European leaders are increasingly questioning whether the United States would intervene to defend its allies in the event of an attack on Europe, French daily Le Monde wrote Wednesday, as Washington's retrenchment reshapes the NATO alliance.
President Donald Trump "further weakened" the alliance by announcing the withdrawal of roughly 5,000 troops from Germany, the newspaper said. Reports that Washington has also suspended the deployment of long-range missile systems there — weapons capable of striking targets on Russian territory — compound the concern.
The move "deprives Europeans of an important deterrent against Russia", Gesine Weber, an expert at the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich, told Le Monde, warning it risks "creating or deepening a deterrence deficit" if the U.S. pulls back further from European security.
"The alliance between Europe and the U.S. is built on trust, and right now that trust is at its lowest point," said Nathalie Tocci, an international affairs specialist at Johns Hopkins University.
Strengthening NATO's "European pillar" — long championed by Paris — now enjoys broad support, including from Berlin, London, The Hague and Stockholm, Le Monde noted. European armies have already taken the lead in major NATO exercises in recent months, and European officers are set to assume responsibility for various NATO command centers.
Ahead of the NATO summit in Ankara on July 7-8, European capitals are identifying what capabilities they can contribute to the alliance to allow the U.S. to redirect resources to other regions.
Yet a more Europeanized NATO will not become a European-run collective defense organization, Le Monde cautioned, as Washington intends to retain its most important command positions. Tocci said NATO would remain "an American organization with better-armed and more autonomous European countries."
Europeans have been quietly laying groundwork for greater autonomy. The UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force, established in 2014, offers one such framework, while France and Britain have since 2024 been building ad hoc coalitions for missions such as security guarantees for Ukraine and operations in the Strait of Hormuz. A diplomat quoted anonymously cautioned, however, that the command and planning centers of these coalitions remain "very modest".
Other proposals include a European Security Council and a defense alliance open to non-EU countries such as Ukraine. How far and fast these discussions advance, Le Monde concluded, will depend largely on Trump's future posture toward NATO.
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Source: PAP