EDITORIAL: Hegseth’s Six-Month Review: The Blackmail That Is Straining the Alliance

Strategic Trust: A Fragile Resource

Strategic trust among allies is a precious resource that is difficult to rebuild once it has been eroded. NATO has operated for 75 years on the basis of a U.S. commitment perceived as reliable—not because the United States was particularly fond of its European allies, but because its commitment was consistent and predictable. This predictability was itself a deterrent.

The deliberately unpredictable Trump/Hegseth policy is destroying this resource. Even if the six-month review concludes that the U.S. presence should remain unchanged, the damage is done: the allies now know that the question can be raised, that the presence can be conditional, and that they cannot plan on the certainty of the U.S. commitment. This doubt does not disappear with a reassuring statement.

Allied Responses: Between Adaptation and Protest

Faced with this uncertainty, the allies are responding in different ways. Some—Poland and the Baltic states—are ramping up their own defense spending to make their security less dependent on the United States. Others are seeking to strengthen intra-European bilateral partnerships as a partial substitute for the U.S. security umbrella. And a few, diplomatically, are choosing not to push Trump too hard to prevent him from turning his rhetoric into action.

This diversity of responses reveals a fragmentation of allied cohesion—precisely what Putin seeks to provoke. Dividing NATO, creating rifts between Washington and European capitals, and pushing each ally to manage its relationship with the United States individually: this is the classic Russian strategy of disunity—and Hegseth’s policy unwittingly fuels it.

Putin doesn’t need to strike at NATO if NATO falls apart on its own. That is the central danger of Hegseth’s policy: it does the work of division that Moscow has dreamed of doing for years. I’m not saying it’s deliberate. But the effect is very real.

The Baltics: The Existential Question, Once Again

For Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, the issue of U.S. disengagement is not a matter of budget or prestige—it is an existential issue. These countries, with populations of just a few million, lacking strategic depth, and surrounded by or located near Russia, know that their independence depends on the credibility of NATO’s collective security guarantee. If that guarantee falters, their vulnerability is immediate and total.

Their response has been a massive increase in defense spending—beyond 3% of GDP for Estonia, heading toward 5% in the long term. But no amount of domestic spending can replace U.S. military capability in a conflict with Russia. These countries are staking their survival on the reliability of a partner whose behavior has become deliberately unpredictable.

Germany: The Hesitant Power That Must Choose

Germany is in a different position. It is Europe’s largest economy, but its history during World War II has created deep inhibitions regarding military power. The Zeitenwende (“turning point”) announced by Chancellor Scholz in 2022 has begun to overcome these inhibitions—with a significant increase in the German defense budget and arms deliveries to Ukraine.

But Germany has not yet taken the leap toward fully autonomous engagement. It oscillates between reassuring Atlanticism—despite its uncertainties—and the demands of growing European strategic autonomy. Hegseth’s review is pushing Germany in the latter direction, whether it wants to or not. And this painful shift is perhaps the most significant transformation that today’s geopolitics is imposing on Europe.

Germany truly rearming: that was unthinkable ten years ago. It was a controversial idea five years ago. Today, it is a necessity that even Berlin accepts with difficulty but inevitably. Putin has accomplished what decades of allied pressure had failed to do: force Germany to face its own power head-on.

The Ideal Scenario: Pressure That Works

In the best-case scenario, Hegseth’s review achieves exactly what it sets out to do: European allies massively increase their defense spending, the 5% of GDP target becomes a reality, and the United States maintains its presence in Europe alongside an alliance that contributes its fair share. In this scenario, U.S. pressure has worked—and the result is a more balanced and robust alliance.

This scenario is not impossible. European spending is rising. The Gdańsk Declaration of June 25, 2026, reaffirms the 5%target. According to Rutte, the Ankara summit will announce “tens of billions” in contracts. The pressure has had an effect—but at what cost to the alliance’s cohesion?

The likely scenario: lingering uncertainty

The more likely scenario is that Hegseth’s review concludes that the U.S. presence will be maintained—but with conditions and implicit threats for the future. This conclusion does not resolve the underlying problem: trust has been eroded, uncertainty persists, and Putin continues to calculate that NATO will not hold up in the face of a real crisis.

And in this scenario, every future incident—every ambiguous statement by Trump on Article 5, every threat of disengagement by Hegseth—reignites this uncertainty. The alliance survives, but it lives under constant pressure from its own most powerful ally. It is a state of chronic unease that drains diplomatic energy and undermines strategic coherence.

I wish I were wrong. I wish Hegseth’s review were the necessary wake-up call that forces Europe to take responsibility, and that in the end, everyone would be better off. But my experience with alliances tells me that once trust is broken, it leaves lasting scars. And it is Moscow and Beijing that stand to gain from those scars.

The Structural Dimension of the Issue

Beyond the immediate decisions of the Ankara summit, there is a structural dimension to the current challenge that military analysts regularly highlight: Western collective security rests on a combination of political will, actual military capabilities, and strategic coherence. These three elements are currently under simultaneous strain—making this a more critical moment than usual.

The decisions made in Ankara in July 2026 will take place in a context where every signal sent to Moscow, Beijing, and the allies carries double the weight. The alliance’s credibility is a public good that is built over time and destroyed quickly. The responsibility of those gathering at Beştepe is therefore considerable.

