Following a meeting yesterday of NATO defense ministers, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that America’s allies must do more to defend Europe. And that “doing more” means spending more money, contributing more guns, missiles, troops and hardware, and taking more leadership responsibility.
NATO’s European partners, Hegseth said, should take primary responsibility for defense of the continent, which means security ownership by all allies, guided by an understanding of the strategic realities.
“Our expectation of our friends — and we say this in solidarity — is you have to spend more on your defense, for your country, on that continent, understanding that the American military and the American people stand beside you, as we have in NATO,” he said.
President Donald J. Trump set a target for NATO-nation defense spending at 5% of gross domestic product, Hegseth said. The defense secretary noted that NATO allies Estonia and Lithuania are already there.
But money isn’t enough. Increases in troop readiness, weapons production and force contributions are also included.
“We can talk all we want about values. Values are important,” Hegseth said. “But you can’t shoot values, you can’t shoot flags, and you can’t shoot strong speeches. There is no replacement for hard power.”
Hard power includes demonstrating military readiness and equipping military forces with the right weapons and tools — provided by a strong, functioning defense industrial base with adequate capacity. The secretary said every NATO ally must revive their defense industrial bases.
“One of the self-evident conclusions of the war in Ukraine was … the European continent and America'[s] underinvestment … in defense industrial base[s] — the ability to produce munitions [and] emerging technologies rapidly and field them, was a blind spot exposed through the aggression against Ukraine,” he said.
The U.S., Ukraine and Europe are all expanding their industrial bases, but more must be done.
“Deep and dramatic reforms are coming at the Defense Department with the leadership of President Trump to ensure that we’re investing robustly in our defense industrial base,” he said. “A great example is shipbuilding. We need to vastly increase our ability to build ships and submarines. Not just for ourselves, but to honor obligations to our allies as well, and we will do that.”
Hegseth said the Foreign Military Sales program — the system by which American allies can purchase American-made ships, missiles and aircraft — also needs reform to ensure the U.S. can provide weapons more quickly to partners, Hegseth said.
“Part of being a good faith partner is we’re going to invest in our defense industrial base, [and] we’re going to make sure foreign military sales are as rapid as possible, which, again, is a force multiplier for American power, which is something we want to do in a contested world,” he explained.
The U.S. has been a NATO partner for more than 75 years now — last year was the alliance’s 75th anniversary. Hegseth promised the U.S. would continue to be a strong NATO partner in the years ahead. He also said that for NATO to continue to be as strong as it has been, every partner would need to commit more.
“NATO is a great alliance, the most successful defense alliance in history,” Hegseth said. “But to endure for the future, partners must do far more for Europe’s defense. We must make NATO great again. It begins with defense spending. It must also include reviving the trans-Atlantic defense industrial base, rapidly fielding emerging technologies, prioritizing readiness and lethality and establishing real deterrence.”
