NATO’s European allies move to fill the US gap with North Atlantic and Arctic missions

European allies and Canada are moving to fill the gaps in Europe’s security umbrella as the United States scales back its commitment. A group of 12 countries, including Spain, is preparing a new mission to strengthen maritime security in the North Atlantic and the Arctic, according to alliance sources.

The new initiative, which will not include U.S. forces, comes after months of pressure from the Trump administration for Europe to take greater responsibility within the alliance. It also follows renewed threats by U.S. President Donald Trump to take control of Greenland, the vast Arctic island that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. The remarks came on the eve of a NATO summit, where allies are bracing for further unpredictability from Trump.

Greenland ”should be controlled by the United States, not by Denmark,” Trump declared Tuesday in Ankara ahead of a bilateral meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and before a gala dinner prepared by the host. The latest attack on U.S. allies, whom Trump again accused of disloyalty for not supporting his war against Iran, further strained the atmosphere.

Denmark is a member of both NATO and the European Union. Its prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, responded in Ankara that she expects allies to respect the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Denmark and understand that Greenland is not for sale.

“It is a well-known position of the United States that it wants to own and take over Greenland. I ​hope that it is equally well-known everywhere that this is not going to happen,” ​Frederiksen said.

The new naval mission, which is still being finalized and could be formally approved on Wednesday in Ankara, is part of a broader set of initiatives through which European allies and Canada are seeking to occupy a space that has until now been dominated by the United States. It forms part of the “burden sharing” Washington has demanded from Europe and is another step toward a more European NATO.

Additional missions are also planned, including an initiative to develop missiles capable of striking targets far behind the front lines, which alliance sources describe as “strategic.” The effort comes after Washington canceled the deployment to Germany of a U.S. unit equipped with such long-range missile systems, saying it did not have enough because of the war with Iran.

The North Atlantic and Arctic naval mission aimed at countering the Russian threat is expected to include the Netherlands, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Nordic countries, Canada and Portugal, as well as Spain, which has a powerful navy and for which the Atlantic region is of particular importance, alliance sources noted.

The initiative will essentially consist of maintaining a sustained presence in the region through military exercises and patrols, the same sources said. The new naval mission will cover a vast area that NATO views as a continuous defensive line — from the Arctic ice to the open ocean.

Europe is thus taking a step forward in strengthening its role within NATO, as emphasized in the final declaration of the Ankara summit, which leaders are expected to sign on Wednesday. The gathering has already been overshadowed by Trump’s latest remarks on Greenland, despite allies having carefully choreographed the summit to avoid a clash with the U.S. president and to limit opportunities for the criticism that has become a hallmark of his approach to the alliance.

The mission extends beyond the Arctic, but its specific focus on the region is particularly noteworthy in light of Trump’s threats earlier this year, a diplomatic source said. The U.S. president went so far as to suggest taking the island by force, arguing that it is vital to U.S. security and that neither Denmark nor NATO is doing enough to protect it. The alliance is now launching this mission as part of a broader effort to reinforce that strategic area, diplomatic sources added.

President Donald Trump’s repeated attacks on NATO, which he has dismissed as a “paper tiger,” and his constant questioning of the “loyalty” of several European allies are testing both the resilience and the structure of the organization.

But that is not all. Washington has informed its European allies of plans to reduce the military assets it would make available to NATO in the event of a crisis. The cuts would affect virtually every major category of capability: fighter aircraft (whose numbers would be reduced by a third), strategic bombers (which would be cut by half), destroyers, submarines (which the United States would no longer provide) as well as tanker aircraft and armed drones, according to several alliance sources present at the meeting.

The Pentagon has also launched a six-month review of its military presence in Europe and of its allies’ level of “commitment.” It has warned that the review’s findings will have consequences.

The reductions form part of a broader U.S. strategy to focus on other theaters, particularly the Indo-Pacific. They come on top of the withdrawal of 5,000 troops from Germany — including an armored combat brigade and a long-range fires battalion — and the suspension of plans to deploy Tomahawk missiles on German territory. The Trump administration took those decisions after German Chancellor Friedrich Merz criticized the U.S. and Israeli offensive against Iran.

Europe is now moving to fill those gaps. Spain, for example, will increase its contribution to NATO’s force model with three additional air-to-air refueling aircraft, eight fighter jets and an extra frigate, as well as air-defense systems, Defense Minister Margarita Robles announced a few weeks ago.

Even so, the U.S. drawdown presents a new challenge for Europe’s allies. U.S. contributions to NATO’s force model consist of complete combat packages — highly integrated formations designed to deploy and operate together. When Washington says it will no longer make available around 50 fighter aircraft or eight tanker planes for NATO operations in Europe, it means withdrawing an entire military ecosystem rather than a handful of isolated assets. For that reason, alliance sources caution, replacing those capabilities will be neither easy nor quick.

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