The United States is readying to slash the number of fighters jets, strategic bombers and warships available to NATO in any future security crisis, a report claims.
Germany’s Der Spiegel reported Tuesday a senior Pentagon official briefed European allies on Washington’s plans during a confidential meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels last week.
The cuts will gut the so-called “NATO Force Model,” the alliance framework for defending Europe drawn up in 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The magazine report, relying on anonymous sources, added European officials were taken aback by the scale of the planned drawdown despite President Donald Trump’s previous observations about NATO members being unprepared to be a willing ally of Washington.
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Der Spiegel reported Alexander Velez-Green, an envoy for U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, told allies the United States plans to commit much fewer assets to NATO’s pool of readily available forces — reducing the number of deployable drones, fighter jets, aerial refueling aircraft, as well as warships and other naval assets.
According to the magazine, the U.S. will cut the number of strategic bombers committed to NATO and is weighing a roughly one-third withdrawal of its fighter-jet contribution.
NATO has been warned of the scale of the drawback even as it acts to heed President Donald Trump’s continued demand for group members to increase defence spending.
Der Spiegel reported Velez-Green stressed the U.S. is prepared to cooperate closely only with allies that move quickly to plug the gaps left by Washington’s drawdown – remarks interpreted by other NATO officials as an indirect threat.
No confirmation of the claimed dilution of the U.S. arsenal has been confirmed – or denied – by the Pentagon.
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