be compensated, but not everything right away,” German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Good coordination among allies, including the US, was now key “to prevent dangerous capability gaps from arising in Europe,” he said, on the margins of a meeting of NATO defence ministers in Brussels.<\/p>\n
“That the United States of America would do less in Europe to ultimately be able to show more commitment in the Indo-Pacific was always foreseeable,” said Pistorius.<\/p>\n
The German defence minister said that deep precision strikes were one area where more time was needed.<\/p>\n
In May, Washington unveiled that it would reduce contributions to NATO’s Force Model, an assets planning tool, as part of a push to increase European defence spending and reduce the continent’s reliance on the United States.<\/p>\n
“I think that’s important, friends being honest with friends, making sure that they can step up,”US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said about Washington’s drive to improve Europe’s defence capabilities.<\/p>\n
Ongoing efforts to backfill the changes were “a good start,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The decision as to who will take over which tasks from the Americans, if and when it comes to that, has not yet been made,” Pistorius said.<\/p>\n
While some allies are keeping their offers confidential, Belgian Defence Minister Theo Francken pledged more F-16 fighter jets and surveillance drones.<\/p>\n
Hegseth also announced a review of US troops in Europe to “examine America’s force posture and basing in Europe.”<\/p>\n
NATO’s Rutte tries to dispel concerns over cuts<\/p>\n
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte tried to dispel concerns that the cuts – that entered into effect immediately – could impact NATO’s capabilities to defend European allies.<\/p>\n
“We are really in a good place,” he said. “The Europeans are now backfilling it. Some of this is already done, some of this is in the progress. We are working on that.”<\/p>\n
“If war breaks out, clearly what all allies will do, including the United States, is max out whatever they can do,” Rutte said.<\/p>\n
“I have every confidence that we will fight that war, and we will win it,” he said.<\/p>\n
Rutte stated previously that NATO’s nuclear umbrella – the alliance’s nuclear deterrence mechanism under which the US, France and Britain maintain nuclear bombs for other allies – was not impacted by the changes.<\/p>\n
“The strategic nuclear forces of the Alliance remain the supreme guarantee of Allied security and underpin NATO’s extended deterrence architecture,” read a statement published by NATO’s nuclear planning group on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Participating countries “agreed to continue enhancing NATO’s nuclear deterrence mission by modernising NATO’s nuclear capabilities, strengthening its nuclear planning capacity, and adapting to achieve its security interests.”<\/p>\n
“The Alliance maintains a safe, secure, effective, and credible nuclear posture to preserve peace, prevent coercion and deter aggression,” the statement read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"European NATO allies are racing to compensate for cuts announced by the United States to certain air and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[461,47,164,7,287,467],"class_list":["post-2476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-boris-pistorius","tag-europe","tag-european-allies","tag-nato","tag-nato-allies","tag-rutte"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2476","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=2476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}