The speech by Pete Hegseth, the US Defense Secretary, to Singapore’s Shangri-La Dialogue was addressed to a Pacific audience. His sharpest messages, however, were for Europe, and especially for a British Government that still hasn’t explained in practice how it plans to deliver the political commitments made a year ago in the Strategic Defence Review (SDR).
Healey claimed that talking too much and delivering too little has now changed. The Defence Investment Plan is where that claim gets tested
‘Push-up Pete’ – who ostentatiously styles himself the Secretary of War – is a controversial figure. European governments have found it convenient to dismiss him. That is a mistake. Hegseth came to Singapore to unveil the US National Defense Strategy. The priorities: homeland security, the Western Hemisphere, the Indo-Pacific. The message to Europe is explicit, substantive and, whomever occupies the White House next, enduring.
‘We need partners, not protectorates’ is not a statement that America is abandoning NATO. But it is an unambiguous warning. NATO as a protected enterprise, where Europeans shelter under American security guarantees while managing defence budgets for domestic political convenience, is finished.
