The military bloc\u2019s European members are now footing the bill and taking all of the risk against Russia<\/p>\n
At NATO\u2019s first high-level summit since Ankara, the bloc\u2019s new, Europe-centric incarnation is taking shape. But it\u2019s ordinary Europeans who stand to lose their future, and potentially their lives.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
Europe\u2019s military future is starting to take shape<\/p>\n
NATO\u2019s Military Committee is meeting in Copenhagen on Friday and Saturday. Chaired by Italian Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, the Military Committee, which is NATO\u2019s highest military authority, is tasked with turning the bloc\u2019s strategic goals into executable plans. When NATO orders a battlegroup to Lithuania, for example, the Military Committee ensures its tanks will be able to get there across multiple countries\u2019 rail networks, its troops will be supplied and housed, and the deployment will not leave another sector of the bloc\u2019s so-called \u2018eastern flank\u2019 unmanned.
\nAccordingly, NATO is keeping the meeting\u2019s agenda under wraps. The organization\u2019s website simply states that the defense chiefs will take part in a \u201cSession 1\u201d and \u201cSession 2\u201d of talks, followed by a press conference, a photo opportunity, and then a \u201cSession 3\u201d of discussions.
\nLooking at the political decisions made since the bloc\u2019s headline summit in Ankara in July, the broad aim of the conference becomes clearer: flesh out NATO\u2019s plan to militarize Europe and prepare the continent for war with Russia, all while insulating the US from the consequences of the conflict.
\nWhat is NATO 3.0?
\nCoined by US Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby, \u2018NATO 3.0\u2019 is an America-first reworking of the Cold War pact. In a speech to NATO defense ministers in February, Colby explained that the US will, going forward, focus on preparing for a potential clash with China in the Indo-Pacific, leaving NATO\u2019s European members to \u201cassume primary responsibility for the conventional defense of Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under President Trump and Secretary Hegseth\u2019s visionary leadership, we are driving toward a NATO 3.0 in which Europe takes primary responsibility for its conventional defense. Many said that it could not be done \u2013 that Europe couldn\u2019t or wouldn\u2019t step up. That is being disproved\u2026 https:\/\/t.co\/svqGBLPIdE\u2014 Under Secretary of War Elbridge Colby (@USWPColby) July 2, 2026 <\/p>\n
Europe will increase its military spending to NATO\u2019s current target of 5% of GDP and shift to wartime levels of defense production, Colby explained, all while the US retains control over the bloc\u2019s nuclear weapons. The Europeans will also be expected, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth stated in June, to guarantee \u201caccess, basing and overflight\u201d for American forces.
\nAt Ankara in July, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte sold this one-sided deal as a win for Europe. \u201cWe are rebalancing our security for the better, that is what NATO 3.0 is all about,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We\u2019re rebalancing our Alliance: a stronger #NATO with Europe & Canada spending more, producing more and doing more for their securityBuilding for our futureThis is NATO 3.0 pic.twitter.com\/pgmvA4CcAW\u2014 Mark Rutte (@SecGenNATO) September 16, 2026 <\/p>\n
In light of US President Donald Trump\u2019s threats to withdraw US forces from Germany and annex Greenland, a more Europe-centric NATO was an easy sell for Rutte at the time. Trump\u2019s threats toward Greenland were likely a key factor in the choice of Copenhagen for this weekend\u2019s meeting. However, in the months since Ankara, Rutte and NATO\u2019s European leaders have revealed what the shift actually means for the continent.
\nEurope steps up and pays
\nNATO 3.0 means the death of the European welfare state. In the UK, where living standards have already suffered their worst decline since the Second World War, meeting the bloc\u2019s pre-Ankara 3.5% spending target will involve \u201ceye-watering\u201d cuts to education, transport, and justice budgets, George Robertson, who co-wrote the country\u2019s defense strategy, warned in June. Even before the spending target was hiked to 5%, Robertson claimed that the British public was \u201ctoo comfortable,\u201d and must accept the \u201cpain and great difficulty\u201d of \u201cpreparing for war.\u201d
\nIn Germany, Chancellor Friedrich Merz\u2019s plan to rebuild the Bundeswehr as \u201cthe strongest conventional army in Europe\u201d has already precipitated social security cuts and a planned three-year hike in the retirement age. \u201cThe welfare state that we have today can no longer be financed,\u201d Merz announced\u00a0last August,\u00a0before increasing Germany\u2019s defense budget by almost 40% in a single year and telling Germans to \u201cwork harder.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Netherlands and Sweden have introduced emergency taxes to fund rearmament, with the Dutch levy branded as the \u201cfreedom contribution.\u201d Estonia has increased income tax, Belgium and Finland have cut social spending, and 18 of NATO\u2019s EU members have borrowed money from Brussels to build out their militaries since last May.
