Loyalty tests don’t build loyalty. They erode it.
Bloomberg recently reported that the Trump administration will consider European countries’ ideological positions and support for U.S. policies as part of the European posture review that is currently underway. Whether a country has supported the 2026 Iran War, placed recent restrictions on U.S. forces based in their country, or “publicly opposed” regulations that constrain U.S. business in Europe will all be factors in determining where and how many forces remain stationed in Europe. These loyalty tests depart from decades of established practices of evaluating and adjusting U.S. force posture, are likely to backfire, and above all, could leave America less safe.
The U.S. military’s ability to find, fix, and finish practically any target around the world is built on its global military posture. No other country has ever had such varied and dispersed capabilities, all enabled by an unparalleled network of allies and partners. The importance of our overseas posture leads many new administrations to look at whether troop levels, capabilities, and locations match the most recent threat assessments.
So when Secretary Hegseth announced a European posture review in June, neither of the authors was particularly surprised. When we served in the Obama and Biden administrations, both of us were involved in these types of major posture decisions from different perches, including inside the Pentagon, the White House, and at the U.S. Mission to NATO. We consider such reviews to be wise—but only when their purpose and scope are clearly defined and when the results are based not on politics but on the advice of our top civilian and military leaders.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to be where the Trump administration is starting. By making a list of pass/fail questions about a country’s overarching loyalty to the United States—which has never been a condition of NATO membership—the Pentagon is conflating ideological fealty with costly and consequential questions about the future of U.S. defense policy.
In our experience, useful posture reviews start by evaluating what the U.S. needs to meet the contingencies it may face now and in the future. Instead of measuring allies’ loyalty, the administration should answer four key questions.
First, how might the Russia-Ukraine war end and what will follow? Despite a campaign promise to end it within 24 hours, the war shows no signs of stopping. Even more concerning, over the last year, Russia has increasingly tested NATO unity with airspace violations, cyber attacks, and sabotage operations. If the U.S. makes drastic posture changes, Russia might conclude that Washington is signaling disinterest in European security. An emboldened Moscow might choose to act against NATO territory.
Second, what types of global dependencies will exist in the coming three to five years? U.S. forces in Europe are often deployed to the Middle East and Africa, so this review must consider contingencies outside the Euro-Atlantic area. Recall that U.S. forces in Europe helped enable last summer’s 12-day war and Operation Midnight Hammer against Iranian nuclear facilities, and that they have been crucial for generating forces in the current 2026 war against Iran. AFRICOM’s headquarters has been located in Europe since the combatant command was created nearly two decades ago. The tyranny of distance across the African continent, coupled with the smaller U.S. posture there since the 2023 Niger coup, only further highlights the operational relevance of European posture for Africa.
Third, how do we expect European capabilities to evolve? Europeans are spending substantially more on defense than they have in decades, a shift that was turbocharged by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. However, it will be another five to ten years before they can provide for their own security. The United States must take Europe’s growing defense arsenal into consideration without leaving the continent exposed. At a minimum, and for the foreseeable future, the United States will likely need to leave in Europe strategic enablers such as lift, refueling, and long-range strike platforms; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities; and command-and-control infrastructure. Nuclear forces will need to be part of that mix as well.
Finally, beyond geopolitics, the Pentagon will face a series of age-old questions about basing that influence recruitment, retention, and the overall readiness of the force. Chief among them: is rotational or permanent stationing a better fit for today’s security environment and the health of the force? Rotational forces are often more costly and can be harder on troops since these tours are traditionally unaccompanied.
Posture reviews are extraordinarily complicated because they require predicting future requirements and weighing those requirements against the competing needs of multiple regional commanders. Such reviews can also damage our important, and increasingly fragile, relationships with allies if not handled with deft and delicate diplomacy. It’s rare to get it just right.
The worst thing the United States could do right now is to base this important posture review on which allies have backed U.S. foreign policy—especially as being an ally of the United States has never required blind loyalty. Allies are already reacting to the leaked questionnaire and pushing back.
Loyalty tests don’t build loyalty. They erode it.
Mara Karlin served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Capabilities and is a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution. Julianne Smith served as U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO from 2021 to 2024 and is a Distinguished Nonresident Fellow in Defense and Security at the Chicago Council for Global Affairs.
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Facts Only
* The Trump administration will consider European countries’ ideological positions and support for U.S. policies in the European posture review.
* Factors considered include support for the 2026 Iran War, recent restrictions on U.S. forces, and opposition to regulations constraining U.S. business in Europe.
* The U.S. military’s global military posture is built on its network of allies and partners.
* Secretary Hegseth announced a European posture review in June.
* The authors suggest posture reviews should evaluate what the U.S. needs to meet present and future contingencies.
* Suggested focus areas include: the outcome of the Russia-Ukraine war, anticipated global dependencies, the evolution of European capabilities, and basing considerations for force readiness.
Executive Summary
The review of U.S. force posture in Europe is being framed by the Trump administration as loyalty tests regarding European countries' ideological positions and support for U.S. policies, including actions related to the 2026 Iran War and restrictions on U.S. business. The authors argue that these loyalty tests do not build loyalty but erode it and depart from established practices for evaluating force posture. The authors propose an alternative approach where reviews focus on assessing what the U.S. needs to meet future contingencies, rather than measuring allegiance.
The authors suggest four key questions should guide any review: determining the likely outcome of the Russia-Ukraine war; assessing future global dependencies over the next three to five years; evaluating how European capabilities are expected to evolve; and examining basing policies concerning recruitment, retention, and readiness. The text concludes that basing a posture review on alleged loyalty rather than future requirements risks damaging allied relationships and leaving America less safe.
Full Take
The framing of a defense posture review as a test of ideological loyalty introduces a significant disconnect between political imperatives and strategic necessity. The underlying pattern suggests that when geopolitical tension is high, there is an impulse to use moral or allegiance-based metrics—such as loyalty—to justify sweeping policy shifts, bypassing the more objective, long-term requirements inherent in military planning. This moves the discussion from a purely operational assessment of force deployment to a political audit of alliance commitment, which operates on entirely different logic systems.
The narrative pivots on the critique that basing posture decisions on perceived "loyalty" erodes the very trust required for effective coalition building. The pattern here is leveraging existential security concerns (the future of U.S. defense) to introduce emotionally charged, yet ultimately non-verifiable, metrics (ideological fealty). This creates an opportunity for a shift in focus from pragmatic threat mitigation to political scorekeeping. The implication is that the cost of this shift is not merely in operational inefficiency but in fracturing the cooperative framework necessary to manage complex security environments.
The suggested alternative—focusing on future contingencies, dependencies, capability evolution, and basing realities—represents a call for intellectual sovereignty over immediate, politically convenient metrics. It forces a re-evaluation of what constitutes a functional alliance relationship: one built on shared material interests and demonstrable strategic alignment, rather than abstract ideological adherence. The challenge is resisting the political temptation to substitute the manageable difficulty of assessing future threats with the easily managed, yet ultimately destructive, framework of loyalty testing.
Sentinel — Human
This analysis is a well-structured piece of policy argumentation that critiques a proposed geopolitical review by proposing a more strategically relevant framework, showing strong human analytical intent.