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US relinquishing NATO command ‘not imminent, not unthinkable’

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The potential for the United States to relinquish its long-standing role  
as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) would represent a  
seismic shift in the alliance’s structure, but such a move remains  
unlikely in the short term, Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman told MPs this  
week.

Speaking before the Defence Committee on 1 April, Freedman was asked about  
reports—most notably from NBC—that the Trump administration had considered  
removing the US from the SACEUR role or combining it with US Africa  
Command.

“It would be a tremendous shift for the Americans to hand over command,”  
Freedman said, cautioning that “we have some way to go before we are  
there.”

While acknowledging growing internal pressure within the Pentagon to hand  
over more responsibilities to European allies, he stressed that such a  
change would face stiff institutional resistance.

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/us-relinquishing-nato-command-not-imminent-not-unthinkable/

“You’ll see tremendous pushback in the Senate and certainly in the army.  
Armies don’t like giving up command posts,” he noted. “So long as the  
Americans are involved in European security, they will want what influence  
they have over it.”

Still, Freedman acknowledged that any serious cut to US force posture in  
Europe could eventually make continued American leadership at SACEUR  
harder to justify. “At some point, if you’re cutting your forces below a  
certain point, it would be very hard to explain why you’re holding on to  
the command.”

Asked directly by Committee Chair Tan Dhesi MP whether the move was  
imminent, Freedman replied: “I hope it is not imminent.”

The conversation then turned to whether Europe could, in the event of a  
diminished US presence, emerge as a “third great power” alongside the US  
and China. While acknowledging that such a shift would likely bring  
“short-term pain” for European states, Dhesi asked whether a truly unified  
and rearmed Europe might reach that status in the coming years.

Freedman was sceptical: “The Europeans don’t have the unity to think in  
those terms yet,” he said, noting that “Britain, France, Germany and Spain  
were the great powers of the past,” but the current political landscape is  
far more complex.

While China, he observed, does not mirror the traditional model of a  
globe-spanning great power, Europe lacks the political coherence required  
for such a role. “There used to be talk about the EU as a civil power… not  
so militaristic and so on,” he added.

Freedman concluded that while European nations may increasingly need to  
“do more on their own continent,” achieving global great power  
status—particularly in the military sense—remains distant.

Freedman is one of Britain’s foremost strategic thinkers and served as  
Professor of War Studies at King’s College London from 1982 to 2014. He  
was a key foreign policy adviser to successive UK governments and was  
appointed to the Iraq Inquiry panel in 2009. Known for his analysis of  
nuclear strategy, international conflict, and the evolution of military  
doctrine, his views continue to shape defence debates at the highest level.

### - makes sense all this, the US (or nato) are stepping down and europe  
can fund it's own damn equivalent defense force, even to the point of  
potentially becoming a 3rd/4th world power if europe can really unite and  
become say: the federated/united states of europe, far more than just a  
common market...

the 'panic' being - even though there's been no sign of it - that russia  
could suddenly expand its aims to move into OTHER nations and thus the  
rush to quickly amass a huge-enough force to fill the gap left by the US  
and to act as a deterrent in it's own right, that europe in that sense is  
taking-over the support of ukraine in its war with russia...

the problem being that we talk a lot here about 'peace' and 'ceasefires'  
and how russia isn't complying, but we're not actually offering russia  
anything or negotiating a peace settlement as such, out of the blue we  
just want them to declare a ceasefire for nothing in return, we're  
demanding it, there is no negotiation...

So nothing's changed... we can send weapons 'into' ukraine to use but  
can't directly do anything ourselves from outside ukraine, we can huff &  
puff from the sidelines and even supply the weapons and support, but we  
CAN'T intervene directly!

e.g., the uk has just announced sending 4.5 billion in new weapons to  
ukraine, presumably the same 4.5 billion they just took away from the  
disabled for winter fuel payments, and ukraine will quickly use them up  
and need more, and that's on-top of the funds already pledged (more  
billions)

the point being that unless russia 'actually' attacks another nation  
beyond ukraine, then this could potentially continue-on, as-is, for years!  
literally!! and all to no avail!!!

meanwhile, they's now talking cryptically in europe, about how THIS is the  
CRUCIAL year and the CRUCIAL battle with russia!? (the crucial year? now??  
not 2 or 3 years later??? so was this a slip?)

fact remains: unless WE attack russia, russia can just sit there exactly  
right where it is, for decades, and there's nada we can do about it while  
all our economies go slowly down the drain, else we seem to be banking an  
awful lot on russia making some bigger move, this being just like the uk  
versus germany and the uk saying if you go into poland then we will be  
at-war and lamenting the fact that we didn't act sooner... in that  
instance germany did invade poland and it started ww2, but what if russia  
never DOES go any farther, what then??

'acting sooner' would have also meant attacking germany and declaring war  
sooner, a move into poland being a step too far being what it all came  
down to, exactly the same situation we're now AGAIN in today! (we  
obviously didn't learn anything from history then!) everyone waiting to  
see if 'the enemy' takes another step and THEN we'll act, but CAN'T act  
BEFORE that without setting-off what everyone wants to avoid: an open  
clash!

iow: it's a total stalemate situation! russia has played for stalemate and  
gotten there! (it's actually been a series of stalemates all through,  
first with ukraine and now europe?) and there's fuck-all we can now do  
without it being VERY clear that WE'RE attacking them! (we could feed  
endless supplies INTO ukraine but they haven't got endless manpower to  
fight with! and we can't send them any troops either!)

so what's gonna happen given THAT scenario then thang, you tell me?

coz am scared it means we either attack russia and break the stalemate  
THAT way, or suffer the economic consequences of being in a decades-long  
stalemate situation that we can never win!

we can't AFFORD to continue like this for another year or 10!

(and that's dangerous coz WE'RE likely to start something!)

Ps... don't make the mistake of thinking am taking sides in 'any' of this  
thang, am merely an interested observer in the audience watching the world  
grand masters champion chess final ;)

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