OPINION: "If Russia attacks": the American doubt that chills Europe

The question no one wants to ask out loud

In the corridors of European defense ministries, in the briefing rooms of NATO headquarters, one question has been haunting planners for months. It is never clearly stated in public — but it is there, omnipresent, like a cold draft. If Russia were to attack a NATO member country — a hybrid attack first, a physical incursion next — would the United States truly honor Article 5? Would Donald Trump send American soldiers to die for Riga, Tallinn or Vilnius?

On June 27, 2026, The Guardian published a chilling report based on high-level sources within the alliance: several NATO political leaders fear that the United States would not be a reliable ally if Russia attacked the smaller Eastern Flank members. These words, spoken privately, betray the scale of the transatlantic unease within an alliance whose very purpose is collective solidarity.

A documented concern, not a fantasy

These fears are not paranoid speculation. They rest on tangible facts: in May 2026, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth abruptly cancelled two American military deployments in Europe and ordered the withdrawal of 4,000 troops stationed in Poland. The Pentagon announced the withdrawal of 5,000 additional troops from Germany in May 2026. The American cover of NATO — the nuclear and conventional shield on which Europe built its security since 1949 — is now being called into question by the Trump administration itself.

This documented pattern — political statements, intelligence assessments, observed military behaviour — makes the concern qualitatively different from speculation. It is not certainty; it is a serious, evidence-based warning that deserves proportionate attention and response.

I will say what many are thinking to themselves: yes, this doubt is justified. Trump has sown enough ambiguity around Article 5 for serious allies to start genuinely disbelieving it. And that chills me — not because it is a revelation, but because it is a breach of trust that, once established, is very difficult to repair. NATO without credible American commitment is not NATO.

4,000 fewer soldiers in Poland, 5,000 fewer in Germany

The Pentagon's decisions under Hegseth have a concrete impact on NATO's defense posture. The withdrawal of 4,000 troops from Poland — canceling an armored brigade deployment — significantly reduces rapid response capability on the alliance's Eastern Flank. The parallel announcement of the withdrawal of 5,000 troops from Germany affects the command structures of USEUCOM (U.S. European Command) and USAFRICOM (U.S. Africa Command).

These figures are significant in a context where approximately 80,000 American troops were stationed in Europe in 2026. A withdrawal of 9,000 troops represents roughly 11% of the American presence on the continent — not a catastrophe in itself, but a strong political signal that goes far beyond its immediate military significance.

Hegseth's 6-month review: a sword of Damocles

Beyond the withdrawals already carried out, Pete Hegseth announced on June 18, 2026 at a NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels a "thorough six-month review" of American military presence in Europe. This review — dubbed the "NATO 3.0 review" — must conclude by December 2026 on the new American force posture on the continent.

Hegseth was direct: "This is a review that some countries will fail, and others will pass with distinction." The main criterion? Compliance with military spending commitments. American dues to NATO will be conditioned on allies' defense efforts. The logic is that of a funding provider conditioning its financing on the performance of its beneficiaries — a logic that upends the traditional conception of the alliance as a community of indivisible values.

This Hegseth 6-month review is the military equivalent of an ultimatum. And I have to say my reaction is ambivalent. On one hand, I understand the American frustration after decades of European underinvestment. On the other, conditioning Article 5 on budgetary performance turns a security guarantee into a commercial contract — and destroys what gives it its deterrent value.

What Article 5 guarantees — and what it does not

Article 5 of the Washington Treaty stipulates that an armed attack against one member is considered an attack against all — and that each member will take the action it deems necessary to restore security. This last point is crucial: each member decides on the nature of its response. The article does not automatically guarantee the full military engagement of all allies. It creates a strong political obligation — but leaves room for national interpretation.

Trump has repeatedly sown doubt about his personal interpretation of this article. In 2024, he declared that he would "encourage" Russia to attack members that did not pay their defense debts — a statement that sent shockwaves through European capitals. Even though Rutte subsequently obtained formal commitments to maintain American protection, the doubt is now embedded. And in deterrence, doubt is lethal.

The small Baltic states in the line of fire

Fears are particularly acute for the three Baltic countries — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania — and to a lesser extent for Poland. On June 23, 2026, Latvian intelligence publicly warned that Russia was preparing "military provocations" against the Baltic states or Poland. These provocations would be hybrid in nature — drones, missiles, information warfare operations — designed to send a signal: stop supporting Ukraine, or face your own problems.

If such a provocation materialized, what would the American response be? Hegseth has just reduced the American troop presence in Europe. The 6-month review is not complete. The Ankara summit has not yet taken place. In this interval of uncertainty, the Eastern Flank countries are in a zone of increased vulnerability — without reinforced guarantees and with an explicitly conditional American protection.

I think of the leaders in Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius reading these analyses and wondering: if tomorrow morning a Russian hybrid incursion occurs, will the phone ring at the White House? This uncertainty is an invaluable gift to Putin — and a source of shame for an alliance that defines itself by its solidarity.

