The Foreign Affairs piece by Miller, Edelman, and Slocombe reads less like analysis and more like an autopsy of a decision Washington has already made. Hegseth's language in June 2026 was not conditional.
A Withdrawal with Extra Syllables
The Pentagon is moving, he said, "quickly and irreversibly" toward making Europe responsible for its own conventional defense. This debate concerns something besides burden-sharing.
A withdrawal with extra syllables.
The sequence matters. It shows intent, not accident.
- October 2025: roughly 1,000 troops pulled from Romania, thinning the eastern flank.
- May 2026: Dark Eagle hypersonic deployment to Europe cancelled, removing a system that would have held Russian targets at risk.
- May 2026: 2nd Armored Brigade rotation scrapped, costing the continent about 5,000 troops.
- June 2026: reports surface of deeper cuts, including a third of F-15E and F-16 fighters, all eight tankers, 15 of 26 maritime patrol aircraft, a submarine, and a carrier strike group.
Calibration does not apply here. This is dismantling the conventional backbone of NATO while telling Europeans to figure it out.
The Nuclear Illusion
The nuclear argument is the weakest part of the administration's case. You cannot strip conventional forces from Europe and then claim extended nuclear deterrence still works.
Deterrence requires the scary option and the boring logistics together.
If Washington will not commit brigades and aircraft to defend the continent, Moscow can reasonably doubt it would commit nuclear weapons over Tallinn or Suwalki.
The credibility of the nuclear umbrella is built on the credibility of the conventional tripwire. Remove one and the other turns into a performance.
What Congress Must Do
The authors are right that Congress has to act. Legislation should block further troop reductions without explicit congressional approval.
The SACEUR post must remain a four-star American command. Not because Europeans cannot lead, but because the nuclear chain of command and alliance integration depend on it.
And yes, Congress should probably also ban any president from using force to seize territory from a NATO ally. That this needs to be said in 2026 is its own indictment.
The Lesson for Kyiv
For Ukraine, the lesson is blunt. We have heard for a long time that Western security guarantees are ironclad.
What we are watching now is a superpower deciding that Europe is a cost center, not a strategic asset. Kyiv does not have the luxury of waiting for Washington to rediscover its own interests.
We build drones, missiles, air defense, and defense industry capacity since trusting a political cycle in Washington that can reverse itself every four years would be worse.
Moscow is watching the same withdrawal. Putin can achieve his goals without defeating NATO militarily.
He needs NATO to defeat itself through political exhaustion and American disengagement. The current trajectory hands him that outcome without him firing a shot at a single allied capital.