NATO’s Growing Dependence on US Military Power Raises Strategic Concerns

As President Donald Trump increases pressure on NATO allies to boost defense spending and orders the withdrawal of 5,000 U.S. troops from Germany, a fundamental issue is becoming increasingly apparent: despite rising allied budgets, NATO remains heavily dependent on American military power to function effectively.

This dependence isn’t merely theoretical—it’s a practical reality with strategic implications, according to retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who served as a senior national security official during Trump’s first term.

“I told the president… maybe you ought to talk about a tiered relationship with NATO,” Kellogg told Fox News Digital, describing conversations with Trump about the alliance’s future. “We need to develop a new, for lack of a better term, a new NATO, a new defensive alignment with Europe.”

Kellogg argues that while NATO has expanded politically from its original 12 members to 32, it hasn’t grown proportionally in military capability—creating what he sees as a widening gap between commitments and actual defensive capacity.

“You started with 12, and you went to 32, and in the process, I think you diluted the impact,” he said, describing today’s NATO as “a very bloated architecture.”

“They haven’t put the money into defense. Their defense industry and defense forces have atrophied,” Kellogg added, pointing to the United Kingdom as an example. “When you look at the Brits right now, they could barely deploy forces: they have two aircraft carriers, both under maintenance. Their brigades are like one out of six that work.”

Not everyone shares this pessimistic assessment. John R. Deni, a research professor at the U.S. Army War College, contends that NATO “has never been more relevant” to U.S. national security for two key reasons: it provides America with a strategic advantage over rivals like Russia and China, who lack comparable alliances, and it underpins security for America’s most important trade and investment relationships.

The Capability Gap

By around 2010, the United States accounted for approximately 65% to 70% of NATO’s defense spending, according to analysis by Barak Seener from the London-based Henry Jackson Society.

“They’ve always been dependent on the U.S.,” Kellogg said of the European allies.

Deni offers a more nuanced view, explaining that alliances exist to “pool their resources” and “aggregate their individual strengths.” He points to ground forces as an area where the U.S. benefits from NATO, noting that “there are far more allied mechanized infantry forces on the ground than there are Americans.”

Nevertheless, he acknowledges that in the past, “it was fair to say that the European allies were overly reliant upon the Americans for conventional defense,” particularly during the 2000s when Washington encouraged European allies to focus on operations in Afghanistan and Iraq rather than territorial defense.

The capability gap is most evident in nuclear deterrence. Seener notes that the U.S. provides the overwhelming majority of NATO’s nuclear arsenal, meaning the alliance’s deterrence ultimately depends on the assumption of U.S. retaliation.

A NATO official acknowledged this reality, telling Fox News Digital: “The U.S. nuclear deterrent cannot be replaced, but it is clear that Europe needs to step up. There’s no question. There needs to be a better balance when it comes to our defense and security.”

Critical Systems and Capabilities

Beyond nuclear weapons, NATO’s operational backbone depends heavily on U.S.-provided systems. Seener highlighted U.S. intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, logistics, and command systems as essential to NATO operations.

“Without U.S. intelligence and surveillance, NATO loses situational awareness and early warning capabilities,” Seener explained. “So that means that Russia, for example, can attack Europe. And theoretically, if there’s no NATO and the U.S. is not involved, Europe would not be aware, or it would take it too long to be able to defend itself.”

Kellogg points to air and missile defense as a critical gap. While European countries rely on American-made systems like Patriot and THAAD, “they don’t have a system that’s comparable,” he noted, attributing this to years of underinvestment in European defense industries.

Deni offers a more balanced assessment, noting that “alliance defense spending has been up… and has spiked far more after 2022,” following Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014. However, he cautions that capability improvements take time to materialize.

European countries are making investments in American systems, with Poland, Romania, Norway, and Denmark acquiring F-35 fighter jets. “You can’t build an F-35 overnight,” Deni pointed out, indicating that many capability enhancements will take years to be fully operational.

Strategic Vulnerability

A NATO official told Fox News Digital that the alliance recognizes the need to “move further and faster” to address growing threats. The alliance has established new capability targets, including a fivefold increase in air and missile defense, “thousands more” armored vehicles and tanks, and “millions more” artillery shells, along with doubling key enabling capabilities like logistics and transportation.

However, Kellogg warns that NATO’s deterrence fundamentally depends on U.S. presence, particularly regarding Russia. If American forces are engaged elsewhere, NATO could face serious challenges, especially in critical areas like intelligence and logistics.

“The one you always have to worry about… is Russia,” said Kellogg, who served as Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia. His concern is about delayed response time: “We won’t know until it happens. And then you won’t be able to respond to it.”

Deni maintains that despite these challenges, the alliance remains a strategic asset rather than a liability. The central question, he suggests, is not whether NATO still functions effectively but whether the allies can adapt quickly enough to maintain its relevance and capability in a rapidly evolving security environment.