Germany's brigade in Lithuania: a strong signal

Faced with American uncertainty, Europe is trying to strengthen its own capabilities. Germany's decision to establish a permanent brigade in Lithuania — historically unprecedented — is one of the strongest signals of this reorientation. France maintains rapid-deployment commitments in the Baltic states. Poland is building one of the most powerful conventional armed forces in Europe.

But the reality is that Europe cannot, in the short term, replace American military power. The 80,000 American soldiers present on the continent, the NSA's intelligence capabilities, the interoperable command-and-control systems, the nuclear firepower — all of this represents an irreplaceable contribution that Europe will take at least a decade to partially replicate, even if it reaches 5% of GDP in 2035.

The NATO 3.0 concept: Europe in the lead, the United States in support

The concept of NATO 3.0 promoted by Hegseth — a rebalanced alliance where Europe assumes primary responsibility for its own conventional defense — has real strategic logic. But between the vision and the reality, there is a dangerously dangerous temporal gap. While Europe builds up its military power — which takes years, even decades — the vulnerability window of the Eastern Flank remains open.

NATO's deputy commander, General Stringer, insisted on June 26, 2026 that the Ankara summit should concretely stimulate spending and capabilities. But even a successful summit cannot, in a few weeks, transform armies that have been underfunded for thirty years. Deterrence demands credibility — and that credibility cannot be improvised.

I want to state clearly what this "American doubt" means to me on a human level. These are small nations — Estonia has 1.3 million inhabitants — whose survival depends on the credibility of a promise. When that promise is weakened by the statements of an American secretary of defense, it is their existence as sovereign nations that is at stake. That reality deserves more than a single paragraph in a summit communiqué.

What the United States maintains unambiguously

Despite questions about the American conventional commitment, Rutte made clear that the United States is maintaining its commitment to the alliance's nuclear protection — the famous "nuclear umbrella." This distinction matters: even if Washington reduces its conventional troops in Europe, it has not called into question its nuclear arsenal as the ultimate guarantor of alliance security.

France, which possesses its own independent nuclear deterrent, proposed extending its "broadened vision" of deterrence to its European partners — a controversial idea that is gaining ground in the face of American uncertainty. This French proposal is not without major strategic implications — it raises the question of who actually controls the European nuclear button.

The hybrid scenario: between black and white

The real scenario that worries NATO planners is not a massive conventional invasion — which Russia is incapable of launching according to Latvian intelligence, "before three to five years even if the war in Ukraine stopped today." It is the hybrid scenario: a series of actions below the threshold for automatic triggering of Article 5 — cyber, drones, influence operations, minor incursions — that gradually degrade the cohesion of the Baltic states without triggering a formal collective response.

Against this scenario, the question of American reliability is even more crucial. A hybrid attack requires a coordinated alliance response — and if the United States hesitates to characterize the action as falling under Article 5, allies can find themselves divided in the face of aggression cleverly calibrated to remain below the intervention threshold.

That is where the strategic genius — if one can call it that — of Russian hybrid doctrine lies. It is designed to exploit the fault lines of alliance solidarity. It tests how far allies are willing to go without triggering collective solidarity. And if American doubt about Article 5 is real, Putin has a maneuvering space infinitely larger than we want to admit.

A strategic trauma that accumulates

For the Baltic states and Poland, American doubt is not an academic seminar topic — it is a matter of national survival. These nations lived under Soviet occupation for decades. They know what it means to be abandoned by the great powers. The promises of 1939 and 1991 still echo in collective memories. When an American secretary of defense talks about troop withdrawals and conditions on Article 5, it is not an abstract political issue — it is a wound in an already fragile fabric of trust.

These countries' response has been pragmatic and determined: massive defense budget increases, strengthened regional cooperation, invitations to additional European troops, reinforcement of defensive fortifications at borders. Finland and Sweden have accelerated their integration into NATO's command structures. These nations no longer rely on a promise — they are building their own resilience, while hoping the American commitment will remain in place.

The "Suwalki corridor" and the nerve points of defense

The Suwalki corridor — the 65-kilometer land stretch between Poland and Lithuania, flanked by the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad and Belarus — is one of the most vulnerable points in NATO's defense architecture. If Russia cut this corridor, the Baltic states would find themselves isolated by land from the rest of the alliance. This scenario is rehearsed in every NATO military exercise.

Protecting this corridor depends on a rapid and determined response — including from the United States. Doubt about American reliability in this precise scenario fundamentally changes the deterrence calculus. Putin knows this. NATO planners know this. And the inhabitants of the Baltic states, who know how to read military maps, know this too.

This Suwalki corridor is one of those geographical details that condenses the full fragility of a security architecture. Sixty-five kilometers. That is the distance between freedom and encirclement for three nations of the European Union and NATO. The fact that this corridor remains so fragile in 2026 — despite decades of alliance membership — says something profound about the gaps in our collective planning.

