Heritage Foundation Lays Out the NATO 3.0 Framework Hegseth Announced in Brussels

After Hegseth's address at NATO headquarters in Brussels on June 18 triggered the six-month review of American force posture and funding commitments, the policy architecture behind that announcement has come into clearer focus.

Wilson Beaver and Elizabeth Krajc of the Heritage Foundation published a piece on June 19 framing the administration's approach as "NATO 3.0" — a restructured alliance where Europe handles most of its own conventional deterrence and the U.S. redirects military weight toward the Pacific. The argument is direct: countering China is now the defining military priority for Washington, and that requires moving forces and dollars out of Europe without abandoning the alliance entirely.

Who Is Performing and Who Is Not

The Heritage analysis names names on both ends of the spectrum.

On the positive side: the Baltic states, Nordic countries, Poland, and Germany are increasing defense spending and moving toward the new target ahead of schedule. These countries are also making "significant shifts in planning and force posture," according to Beaver and Krajc, not just writing bigger checks.

On the negative side: southern European countries, with Spain called out specifically, continue to lag on both spending and commitment. The United Kingdom gets a separate, pointed critique — it meets its spending target, but Heritage flags "deeply concerning problems with readiness and maintenance." Hitting a budget number and actually fielding capable forces are not the same thing.

The American Calculation

Hegseth's six-month review is not a withdrawal threat. The Heritage framing presents it as a leverage mechanism: demonstrate European commitment and the U.S. case for continued engagement becomes easier to make domestically. Let the gap between performing and lagging members widen, and Congress's patience for European defense subsidies narrows.

The geopolitical logic is straightforward. The U.S. cannot simultaneously maintain Cold War-era troop densities in Europe and build the Pacific force posture needed to deter China. Something has to give. The NATO 3.0 concept is the Trump administration's answer to that tension: Europe covers its own conventional layer, and the U.S. retains nuclear guarantees and high-end capabilities while rotating its center of gravity east.

The Heritage Foundation's special report advocates reducing the total number of troops in Europe but moving the troops that remain east, shifting a brigade of American soldiers from Germany to Poland. It also recommends that European allies permanently station more troops in the Baltic states and procure more airpower, warships, and strategic airlift and refueling capabilities. On nuclear deterrence, Heritage advocates for increasing the number of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe even as conventional troop commitments are reduced, given the imbalance between the large Russian nuclear arsenal and the comparatively small nuclear arsenals of the UK and France.

The Strongest Counterargument

The concern worth taking seriously: a six-month review with undefined consequences, delivered publicly, functions as a negotiating tactic but also as a signal to Moscow. Critics, including some NATO officials who have not gone on record by name, argue that telegraphing a conditional American commitment, even temporarily, creates exactly the uncertainty that emboldens Russian miscalculation. The deterrence value of Article 5 depends partly on adversaries believing it is unconditional. A review process that ties commitment to European burden-sharing compliance introduces ambiguity that Russia will exploit before European defense capacity actually fills the gap.

The counterpoint from the Heritage analysis is that European defense capacity was always supposed to fill that gap. Decades of American subsidy removed the urgency that would have forced it to happen. The laggards have been lagging since long before Trump.

What the Six-Month Review Actually Means

Between now and the end of the review period, the concrete test is whether lagging members — Spain most visibly — submit credible spending and capability plans that close the gap, and whether the U.S. actually conditions any troop levels or funding transfers on those plans.

The Heritage Foundation piece reflects the views of analysts who have the administration's ear on this issue. Whether their framework becomes policy with teeth or remains a pressure document that European governments wait out will become clear before the review concludes.