President Trump has long assailed America’s NATO allies for their overreliance on the U.S. defense umbrella, but without ever making meaningful changes to U.S. force posture on the continent.
In this DEFP Q&A, Policy Director Ben Friedman, who co-authored a new explainer on why the U.S. should start leaving Europe, explains why the large U.S. footprint undermines incentives for European countries to shoulder more of the burden for their own security. (This interview has been lightly edited for clarity. Watch the full interview here.)
Beyond the headlines, what has changed about the U.S. presence in Europe?
Friedman: The big recent announcement was that the U.S. plans to pull 5,000 troops out of Germany. Trump made that decision in response to the German chancellor saying that the United States had been humiliated in its war with Iran—it was a punitive act. And around the same time, the U.S. announced that it was canceling a rotational deployment of a multi-domain task force. Then the administration announced it was canceling the deployment of some troops scheduled to rotate into Poland. But Trump quickly reversed that decision because Poland had elected a new president with whom he is comfortable. There’s also been some talk about reducing the forces the U.S. plans to rapidly deploy to Europe in a crisis.
These headlines give the sense that the U.S. is really stepping away from Europe, even though they’re spending more on defense. This reinforces the idea that Trump is either an isolationist or simply wants to dump the burden of defending Europe onto Europe and leave them to deal with Russia on their own. If only that were the case.
Going back to the first Trump administration, Trump’s strategy can best be characterized as illiberal hegemony, as political scientist Barry Posen called it. The idea is that the U.S. does not eschew military dominance but instead seeks to extract more from it. In Europe, that has meant trying to get more in exchange for keeping our forces there. At the 2025 NATO summit, all alliance members (except Spain) pledged to spend 3.5 percent of GDP on defense and an additional 1.5 percent on related infrastructure. Trump heralded it as a victory for the United States, demonstrating that he’s more interested in this sort of outcome, which should really be a means to an end of reducing U.S. burdens. Trump doesn’t seem to want to do that part.
The reduction in forces in Germany is substantial, with about 5,000 out of 35,000 leaving the country. But there are about 80,000 U.S. troops in Europe overall, and this decision is clearly not part of any larger plan to reduce U.S. force posture. Instead, the Trump administration threatens to withdraw U.S. forces to coerce European countries to toe the line on its political priorities, like war in Iran.
Why is focusing on Europe’s defense spending the wrong goal?
Friedman: There are three reasons. The first is that spending pledges might not be realized. Certainly, there’s a general move in parts of Europe to spend more on defense. In part, that is motivated by the war in Ukraine. In the long term, most European countries are unlikely to realize their pledged spending levels, including the big states like Germany. U.S. pressure will likely dissipate, and these pledges are intended to be met in the middle of the next decade, long after Trump’s term is over.
Second, this spending will be split among the 30 NATO member countries in Europe, each with its own agenda and goals. So it’s not clear that this spending will produce what the Europeans really need if they’re going to rely less on the United States. What Europe could use is the ability to quickly deploy large numbers of troops to Eastern Europe, where a war with Russia is most likely. If the spending materializes, it will produce more military capability, which would be useful in a war with Russia. But it’s far from the most efficient way to do it, and it’s not the same thing as getting rid of dependence on the United States, or developing a strategically autonomous European military capability.
Third, and most importantly, Europeans’ security spending matters little to U.S. interests. The U.S. shouldn’t make its force presence in Europe beholden to their doing more. The Russian threat is overblown—the U.S. and Europe have more military capability than is needed to deter Russia from attacking a NATO country. In Ukraine, we see that not only is Russia failing to achieve its objectives, but the advantages for defensive warfare resulting from changing military technology are good news for defenders of the territorial status quo, as NATO is. Even if the U.S. reduced its role, there would still be a stable balance of power that does more than enough to deter Russia.
What should the U.S. do now?
Friedman: Ideally, the United States would lay out a plan to shift away from having so many deployed conventional forces in Europe. In the long term, European—rather than American—nuclear weapons should provide deterrence. The more intentional and clear the plan is, the easier it will be for Europeans to make the adjustments they feel are necessary. But with the Trump administration, it’s almost certainly going to be more chaotic.
The U.S. should not continue to provide reassurances that it will be there forever. Otherwise, what’s the impetus for Europe to develop its own capabilities and take on more of the burden of its own defense?
There is a huge misperception that the balance of power in Europe is brittle and that Russia is just waiting for an opportune moment to attack. Russia had an obvious fixation on Ukraine, and arguably on Georgia, too, but there is little evidence that they’re interested in attacking a NATO state. The risks are just too great and they don’t have the capability. Russia is struggling in Ukraine, just a few hundred miles beyond its own borders. Ukraine is much weaker than most Western European countries, especially when they work together.
The Russians aren’t on the march to reclaim the Soviet empire, and the Europeans understand that. There’s concern among the Baltic countries, but as much as they say they’re terrified of the Russian threat, they aren’t doing much to show it. They have a more relaxed view of the threat, consistent with the reality I described. Russia might be doing terrible things in Ukraine and be more aggressive than most states, but they’re not about to attack a NATO country.
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Events on Europe and Eurasia
