Hegseth criticizes the rhetoric of NATO and the ‘middle power’, presents a review of the European military – National
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday lashed out at NATO allies when the Pentagon announced a six-month review of US forces in Europe, saying the future of the alliance depends on others increasing their defense spending.
He also seemed taken aback by Prime Minister Mark Carney’s recent comments about the central powers needing to come together.
Hegseth, speaking to defense ministers at NATO headquarters in Brussels, said the purpose of the review is to encourage Europe to do more while ensuring that the US military will be able to fulfill its global commitments. He added that NATO needed to return to “a strong anti-war organization focused on the defense of Europe,” after decades of “free riding” by non-US allies.
Although Hegseth did not mention Canada or any other country by name, his words appeared to refer to Carney’s speech at the World Economic Forum in January when he criticized the allies for “no longer having to demonstrate a credible approach” to meeting their NATO spending commitments.
“Some of the biggest NATO economies, some of the richest countries, allies who are very happy to continue in terms of a rules-based international order and middle powers coming together, still think that the era of free riding has arrived,” Hegseth said.
“This is not what the president or America expects from this alliance. This is not what any reasonable person expects, and it will never end again.”
Carney said during his speech: “Our opinion is that the middle powers must work together because if we are not at the table, we are on their list.”
The Trump administration has expressed frustration with Canada in recent months for not clearly showing how it plans to meet NATO’s new target of spending at least five percent of GDP on defense by 2035, including 3.5 percent on “critical” military power.
Shortly after the US set up a joint defense review board with Canada last month, a top Pentagon official said Canada had to make “tough decisions and necessary trade-offs” to become a “reliable” military partner.
The official added that Canada “has yet to say how to meet NATO’s new defense spending targets,” and that talks aimed at producing a clear plan to increase military readiness have broken down.
Defense Minister David McGuinty pushed back against the criticism, pointing to past spending announcements that finally brought Canada to the NATO target of two percent this year, and future procurement plans he said would bring Canada to five percent by the deadline.
Global News has asked McGuinty’s office for comment on Hegseth’s comments. The minister was attending a meeting of NATO ministers and was supposed to go to Luxembourg on Friday.
The review can lead to the US military, to reduce costs
Hegseth on Thursday echoed criticism from US President Donald Trump and other administration officials that some NATO allies would not allow the US military to use their airfields in the early days of the war with Iran, and were slow to provide aid.
The defense minister called those decisions “disgraceful” and said they “put America’s sons and daughters, our sons and daughters, at risk.”
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He told his NATO colleagues that the six-month review would improve the US military’s posture and stability in Europe, while encouraging allies to “step up and do their part.”
“Make no mistake about it, this is going to be a real update,” he said. “It will be designed to ensure that NATO moves swiftly and irrevocably towards a leading Europe, stepping up and taking on the primary responsibility for Europe’s defence.
“It is a review that some countries will fail, others will pass with flying colors.”
Hegseth added that the US’s “required funds” for NATO – likely referring to the partners’ shares of common NATO funding – “will depend on other countries meeting their defense spending targets.”
“When other partners don’t spend money quickly, the money we pay will go down,” he said. “NATO will be a two-way street.”
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte noted on Thursday that the European allies and Canada together spent US $ 90 billion more on defense last year, which is an increase of 20 percent by 2024.
Hegseth’s announcement came after the United States told its allies last month that it had decided to reduce the number of American military capabilities available to the alliance in a crisis, a framework known as the NATO Force Model.
Rutte played down the impact of the move, calling the power model a “structuring tool,” but acknowledged that the reduction in US contributions has already taken effect.
“The question came up yesterday: Is this fast or not? It is fast,” he told reporters.
“So what would actually happen? If a war were to break out … all our allies, including the US, would do what they could to make sure we don’t go to war.”
He said some European countries “are already putting back a lot of those resources, in some cases, we’re almost there, and there are still places where we need more work to do. So we’re in a good place.”
The US announcement, however, sent its allies scrambling to fill gaps in their critical forces.
US Army Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s supreme commander and the head of US forces in Europe, said in a statement earlier this month that manned and unmanned aircraft and naval vessels are two areas where Canada and its European allies “can step up now and in the near term – as the United States reduces forces ‘derived’ from the NATO Force Model in Europe and refocuses elsewhere.”
Under NATO’s collective security guarantee – Article 5 of its founding agreement – the 32 allies pledge that an attack on one of them will be considered an attack on all. It does not compel them to provide military assistance, although many may.
In fact, the United States is pushing back on how it can help, if the alliance triggers Article 5.
Article 5 has been used only once, after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 in the US, which led to NATO forces fighting the US in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
– via files from Reuters and the Associated Press
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