The strategy of progressive testing

Putin has demonstrated since 2008 — Georgia, Crimea in 2014, Donbas in 2014, Ukraine in 2022 — a consistent strategy: progressively testing the limits of the Western response, escalating only when no serious resistance is encountered. Every time the West responded with symbolic sanctions, condemnation statements or insufficient aid, it confirmed that the costs of aggression were manageable.

Doubt about Article 5 fits this logic. If Putin judges that the United States would hesitate to respond to a hybrid aggression against the Baltic states, he has an incentive to test that hypothesis — with an operation carefully calibrated to remain below the certain triggering threshold of Article 5. The question is therefore less "will Putin attack?" than "how far will he dare go if American doubt persists?"

The urgency of a clear signal before Ankara

The Ankara summit must send an unambiguous signal: Article 5 is not conditional, the American commitment is not for sale, and any aggression against an alliance member will be treated as aggression against all. This signal is not a diplomatic courtesy — it is the very foundation of deterrence. Without it, every next hybrid incident in the Baltics will be another step in the erosion of the alliance's credibility.

Public statements, joint communiqués and summit speeches have their utility. But in the current context, only concrete acts — maintained deployments, reinforced exercises, kept budgets — can restore credibility that has been eroded by months of contradictory signals. Rutte is aware of this. The question is whether Hegseth and Trump will send that signal — or whether Ankara will produce fine speeches without answering the fundamental question.

Here is my deepest conviction on this subject: deterrence credibility is not restored with words. It is restored with troops in position, planes on patrol, real exercises, kept budgetary commitments. If Ankara produces fine communiqués but the 9,000 withdrawn troops are not replaced, then Putin will have learned something useful about the limits of allied solidarity.

The European nuclear deterrent track

Faced with doubt about American reliability, some European strategists have begun systematically raising an option long considered taboo: European nuclear deterrence. France, the only nuclear power within the European Union, possesses the arsenal and doctrine necessary for extending its protection to other nations. President Macron opened this door by proposing a strategic dialogue with European partners on the possible implementation of a broadened nuclear protection.

This path is real but faces considerable obstacles. Nuclear deterrence rests on certainty that the supreme commander is prepared to order a nuclear strike to defend vital interests. Are Estonia's vital interests the same as France's? That is not certain. And a nuclear protection that lacks credibility within its own ranks is illusory protection. But the very fact that this debate is taking place reveals how deeply American uncertainty has changed strategic calculations in Europe.

Coalitions of the willing as a Plan B

Another avenue under exploration is the formation of coalitions of willing European nations prepared to mutually commit to defend each other, independent of American decisions. The United Kingdom, France, Poland, the Baltic states, Finland and Sweden — the most determined and best-prepared nations militarily — could form the core of such a coalition. These bilateral and multilateral arrangements do not replace Article 5 — but they create an additional layer of guarantees in the event that American will were to falter.

These coalitions are not hypothetical. Several bilateral defense agreements have already been signed between European countries — notably between France and Poland, and between the United Kingdom and the Baltic states. These agreements define mutual obligations, response-trigger mechanisms and joint exercises. They represent a complementary security architecture that is evolving with American doubt — quietly, but really.

There is something deeply sad and pragmatic at the same time about this evolution. Europe is preparing for the hypothesis of a world where the American umbrella might no longer exist. It is a "Plan B" one hopes never to use — but which strategic prudence obliges us to prepare. Seeing it take shape is both reassuring and revealing of the depth of the transatlantic crisis.

Restoring credibility or preparing for the worst

American doubt about the reliability of the commitment to Article 5 is not merely a political problem — it is an existential threat to deterrence itself. Deterrence rests on certainty of response. A Putin who believes — even wrongly — that Trump would not respond to a provocation in the Baltics, is a Putin likely to test that hypothesis. And a poorly calibrated test can lead to a war that nobody wanted.

The Ankara summit must provide an answer to this uncertainty — not by multiplying formal statements, but by demonstrating concretely that the alliance is united, capable and determined. The tens of billions in defense contracts are an economic signal. An equally clear political signal is now needed: that the American commitment to Europe is not for sale, not negotiable, not subject to conditions.

I will end this opinion piece with this uncomfortable truth: NATO needs the United States, and the United States needs NATO. It is an interdependence that neither Trump nor Hegseth can afford to dismantle without major strategic consequences for American interests themselves. But this truth is not enough to dispel doubt — because the current administration's policies sometimes seem to ignore this obvious reality.

What Europe can do for itself

While awaiting this American clarification — which may never come under the current administration — Europe must accelerate its own build-up. The 5% of GDP, the German brigade in Lithuania, the BALTOPS exercises, the reinforcement of forward battlegroups in the Baltic states — all of this is moving in the right direction. But we need to move faster, spend more wisely and above all stop depending on a promise whose value has become uncertain.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. I claim analytical clarity, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

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