Episode 125: The Future of the U.S. Security Relationship with Europe
Jeff Rathke
President of AGI
Jeffrey Rathke is the President of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies at the Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC.
Prior to joining AICGS, Jeff was a senior fellow and deputy director of the Europe Program at CSIS, where his work focused on transatlantic relations and U.S. security and defense policy. Jeff joined CSIS in 2015 from the State Department, after a 24-year career as a Foreign Service Officer, dedicated primarily to U.S. relations with Europe. He was director of the State Department Press Office from 2014 to 2015, briefing the State Department press corps and managing the Department's engagement with U.S. print and electronic media. Jeff led the political section of the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur from 2011 to 2014. Prior to that, he was deputy chief of staff to the NATO Secretary General in Brussels. He also served in Berlin as minister-counselor for political affairs (2006–2009), his second tour of duty in Germany. His Washington assignments have included deputy director of the Office of European Security and Political Affairs and duty officer in the White House Situation Room and State Department Operations Center.
Mr. Rathke was a Weinberg Fellow at Princeton University (2003–2004), winning the Master’s in Public Policy Prize. He also served at U.S. Embassies in Dublin, Moscow, and Riga, which he helped open after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Mr. Rathke has been awarded national honors by Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as several State Department awards. He holds an M.P.P. degree from Princeton University and B.A. and B.S. degrees from Cornell University. He speaks German, Russian, and Latvian.
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Julianne Smith
Former U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO
Ambassador Julianne Smith was the U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO from November 2021 to November 2024.
Previously, she served as a Senior Advisor to Secretary Blinken at the Department of State. She was the Director of the Asia and Geopolitics Programs at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
From 2014 – 2018, she served as the Director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). From 2012-2013, she served as the Acting National Security Advisor and Deputy National Security Advisor to the Vice President of the United States. Before her post at the White House, she served for three years as the Principal Director for European and NATO Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the Pentagon. In January 2012, she was awarded the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service.
Prior to her government service, Ambassador Smith held a variety of positions
at research institutions including the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the German Marshall Fund, the American Academy in Berlin, and the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik in Berlin. She has written extensively on transatlantic relations and European security.
Ms. Smith is a recipient of the Richard von Weizsäcker Fellowship at the Bosch Academy in Berlin and the Fredin Memorial Scholarship for study at the Sorbonne in Paris. A native of Michigan, she received her B.A. from Xavier University and her M.A. from American University. She spent a year learning German at the University of Munich. In 2017, she received the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
In his second term, President Trump has continued his criticism of NATO and European allies’ defense efforts while the United States pursues a reset with Russia—the main threat to European security. How will the U.S. defense presence in Europe change, and what reforms are under consideration for the U.S. command structure that might affect the relationship with NATO and Europe? Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith joins this episode of The Zeitgeist to discuss U.S. security engagement with Europe, potential changes to the transatlantic architecture, and how those changes will impact deterrence and peace in Europe.
Host
Jeff Rathke, President, AGI
Guest
Julianne Smith, Former U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO
Transcript
Jeff Rathke
It’s wonderful to have listeners back to this episode of The Zeitgeist, and I would like to welcome as today’s guest, Julie Smith. Julie, welcome.
Julianne Smith
Thank you.
Jeff Rathke
Julie Smith is perhaps known to listeners because this is not the first time she has been a guest on this podcast. The last time, if I recall, was when you were serving as the United States Permanent Representative to NATO, and we were grateful for your time then. Julie was the PermRep to NATO from 2021 until 2024, and she has also previously served in the White House, in the Pentagon, as well as leading research programs at some of Washington’s most renowned think tanks.
