Pentagon Cuts NATO’s Wartime Backstop

Trump’s visible reshuffle of US troops in Europe is only part of the story. The more serious change is happening inside NATO’s classified wartime mobilisation system. The Pentagon is reducing what America promises to send in a crisis, and no democratic body has a clear route to review the cuts.

On May 22, Alex Velez-Green, deputy to Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby, told allied defence officials in Brussels that the US would "significantly scale down" its contribution to the NATO Force Model, the alliance’s tiered system for bringing troops forward during a crisis (Military Times, Defense News). NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte confirmed the announcement, but said he was "not allowed to disclose" the details (Stars and Stripes).

The Force Model, adopted in 2022–2023, assigns national forces to NATO defence plans in three tiers: about 100,000 troops within 10 days, 200,000 within 30 days, and 500,000 within six months. America’s Tier 3 reinforcements, the forces that would cross the Atlantic in a prolonged war, are what make the system credible. Without them, eastern flank defence plans risk becoming "diplomatic fiction" (CSIS).

The Oversight Gap

The 2026 defence budget law stops the Pentagon from reducing US forces in Europe below 76,000 without certification to Congress (Washington Examiner). That legal floor applies to troops physically stationed in Europe. Force Model commitments are different: they are classified wartime surge forces, pledged from American soil, with no statutory minimum and no congressional vote.

That is the gap. When Trump cancelled a 4,000-soldier brigade deployment to Poland in mid-May, it produced congressional anger and front-page coverage (Stars and Stripes). Rotational deployments, where units move in and out every nine months, can be stopped quickly. Permanent stationing, where families move and bases are built, is much harder to unwind. But Tier 3 reinforcement pledges can be cut without a public record and without a congressional check.

For Malta, which sits outside NATO but inside the EU’s security debate, this matters because European defence is becoming less abstract. If American wartime support becomes conditional or thinner, EU member states will be pushed to spend more, plan more jointly, and accept a more serious defence role. Neutrality does not remove Malta from that conversation; it changes the terms on which Malta enters it.

Competing for American Attention

European governments are not responding as one bloc. They are making separate offers to Washington, trying to protect their own position.

Poland’s Deputy Defence Minister Paweł Zalewski offered the Pentagon "permanent stationing" during a May 20–21 visit to Washington, saying Poland would "build a small city" for US troops and cover the costs (Polsat News). The Pentagon promised a proposal "in the coming weeks", but made no concrete commitment (gov.pl).

Germany is losing a Stryker brigade, a medium-armoured combat unit, from Bavaria. Chancellor Merz is presenting the withdrawal as a reason to speed up domestic missile programmes. He argues that Washington’s failure to station long-promised Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles in Germany, intended to counter Russian intermediate-range weapons, reflects US production limits rather than political punishment (Tagesspiegel, Spiegel).

Romania won praise from Secretary Rubio for hosting additional US troops for Iran-related operations, but received no promise of a permanent presence. A presidential adviser admitted the country is "relevant" to Washington, but not "vital" (HotNews). Estonia’s defence minister confirmed US forces will remain, while warning that "political decisions in the US are now reaching the military level" (ERR).

France is in a different position. Paris had prepared alternatives before the drawdown: a framework to bring eight European partners into French nuclear deterrence planning and consultation, and a push to place more European officers in senior NATO command posts (Le Monde, IFRI). But French autonomy was built to sit alongside American power, not to replace it.

At NATO’s July 7–8 summit in Ankara, the alliance has to decide whether to redesign its defence plans around reduced US inputs or challenge the cuts in public. Rutte has framed the agenda around ending "unhealthy over-reliance on one ally", a formulation that accepts Washington’s argument without spelling out the cost. NATO’s defence plans were built on the assumption of full US wartime participation. America is now withdrawing part of that assumption through the one channel where no legislature has a vote, while European capitals compete for bilateral deals. The unanswered question before Ankara is whether any government will force the classified numbers into the open.