The United States has formally downgraded Europe in its global defense priorities while elevating Greenland to a core homeland security concern, according to a newly released National Defense Strategy that underscores Washington’s strategic pivot toward China and the Western Hemisphere.
Published late Friday, the Pentagon’s strategy document makes clear that while Europe remains an important partner, it no longer sits at the center of U.S. defense planning. Instead, the strategy places primary emphasis on defending the U.S. homeland, deterring China, and securing critical geographic chokepoints closer to American territory.
“Although Europe remains important, it has a smaller and declining share of global economic power,” the document states. “It follows that while the United States will remain engaged in Europe, it must — and will — prioritize defending the U.S. homeland and deterring China.”
The shift marks one of the clearest statements yet that European allies will be expected to shoulder greater responsibility for their own security. In language likely to resonate uneasily across NATO capitals, the strategy says that in Europe, “allies will take the lead” against threats that are “less severe” for the United States but more immediate for them, with Washington offering “critical but more limited support.”
Pentagon officials argue the recalibration reflects both strategic necessity and European capability. The document points out that non-U.S. NATO members collectively far exceed Russia in economic size and industrial capacity, concluding that European allies are “strongly positioned to take primary responsibility for Europe’s conventional defense.”
This framing reinforces a long-standing U.S. complaint that European nations have relied too heavily on American military power while underinvesting in their own defense. While recent increases in European defense spending following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are acknowledged privately by U.S. officials, the strategy suggests Washington sees those efforts as a baseline rather than an endpoint.
At the same time, the document introduces a sharper focus on Greenland, explicitly identifying the Arctic island as vital terrain for U.S. homeland security. Greenland is listed alongside the Panama Canal as a strategic asset that must be secured to protect American military and commercial interests.
The Pentagon says it will provide the president with “credible options to guarantee U.S. military and commercial access to key terrain from the Arctic to South America, especially Greenland,” adding that “we will ensure that the Monroe Doctrine is upheld in our time.”
That language echoes President Donald Trump’s recent rhetoric, which has revived the centuries-old doctrine asserting U.S. primacy in the Western Hemisphere. Trump’s renewed focus on Greenland — a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark — has unsettled European capitals, raising concerns about Washington’s long-term intentions in the Arctic and its willingness to challenge traditional norms among allies.
The defense strategy builds on the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy released in December, which redefined the Western Hemisphere, rather than Europe, as the primary arena for defending U.S. security. While that earlier document was more overtly critical of Europe’s political and economic trajectory, the new defense strategy adopts a more measured tone while reinforcing the same strategic logic.
Both documents stress continued U.S. engagement in Europe, particularly through NATO, but pair that commitment with a clear expectation that European allies will increasingly manage regional threats themselves. The implicit message is that American military resources are finite — and that the most pressing challenges to U.S. security now lie in the Indo-Pacific, the Arctic, and the approaches to the American homeland.
For Europe, the strategy signals a future in which U.S. support remains indispensable but no longer automatic or unlimited — a recalibration that could reshape transatlantic security dynamics.