We are delighted to have her here to talk with us today about the future of the United States’ security and defense relationship with Europe. Where I would start, of course, people are very familiar about the way President Trump talks about NATO. There’s sort of a mixture of skepticism and antagonism that one hears. He takes credit often for the increases in European defense spending—some might argue Vladimir Putin has something to do with that, too—but it’s true that the defense spending among NATO allies increased during President Trump’s first term. There is a lot of talk about that kind of political relationship of the United States to its European allies. We’ll talk about that, perhaps for a little bit today, but what I also want to get at, is how the United States is set up to deliver and bolster security in Europe, how that might change, and what those changes might mean. And the reason I wanted to talk about this now is that we have a number of ideas that seem to be germinating within the Trump administration, and of course, we have a looming NATO Summit happening June 24 and 25 in The Hague in the Netherlands. With that, Julie, maybe just to start off, what are your observations about the political commitment of the United States to its allies and to deterrence in Europe, if you look at it from the perspective of someone who used to be at the forefront of that relationship on a day-to-day basis? How strong or how weak, how much change do you think there’s been?
Julianne Smith
On the one hand, we have had a number of positive signals, we have a new U.S. PermRep in Brussels who arrived pretty quickly. He was able to get confirmed fairly early into the beginning of this Trump administration, Trump’s second term. That’s a good sign because that always means that it’s a priority for the White House. We have also had an early engagement between the new-ish NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and President Trump, an Oval Office meeting that frankly went quite well. Those two have a pretty good rapport. They go back quite some years, they know one another, they respect one another. And what Rutte was able to get out of that meeting was a commitment that the president will be coming to the June summit that you just mentioned, and that’s good news. You would never want to have the United States skip a NATO summit or take a pass on it or suggest that it be delayed. At first glance, things seem relatively normal. We’ve had Secretary Hegseth attend his first ministerial in February and Secretary Rubio from the State Department just recently attended his first foreign ministerial in Brussels.
Now, all that said, there are a couple of things out there that do give one pause. First and foremost, we know that the president has a skeptical attitude toward the alliance. He has expressed many, many times over many years that he believes that the U.S. is somehow getting ripped off, that Europeans are still freeloading, too many of them are spending too little. And there, I would agree, we’ve made good progress really through the Obama, Trump, and Biden years, but we need to do more. We need to see allies continue to increase their defense spending. He has talked about the prospect of maybe tying NATO’s Article 5 clause, which is an attack on one is an attack on all, to whether or not the country in question spends enough on defense. That’s unusual and worries allies a great deal. And he has talked about some sort of new arrangement both with Greenland and with Canada. That territory exists inside the NATO territory and the Euro-Atlantic area and obviously gives Europeans and North Americans, or Canadians in particular, great pause, because you wouldn’t want to see the United States go after the territorial integrity of another NATO ally. Then of course, there’s Ukraine, where the president has shifted the U.S. support for Ukraine, at one point turned off all intelligence sharing and military assistance, although that eventually flipped back on, but it’s an open question, the degree to which the United States will keep supporting Ukraine. And of course, that’s been NATO’s chief project for the last three and a half, four years. All to say that if you’re an optimist, you can find many signs that it is business as usual; the U.S. is committed to protecting and defending European territory. If you’re a pessimist, you can find many instances where you will see very unusual messaging coming out of the White House, both vis-a-vis NATO allies and toward the Alliance proper. So, we can unpack some of that, but there are also a number of rumors swirling around about the future of U.S. force posture, and we can get into that as well. But all to say, that there’s a half glass full, a glass half empty, depending on how you look at it.
Jeff Rathke
I have a glass in front of me here, which is both half full and half empty. We’ll decide by the end, which is the right description.
I want to then jump to—because you mentioned some of the potential decisions and changes under discussion within the Trump administration. Some of that is predecisional, one reads reports, but before decisions have been made. But one thing I want to start with is a document which is called the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance.” There was a report in the Washington Post a few weeks ago, which described this in a little bit of detail, and as far as I’m aware, nobody from the administration has denied it, or refuted it, or said that it’s not accurate. This guidance identifies a singular U.S. defense planning focus on China. In particular, it assumes, or states, that the United States would assume risk in other theaters outside the Indo-Pacific. What that means, I think in layman’s terms, is that the United States is not going to be planning for the possibility of having to engage in a large-scale, conventional military operation in Europe for the foreseeable future. Is that the right way to understand that? You understand these things better than I do.
