NATO members have been sent a written questionnaire seeking their views ahead of the American review of United States force posture in Europe, the Pentagon’s senior policy official has confirmed in Brussels.
Elbridge Colby, the Under Secretary of War for Policy, disclosed the mechanism in remarks alongside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Thursday, having been asked about it by reporters.
He said: “We want to hear from our allies. That’s the questionnaire that some of you asked about. We wanted to hear from them directly in writing, in the spirit of NATO 3.0.”
Colby also named the areas where he expects difficulty, singling out the arrangements that govern where American forces can be stationed and how they move.
He said: “Let’s look at some of things like access, basing and overflight, where there is a lot of good, but there’s some things that we need to work out to make sense going forward.”
Access, basing and overflight are the legal and diplomatic arrangements that determine which airfields and ports American units can use, what they can store there, and whose airspace they can transit without seeking permission each time. They are agreed bilaterally with host nations rather than through NATO, they vary considerably between countries, and they are what any redistribution of American forces across the continent would have to be built on.
Colby said the review would “look at the strategic posture at a high level of the US forces in Europe, obviously Europe remaining a critical interest of the United States, even as we prioritize the Western Hemisphere and the First Island Chain”, and that the aim was to make it “fit for purpose, not only for today but going forward”.
He said: “Let’s make it adaptive. Let’s make it make sense.”
The United States keeps around 80,000 personnel in Europe, a figure that rose after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, with the largest concentrations in Germany, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom. Successive American officials have signalled that the total will fall as Washington weights its forces towards the Pacific, and the question allies have been pressing is not whether that happens but which capabilities go and how much warning they get.
Colby set out the division of labour he expects, describing “a world in which Europe, which is obviously a very wealthy continent, can and is taking primary responsibility for its own conventional defence, obviously the United States remaining committed to NATO, remaining linked to this alliance, and also Europe taking the lead in support to Ukraine.”
He named Poland, Germany and the Netherlands as examples of what he called extraordinary investment, and said he hoped others would follow.
Rutte used the visit to press the case that European and Canadian spending is already moving. He said: “When you look at the moment in 2025, 139 billion dollars extra spent on defence by the Canadians and the Europeans compared to the years before, and it is still continuing. Still much more to be done. We will get there.”
The Secretary General credited Colby with coining the phrase NATO 3.0, which he defined as “a stronger Europe and a stronger Canada in a stronger NATO”, and pointed back to a June visit by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, who said Washington would consult allies before changing its footprint.
The sequence of Colby’s visit indicates the review remains at the consultation stage. He said he met US European Command on Tuesday for a working session with General Grynkewich, heard from the staff at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe on Wednesday, and joined the North Atlantic Council with allied ambassadors on Thursday.