\n\u201cOn average, European countries easily spend up to a quarter of their national income on pensions, health, and social security systems, and we need only a small fraction of that money to make defense much stronger,\u201d Rutte told the European Parliament last year. The \u201csmall fraction\u201d demanded by Rutte has since almost doubled.\u00a0
\nServing American interests<\/p>\n
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Wired for War: Pax Silica is AI slavery disguised as strength<\/p>\n
In return, the Europeans are not getting the strategic autonomy that some, such as France, want. NATO\u2019s \u201cinteroperability\u201d standards mean weapons manufactured in Europe are built to American standards, and the AI and cloud computing technology that guides them is provided almost solely by American companies.\u00a0
\nThe Ankara Summit Declaration states that \u201cwe are developing an interoperable transatlantic warfighting cloud and adopting powerful AI models.\u201d With the EU relying on the US for 80% of its digital infrastructure, American companies such as Palantir, Anduril, and SpaceX will be the beneficiaries of this development.
\nFurthermore, while the US handed control of three operational commands \u2013 Norfolk in the UK, Naples in Italy, and Brunssum in the Netherlands \u2013 to European commanders earlier this year, Washington took over management of NATO\u2019s highest Land, Air, and Maritime commands in exchange, and maintains the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) post.
\nAlthough NATO 3.0 envisions Europe alone deterring Russia, the bloc\u2019s European members are still expected to go along with American wars far beyond their borders. Speaking in the UK this week, Rutte called it \u201cessential\u201d that Britain\u2019s \u201carmed forces continue to provide the hard power NATO needs\u201d to tackle \u201cRussia and its war against Ukraine, terrorism, Iran and the tectonic shifts of global geopolitical competition.\u201d<\/p>\n
NATO was not formed to counter Iran, but the US still punished its European members who refused to aid the US-Israeli war on Iran earlier this year, threatening a complete trade embargo on Spain after Madrid denied overflight and basing to American aircraft taking part in the war, and pulling troops from other countries seen as insufficiently supportive of the war.\u00a0
\nBleeding for NATO
\nIn addition to handing over their money and autonomy, Europeans risk handing over their lives, if NATO\u2019s proxy war in Ukraine degenerates into open conflict with Russia. Having dangled the prospect of NATO membership in front of Ukraine since 2008, fomented the pro-Western Maidan coup in 2014, and juiced Ukraine with weapons and training over the next decade, the US has finally succeeded in dumping the resulting conflict on Europe\u2019s lap, with the eager participation of the continent\u2019s Atlantacist leaders.
\nNATO 3.0 makes it explicit that Europe now owns this conflict, and it is the possibility of escalation that will likely occupy the bloc\u2019s Military Committee in Copenhagen this weekend. Managing the grim minutiae of war \u2013 predicting casualty rates in an open confrontation with Russia and preparing hospitals and morgues, for example \u2013 is the committee\u2019s remit, and NATO\u2019s European members are already thinking in this direction.<\/p>\n
An excerpt from the 2025 NATO Secretary General Annual Report<\/p>\n
\u00a9\u00a0 NATO <\/p>\n
Germany is currently assessing whether its civilian hospitals could handle an influx of 1,000 wounded soldiers per day, and considering reopening a massive subterranean medical bunker in the city of Ulm. The German military practiced moving casualties from field hospitals in Lithuania to operating theaters in Germany during its largest-ever medical exercises in March.\u00a0
\nNorway has trained its surgeons in treating combat injuries and ordered that 7,000 hospital beds be made available for wartime casualties. France is preparing for what Paris calls a \u201cmajor engagement scenario\u201d by equipping civilian hospitals to absorb military casualties. Sweden and Lithuania have begun stockpiling blood.
\nA short war<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
Russian war with Europe would be \u2018very short\u2019 \u2013 Lavrov<\/p>\n
NATO\u2019s Military Committee planned for these eventualities throughout the Cold War. However, the bloc\u2019s European members understood that if the war went hot, only US intervention would save them. Charles de Gaulle was famously skeptical of this promise, asking John F. Kennedy whether the Americans would be willing to \u201ctrade New York for Paris\u201d in a nuclear war with the Soviets. With NATO 3.0, the US has openly told Europe that Washington\u2019s contribution to its security will be more \u201climited and focused,\u201d in Colby\u2019s words.\u00a0
\nNevertheless, NATO\u2019s European leaders, from Rutte down to the generals and admirals on the Military Committee, continue to march toward war with Russia, against all logic and self-interest. These preparations have a momentum of their own, which can be accelerated by miscalculation and political commitments; Europe\u2019s leaders learned this lesson the hard way in the opening months of the First World War.
\nThis time around, the potential consequences are even greater. Russia possesses the world\u2019s largest nuclear arsenal, and in a stark warning on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declared that \u201cif Europe, which talks daily about preparing for war against Russia, attacks Russia, it will be a completely different war, and it will be very short.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The military bloc\u2019s European members are now footing the bill and taking all of the risk against Russia At NATO\u2019s first high-level summit since Ankara, the bloc\u2019s new, Europe-centric incarnation…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38392,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t