On Thursday 12 February, the US Under Secretary of War, Elbridge Colby, said that the Alliance now had what it took to work in partnership. For their part, the ministers acknowledged that the Alliance needed to become more European.
“I think 2025 you saw [...] a real genuine commitment [...] to actually have a Europe that leads the conventional defence of NATO [...] It’s time to march out together, to be pragmatic [...]. And I think we have a really strong basis for working together in partnership, but putting NATO - kind of a 3.0 NATO - that’s based on partnership rather than dependency and really a return to what NATO was originally intended for”, stressed Mr Colby on his arrival at the NATO ministerial meeting.
In his speech to ministers, the Under-Secretary of State for War explained that “Europe should field the preponderance of the forces required to deter and, if necessary, defeat conventional aggression in Europe”, while adding that his country would continue to ensure nuclear deterrence. In his view, a strategy which claims that the United States can indefinitely assume the role of Europe’s primary conventional defender while taking decisive responsibility everywhere else “is neither sustainable nor prudent. It is an aspiration divorced from resources”.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte confirmed that within NATO, Europe was becoming stronger and taking on a greater leadership role. In addition to increased defence spending, Europe will also head up the Alliance’s three Joint Force Commands (see EUROPE 13806/14). “We need a strong NATO, but NATO is stronger when the Europeans are stepping up, taking more of a leadership role within NATO. That’s exactly what they are doing. So that the US is able also to take care of some of the other issues ... Still maintaining a strong nuclear and conventional weapons in Europe and this will make this Alliance so much stronger”, added Mark Rutte.
On their arrival at the ministerial, several European ministers also stressed the importance of making NATO more European. Noting that a few months ago the US Secretary of State for War, Peter Hegseth, had warned that Europe would have to be capable of ensuring their own security, France’s Catherine Vautrin promised that Europe “would do it”. “We have begun”, she explained, stressing the “importance of working with each other and making a lasting commitment, with this European pillar”.
“To preserve NATO’s transatlantic character, it needs to be made more European. It is a question of taking over more European responsibility and at the same time being able to rely and to trust, and this is what we do on the nuclear deterrence which is provided for decades by the US”, emphasised the German Minister, Boris Pistorius. “The history shows us, the history of the last decades, that the US took a lion share of what has to be done for the European conventional deterrence and defence. The time has come for Europeans to gradually take up the baton over the coming years. This is absolutely normal and natural”, he added.
For his part, the Romanian minister, Radu-Dinel Miruță, said that “Europe must be able to protect Europe”.
Strengthening the European pillar of NATO should help to reduce tensions with America, who criticise Europe for taking advantage of American protection.
See Elbridge Colby’s speech: https://aeur.eu/f/kpn (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)