About eighty thousand American soldiers are stationed in Europe, and American nuclear weapons, satellites, transport aircraft and command systems are what make NATO a fighting force. European members have for decades spent less on their armies than they promised. The present American government has made its protection conditional: on spending, and at times on other things. Europeans are spending far more than before, and asking whether the guarantee they are paying for still exists.
The wider relationship and each side's full account: Europe and the United States.
Where it stands · September 2026
In September 2026 the last United Kingdom and United States troops left Iraq as the anti-Islamic State mission ended, after more than a decade and, by one account, two decades. Under a new Greenland deal, a desolate Arctic outpost is likely to host United States troops. The two moves leave the American presence in the Arctic and in Iraq on different footings in the same month.
What the dispute is about
How much. The allies promised two percent of national output in 2014. In 2025, under American pressure, they promised five, a level only Poland approaches. Spain refused.
Whether the guarantee holds. The treaty says an attack on one is an attack on all. It does not say what each member must do. The guarantee has always rested on the belief that an American president would act. This one has said he would not defend those who do not pay.
What else is attached. In 2026 troop levels have been linked in public to a chancellor's criticism of the war on Iran and to a deal on Greenland.
