The authors write:

• Amid growing demands at home and in Asia, a course correction is in order. The idea would not be to isolate the United States from Europe but to shift the U.S. role from provider of first resort to balancer of last resort.
  • First, the United States should start withdrawing some of its troops from Europe, forcing the responsibility for providing the conventional forces needed to secure Europe back onto European shoulders. Right now, the United States has roughly 100,000 troops stationed on the continent, with the largest concentration in Germany. A good place to start the drawdown would be with the 20,000 additional troops deployed by the Biden administration in 2022 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
    • At the same time, policymakers should realize that Europe cannot quickly fill shortfalls in certain areas. In particular, the U.S. nuclear umbrella and its intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities would take time to replace under even the best circumstances. Accordingly, Washington should continue to provide Europe with assistance in these areas for several years while helping Europe rectify capability gaps over the long term… This may also involve reevaluating U.S. opposition to Germany’s acquiring nuclear weapons, although it is unlikely that Germany would reach for the bomb in any conceivable scenario.
  • Second, to facilitate the creation of more European military power, the United States should drop some of its long-standing demands on how Europe arms itself....Conditions are ripe for rebuilding the European defense-industrial base: the sense of threat is high, the initial steps taken after the Russian invasion of Ukraine have borne fruit, and Europe already produces key weapons such as main battle tanks.
  • Finally, the United States should gradually transform NATO into a European-run and -led alliance. To start, Washington should encourage the European members of the alliance to create a “European pillar” within NATO—a vehicle for members of the alliance to work out common positions on defense and security matters without American input. The U.S. president should make clear that the next supreme Allied commander will be a European.
    • All these steps would make clear that the United States expects the Europeans to manage the alliance on a day-to-day basis.
• In effect, the United States would return the transatlantic relationship to its roots. As an offshore power, Washington would help keep the balance but not seek to dominate the continent itself.
• Russia’s intent may be malign, but its capabilities constrain it. Other European states also lack the capacity to make a play at charging across the continent.
• Today, calls for the United States to cling to leadership in Europe ignore the opportunity and direct costs involved and Washington’s increasingly important interests elsewhere. The United States is staring down $35 trillion in debt, a $1.5 trillion annual budget deficit, a growing challenge in Asia, and pronounced political cleavages that make solving these challenges more difficult. With no indication that the fiscal picture will improve or evidence that domestic pressures are abating, policymakers need to reassess the United States’ foreign obligations. Given that the United States has accomplished its central goal in Europe, the moment has come to follow through on what the framers of its postwar strategy there intended. It’s time to take the win.

Read the full article on the Foreign Affairs website.

The opinions expressed herein are solely those of the authors. Photo courtesy of NATO, shared under its public license.