Brussels in the dark: How a US-Russia security deal could leave Europe exposed.
European leaders are waking up to an uncomfortable possibility: Donald Trump may use the broader talks on Europe's future security architecture — talks designed to help end the war in Ukraine — as leverage to reshape, and possibly shrink, the American military footprint on the continent. According to Politico and other sources, NATO allies were not informed in advance of the administration's plans, and the timing raises alarms because a routine review of US troop levels in Europe is already scheduled for December.
The main concern in Brussels and other European capitals is not only that Washington and Moscow might cut a deal behind their backs. It is that Trump can tie any new security framework to the reduction of about 80,000 American troops currently stationed in Europe, which will force the Europeans to face a future in which the American guarantee they have relied on for decades is no longer a given. According to one NATO diplomat, discussing European security with the current US position is one thing, but discussing it "as things stand" - with an unknown, possibly smaller US presence - is quite another.
What makes the situation worse is the information vacuum. European officials have reportedly been told almost nothing about what Washington and Moscow are actually discussing. Trump's special envoy, Jared Kushner, has floated ideas such as reviving a NATO-Russia Council-style dialogue, with goals including crisis communications channels and greater military transparency. But the senior adviser to the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyns, had to brief EU ambassadors simply to explain what little was known, and the prevailing opinion in the room was that a European security architecture should not be negotiated in time of war, and certainly not without Europeans at the table.
The fact is that the US.