US slashes NATO bomber and submarine pledges

Bombers halved. Submarines zeroed out. Fighter jets cut by a third. In a closed Brussels meeting in late May, the Pentagon told NATO allies it will dramatically reduce the air and naval forces pledged for European crisis scenarios — targeting the military systems that hold the alliance's defence plans together. European allies must present gap-filling proposals at a Force Sourcing Conference (where nations formally pledge specific units to fill plan requirements) in early June, with NATO's Ankara Summit on 7-8 July as the political deadline (Reuters/Der Spiegel, The Deep Dive).

The cuts bypass troops to target the "enablers" — refuelling tankers, electronic warfare aircraft, reconnaissance drones, attack submarines — without which European combat forces cannot function in a real war.

The Systems That Make Everything Else Work

The NATO Force Model, agreed at the 2022 Madrid Summit, pre-assigns 800,000 troops across three readiness tiers to specific regional defence plans. Those plans, drawn up at the 2023 Vilnius Summit, cover the Baltic, the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean. They were written assuming American enablers would be available (NATO).

European combat forces cannot function without these systems: fighter jets need tankers to cross the Baltic, planes need electronic warfare aircraft to survive Russian air defences, and naval groups rely on attack submarines for undersea protection. These are the categories being pulled.

The Pentagon delivered the briefing to NATO political directors through a senior adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. A NATO spokeswoman acknowledged an "over-reliance on the US in NATO force planning" and suggested military responsibilities could be "reorganised" (TRT World/Reuters).

The Arithmetic of Incapacity

Europe operates roughly 60 aerial refuelling tankers. The US has 610 — a 10:1 ratio (Aerospace Global News). Europe has zero strategic bombers. The closest equivalent is a French Rafale carrying missiles with a 500-km range; a B-52 can strike from 8,000 miles and loiter over a theatre for twenty hours (ISS Europa).

Suppression of enemy air defences — the ability to destroy Russia's anti-aircraft systems so that allied jets can operate — may be the most alarming gap. A Belgian defence researcher told Defence News that European air forces have "quite simply abandoned" this domain "and must now rebuild from scratch." Three of sixteen analysts surveyed estimated reconstruction could take more than a decade (Defence News).

A May 2026 Kiel Institute study put the total price for European strategic autonomy at roughly €500 billion over ten years — about €50 billion annually, or 0.25% of European GDP (Kiel/Defence News). The binding constraint is production capacity, not budget. Airbus is considering boosting tanker production, not confirming it. NATO's replacement for its retiring airborne radar fleet has no signed contract. The first European long-range strike missile arrives no earlier than 2029.

Two Books, One Alliance

SACEUR (NATO's top military commander) General Alexus Grynkewich told allied chiefs of defence on 19 May that the US drawdown "does not impact the executability of our regional plans" (NATO). His reassurance addressed the troop reduction announced earlier — not the enabler cuts disclosed days later. His own caveat was revealing: the US would limit itself to providing "only those critical capabilities that allies cannot yet provide." The enablers being withdrawn are precisely those capabilities.

The pattern compounds a deeper dependency. European allies purchased American weapons systems — F-35s, Patriot batteries, HIMARS launchers — at record rates, with US Foreign Military Sales capturing 50.7% of European equipment budgets in 2022-2024, up from 27.8% three years earlier (Bruegel). Those purchases were partly political insurance: buy American hardware, keep America invested. Washington is now withdrawing the operational commitments those weapons were bought to complement, while Europe is more dependent on US systems than before. The ECFR warns that a Russian intelligence picture of NATO as "frail and divided" is the condition most likely to trigger miscalculation (ECFR).

What Ankara Cannot Resolve

The summit can endorse spending targets and capability pledges. It cannot manufacture tankers, train electronic warfare crews, or launch satellites. The formal US pledges will be tabled at the June Force Sourcing Conference — until then, exact numbers remain classified. No allied official has publicly stated whether the Vilnius defence plans remain executable under the revised Force Model; the question has been consistently avoided in press conferences. The gap between what leaders will promise at Ankara and what factories can deliver stretches years into the 2030s.