USA wants to significantly reduce bombers, jets and submarines

New report

The USA is probably slowly withdrawing from NATO

According to a report, the USA wants to significantly reduce its military support for NATO. This could have significant consequences for Europe.

The USA is apparently planning to massively reduce its military contributions to NATO. According to information from “Spiegel”, an envoy from US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth informed high-ranking representatives of the alliance states at NATO headquarters about the plans at the end of last week.

Accordingly, Washington wants to provide significantly fewer central military capabilities in the future as part of NATO force planning, the so-called “NATO Force Model”. Among other things, fighter jets, warships, drones and tanker aircraft are affected.

• Revolt in the US Senate: Now Trump has overreached
• US politics: All developments in the news blog

Specifically, according to the report, the USA should plan fewer strategic bombers for NATO – there was talk of a halving in the round. The number of US fighter jets is also expected to fall by a third. In addition, the US Navy wants to have fewer destroyers available and submarines should no longer be provided in the NATO alliance. In the future, the Europeans would have to provide reconnaissance drones themselves; the USA also wants to significantly reduce its involvement in armed drones.

• Allies under pressure: Ukrainian drones are becoming a problem for NATO states

The US envoy Alexander Velez-Green called on the allies to quickly close the resulting gaps. The USA wants to present further details at a troop contributor conference at the beginning of June.

NATO did not comment in detail when asked by “Spiegel”. A spokeswoman explained that there had been an “over-dependence” on the USA in military planning so far. Since Europe and Canada are now investing more in defense, responsibility can be redistributed within the alliance. The changes strengthened NATO because they reduced dependence on a single ally.

Recently, contradictory announcements from Washington about possible troop relocations in Europe caused irritation within NATO. Trump announced additional soldiers for Poland, while at the same time there is talk of a withdrawal of around 5,000 US soldiers from Germany. It initially remained unclear whether parts of the troops should be relocated to Poland or completely returned to the USA. The planned deployment of Tomahawk cruise missiles has now been canceled.