The Key Players Shaping the Decisions

The outcome of the Ankara summit will depend on a few key players: Rutte, to maintain the coherence of the alliance’s agenda; the leaders of the eastern flank, to emphasize the urgency of their concerns; and the Trump administration, to determine how far it will push its demands without undermining what it claims to want to strengthen. Each has distinct interests—and the negotiation between these interests will define the outcome.

Ukraine isn’t directly at the table—but it’s present in every conversation. Its 40 days of airstrikes, its enemy refineries in flames, its soldiers holding the front lines: all of this forms the invisible backdrop to every decision that will be made in Ankara.

Alliances have always been fragile constructs, rife with internal tensions. NATO has survived crises far worse than Hegseth’s six-month review. But it survived because its members chose unity in the face of a common threat. Will they make the same choice today? I hope so. I demand it.

External pressure driving decisions

Beyond the alliance’s internal dynamics, the Ankara summit is taking place against a global geopolitical backdrop that extends beyond the European theater alone. China is watching NATO and calibrating its own behavior toward Taiwan based on what it observes. Iran is negotiating with the United States while maintaining its partnerships with Moscow. North Korea is supplying ammunition to Russia and developing its military capabilities.

This multi-threat context precisely justifies the 5% of GDP target: NATO is not facing a single localized threat, but rather an arc of instability stretching from Moscow to Pyongyang via Tehran. The alliance must therefore prepare for a more dangerous world on multiple fronts simultaneously—which makes the budgetary shortfall all the more serious.

The Long-Term Consequences of Ankara’s Decisions

Future historians will view the Ankara summit as a defining moment. In one scenario, the alliance decided there to seriously rearm, to support Ukraine until a just peace is achieved, and to build a robust deterrent against the multiple threats that are mounting. In another scenario, it issued statements and postponed difficult decisions.

These two scenarios have very different consequences for European security in the decades to come. The first builds peace through strength. The second invites predators to test the limits. And the choice between them will be made in Ankara, in July 2026, by politicians who bear a historic responsibility.

European leaders cannot simply wait for Washington to make up its mind. They must build European strategic autonomy using the tools available now—and demonstrate to Trump and Hegseth that they no longer need to be threatened to take action. That is the only dignified response to this blackmail.

The Secretary General’s Diplomacy in the Face of the Internal Crisis

Mark Rutte is in a delicate position. He must address the concerns of allies on the eastern flank without antagonizing Washington. He must push for increased spending while maintaining the alliance’s cohesion. And he must prepare for a summit in Ankara that yields results solid enough to reassure allies without going too far in singling out the American threat.

His strategy appears to be to highlight the positive results—the 1.2 trillion spent since 2016, the “tens of billions” to come, the 20% increase in spending by 2025—to demonstrate to Washington that the allies are paying more. This is a preventive strategy: if Europe demonstrates quickly enough that it is investing seriously, perhaps Hegseth’s review will conclude that the status quo should be maintained.

Zelensky’s Role in This Triangle

In this Washington-NATO-Ukraine triangle, Zelensky plays a unique role. His 40-day operation, his strikes on Russian refineries, his demonstration of autonomous military capability—all of this also serves as a message to Washington. A Ukraine that can strike targets 1,300 km away with its own drones is not a country begging for help—it is an active partner that delivers results.

This demonstration of capability makes it harder for Hegseth to justify a withdrawal. Abandoning an ally that is fighting with such efficiency and innovation would carry a considerable political and symbolic cost—even for a Trump administration. This may be Zelensky’s most subtle move in this complex chess game.

Zelensky has understood something that many leaders have yet to grasp: to maintain U.S. support under Trump, one must earn that support by making it visible and effective. His 40 days of strikes are also a message to Washington: look at what we’re doing with your help. Cut it off, and you lose that. This is foreign policy in its purest form.

Hegseth’s Review of the Alliance

Hegseth’s six-month review reveals a crack in the alliance—but not yet a rupture. The Ankara summit is an opportunity to mend this rift through concrete actions: “tens of billions” in contracts, strengthened commitments on the eastern flank, and national defense spending targets of 5% of GDP. If Ankara delivers on all of this, Hegseth’s argument for disengagement will lose its strength.

But that will not solve the underlying problem: NATO is too dependent on a U.S. partner whose commitment is now conditional. The real solution—a Europe that defends itself sufficiently on its own to no longer be vulnerable to U.S. blackmail—will take years. Ankara can lay the groundwork. The actual construction, however, is a decade-long endeavor.

What We Owe to Zelensky and Ukraine

At the heart of all this is a country that is fighting and dying while its allies debate their budgets and engage in mutual blackmail. Zelensky’s Ukraine deserves better than to be the pretext or the subject of intra-Western squabbles. It deserves unconditional support, weapons delivered on time, and a security guarantee that does not depend on the whims of a U.S. Secretary of Defense.

If Hegseth’s review forces Europe to take matters into its own hands—to increase its spending, build its capabilities, and pursue its autonomy—then it will have achieved something positive, albeit unwittingly. But this good news will come only at the cost of dangerous uncertainty regarding the alliance’s reliability. And it is the Ukrainians, the Balts, and the Poles who are paying this price first—through their suffering and their daily fear.

Hegseth’s review is both a warning and an opportunity. Warning: American commitment is no longer unconditional. Opportunity: Europe can finally take charge of itself. I prefer the opportunity to playing the victim. And I think Zelenskyy has already made that choice.

Signed, Maxime Marquette, columnist