From euronews.com
US and European defence ministers seemed to be in agreement on Thursday that, to survive, NATO needs to become more European. But their rationales for this shift, however, are probably not fully aligned.
“What is needed is a ”NATO 3.0′,” US Under Secretary of War Eldridge Colby told the NATO defence ministers gathering in Brussels. “This NATO 3.0 requires much greater efforts by our allies to step up and assume primary responsibility for the conventional defence of Europe.”
“It follows that Europe should field the preponderance of the forces required to deter and, if necessary, defeat conventional aggression in Europe,” he added.
The message from Colby, who attended the meeting in lieu of Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, is hardly new. The US has been pushing for more burden-sharing for years, citing its desire to pivot towards the Indo-Pacific.
Europe has at times appeared less than enthusiastic about this. Yet as ministers gathered in Brussels they were ready to not only hear that message, but show they have already started to step up.
The result?
“This, for me, was one of the most pivotal meetings I’ve been part of,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told reporters after the gathering. “Today, we also saw evidence of something else: A real shift in mindset. A unity of vision. A much stronger European defence within NATO.”
The NATO chief lauded a “major shift and uplift” in defence spending in 2025, praising Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland for exceeding the newly-agreed target of spending 3.5% of GDP on defence each year a decade ahead of schedule.
The target was hashed out last summer after weeks of rhetoric from US President Donald Trump that cast doubt over his country’s commitment to NATO’s collective defence clause, with suggestions that Washington could decide not to assist an ally under attack if it was not meeting the spending threshold.
Make NATO more European
Thursday’s meeting comes just weeks after Trump threatened military action against fellow NATO ally Denmark to forcefully take control of Greenland. NATO has now launched an enhanced vigilance activity in the Arctic to mollify that concern while trilateral talks between Denmark, Greenland and the US continue.
“The US took the lion’s share of what has to be done for the European conventional deterrence and defence,” German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters ahead of the meeting. “Now the time has come for Europeans to take over more and more, step by step, in the years to come. That is absolutely normal and natural. I understand and support this direction.”