The Pentagon claims these steps are necessary to rebalance European and U.S. contributions to the continent\u2019s defense, but the decision to halt the Tomahawk sale points to a far more disquieting reality: Not only is Washington no longer deploying deep precision strike systems to Europe, it\u2019s also denying its European allies the capacity to arm themselves with these systems out of fear of Russia\u2019s reaction.<\/p>\n
In other words, the U.S. is now actively looking to decouple its security from Europe\u2019s.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t the first time decoupling has become an issue in transatlantic relations. Concerns over such decoupling first surfaced in the late 1950s, when the Soviet Union developed the capability to target the U.S. landmass directly and, again, in the mid-1970s, after the Soviet deployment of SS-20 nuclear ballistic missiles that could reach all of Europe \u2014 but not the U.S.<\/p>\n
After then-German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt called for a NATO response to this, alliance countries agreed in 1979 to deploy long-range nuclear missiles that could reach the Soviet Union while offering to negotiate limits on this type of missile. By 1987, NATO had deployed hundreds of nuclear missiles, leading Washington and Moscow to agree on a ban of all intermediate-range nuclear forces with ranges between 500 and 5,000 kilometers \u2014 including the Soviet SS-20s and NATO\u2019s ground-launched cruise and Pershing II missiles.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/GettyImages-2634753-1024x660.jpg\")
After then-German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt called for a NATO response to this, alliance countries agreed in 1979 to deploy long-range nuclear missiles that could reach the Soviet Union while offering to negotiate limits on this type of missile. | Keystone\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, signed that year, remained in effect for more than 30 years \u2014 that is until 2019, when U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s first administration decided to withdraw from the agreement due to Russia\u2019s clear violations of its terms. And NATO nations have been discussing the need to deploy long-range missiles capable of reaching targets in Russia ever since.<\/p>\n
The Tomahawk deployment and sale to Berlin looked to close that gap until Germany and other NATO countries could develop and deploy their own long-range missile systems. European missile development efforts are ongoing, but their expected deployment is still many years away. Now, Washington\u2019s decision to halt the sale effectively reopens a major gap in NATO\u2019s deterrence strategy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pentagon claims these steps are necessary to rebalance European and U.S. contributions to the continent\u2019s defense, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1023037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[473,7057,2000,6562,299,5187,7058,77074,282835,2348,660,2597,2598,2821,8041,332,811,6717,49],"class_list":["post-1023036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-defense","tag-defense-budgets","tag-eu","tag-eu27","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-defense","tag-from-across-the-pond","tag-helmut-schmidt","tag-history","tag-kremlin","tag-military","tag-missiles","tag-nato","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-russia","tag-security","tag-transatlantic-relations","tag-united-states"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116740109700680858","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1023036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1023037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1023036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1023036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1023036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}