The United States just told its closest military allies to start fending for themselves. During a briefing in Brussels the week of May 19, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and envoy Alexander Velez-Green informed senior NATO officials that Washington plans to drastically cut the military assets it makes available to the alliance during crises or wartime.
The numbers are stark. Strategic bombers available to NATO forces would be cut in half. Fighter jets would be reduced by roughly one-third. The US Navy would deploy fewer destroyers. And nuclear submarines, previously pledged to NATO, would be withdrawn entirely.
What the drawdown actually looks like
Pulling nuclear submarines out of the equation entirely is arguably the most consequential piece. These vessels operate as invisible deterrents, patrolling unseen and capable of launching strikes that adversaries cannot easily track or preempt. Removing them from NATO’s crisis toolkit means European allies lose access to one of the most potent instruments of modern warfare.
Reports about the drawdown first surfaced in German magazine Der Spiegel and were subsequently confirmed by Reuters on May 19-20. The timing matters: this wasn’t a leaked memo or an unnamed source whispering to reporters. It was a formal briefing delivered by the Defense Secretary himself to NATO’s senior leadership.
