Pentagon review sets November deadline for Europe options as CIA chief presses Kremlin on Baltic restraint
Senior European diplomats are due in Brussels on Thursday to reassure Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby that allies are accelerating their own defense buildup, as uncertainty deepens over a U.S. review that could reshape—or reduce—American troop levels across the continent. The reassurance push comes days after CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow, the first visit by a sitting U.S. spy chief since William Burns warned Russia against invading Ukraine in November 2021.
The coincidence of timing matters. According to a Pentagon "Terms of Reference" document seen by Reuters, the force-posture review will produce at least four sets of troop-deployment options for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth by November 6—a month ahead of the original December deadline. The same week, people familiar with the matter told CBS News, ABC News and POLITICO that Ratcliffe's Kremlin trip was intended primarily to warn Moscow against testing NATO's Baltic flank. Washington is simultaneously signaling resolve and reviewing the forces that would have to back it up.
The accelerated review
The top U.S. general in Europe is expected to join a decision briefing with Colby by September 18, shaping the options that reach Hegseth's desk. Roughly 80,000 U.S. troops remain in Europe following earlier reductions, including the May cancellation of a Poland rotation and cuts to forces assigned to NATO's defense plans. Hegseth, announcing the review in June, chided "free-riding" allies and said it would ensure U.S. military "access, basing, and overflight are clearly delineated"—a definition the Terms of Reference now extends to space, cyber and intelligence infrastructure.
A questionnaire circulated to allies over the summer asks whether countries have restricted U.S. access, basing or overflight, and whether they have publicly supported American foreign policy "in Europe, the Middle East, and the Western Hemisphere." One European diplomat said officials believe Washington already knows the answers, calling the linkage "a highly transactional approach." Colby has framed the exercise differently, describing it on X as designed to produce "NATO 3.0"—an alliance "rededicated to clarity, rigor, and readiness."
Allied unease and the "beauty contest"
Diplomats arriving Thursday face a review whose intent remains contested internally. "We don't know if it's a real exercise or if a decision has already been taken," one official said. A second diplomat stressed it was important that "the alliance's top commander remain involved" so the process "doesn't become a beauty contest"—a reference to reports that some allies are offering improved basing terms to curry favor. A NATO source was blunter: "Whatever he says might be overruled by Trump or Hegseth within 20 minutes."
Not all reaction is pessimistic. Estonian Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur said Estonia "shares the view that Europe needs to do more for its own defence," and EU envoy Hervé Delphin insisted there is "no divide" in the alliance, calling the debate "positive friction." European Council President António Costa said in Tallinn that the defense component of the EU's 2028–2034 budget will be unprecedented in scale.
Observers are reading: How the Pentagon's questionnaire on allied support for U.S. foreign policy could turn basing rights into leverage over allies—including amid worries it ties to the U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran.
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Thursday's briefing cannot resolve the structural tension driving it. European allies can present spending figures, force pledges and command reorganizations to Colby, but they cannot answer the question that matters to Moscow: whether the 80,000 troops now under review will still be there when Article 5 is tested. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed reports of the Ratcliffe warnings as "scare stories" with "nothing to do with reality." Whether that dismissal reflects confidence or calculation may depend on what the Pentagon decides by November 6.
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