# EDITORIAL: Hegseth's six-month review — the blackmail fracturing the alliance

> Some announcements change the climate of an alliance. One of them came before the Ankara summit: Pete Hegseth, the American Secretary of Defense in the Trump administration, announced a 6-month review of American presence and contributions in Europe. Reported by The Guardian on June 27, 2026, this announcement planted deep anxiety among allies who, according to the same outlet,

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Editorial
- Published: 2026-06-28
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/editorial-la-revue-de-six-mois-de-hegseth-le-chantage-qui-fissure-l-alliance

## Key takeaways

- Hegseth announced the review before the Ankara summit; The Guardian reported it on June 27, 2026, and allies reportedly fear they can no longer rely on US help if Russia attacks.
- The author describes the Trump doctrine as transactional, tying American protection to allies' spending, with the "fair share" target left vague.
- The review creates operational uncertainty for allied planners, especially on the eastern flank, where American troops act as a deterrent "tripwire."
- Allies respond differently: the Baltics and Poland raise spending, others pursue bilateral ties, and some avoid pressing Trump, which the author says fragments NATO coherence.
- Germany is pushed toward greater European strategic autonomy, and Zelensky's strikes are presented as an argument for continued American support.

## Introduction: Six months to decide whether Europe is worth defending

### The announcement that chilled allied capitals

Some announcements change the climate of an alliance. One of them came before the **Ankara** summit: **Pete Hegseth**, the American Secretary of Defense in the **Trump** administration, announced a **6-month review** of American presence and contributions in **Europe**. Reported by **The Guardian** on **June 27, 2026**, this announcement planted deep anxiety among allies who, according to the same outlet, «fear they can no longer rely on US help if **Russia** attacks».

A «review»: the term is bureaucratic, almost innocuous. But in the context of a war in **Ukraine**, a Russian threat on the **eastern flank**, and an alliance still massively dependent on American military power, this review is a sword of **Damocles**. It says: in six months, we will decide whether **Europe** deserves our presence. And this conditionality — unprecedented in **NATO**'s history — is blackmail wrapped in the language of administrative management.

### Hegseth, instrument of a doctrine

**Pete Hegseth** does not act alone. He is implementing a consistent **Trump** doctrine since the first term: **NATO** must pay. Allies who do not spend enough are not entitled to unconditional American protection. This doctrine has a transactional logic that **Trump** fully assumes — and that directly contradicts the fundamental character of a collective alliance, where security is indivisible.

*I will name what many prefer to leave unsaid: Hegseth's review is an act of hostility toward his own allies. Not open hostility — Hegseth is not saying the United States is abandoning Europe. He is saying they will think about it. And in geopolitics, calculated ambiguity is sometimes more dangerous than a clean break. Putin notes all of this. And he smiles.*

## The Trump-Hegseth doctrine: transaction against solidarity

### NATO as seen from Washington: an underpriced insurance contract

The **Trump** administration's vision of **NATO** is fundamentally transactional. The alliance is not a community of shared values and interests — it is a collective insurance contract whose premiums the United States pays at a rate too high relative to the others. **Trump** wants allies to pay their «**fair share**» — an ambiguous term that can mean **2%** of GDP, **5%**, or any other target depending on the political need of the moment.

This vision is not entirely wrong in its diagnosis: European allies did genuinely under-invest in their defense for decades, sheltering under the American umbrella without contributing proportionally. But the proposed remedy — creating uncertainty about American reliability — is potentially worse than the disease. An alliance that one of its members threatens to leave is an alliance weakened before its adversaries.

### What the six months mean for allied military planners

Concretely, a **6-month review** of American presence in **Europe** creates operational uncertainty for allied military planners. Joint exercises, defense plans, and command structures all depend on the presence of American forces on European soil. If that presence is called into question, deep revisions of collective defense plans become necessary.

The countries of the **eastern flank** — **Poland**, **Estonia**, **Latvia**, **Lithuania** — are most directly affected. The presence of American forces on their territory is not symbolic: it constitutes a credible deterrent because any Russian attack would immediately touch American soldiers. Questioning this potentially alters **Moscow**'s risk calculation.

