The United States has opened a new and potentially destabilising chapter in transatlantic relations, with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth announcing a six-month Pentagon review of all American forces stationed in Europe and declaring that the era of allied 'free-riding' is over. Addressing NATO defence ministers in Brussels on Thursday, Hegseth laid out a vision for what he termed 'NATO 3.0' — a rebooted alliance that must become 'a real hardline military alliance' with the combat power to deter threats on the continent. The review, he stressed, would be genuine and unforgiving: 'Some countries will fail, and others will pass with flying colours.' Future US financial contributions, he added, would be conditioned on allies meeting their defence spending pledges.

Hegseth’s most searing criticism was reserved for European governments that refused Washington access to bases, ports and overflight rights during the recent war with Iran. He accused them of putting 'America’s sons and daughters at risk' and drowning requests in legal debates, calling the episode 'shameful'. Beyond operational grievances, he indicted a generation of European choices — prioritising gender equity, climate change and austerity over tanks, fighter jets and air defence — and argued that the continent had lost confidence in its own civilisation. The Pentagon chief confirmed that the US is already scaling back its role in the alliance’s high-readiness NATO Force Model, a move that forces European and Canadian planners to urgently fill capability gaps once guaranteed by American warships and aircraft.

Viewed from Washington, the review formalises President Trump’s long-standing demand that allies shoulder a far greater burden. Congressional legislation sets a minimum floor for US troops in Europe, so any significant drawdown would require delicate negotiations on Capitol Hill. In European capitals, the announcement landed with a mixture of alarm and resignation. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte sought to frame the process as 'structured' and consultative, noting that European and Canadian defence spending had already risen by $139 billion compared with the previous year. Yet privately, diplomats acknowledge that the unconditional US security guarantee — the bedrock of the alliance for seven decades — is being replaced by a transactional calculus. Russian media coverage, meanwhile, has amplified Hegseth’s characterisation of NATO as a 'paper tiger' and his demand for a return to military rigour, interpreting the rift as evidence of an alliance in strategic disarray.

The review’s outcome will depend on how rapidly European allies demonstrate irreversible progress toward self-reliance. That timeline is brutally short, and the political obstacles are formidable. Britain’s new defence secretary attended the summit without a long-awaited investment plan, while Germany and others face domestic constraints on rearmament. Analysts in London and Paris note that the US is effectively accelerating a decoupling that could either galvanise a genuinely European defence pillar or fracture the alliance along new fault lines. For now, the message from the Pentagon is unambiguous: the old NATO is finished, and the next six months will determine which allies are prepared to live in the harder world its successor demands.