Julianne Smith
I mean, it’s very common for an administration to come in and put out interim strategic guidance. It gives you a chance to at least get their initial thinking while they’re conducting more detailed and lengthier review, and we will eventually see something more substantial come out, I suspect, in the in the months ahead. At first glance, it does appear that this administration is keen to move away from what the Biden administration had as kind of the most imminent direct threat of Russia and a pacing threat of China, to just the singular focus on China. That is going to pose a real challenge for the alliance because the alliance just came out with a new strategic concept, kind of its mission statement that it churns out once a decade. It just released a new one in 2022—that wasn’t so long ago—and it listed Russia as a direct threat to the alliance. If you now have a situation where the United States is not in agreement with what appears in NATO’s Strategic Concept and doesn’t want to acknowledge that Russia is a direct threat to NATO territory and the NATO alliance, and the U.S. doesn’t want to posture itself to cope with that threat, then you will have a future split across the alliance where many allies will be expecting the U.S. to stay focused on Russia, with or without a ceasefire in Ukraine. And we may have a situation where the U.S. is increasingly interested in leaving those types of security threats and challenges in large part to the Europeans.
It’s hard to predict exactly how this is going to unfold. But if in fact, we’re reading this correctly, one could imagine that the United States is going to move posture out of Europe, and that could come in different forms. We added 20,000 additional U.S. troops to Eastern Europe. We deployed those troops right after the war in Ukraine started, and of course the U.S. continues to have tens of thousands of troops stationed in Germany and Italy. One, you could see the United States making a move to pull out some of that posture—hopefully not eliminate all of it—or you could see a situation where the United States reduces its posture but sends the message to Europe: you’re on your own.
Jeff Rathke
One of the early harbingers of a substantial change would be, then, if the United States withdraws some of those additional forces which are principally located on the eastern flank of NATO, some in the Baltic states, also, Romania, Poland, etc. So that’s one early thing to look for. If I think about the components of deterrence and if we start from the assumption that the United States still has to deter Russia, what matters, of course, is political intent, but also having the capabilities to act on your intent. And so that brings me to another element of this, you talked about the possibility of some of the U.S. forces that were surged after the Russian invasion of Ukraine being withdrawn, what about the location of other important American capabilities, some of which exist in Europe? There is apparently talk about relocating some of that to the Indo-Pacific. To what degree do you think that’s a real trade or a viable option? Can the United States move critical military capabilities from Europe to the Indo-Pacific?
Julianne Smith
Well, just to back up, after the United States deployed 20,000 additional troops into Eastern Europe, mostly Romania, Poland, and some kind of temporary rotational arrangements in the Baltic States. The U.S. Army for quite some time, including during the Biden administration, has asked to return those forces to the United States so that they could focus on threats in the Indo-Pacific and even some were suggesting, two years ago that some of them even be redeployed to the Indo-Pacific to look at the China challenge and kind of reinforced there. There’s also a question of pre-positioned equipment, so the U.S. Army has in many countries throughout Europe prepositioned equipment that can be available to them and at the ready for a variety of contingencies. That was done largely after Russia went into Crimea in 2014 and then some of that pre-po was enhanced and strengthened over time, particularly after the war started in 2022. You could go after some of that pre-positioned equipment. There is the permanently stationed forces and the associated kit that comes with that, and moving that’s more complicated because then you’re really disrupting long-standing, decades-long, relationships with Germany and Italy. If we changed our minds and wanted to redeploy forces to Germany and Italy in the future, we may have it a completely different arrangement. And then to the extent that somebody wants to move those troops from Europe to the Indo-Pacific, the question is where are they going and what arrangements exist in the Indo-Pacific to accommodate either more kit or more forces? And obviously, we have troops stationed in Japan and Korea, but it’s still an open-ended question for army forces in particular, what would their future mission be in a theater that relies heavily actually on air and sea forces? Not to say that there’s not a role for the army, but it’s a different theater with different requirements. What the U.S. needs in Europe is different from what it needs in the Indo-Pacific, so there’s that question.
