Hegseth Puts NATO Allies on Notice With Six-Month U.S. Force Review

BRUSSELS, Pete Hegseth arrived at NATO headquarters on Thursday with the tone of a creditor who has run out of patience, and he did not soften it for the room.

The U.S. defense secretary announced a six-month Pentagon review of American forces in Europe, telling the alliance's defense ministers that the outcome would hinge on how quickly European members shoulder the burden of their own security. The review, reported by NPR and CBS News, is the most concrete signal yet that Washington is prepared to redraw the terms of its military commitment to the continent.

"This will be a real review," Hegseth told his counterparts in Brussels, according to reporting by NPR. "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."

The language carries weight that the alliance cannot easily dismiss. The announcement lands weeks after Washington told allies it would no longer guarantee the deployment of an aircraft carrier, aerial refueling aircraft, and dozens of fighter jets in the event one member comes under attack, a signal, first reported on June 3, that left NATO's supreme allied commander quietly drafting contingency plans.

Hegseth went further, calling for what he branded "NATO 3.0", a reboot of the 32-nation organization oriented around hard European conventional capability rather than reliance on American assets. He declared that NATO 2.0, which he characterised as "an era of freeriding," is finished.

The sharpest words in the room concerned Iran. Hegseth called it "shameful" that European allies had refused to grant U.S. forces access to bases on the continent to launch strikes on Iran, according to CBS News and CNBC. The Iran conflict, and the refusal of several NATO members to facilitate American operations, has deepened a fault line that was already visible well before Thursday's session.

Hegseth also told ministers that the review would sort countries into winners and losers. "Some countries will fail, and others will pass with flying colors," he said, according to CNBC. The benchmark he has set since May is a defense-spending floor of 3.5 percent of GDP, a figure that currently only a handful of European members approach.

The stakes of the review are amplified by what has already happened on the ground. In May, the Pentagon announced the withdrawal of 5,000 troops from Germany. That move drew unusual bipartisan pushback in Washington: the Republican chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, Senators Roger Wicker and Representative Mike Rogers, said they were "concerned" and argued in a joint statement that any significant change to U.S. force posture in Europe warrants close coordination with Congress and allies, a rebuke that rarely crosses party lines.

European capitals are now in the uncomfortable position of drafting plans for a defensive architecture they had assumed, for eight decades, they would not have to build alone. Canada and the European allies are trying to work out how to plug the capability gaps left by the American drawback, according to NPR.

The Ankara NATO Summit, scheduled for next month and expected to be attended by President Trump, will be the next formal moment of reckoning. By then, Hegseth's review will be just weeks old, but the pressure it is designed to generate will already be working on every defence ministry from Tallinn to Lisbon.

What Thursday made clear is that the transatlantic bargain that has underpinned European security since 1949 is being renegotiated in public, at a defense ministers' table, by an American official who is not bluffing about the consequences of failing his test.

Sources cited:
- NPR (https://www.npr.org/2026/06/18/nx-s1-5862604/hegseth-nato-3-0)
- CBS News (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hegseth-nato-us-forces-europe/)
- CNBC (https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/18/hegseth-nato-defense-review-fail-europe.html)