The Pentagon Opens a Six-Month Europe Posture Review Grading Allies on Contributions, Basing and Overflight
Washington, 28 July 2026
Key points
- Elbridge Colby, the under secretary of war for policy, announced on 28 July that the Department of War had begun the Europe Posture Review, designed "to ensure that NATO is moving fast and irreversibly toward Europe taking primary responsibility for its conventional defense"
- The review will take up to six months, will provide a range of options weighing "geopolitical and military realities", and will be coordinated by General Alexus Grynkewich of US European Command with consultations through allies, Congress and other departments
- Pete Hegseth opened the review at the NATO defence ministerial in Brussels on 18 June, promising "a review that some countries will fail and others will pass with flying colors", and named the tests as basing, and access and overflight when the United States needs them
- Most of the posture decisions preceded it: roughly 5,000 troops confirmed leaving Germany on 1 May, taking with them a long-range fires deployment expected in 2026 and an armoured brigade rotation to Poland
The Pentagon opened a six-month review of American forces in Europe on 28 July, six weeks after the defence secretary announced it in Brussels. Its stated criteria — contributions, basing and overflight — are properties of host nations, which makes it a review of allies rather than of forces.
The force questions the review might have settled were largely settled without it. The cancelled Poland rotation was the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, more than 4,000 soldiers; the 5,000 troops announced for Poland on 21 May were read at the time as restoring it, which is why Radosław Sikorski described the effect as keeping American presence "more or less at previous levels". Whether those 5,000 rebuild that brigade, fold into another structure or add to the footprint has not been settled since. Part of the withdrawn capability is being bought back on German money rather than restored: Berlin's request for a Typhon launcher and up to 400 Tomahawks is proceeding, with Washington committed in a 7 July letter of intent to grant export approval in August.
The alliance ledger the review convenes over is largely closed on paper. On 1 July a NATO source told Reuters that European members had filled almost all the gaps opened by the American crisis-pool drawdown — F-15s down by a third to 99, drones halved to 12, tankers to 63 from 79, maritime patrol aircraft to 15 from 26, destroyers to nine from 17, with the cruise-missile submarine and one of two carriers withdrawn. Strategic bombers were the exception Europe could not close, and Washington has offered one airframe where it had committed two.
"Filled" belongs to the force-generation spreadsheet, not the flight line. The tankers, patrol aircraft and destroyers pledged at the start of July take years to field, and none will be in service by the time this review reports. There is also a gap in the record worth naming, as Großwald Signal No. 111 observed: six weeks of a six-month clock are unaccounted for between Hegseth's Brussels announcement and the Department's own start date. The item to watch is the bomber gap — the one place the review's options would touch a capability no European ally can supply.
Related · The American force posture in Europe
Grynkewich details US NATO force-model cuts and tells Europe and Canada to fill them (3 June 2026)