And then there’s obviously the nuclear deterrent, and nuclear deterrence underwrites all of NATO’s defense. It sits at the foundation of the alliance. The U.S. provides that nuclear deterrent. I don’t see evidence right now that the U.S. is interested in changing that. There may be some modest changes. I hope this administration is not going to consider radically changing NATO’s nuclear deterrent and the U.S. backbone of that. But the bottom line is to maintain that nuclear deterrent, you do need some conventional forces present. You can’t have a situation, it just in my mind what wouldn’t make sense is to draw down all conventional forces and just hope that the nuclear deterrent is enough and that can be managed. I don’t anticipate that being a reality.
Jeff Rathke
I’d like to dig into that a little bit because I share your view and I think it’s important to think through, because there is sort of a headline or a buzz phrase that gets applied to the approach to European security and that is, as you just said you, that we can decrease our conventional presence, but we have an ironclad commitment to NATO’s nuclear deterrence and the American extended nuclear deterrent. But, it seems to me, that you can’t disentangle those things, because part of the credibility of the American nuclear deterrent is linked to the presence of American forces in Europe. And so an adversary who looks at the European continent—let’s say you’re looking from Moscow at the rest of Europe—and there were no American forces there, to what degree would you really believe that an attack on Europe would trigger an American nuclear response? If Americans aren’t in harm’s way in Europe, then I think that really diminishes the credibility, or do you see that differently?
Julianne Smith
No, I totally agree with that. I think if Putin were to wake up and see a major announcement about the removal of U.S. force posture from Europe, almost in its entirety, I think he reads that as a radical shift in America’s commitment to the alliance and to alliance security. I suspect he would take that as almost a green light, not necessarily to kind of roll tanks across the border into NATO territory, but certainly to test NATO’s Article 5 to find, in particular, hybrid options to pose a challenge and security dilemmas to NATO allies in a way that would create immense anxiety and fear, particularly in Eastern Europe. For Putin, I think he would read it as a pretty clear sign that America’s commitment to the continent is waning, that this is his new sphere of influence, that he can tinker on the margins with cyber attacks, flying jets into NATO airspace, continued misinformation/disinformation campaigns, and some of the sabotage we’ve seen. I mean, suddenly warehouses full of weapons slated to go to Ukraine are blowing up in the middle of the night. We’re finding that the Russians are increasingly relying on criminal networks across Europe to execute some of those sabotage events or incidents that create real dilemmas and certainly slow assistance to Ukraine. For Putin, it would be an immense gift in my mind, and would really spell trouble for alliance unity and the very foundation of the Alliance writ large.
Jeff Rathke
Julie, that brings me to the other question that’s related to the U.S. presence in Europe, and that is the command-and-control arrangements for U.S. forces. As folks listening may know, the United States has a command in Europe, called the U.S. European Command that is commanded by a four star U.S. general, and ever since the founding of NATO, more or less, that four star officer has also been the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO forces in Europe (SACEUR). There is some discussion, it seems, within the administration about whether the SACEUR in the future should continue to be an American officer. And there are other ideas, it seems, about perhaps changing the rank of the position, or perhaps consolidating the U.S. European Command with U.S. Africa Command, which also happens to be headquartered in Germany, and so forth. From your perspective, what are the issues that arise if there were a disconnect between a U.S. senior officer leading U.S. forces in Europe and the position of NATO Supreme Allied Commander?
