The United States has told European NATO allies and Canada to increase the aircraft, drones and naval forces they make available for alliance defence planning, exposing the operational consequences of Washington’s shift towards a smaller conventional footprint in Europe.

The request follows a decision by the Trump administration to reduce the pool of US military capabilities available to NATO in a crisis. General Alexus Grynkewich, the head of US forces in Europe and NATO’s top military commander, said allies were being asked to contribute more manned and unmanned aircraft and more naval vessels as Washington steps back in those areas. The request has been reported as part of the adjustment to NATO’s crisis-response planning under the NATO Force Model.

The issue is not only defence spending. It is about whether European forces can provide the specific assets required for deterrence and crisis response. Combat aircraft, surveillance drones, maritime patrol capacity and naval vessels are not easily replaced by budget announcements. They require trained crews, maintenance systems, command integration, spare parts, munitions and years of procurement planning.

The US move includes reductions in aircraft and unmanned systems that have been central to NATO’s ability to monitor, reinforce and respond. Current reporting says the planned changes include a reduction in F-15 fighter aircraft and cuts to MQ-4 and MQ-9 Reaper drone availability. Those platforms matter because they support air policing, strike options, intelligence collection, surveillance, reconnaissance and situational awareness across a large theatre.

For European NATO members, the request brings a familiar burden-sharing argument into a more concrete phase. Washington has long pressed Europe to spend more on defence. The difference now is that the pressure is being tied to named military capabilities rather than general spending targets. A European government can increase its defence budget and still fail to provide the aircraft, drones or ships that NATO planners require.

This is where the alliance faces a practical gap. Many European states have increased defence expenditure since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and NATO members agreed at The Hague in 2025 to move towards a 5 per cent defence investment commitment by 2035. But higher expenditure does not immediately produce usable forces. Airframes must be ordered, delivered and certified. Pilots and drone operators must be trained. Ships require crews, dockyard capacity and long maintenance cycles. Ammunition stocks must be rebuilt at scale.

The naval dimension is particularly important. NATO’s northern and eastern flanks depend not only on land forces but also on the ability to protect sea lines, ports, undersea infrastructure and reinforcement routes. The Baltic Sea, North Sea, Arctic approaches and North Atlantic all place demands on European navies at a time when Russia continues to test NATO’s maritime awareness and when global deployments can pull US assets elsewhere.

The air and drone dimension is equally sensitive. NATO’s eastern flank requires persistent surveillance, quick reaction aircraft, air-defence integration and the ability to track Russian activity from the Arctic to the Black Sea. Europe has advanced aircraft fleets, but they are unevenly distributed, heavily tasked and often limited by availability rates, munitions stocks and support capacity. Unmanned surveillance remains an area where the United States has provided capabilities that many European allies cannot yet match at equivalent scale.

NATO has sought to present the adjustment as manageable. Secretary General Mark Rutte has previously said that US force adjustments in Europe would be gradual and structured, and would not undermine defence plans. That message is intended to reassure allies and avoid giving Moscow the impression of a sudden capability gap. Yet the fact that European allies and Canada are now being asked to fill identified areas shows that alliance planning is entering a more demanding phase.

The political context is clear. The United States is rebalancing military attention while expecting Europe to take greater responsibility for conventional deterrence on its own continent. That does not mean a US withdrawal from NATO, nor does it remove the American nuclear role in European security. But it does change the division of labour. Europe is being asked to provide more of the day-to-day conventional forces that make deterrence credible before a crisis becomes a war.

For European governments, the challenge will be to turn defence pledges into force packages that NATO can use. That means moving beyond headline spending targets towards aircraft readiness, drone fleets, naval deployments, ammunition production, maintenance capacity and integrated command arrangements. It also means accepting that some gaps cannot be solved by national procurement alone and may require multinational pooling, joint acquisition and shared logistics.

The request from Washington therefore exposes a central issue for European defence policy. NATO’s credibility does not rest only on political unity or summit declarations. It rests on whether the alliance has the right forces in the right place, available at the right level of readiness. If the United States reduces its conventional contribution in selected areas, Europe cannot compensate with rhetoric or accounting categories.

The question now is whether European NATO members can move quickly enough. The answer will shape not only burden-sharing debates, but the practical balance of deterrence in Europe.