US cuts NATO bomber and submarine pledges

Bombers halved. Submarines removed entirely. Fighter jets cut by a third. In a closed Brussels meeting in late May, the Pentagon told NATO allies it plans to pull back sharply on the air and naval forces promised for a European crisis, including the systems that make NATO’s defence plans workable. European allies now have until a Force Sourcing Conference in early June, where countries formally pledge units against NATO requirements, to say how they will fill the gaps. The political deadline is NATO’s Ankara Summit on 7-8 July (Reuters/Der Spiegel, The Deep Dive).

The reductions do not mainly touch troops. They hit the enablers: refuelling tankers, electronic warfare aircraft, reconnaissance drones and attack submarines. These are the assets without which European combat forces look far stronger on paper than they would 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 built on the assumption that American enablers would be there when needed (NATO).

That assumption matters. Fighter jets need tankers if they are to operate across the Baltic. Aircraft need electronic warfare support to survive Russian air defences. Naval groups depend on attack submarines for protection under the surface. These are not decorative extras around a European force; they are the machinery that lets the force move, see and survive.

The Pentagon briefing was delivered to NATO political directors by a senior adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. A NATO spokeswoman acknowledged an "over-reliance on the US in NATO force planning" and said 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 nearest equivalent is a French Rafale carrying missiles with a 500-km range; a B-52 can strike from 8,000 miles and remain over a theatre for twenty hours (ISS Europa).

The most worrying gap may be suppression of enemy air defences, meaning the capacity to destroy Russia’s anti-aircraft systems so allied jets can operate. A Belgian defence researcher told Defence News that European air forces have "quite simply abandoned" this field "and must now rebuild from scratch." Three of sixteen analysts surveyed said rebuilding it could take more than a decade (Defence News).

A May 2026 Kiel Institute study put the cost of European strategic autonomy at roughly €500 billion over ten years, about €50 billion a year, or 0.25% of European GDP (Kiel/Defence News). Money is not the only constraint. Production is. Airbus is considering higher tanker output, but has not confirmed it. NATO’s replacement for its retiring airborne radar fleet has no signed contract. The first European long-range strike missile is not expected before 2029.

Two Books, One Alliance

General Alexus Grynkewich, SACEUR and NATO’s top military commander, told allied chiefs of defence on 19 May that the US drawdown "does not impact the executability of our regional plans" (NATO). That reassurance dealt with an earlier troop reduction, not the enabler cuts disclosed days later. His caveat was the important part: the US would provide "only those critical capabilities that allies cannot yet provide." The assets now being withdrawn are exactly those capabilities.

This exposes the awkward bargain beneath European defence. Allies bought American weapons systems at record rates, including F-35s, Patriot batteries and HIMARS launchers. US Foreign Military Sales captured 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 committed. Washington is now reducing the operational commitments those weapons were meant to sit beside, 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 Ankara summit can endorse spending targets and capability pledges. It cannot build tankers, train electronic warfare crews or put satellites into orbit. The formal US pledges will be tabled at the June Force Sourcing Conference; until then, the exact numbers remain classified. No allied official has publicly said whether the Vilnius defence plans remain executable under the revised Force Model. The question has been avoided in press conferences. The gap between what leaders promise in Ankara and what factories can deliver runs well into the 2030s.