The White House Seeks to Reboot the U.S.-Europe Alliance

The White House’s new National Security Strategy is accelerating a reboot of the trans-Atlantic relationship. Slow to realize the U.S. was serious about shifting its security burden, Europe is now talking with a sense of urgency about its own defense.

European leaders need to plan a credible transition from a U.S.-led security order to one that is European-led. This effort will constitute the backbone of a new trans-Atlantic strategy.

Rebalancing the U.S.-Europe security relationship will take coordinated efforts on defense, innovation and international engagement. Such work, highlighted by a bipartisan task force hosted by the German Marshall Fund of the U.S., will require political leadership from both sides of the Atlantic. It will be far less costly than the alternative, which is a slow unraveling of the trans-Atlantic partnership.

Here are three imperatives shaping the new understanding between the U.S. and Europe:

First, Europe must rearm, and fast. President Trump has emphasized that European allies are obligated to spend 5% of gross domestic product on defense. The pledge, made at the 2025 North Atlantic Treaty Organization Summit in The Hague, is only a starting point. Given weak growth in Europe’s largest economies, raising defense budgets will require difficult domestic choices. Many leaders are already working to justify these trade-offs, clearly and honestly, to their citizens, and their effort can use the support of Washington.

But spending alone won’t deliver security. Europe needs a defense posture designed for a future in which the U.S. role is smaller. The goal isn’t to replicate U.S. capabilities system by system. Europe can instead build a credible deterrence-and-defense model that reflects its military forces and doctrine, while remaining interoperable with U.S. forces. As NATO prepares for the Ankara Summit, allies can use the months ahead to work toward this ambitious goal.

Many will say the timeline is impossible. They should be proved wrong. In this context, Ukraine will be the defining stress test of future trans-Atlantic credibility: The U.S. and Europe must coauthor a sustainable peace with robust security guarantees to deter aggression and anchor long-term European security.

Second, defense innovation must become a shared transatlantic mission. Neither side of the Atlantic can out-innovate geopolitical rivals alone. The U.S. leads in emerging technologies, but Europe brings industrial capacity and advanced manufacturing. Joint work on protecting critical infrastructure, countering hybrid threats, and developing secure telecommunications and next-generation defense technologies must continue regardless of political noise.

Procurement reform is essential. Washington is expanding its supplier base to include more-agile firms in sectors where speed matters, such as drones and autonomous systems. Europe must follow suit. Its industrial-capacity ambitions will fail if procurement remains slow, risk-averse and closed to new entrants. A European shift toward innovation-friendly models—more startups, less bureaucracy—would enhance capability and competitiveness across the alliance.

Third, Washington and European capitals must accept that their alignment is no longer automatic. They need to build flexible coalitions outside the usual trans-Atlantic circle based on shared benefits, not only historical ties.

To remain influential, the trans-Atlantic allies must offer cooperation that supports resilient supply chains, good infrastructure, technology access and, in some cases, hard security guarantees.

Such offers aren’t cost-free politically, but a flexible, interest-driven coalition-building strategy with pivotal powers in the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and Asia would help shape new global norms.

Both the U.S. and Europe are undergoing profound strategic change. The assumption that the trans-Atlantic relationship can stay the same has lost supporters, even in Europe. This shift doesn’t have to be a crisis. Rebalancing the partnership is an investment in the long-term durability of the alliance.

The path will be politically contentious. A frank discussion on national interests will trigger tensions, and a more capable Europe will sometimes disagree with Washington. That is normal in a relationship between mature powers.

A successful rebalancing will allow the U.S. to maintain focus on global priorities without fearing a security vacuum in Europe. It will give Europeans real agency over their own defense. And it will advance trans-Atlantic security despite political divides.

This op-ed was originally published in The Wall Street Journal on December 17, 2025. Click here for the full analysis.