March 7, 2025 Updated 9:35 a.m. ET
But what would Europeans need to do to replace the enormous American contribution to NATO?
The answer comes down to money, personnel, time and cooperation with Washington, said Ivo Daalder, a former American ambassador to NATO and a coauthor of a recent report from Harvard’s Belfer Center on how to create “a strong European pillar” in the alliance.
The central problem is that NATO was built as an American-dominated alliance, intentionally dependent on American leadership, sophisticated weaponry, intelligence and airlift. The current NATO command structure is essentially owned and operated by the United States, led by Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli.
“The United States is the linchpin of the alliance so we could control our allies and get them to do what we want,” Mr. Daalder said. More practically, the United States military is the skeleton of NATO, and “if you suddenly pull out the skeleton, the body dies.”
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