US reviews European troop presence as NATO allies face loyalty questionnaire

The United States has formally tied the future of its military presence in Europe to the willingness of NATO allies to grant unfettered basing access and meet defence spending targets, Deputy Secretary of Defense Elbridge Colby told the alliance's 32 ambassadors in Brussels on Thursday. The briefing marks the first concrete step in a six-month force posture review ordered by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth in June, a process that could reshape the American military footprint on the continent for the first time since the Cold War.

Colby's remarks, published by the Pentagon, framed the review as an effort to "encourage, enable, and impel a transition to a more durable and powerful European-led conventional defense of the continent." But the subtext was unmistakable: Washington will judge allies on whether they provide the "predictability" of basing access that US planners deem essential. The message was reinforced by a detailed questionnaire circulated to capitals earlier this month, which one NATO diplomat described as a "scary exercise" designed to extract "a pledge of allegiance to the king."

The questionnaire and the loyalty test

The survey, first reported by Reuters, asks allies to detail their positions on defence spending trajectories, military access arrangements and alignment with US foreign policy objectives. Two European defence officials confirmed the document's existence and scope. Colby insisted on Thursday that the questionnaire was not intended to "dictate" terms or secure "a complete carte blanche" on US military access, and he praised countries for "rebuilding their military strength for collective defense." Yet he immediately added that "we need to be able to have the ability to operate effectively; we need predictability," confirming that basing access is a decisive criterion.

The language marks a shift from the Biden administration's emphasis on burden-sharing through the NATO Defence Planning Process. The Trump administration's approach is more transactional: access and spending are treated as explicit conditions for the maintenance of US forces. The questionnaire effectively asks each ally to quantify its contribution to the American strategic calculus, a demand that sits uncomfortably with the consensus-based culture of the alliance.

Airspace denials and the Iranian catalyst

The immediate trigger for the review was a series of restrictions imposed by several NATO members on US military movements connected to the American-Israeli campaign against Iran earlier this year. France, Italy and Spain denied overflight rights or base access for operations linked to that conflict, according to officials familiar with the matter. President Donald Trump responded by threatening to withdraw from NATO altogether, a statement that alarmed European capitals but also concentrated minds in the Pentagon.

The restrictions exposed a structural vulnerability: US forces in Europe rely on a dense network of host-nation agreements for everything from fighter jet rotations to logistics hubs. When key allies withhold permission for specific operations, the utility of the entire posture is called into question. The review's "terms of reference" document, sent to allies this month, explicitly cites defence spending and "expanded military access" as examination criteria, according to a person familiar with the text.

Poland positions itself as the reliable partner

No ally has leaned into the review more aggressively than Poland. Deputy Defence Minister Paweł Zalewski told reporters that Warsaw was "ready to propose" specific locations, financing packages and logistics support for a permanent US troop presence. "This review is based not on beauty offers, but on common interests," he insisted, even as his ministry prepared what amounts to a basing bid.

Poland already hosts a rotational US armoured brigade combat team, a combat aviation brigade and the headquarters of V Corps (Forward) in Poznań. The government has consistently spent above the NATO 2% of GDP guideline, 4.12% in 2024, according to alliance estimates, and has invested heavily in infrastructure at Powidz, Łask and Drawsko Pomorskie. Zalewski's offer of direct financing for basing costs goes beyond the standard host-nation support agreements that govern most US deployments in Europe.

The 'beauty contest' dynamic

One NATO diplomat characterised Thursday's meeting as a "beauty contest" in which "everyone highlight[ed] his [or] her country's implementation of NATO 3.0", the US-led framework that assigns Europe responsibility for conventional deterrence while Washington focuses on the Indo-Pacific. Ambassadors did not make formal basing offers during the session but cited progress on capability targets, defence spending increases and pledges to substitute US forces in alliance war plans.

The dynamic creates perverse incentives. Allies that have historically hosted large US garrisons, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, now face implicit pressure to offer more, while frontline states such as Poland and the Baltic countries compete to become the primary hubs for a reduced but more permanent American presence. Germany, which hosts the largest US contingent in Europe at roughly 35,000 personnel, has increased defence spending significantly since 2022 but remains below the 2% target for 2025.

European strategic autonomy in practice

The review arrives at a moment when European defence industrial capacity is struggling to translate political commitments into deployable hardware. The European Defence Fund and the Act in Support of Ammunition Production have disbursed funds more slowly than planned, and major programmes, the Main Ground Combat System, the Future Combat Air System, remain years from operational status. NATO's new capability targets, agreed at the 2024 Washington summit, require Europe to field 35 to 50 additional brigades, hundreds of air defence systems and a sustainable munitions stockpile by 2030.

Colby's formulation, "European-led conventional defense", echoes the strategic autonomy language championed by Paris and Berlin since 2017. But the American version is conditional: autonomy is welcomed only insofar as it frees US assets for the Pacific. The questionnaire's inclusion of "alignment with US foreign policy" suggests that Washington wants a veto over how European capabilities are used, not merely a reduction in its own burden.

The review timeline and decision points

General Alexus Grynkewich, commander of US European Command, will deliver his military assessment to Colby in September. That assessment will model force posture options ranging from a modest reduction in rotational deployments to a wholesale restructuring of the US Army's European footprint, potentially consolidating around a smaller number of "enduring locations" in Eastern Europe. Hegseth will then make a formal decision in November, likely coinciding with the NATO defence ministers' meeting in Brussels.

The November deadline is politically significant. It falls after the US midterm elections but before the next NATO summit in The Hague in June 2027. A decision announced in November would give the alliance six months to adjust its defence plans and force generation commitments before the summit, where the new posture would be formally endorsed, or contested.

The coming weeks will reveal whether the questionnaire was a negotiating tactic or a genuine precursor to force reductions. Several diplomats noted that the meeting's "very constructive" tone masked deep unease about the precedent being set. If the US can condition its Article 5 commitment on basing access for non-Article 5 operations, the mutual defence guarantee becomes contingent, a shift that would reverberate far beyond the troop numbers at stake.

For now, the review proceeds on its announced timeline. The Hague summit in June 2027 will be the first real test of whether a rebalanced transatlantic bargain can hold, or whether the alliance enters a period of managed divergence in which European defence industrial policy and American force posture drift apart.