Europe cannot count on American rescue, inquiry told

Europe cannot count on the United States returning to the European Arctic as the security partner and ally that Britain and Europe previously relied on, and NATO’s Article 5 is functionally moribund in the American sense, according to evidence published by the Defence Committee.

The committee, chaired by Tan Dhesi, the Labour member for Slough, examined the implications of American policy for High North security as part of its inquiry.

Dhesi said: “Our report calls for the government to reassess the JEF’s role and consider whether it should focus more on countering threats in the High North, particularly if the UK has to plan for uncertainty over US support for NATO. The UK’s presence in the Baltics, particularly in Estonia, may need to be bolstered to offset the effects of any greater JEF focus on the High North.”

Professor David Blagden of the University of Exeter told the committee: “[w]e can talk about the formal aspects of withdrawal or not but, functionally, you would probably say Article 5 in the American sense is pretty much moribund at the moment now anyway. No one really believes that the Americans are riding to the rescue if there were some situation in the Baltic states.”

The report sets out that the American 2026 National Defense Strategy outlined four lines of effort to achieve its America First strategic approach, covering defence of the United States homeland, deterring China in the Indo-Pacific through strength, increasing burden-sharing with allies and partners, and supercharging the American defence industrial base. The committee states that none of these suggest a return to greater engagement in Europe’s defence over the medium term, including the High North, and that where the Arctic is mentioned in the strategy it is in relation to American homeland defence.

The committee was told that “[e]ven if the next US President was a dyed in the wool Atlanticist—Eisenhower 2.0 or something—the US would not have the capacity to pivot back to playing the role it did in Europe and the High North”, largely because the United States perceives the maximum likelihood of conflict in East Asia as between 2027 and 2035.

On troop numbers, the report records a reported plan to cut between 25,000 and 40,000 American troops from the roughly 80,000 currently stationed in Europe, despite congressional provisions in the FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act restricting reductions below 76,000 personnel, and notes that significant future reductions in fighter jets, strategic bombers, destroyers, submarines, tanker aircraft and armed drones could also follow.

The Kiel Institute calculated that replacing American military capabilities with European weapons would cost an extra €50 billion each year over the next decade.

Professor Blagden also told the committee: “[t]he caveat, though, to all that glass-half-full stuff is that the UK, for years and years, has been generating SDSR-type documents in which we talk about how far we lean on allies. It has ultimately reached the point where the greatest of those allies has suddenly become unreliable… [w]e cannot just say, ‘We lean on an ally for this. We lean on an ally for that.’ When it comes to the High North, the UK is the major power now. The American cavalry is not about to ride over the horizon and save our fecklessness.”

Ministry of Defence witnesses drew a distinction between American capabilities and American commitments. On capabilities, the department said the United States is making it known to the rest of NATO that “[h]ere are the capabilities we [America] intend not to offer in the future. That is what we think a more European NATO looks like…” On commitments, Brigadier Jeremy Lamb, Head of Euro-Atlantic Security at the department, told the committee that “[w]hat they are talking about, is basing; it is not necessarily what they will make available to the SACEUR (Supreme Allied Commander Europe) in a crisis.”