As the leaders of NATO’s 32 member nations arrive this week in Turkey to discuss their implementation plans for a record military buildup, some are rightly starting to worry that Donald Trump has plunged them into a classic Catch-22.
On the one hand, the U.S. president has demanded that Europe spend more on its own defense and buy more American-made weapons. On the other hand, his administration is making it increasingly impossible to do just that by delaying the delivery of already-purchased weapons systems and implementing changes restricting future sales.
The paradox is drawing frustrated Joseph Heller references in Europe. And if it isn’t somehow resolved, it could fatally undermine Trump’s own stated goal of having the continent shoulder more of its own protection.
Trump’s pressure was instrumental in nudging America’s NATO allies to commit to spending 5% of GDP each year on defense by 2035 at last year’s summit in the Hague, up from the old 2% threshold that was itself rarely met. Since then, the administration has continued signaling that Europe will not be able to rely on America alone for its defense.
Over the past 8 weeks alone, the U.S. has notified allies that the United States would be reducing its contributions to the NATO Force Model and has announced a six-month review of its military posture in Europe. These actions are being undertaken by the U.S. under the guise of creating “NATO 3.0,” a European-led, “post-Cold War embodiment of the defense alliance” which the Department of Defense describes as “what President Donald J. Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth believe the alliance should be.”