*American soldiers on Baltic soil are a «tripwire» — a guarantee that Washington cannot ignore a conflict without losing face. Playing with reducing this presence, even rhetorically, is weakening deterrence. And weakening deterrence makes war more likely. I do not think Hegseth has measured all the consequences of his review.*

## The fracture in the alliance: how far can it widen

### Strategic trust: a fragile resource

**Strategic trust** between allies is a precious resource, difficult to rebuild once eroded. **NATO** functioned for 75 years on the basis of an American commitment perceived as reliable — not because the United States particularly liked its European allies, but because that commitment was consistent and predictable. This predictability was itself a tool of deterrence.

The deliberately unpredictable policy of **Trump/Hegseth** destroys this resource. Even if the **6-month** review concludes in favor of maintaining American presence unchanged, the damage is done: allies now know that the question can be asked, that presence can be conditional, and that they cannot plan on the certainty of American commitment. That doubt does not disappear with a reassuring communiqué.

### Allied responses: between adaptation and protest

Faced with this uncertainty, allies are responding in different ways. Some — **Poland**, the Baltic states — are accelerating their own defense spending to make their security less dependent on the United States. Others are seeking to strengthen intra-European bilateral partnerships as a partial substitute for the American umbrella. And a few, diplomatically, choose not to push **Trump** too hard, to avoid having him translate his rhetoric into action.

This diversity of responses reveals a **fragmentation of allied coherence** — precisely what **Putin** seeks to provoke. Dividing **NATO**, creating cracks between **Washington** and European capitals, pushing each ally to manage its relationship with the United States individually: this is the classic Russian strategy of disunity — and **Hegseth**'s policy is involuntarily fueling it.

*Putin does not need to strike NATO if NATO divides itself. That is the central danger of the Hegseth policy: it does the work of division that Moscow had been dreaming of for years. I am not saying this is deliberate. But the effect, for its part, is real.*

## The allies with the most to lose: portrait of an asymmetric fear

### The Baltics: the existential, again

For **Estonia**, **Latvia**, and **Lithuania**, the question of American disengagement is not a matter of budget or prestige — it is an existential one. These countries of a few million inhabitants, with no strategic depth, surrounded by or bordering **Russia**, know that their independence depends on the credibility of **NATO**'s collective guarantee. If that guarantee wavers, their vulnerability is immediate and total.

Their response has been a massive increase in defense spending — beyond **3% of GDP** for **Estonia**, heading toward **5%** in time. But no amount of local spending can replace American military capability in a conflict against **Russia**. These countries are staking their survival on the reliability of a partner whose behavior has become calculably unpredictable.

### Germany: the hesitant power that must choose

**Germany** is in a different position. It is **Europe**'s largest economy, but its history from **World War II** has created deep inhibitions toward military power. The **Zeitenwende** («turning point») announced by Chancellor **Scholz** in **2022** began to overcome these inhibitions — with a significant increase in the German defense budget and weapons deliveries to **Ukraine**.

But **Germany** has not yet made the leap toward fully autonomous commitment. It oscillates between reassuring Atlanticism — despite its uncertainties — and the demands of a growing European strategic autonomy. **Hegseth**'s review is pushing it toward the latter direction, whether it wants to or not. And this movement, painful as it is, may be the most important transformation the current geopolitical moment is forcing on **Europe**.

*Germany truly rearming: it was unthinkable ten years ago. It was a controversial idea five years ago. Today, it is a necessity that even Berlin accepts grudgingly but inevitably. Putin accomplished what decades of allied pressure had not managed: forcing Germany to look its own power in the face.*

## What Hegseth's review should produce — and what it probably will not

### The ideal scenario: pressure that works

In the best-case scenario, **Hegseth**'s review produces exactly what it aims for: European allies massively increase their defense spending, the **5% of GDP** becomes reality, and the **United States** maintains its presence in **Europe** before an alliance that is contributing equitably. In this scenario, American pressure worked — and the result is a more balanced and more robust alliance.

This scenario is not impossible. European spending is rising. The **Gdansk Declaration** of **June 25, 2026** reaffirms the **5%** objective. The **Ankara** summit is going to announce «**tens of billions**» in contracts according to **Rutte**. Pressure has produced effects — but at what price to alliance coherence?

### The probable scenario: an uncertainty that endures

The more probable scenario is that **Hegseth**'s review concludes in favor of maintaining American presence — but with conditions and implicit threats for the future. This conclusion does not solve the underlying problem: trust is eroded, uncertainty persists, and **Putin** continues to calculate that **NATO** will not hold in the face of a real crisis.