Julianne Smith
This is important because there are some proposals floating around the Pentagon by a handful of people that would call for the United States to hand over the SACEUR role to a European. This, as you noted, would be a dramatic shift in the long-standing tradition of having a dual hatted four star American general. The United States has always served in this role for many reasons, because of the important leadership that the United States has always provided to this alliance for 75, 76 now, long years. And the fact that the U.S. military is really best-in-class among NATO allies, and that is evolving and changing as European countries strengthen their defense budgets and invest in new capabilities, but there’s no denying that the United States’ military is in a weight class of its own. The U.S. also has very strong views over who commands their forces, in that we insist that U.S. forces are always led by U.S. generals. For that reason it made sense when NATO was created to ensure that an American was always at the helm. If we had a situation where the United States were to open up the SACEUR role and not have an American in the seat, it would pose many dilemmas for the alliance. One, it would be a question of which country would actually get the SACEUR role, and would all allies across the alliance be comfortable with that country at the helm? Would you pick the second most capable military in Europe, or would that make some allies uncomfortable? So that you would end up with more of a neutral player, but someone with less military experience, less mission experience, operational experience, that would weaken the alliance’s ability to deploy NATO forces and operate together. Then there’s a bigger question which would really send doubts across the alliance, and that is, would there be any scenario in which the U.S. would deploy its forces under that non-American commander? I think in my mind the answer is no; and then that raises the question, would you, for future NATO missions, in essence have two separate missions, one led by an American that’s leading American troops, and a NATO mission that’s separate, led by a NATO member with NATO troops under it but not incorporating the Americans, who, by the way, often bring the critical enablers, things like lift and ISR support, intelligence support, reconnaissance, surveillance, but also air-to-air refueling. There are a number of capabilities that the U.S. and the U.S. alone bring to NATO missions. For me it spells trouble; I don’t envision NATO missions really operating in the same way under this arrangement. I’ve heard that this is an idea that’s not gaining speed, that there are a number of folks in Congress that have strong views about this and still believe it should be an American, so I’m banking on that continuing. But if this were to happen, I think that’s another canary in the coal mine that would have a dramatic impact on the alliance psychologically, but also operationally.
Jeff Rathke
You mentioned the concerns in Congress, which I think one can see pretty clearly in the testimony of the current SACEUR and Commander of EUCOM, General Cavoli. He testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee a couple of weeks ago, and I think the questions that one sees from Republican and Democratic senators were very skeptical. They were mostly focused around the question of command and control of U.S. nuclear forces, which are forward stationed in Europe, which is of course a legitimate and important concern. I had the privilege to work on the NATO international staff a few years ago, and one of the things that would also be an effect, I believe, if the United States did not provide the SACEUR position, is that this disconnect between the U.S. military capabilities that you described, Julie, especially a lot of the really critical enablers, but it would also mean that the Supreme Allied Commander would never really be able to speak to the NATO organization, the North Atlantic Council, where all of the permanent representatives sit, on the basis of assurance about what the United States might do or would not do in response to a particular crisis. It would cripple, I think, the ability of NATO to develop and consider plans with the assurance that they would be implementable. In addition to this question about whether the United States would allow American soldiers to serve under NATO command, I think it would also cripple NATO’s decision-making at an earlier phase along the development of the response to a crisis.
Julianne Smith
I think that’s 100% accurate. I think there would just be cascading effects across the board. There’s no doubt in my mind that this would really, not to overstate it, but I think it could issue a death blow to the alliance. Throughout the entire Ukraine war, it was SACEUR who was repeatedly coming in to brief on what the United States was going to do to enhance deterrence in Eastern Europe and then push others to do the same. It was SACEUR who was briefing on what the requirements were for Ukraine as they were defending their territory against Russian aggression and trying to urge allies to send more weaponry to the Ukrainians that would match what the United States was doing. It was SACEUR who was reassuring allies at a couple of really frightening flashpoints in the Western Balkans, that the U.S. was ready to respond to any reemergence of violence in the Western Balkans, but that it would need the help of its European and North American allies to ensure that the safety of all NATO territory was something that was top of mind and that we would commit to it as a nation. The power of having an American four star come in and brief PermReps on a regular basis while there’s a land war in Europe, while there were flash points in the Western Balkans, and while we were seeing a number of hybrid attacks in and around NATO territory, I just can’t overstate how valuable that was, but how much leadership that four star, General Cavoli, was providing at such a critical moment and without an American four star in that seat leading during times of crisis—I’m just not sure that the alliance survives at the end of the day.
