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10:54 25.04.2025 •
Donald Trump's second presidency has ended the United States' commitment to European defense, writes POLITICO. The continent stands alone — which turns out to be a massive problem when it comes to reinforcing the embattled troops holding the line in Lithuania.
Ever since NATO was founded in 1949, one of the key roles of the alliance's European members has been to resist an invasion while the U.S. gathered its immense power and sent troops, equipment and supplies across the Atlantic to win the longer war. Ports like Rotterdam and Antwerp were supposed to disembark the men and materiel and then allow them to use roads and rail to head toward the fighting.
But planners never envisioned a NATO without the United States, and for decades, Europe’s military logistics have been built on the assumption of American support. Much of the continent’s transport infrastructure — constructed or upgraded during the Cold War — still runs west to east, shaped by the expectation that U.S. reinforcements would arrive from across the Atlantic.
Some of the continent's most strategic corridors are NATO-led efforts, including the most developed, which stretches from the Dutch coast to the Polish side of the Suwałki Gap. "These corridors are critical because they allow NATO and our allies to reach the eastern flank faster," Lithuanian Deputy Defense Minister Tomas Godliauskas told POLITICO in a phone interview.
Both legacy and new military mobility projects rest on the premise that the Americans will come — a belief that remains largely unchallenged, even as the U.S. political commitment to Europe shows increasing signs of strain.
"Whether or not the United States stays involved in NATO or Europe is a legitimate question," former U.S. Army Europe Commander Ben Hodges told POLITICO. "I worry about that. I hope like hell that we don't significantly change our commitment to Europe. It would be a terrible mistake for the United States."
But what happens if America abandons Europe? The uncomfortable reality is that without U.S. support, moving troops across Europe would be slower, costlier and hampered by a patchwork of logistical bottlenecks. In a real crisis, that might not just be inefficient — it could be fatal.
European leaders have long debated strategic autonomy, but they’ve done so within a system where Washington still controls the core tools of military mobility — the aircraft, ships, fuel lines, satellites, cyber defenses and interoperability standards that hold it all together.
“There are important capabilities, which we are depending on the U.S. for,” said Kimberley Kruijver, a researcher at Dutch consultancy TNO.
Europe lacks heavy transport aircraft, military cargo ships and the specialized vehicles required to move tanks and armored units. “We can move lighter vehicles, but not the heavier stuff,” Kruijver said.
Jannik Hartmann, a fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations, confirmed that a U.S. pullback — from Germany's Ramstein Air Base, for instance — would leave Europe without basic loading gear like ramps and flatbed wagons. Europe also has few forward stockpiles of military hardware, whereas the U.S. has pre-positioned supplies across Germany, Poland and the Netherlands, Kruijver said.
Air-to-air refueling — essential in contested airspace — is still largely a U.S. domain. Europe’s defense of its eastern flank relies on American-financed NATO fuel networks stretching across the continent. If Washington retreats, countries like France and Germany would scramble to fill the gap, Hartmann wrote in a post.
The dependence extends beyond logistics: Europe also relies on U.S. intelligence, cyber defenses and hybrid threat detection. “If the U.S. pulls back, real-time intelligence and satellite surveillance will be the first to suffer,” said Simon Van Hoeymissen, a researcher at the Brussels-based Royal Higher Institute for Defense.
U.S. cybersecurity capabilities play a crucial role in defending Europe’s military networks. Without them, the continent’s infrastructure would become an easy target for cyberattacks, sabotage and disinformation campaigns. Even with increased investment, Europe would struggle to replace these capabilities in the short term, Hartmann noted.
But even assuming Europe could procure its own assets, moving troops, tanks and fuel across the continent — and not necessarily along the old west-to-east pathway traditional to NATO — would be a challenge.
Hodges called European infrastructure “one of the greatest challenges” to military mobility.
"If you put a Patriot launcher on a rail car, is it going to fit through every tunnel? If they're in a convoy, can they get under every bridge safely?" he asked. "Can the bridges in Eastern and Southern Europe hold the weight of a 70- to 75-ton tank?"
The answer, usually, is NO.
Europe's rail network is not designed for large-scale rapid military movements, wrote Sergei Boeke, political adviser at NATO's European Joint Support and Enabling Command in a paper on European military mobility.
Weak bridges, sharp curves, narrow tunnels and poorly placed signs make it difficult to move heavy armor quickly by rail — and the roads aren't much better. Yellow bridge classification signs, which indicate how much weight a bridge can carry, have become rare in many countries. And unlike Cold War-era designs, most of today’s infrastructure was never intended for military use.
By investing heavily in a war strategy built on U.S. support that may never materialize, Europe risks preparing for the wrong conflict — one where ports and beaches stay empty, while the European factories building tanks and the bases training troops are severed from the front. Yet few experts — or policymakers — seem willing to confront that possibility.
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