And in that scenario, every future incident — every ambiguous **Trump** statement on **Article 5**, every **Hegseth** disengagement threat — recharges this uncertainty. The alliance survives, but it lives under permanent pressure from its own most powerful member. This is a state of chronic discomfort that exhausts diplomatic energies and harms strategic coherence.

*I would like to be wrong. I would like Hegseth's review to be the necessary prod that forces Europe to take responsibility, and for everyone to end up better for it. But the experience of alliances tells me that eroded trust leaves lasting scars. And scars are what Moscow and Beijing profit from.*

## What history teaches us about alliances under pressure

### The structural dimension of the stakes

Beyond the immediate decisions of the **Ankara** summit, there is a structural dimension to the current challenge that military analysts regularly highlight: Western collective security rests on a combination of **political will**, **actual military capabilities**, and **strategic coherence**. These three elements are simultaneously under strain — which makes this moment more critical than usual.

The decisions made at **Ankara** in July **2026** will be set against a backdrop where every signal sent to **Moscow**, to **Beijing**, and to allies counts twice over. The credibility of the alliance is a public good built over time and destroyed quickly. The responsibility of those gathering at **Beştepe** is therefore considerable.

### The actors who will shape the decisions

The outcome of the **Ankara** summit will depend on a few key players: **Rutte** to maintain the coherence of the alliance's agenda, the leaders of the **eastern flank** to press the urgency of their concerns, and the **Trump** administration to define how far it pushes its demands without breaking what it claims to want to strengthen. Each has distinct interests — and the negotiation between those interests will define the outcome.

**Ukraine** is not directly at the table — but it is present in every conversation. Its **40 days of strikes**, its enemy refineries in flames, its soldiers holding the front: all of this is the invisible backdrop to every decision that will be made at **Ankara**.

*Alliances have always been fragile constructions, traversed by internal tensions. NATO has survived crises far worse than a six-month Hegseth review. But it survived them because members chose unity in the face of a common threat. Will they make the same choice today? I hope so. I demand it.*

## The responsibility of European leaders in the face of the crisis

### The external pressure that forces decisions

Beyond the internal dynamics of the alliance, the **Ankara** summit is taking place in a global geopolitical context that extends beyond the European theater alone. **China** is watching **NATO** and calibrating its own behavior toward **Taiwan** based on what it sees. **Iran** is negotiating with the **United States** while maintaining its partnerships with **Moscow**. **North Korea** is supplying ammunition to **Russia** and developing its military capabilities.

This multi-threat context is precisely what justifies the **5% of GDP** objective: **NATO** is not facing a single localized threat, but an arc of instability stretching from **Moscow** to **Pyongyang** via **Tehran**. The alliance must therefore prepare for a more dangerous world on several fronts simultaneously — which makes budgetary under-preparation all the more serious.

### The long-term consequences of Ankara's decisions

Future historians will look back at the **Ankara** summit as a moment of choice. In one scenario, the alliance decided there to rearm seriously, to support **Ukraine** through to a just peace, and to build a robust deterrent against the multiple threats that are accumulating. In another, it produced communiqués and deferred the hard decisions for later.

These two scenarios have very different consequences for European security in the decades ahead. The first builds peace through strength. The second invites predators to test the limits. And the choice between them is made at **Ankara**, in **July 2026**, by men and women in politics who bear a historic responsibility.

*European leaders cannot simply wait for Washington to make up its mind. They must build European strategic autonomy with the tools available now — and demonstrate to Trump and Hegseth that they no longer need to be threatened to act. That is the only dignified response to this blackmail.*

## Rutte's response: preserving unity at all costs

### The Secretary General's diplomacy in the face of internal crisis

**Mark Rutte** is in a delicate position. He must manage the concerns of **eastern flank** allies without antagonizing **Washington**. He must push for increased spending while maintaining alliance cohesion. And he must prepare an **Ankara** summit that produces results solid enough to reassure allies without going too far in identifying the American threat.

His strategy appears to be foregrounding positive results — the **$1.2 trillion** spent since **2016**, the «**tens of billions**» to come, the **+20%** in spending in **2025** — to demonstrate to **Washington** that allies are paying more. It is a prevention strategy: if **Europe** demonstrates quickly enough that it is investing seriously, perhaps **Hegseth**'s review will conclude in favor of maintaining the status quo.

