Grynkewich names NATO aircraft and ship lanes for Europe

Gen. Alexus Grynkewich's June 3 statement names manned and unmanned aircraft plus naval vessels as the first NATO categories Europe and Canada can fill.

U.S. Air Force Gen. Alexus Grynkewich named manned and unmanned aircraft and naval vessels as the near-term categories where Europe and Canada can replace U.S. forces in NATO plans, Defense News wrote Wednesday in a Reuters story. For European capitals, the June 3 statement moves the burden-sharing argument from annual defense budgets to specific assets assigned to NATO's Force Model.

The statement followed a May U.S. notification to allies that Washington would reduce the pool of forces it sources to NATO during a crisis, per Defense News. Grynkewich, NATO's top commander and the head of U.S. forces in Europe, said European allies and Canada can "step up now and in the near term" in aircraft and naval vessels as the United States refocuses forces elsewhere, according to the same report.

Grynkewich's quote gave NATO planners the policy reason. "There has been an unhealthy co-dependence in the NATO Force Model on U.S. forces," he said in the written statement quoted by Defense News. "The potential reality of simultaneous conflict in multiple theaters demands it," he added, a point RUSI's Oana Lungescu also linked to U.S. pressure to prioritize the Indo-Pacific.

RUSI put the June 3 statement in a wider U.S. force-posture sequence. Lungescu wrote that Trump announced plans in May to pull 5,000 of 35,000 U.S. troops from Germany and cancel a planned long-range missile deployment, and that the Pentagon later cancelled a 4,000-troop rotation to Poland before Trump announced an additional 5,000 troops for Poland. The Force Model change is the cleaner planning document because it names the pool available in a NATO crisis.

NATO's 10-, 30- and 180-day force windows

RUSI wrote that the NATO Force Model specifies the forces and assets each ally would provide in the first 10 days, 30 days and 180 days of a crisis or conflict. NATO's Allied Reaction Force page says the Force Model replaced the NATO Response Force when the Allied Reaction Force was activated in July 2024.

NATO's capability-development page puts that planning cycle into the industrial base. It says allies agreed new capability targets in June 2025 based on the defense plans adopted at the 2023 Vilnius summit, and that those targets require more forces, better tools and stronger industry support. The June 3 U.S. statement narrows that broad requirement to aircraft, drones and naval vessels.

NATO is presenting the first categories as fillable. U.S. Army Col. Martin O'Donnell, a spokesperson for NATO's military headquarters, told Defense News that the aircraft and naval-vessel areas are where allies "already have or soon will have sufficient capabilities," meaning NATO expects no defense gaps. "Nations just need to assign the capabilities they have to NATO," O'Donnell said, according to the same story.

Bloomberg reports F-15 and Reaper cuts

Bloomberg wrote June 3 that the U.S. plan would cut F-15 and F-15E fighters available to NATO by one-third to 99 and cut MQ-4 and MQ-9 Reaper drones by half to 12, citing a military source. Defense News noted, citing Der Spiegel, that U.S. fighter availability would fall by a third and that Washington would provide fewer destroyers and no submarines as part of the crisis pool.

Those reports make the unmanned line more than a generic drone reference. Grynkewich's statement named unmanned aircraft, per Defense News, while Bloomberg's source put the expected reduction into MQ-4 and MQ-9 numbers. That creates demand for reconnaissance drones, armed unmanned aircraft, ground-control systems, data links and crews that allies can assign to NATO rather than hold only for national command.

RUSI cautioned that the Force Model reduction concerns future availability rather than an overnight withdrawal. Lungescu argued that NATO should design collective-defense exercises for cases where the Pentagon provides 50%, 30% or zero of selected capabilities. Her example was Eastern Sentry, the NATO effort to strengthen the eastern flank against Russian air incursions, which she wrote does not include U.S. forces even though many European fighter jets in the mission are American-built.

USNI's naval survey points to 2030s delivery dates

The naval category has a different timing problem. USNI Proceedings catalogued a large NATO shipbuilding campaign in May, but many of the programs it listed arrive after the current Force Model debate. Canada intends to buy 15 River-class destroyers that enter service between 2035 and 2050, USNI wrote. The Netherlands is due to start construction this year on four Orka-class submarines, with the first two deliveries planned for the early 2030s, the same survey said.

Some naval capacity arrives sooner. USNI wrote that Poland's two DELFIN-class signals-intelligence ships are projected for 2027 and 2028 delivery, while Romania expects Naval Strike Missiles in 2026 and a Turkish Hisar-class corvette this year. Those dates show why NATO can receive new allied capacity without solving a near-term U.S. destroyer or submarine shortfall.

Unmanned systems therefore sit closer to the June 3 assignment request. European shipyards can add hulls over years; NATO's air and maritime commanders can add unmanned ISR sorties, deployable sensors and mission payloads faster if national governments put them into the force plan. RUSI noted that smaller groups of NATO countries are already forming capability clusters for submarines and Tomahawk long-range missiles, which points to specialization across the alliance.

RUSI links the shift to European procurement choices

RUSI's market warning is direct. Lungescu wrote that as NATO allies rely less on Washington for defense, they are also reducing reliance on American defense companies. She cited Canada's plan to buy early-warning aircraft from Sweden's Saab rather than Boeing and Denmark's contract for the Franco-Italian SAMP/T air-defense system rather than Patriot.

NATO's industry page says most platforms that deliver alliance capabilities are produced, maintained, repaired, modernized and replaced by industry. The same page says NATO brings together governments, armed forces, large firms, startups and small and medium-size companies earlier in capability development. That makes the Force Model request a demand signal for suppliers that can turn national equipment into assigned NATO capacity.

The U.S. defense industry still has a large installed base in the European air picture. Defense News attached the Grynkewich story to the arrival of three Polish F-35A "Husarz" fighters at Lask Air Base on May 22, and RUSI noted that many European aircraft inside Eastern Sentry are American-built. The procurement risk for U.S. primes is narrower than a lost market; allied governments may treat U.S.-controlled availability as a planning risk when they choose the next aircraft, radar, missile or drone layer.

Foreign Affairs gave the opposing strategic case in May. Raphael S. Cohen and Gian Gentile argued that Washington must keep in Europe the forces only the United States can provide, especially long-range precision strike from air, land and sea. Their argument leaves space for European aircraft, drone and naval assignments, but it warns that some deterrence functions are not easily replaced by allied procurement in the near term.

June 18 ministers and the Ankara summit

RUSI wrote that national military planners were due at NATO's SHAPE headquarters in Mons on June 3 for the annual force-generation conference, where countries state what they assign to NATO defense plans. NATO defense ministers meet on June 18 to prepare the Ankara summit, and chiefs of defense are expected to meet in mid-June with Grynkewich to focus on air and missile defense, according to RUSI.

Those meetings are where the aircraft-and-ship request becomes measurable. O'Donnell declined to tell Defense News when Grynkewich expects allies to have replaced the U.S. capabilities. The list to watch is the aircraft, unmanned systems, ships and enabling units each ally assigns to the Force Model before Ankara, not another headline spending pledge. If the assignments do not cover the categories Grynkewich named, RUSI's exercise scenario for partial U.S. availability becomes the planning baseline NATO has to train against.