Jeff Rathke
A sobering thought. One last question and that is about the presence of this large American military footprint in Europe and maybe in two parts. One, there’s this question about reintegrating the Africa command into European command. Of course, that’s the way they were about fifteen years ago, before this step was taken or well, closer to twenty, I guess. Do you see that as significant or is that more of a technical question that relates to how the Pentagon organizes itself?
Julianne Smith
That is in many ways a question for the Pentagon. I don’t know if I have real strong views on that. I would have a lot of questions about the degree to which the U.S. can maintain a focus on Africa during what is a time of considerable instability across the continent. We have a number of counterterrorism challenges in that region, but we’ve watched as Western European forces, French forces in particular, have withdrawn from the Sahel. We’ve seen a handful of coups. We’ve seen Russian forces fill the void as some of those Western European forces have departed. All to say, there’s a lot going on in Africa that affects U.S. national security interests. And I would just want to ensure that the U.S. could maintain its focus and modest presence on the African continent if it were to integrate the Africa command into EUCOM, into the Europe command. But I’m not the best person to judge that. I just hope it would not mean that both EUCOM and the Africa command that they shrink in size, and you get less capacity, less U.S. commitment, less focus for two regions that, again, are tied to our own national security interests.
Jeff Rathke
And the United States has a high degree of freedom to operate from European territory. The country I’m most familiar with is Germany, but you mentioned also Italy, where the United States has a major presence. Would you see the attitude of European host nations toward the activities of the United States from their soil changing, if the United States changed its approach to any of these things we’ve been talking about, whether it’s the role the United States plays in NATO or any of the other potential developments?
Julianne Smith
Just to be clear, so that your listeners understand, the United States military has had decades-long relationships with these two countries in particular. It used to be a bigger force presence, but today what we have in Germany and Italy, tens of thousands of U.S. troops permanently stationed there. Those are under arrangements that were crafted decades ago and the countries that host U.S. forces have been quite generous, and by generous I mean everything from host nation support, where the countries in question sometimes help cover direct costs or provide in-kind costs, but also, there are a number of permissions that a country has to seek to have their forces exercise and train on another country’s territory. That has to do with the amount of land that’s available to you, when you can have live fire exercises, and all of those permissions, the arrangements are quite beneficial to the United States, let’s just leave it at that. My assumption is, if we had to renegotiate those arrangements with Germany and Italy or a new country, I’m not entirely sure we would see the same level of generosity that we saw coming out of the end of World War II.
Jeff Rathke
To say nothing of the cost of relocating to another country.
Julianne Smith
Exactly.
Jeff Rathke
Well, we’ll leave that for another day and another conversation that hopefully we’ll never have to have. Julie, I want to thank you for spending this time with us and helping us understand better the dynamics in European security and in the American role toward Europe and our alliances. Thanks for spending the time with us today.
Julianne Smith
Thank you. It was a pleasure.
Jeff Rathke
I should have mentioned that one of the many reasons we sought out Julie is also that she is a former trustee of this organization, of which we are quite proud still, so I want to wish you all the best and I hope you’ve recovered a bit from your grueling few years as Ambassador to NATO and we wish you all the best, Julie.
Julianne Smith
Thank you. Thanks Jeff.
Jeff Rathke
So many thanks to you, Julie, for joining us today, and we look forward to having all of our listeners with us on the next episode of The Zeitgeist.
