US cuts NATO bomber pledges

The American military drawdown from Europe is moving faster than many allies had expected. The deeper problem for European capitals is that the sharpest cuts run around the legal guardrail Congress put in place to slow exactly this kind of retreat.

Washington is cutting the forces it has promised to NATO's crisis-planning system: strategic bombers down by half, fighters cut by a third, submarines reduced to zero. Because these are executive commitments rather than troop numbers stationed on European soil, no congressional vote is needed. Europe is being asked to cover gaps it cannot realistically close before 2029.

Two Channels, One Unguarded

There are two American military presences in Europe, and only the simpler version is protected by law. Around 80,000 US troops are physically stationed on the continent. Congress set a floor of 76,000 in Section 1249 of the NDAA, the annual US defence authorisation bill. If the Pentagon wants to go below that, it must certify to lawmakers that allied security will not be damaged.

The bigger issue sits inside the NATO Force Model. This is the system that records what each ally promises to send in a crisis, including forces that would surge from home bases within 10, 30 or 180 days. Those pledges are controlled by the executive. No statute holds them in place.

When Pentagon envoy Alexander Velez-Green briefed NATO officials on May 22, the cuts he outlined were in this category: bombers halved, a third fewer fighters, zero submarines, reduced tankers and destroyers (CDE News). The Pentagon confirmed the figures but gave no timetable.

On May 30, Welt am Sonntag reported that the drawdown would move faster than previously communicated, without the transition period European governments had assumed. A NATO diplomat told Reuters the pace "will depend on the capacity of the others to come in with alternatives," adding that "everything is not yet definitely decided, even in the U.S."

A Gap That Money Alone Cannot Close

Europe can spend more, and it is already doing so. But this is not a problem that can be fixed simply by adding money to budgets. The missing American capacity includes aircraft, submarines, tankers and long-range strike systems that take years to build, train and integrate.

The IISS estimated in 2025 that replicating US conventional capabilities in the Euro-Atlantic theatre would cost $226–344 billion in platforms alone, approaching $1 trillion over 25 years. The Kiel Institute's May 2026 assessment puts meaningful, rather than full, autonomy at roughly €50 billion annually for a decade. The fighter gap alone would require 350–400 additional combat aircraft, which European factories cannot deliver before the mid-2030s.

Two responses show the new European pattern. France is widening its nuclear umbrella through "dissuasion avancée", or forward deterrence, under which partner countries sit under France's nuclear guarantee without sharing control of any launch decision. On May 27, Norway became the ninth country to join through the Narvik Arrangement.

On the conventional side, Germany and the Netherlands are assuming command responsibility for the defence of Estonia and Latvia through their joint 1st German-Netherlands Corps. That is a direct transfer of Baltic defence leadership from Washington to European hands.

The 2027–2029 Window

The difficulty is timing. Poland's chief of general staff has confirmed work on indigenous deep-strike weapons but acknowledged "at least two years" before first results. The EU Institute for Security Studies warns that the cancelled Tomahawk deployment to Germany "removes a key component of Europe's deterrence" during what it calls "years of military transition."

The Baltic states have the least room for comfort. The Carnegie Endowment notes that they fear the withdrawal will come "before Europe manages to fill its defense gaps". For countries on NATO's eastern edge, this is not an accounting problem. It is about whether promised forces would actually arrive in time.

Every assessment points to the same weak period: 2027 to 2029. That is when US reductions would be felt most sharply and European replacements would still be years away.

The next test comes in early June at NATO's Force Sourcing Conference, where European nations must say which American gaps they intend to fill. Washington has arranged the sequence in a way that leaves allies with an awkward choice: make public commitments to close gaps they cannot yet close, or arrive at the Ankara Summit in July with little to offer.