### Zelensky's role in this triangle

In this triangle of **Washington-NATO-Ukraine**, **Zelensky** plays a particular role. His **40-day operation**, his strikes on Russian refineries, his demonstration of autonomous military capability: all of this is also an argument addressed to **Washington**. An **Ukraine** that strikes at **1,300 km** with its own drones is not a country that begs — it is an active partner generating results.

This demonstration of capability makes it harder for **Hegseth** to justify disengagement. Abandoning an ally that fights with such effectiveness and innovation would carry a considerable political and symbolic cost — even for a **Trump** administration. That may be the most finely calculated play by **Zelensky** on this complex chessboard.

*Zelensky understood something that many leaders have not yet grasped: to keep American support under Trump, you have to earn that support by making it visible and effective. His 40 days of strikes are also a message to Washington: look at what we are doing with your help. Cut it and you lose this. That is foreign policy in its purest form.*

## Conclusion: NATO must leave Ankara stronger than it arrived

### The test of Hegseth's review on the alliance

**Hegseth**'s **6-month review** is a fracture in the alliance — not yet a rupture. The **Ankara** summit is the opportunity to seal this fracture with concrete demonstrations: the «**tens of billions**» in contracts, reinforced commitments on the eastern flank, national trajectories toward **5% of GDP**. If **Ankara** delivers all of this, **Hegseth**'s argument for disengagement weakens.

But this will not resolve the underlying problem: **NATO** is too dependent on an American partner whose commitment is now conditional. The real answer — an **Europe** that defends itself sufficiently on its own to no longer be vulnerable to American blackmail — will take years. **Ankara** can lay the foundations. The construction itself is the work of a decade.

### What we owe Zelensky and Ukraine

At the center of all this is a country that is fighting and dying while allies debate their budgets and engage in mutual pressure tactics. **Zelensky**'s **Ukraine** deserves better than to be the pretext or the stakes in intra-Western quarrels. It deserves unconditional support, weapons delivered on time, and a security guarantee that does not depend on the mood of an American Defense Secretary.

If **Hegseth**'s review forces **Europe** to take charge — to increase its spending, build its capabilities, think through its autonomy — then it will have produced a good despite itself. But this good news will only be secured at the price of dangerous uncertainty about the reliability of the alliance. And that price is paid first by Ukrainians, Balts, and Poles — in their flesh and in their daily fear.

*Hegseth's review is a warning and an opportunity at the same time. Warning: American commitment is no longer unconditional. Opportunity: Europe can finally take charge. I prefer the opportunity to victimhood. And I believe Zelensky has already made that choice.*

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### 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.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [The Guardian — NATO leaders fear they can no longer rely on US, Hegseth 6-month review — June 27, 2026](https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2026/jun/27/nato-leaders-fear-they-can-no-longer-rely-on-us-help-if-russia-attacks-trump-eastern-europe)

- [NATO/Rutte — Atlantic Council transcript, $1.2T, +20%, tens of billions — June 25, 2026](https://www.nato.int/en/news-and-events/events/transcripts/2026/06/25/atlantic-council-front-page-conversation-with-nato-secretary-general-mark-rutte)

- [Gdansk Declaration — 5% GDP — June 25, 2026](https://regeringen.se/rattsliga-dokument/sveriges-internationella-overenskommelser/2026/06/joint-declaration-from-leaders-meeting-in-Gdansk/)

### Secondary sources

- [European Parliament — Ankara summit briefing — June 26, 2026](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2026/789355/EPRS_BRI(2026)789355_EN.pdf)

- [US News/Reuters — Rutte billions in new defense contracts — June 25, 2026](https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-06-25/natos-rutte-says-billions-in-new-defense-contracts-will-be-announced-at-summit)

- [Post-Gazette/AP — NATO summit Turkey defense spending — June 26, 2026](https://www.post-gazette.com/news/world/2026/06/26/nato-summit-turkey-defense-spending/stories/202606260037)

- [Brookings — A rebalancing NATO gathers in Ankara — June 24, 2026](https://www.brookings.edu/events/a-rebalancing-nato-gathers-in-ankara/)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/editorial-la-revue-de-six-mois-de-hegseth-le-chantage-qui-fissure-l-alliance